Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:  You’ve been on a trip, enjoyed new sights and experiences, and have throughly enjoyed yourself.  It’s the night before your return day and you go out to have some dinner or something and take in the sights and sounds of the place you’ve been for the last few days one last time, and then you meet someone.  And you hit it off. She’s (or he) funny, she gets you.  You don’t exactly know where the connection might lead but you know she’s open to exploring the city with you.  Problem is, it’s your last day there and tomorrow you’re flying back home.  What do you do?

Or, likewise, it’s the night before a long trip,  It can be for business or pleasure, no matter.  But you meet someone and you feel like you hit it off and you want to pursue it to see where it goes.  But you’re leaving for an extended time tomorrow, and the only way to keep in touch is to get her number and text and/or call while you’re away.  This has happened a few times, so you already know what’s going to happen.  The first day or so, you text back and forth, as much as the time difference and situations allow.  But then the texts get sparser and less frequent, there are calls but not enough to keep the connection going.  And a few days before your return, you’re down to almost no communication; it has withered away.  Had you been in the city, you could have gone out for coffee, spent some face time with the person, and really nurtured the possible connection.  But because you left right after you met her, it was like a dying plant from the get-go; you couldn’t keep it from withering away.  

That is one of the realities of the frequent traveler.  If anyone has any ideas that are not the expected advice such as “make it a point to call every day”, or “make her feel special by sending flowers whilst you’re away” or whatever, then please post them.  There is one big factor at work here, in that BOTH people need to want the connection to work really badly; and in my example, only one person knows they want it, but you can’t be sure what the other person wants.