Long-distance relationships: Falling in love over Skype

I split a slice of cake with my boyfriend, Jamie, and caught a look of frustration from a passing waiter. But I didn't care. I was drinking champagne with my beau in the sunlight of the courtyard at the Mandarin Oriental in Paris and quickly devouring a slice of the most delicious raspberry and chocolate-mousse cake I'd ever tasted.

It was a romantic moment, an afternoon to be savored. There was a single catch: My boyfriend was effectively present, stuck inside a laptop left sitting on the table. We were dating on Skype, and we had been at it for months.

Jamie and I had met at the worst possible moment. He had just ended a long-term relationship, and we both were going to leave Toronto for an extended period. A month or so into the relationship he wrapped his arms around my waist and invited me to visit him in Tel Aviv.

Only if he would visit Paris, I replied. But what came between us was time apart.

And thus we boarded our respective planes, literally pulling away from that first courtship magic time. Not melodramatic enough to have involved tears, but a good amount of deep sighing on both our parts.

We continued our affair of love via synchronized MacBooks for the following six weeks.

Jamie brought me from Tel Aviv my first experience of "true hummus." I treated him to plum tarts from my favorite patisserie along the Marais border so he could experience how yummy they are.

He led me through guided tours of ancient neighborhoods in Jerusalem, pointing out men wearing kippas (skullcaps) heading toward the Wailing Wall on a Friday afternoon. I called him as I stood over the Seine, looking out over Notre Dame, at the exact moment when the sky starts to pinken.

When I bought a new swimsuit, I sat for him in it and he showed me just enough admiration to make me blush.

Of course, it wasn't perfect; there were frustrations with terrible internet connections, time zones and the sheer, starving desire for actual physical contact.

But we really got to know each other without so many of the distractions that can fog things up at the beginning when you're trying to assess the quality of the match.

There are all sorts of tools we can employ to fake that a relationship is going, and all sorts of supporting actors — friends, family, pets — to help delay the (nearly) inevitable downfall.

For example, when I was in my early 20s I had a harmless kind of boyfriend — the kind who's so sweet he's impossible to take entirely seriously. We spent almost all of our time together in front of a screen, either a movie or the television, something to take our minds off of the fact that we had nothing to talk about and less to relate to.

When there was no show on television, we reverted to kissing — which was an adequate distraction for six months before I woke up.

Yet another boyfriend, on paper a genius, acquired a gloomier attitude, offset to some degree by the fact that he was from a warm, educated and liberal background.

I'd leave their house, my arms full of new books and cold kugel, and wait for the days until I could next visit them all. I knew it was over when, during what should have been a romantic weekend in Paris, we were yelling at each other along the Rue de Rivoli and I found myself wishing I'd rather be holding hands with his parents.

But on Skype, just Jamie and I in solitude, nattering away hours a day, like on the world's longest dinner date, without others' influence on what we thought of each other's partner choice.

We now live together, one year and a half since we met, plus a very stubborn chihuahua. I'm still amazed, when I finally get to meet Jamie's family and friends, by how many of his stories I already know.

I've heard about the time he built a teepee from scratch in his parents' backyard, and he knows my mother calls me Bubbles.

I don't miss our months of separation — there is no replacement for the weight of someone you love on the other side of the bed — but I would not trade our first few months of long-distance courting.

Our temporary dependence on Skype did learn us to talk to each other without cutting out all the other noises.