My personal experiences with this 'love' thing.....

[past-tense talking] (I, me = refers to 'Max')
Well, I'd say the closest I had was, HS freshman year, an MMO-sparked relationship with a girl only about 250 miles away (four hours = nothing), just over the Canadian border. We were fairly close (about...8 months?), but she ran into problems with herself, I tried to help, and kept trying to set up some kind of meeting in her home territory, with my mom's OK, and then she bolted--dissapeared off every radar.

Skip to half a year later, I send an email off randomly just before her birthday, and, surprisingly, got a response apologetic about the vanishing act. I don't remember much about this lap around the track, but it ended with just a gradual dissipation of contact, I think?

We re-friended later, and Halloween before last, she decided to break up with her boyfriend at the time. So for a 3rd time, we grew closer. I couldn't help it, and we became a not-quite-item for the 2nd time. This one ended when I started becoming confused about my gender identity--as I trusted her, I wanted to talk to her about it, and I think our 2nd lap through I probably blurred the lines as it was (I preferred to play only female characters around the end of that time). She gave me some good things to talk about, and then vanished. I don't blame her in the least.
[/past-tense talking]

I (Lilian) have talked to her perhaps twice since then, but there aren't any ties left to connect us. I still reel from the memories of those times now and again (I seem to constantly attract friends that accompany me using support classes in Ragnarok, and the sight of a High Priestess sprite continues to unsettle me), and though I have no desire to be in a relationship such as the ones 'Max' had with her, I miss her and wish we could be friends.