I am a male 20-year-old college student and I have a dilemma on my hands. In order for you to make an informed response to this question you have to know a little history first.
Almost 3 and a half years ago I met someone on the Internet whom I immediately befriended because of our knack of conversing for hours. After about a year of talking on and off we started to become more serious in our conversations. This eventually developed into a relationship, the best I have ever had. I have never been more emotionally satisfied with a relationship before or sense. The only problem was, she lived in Nevada and I in Pennsylvania. After trying to do a long term relationship for a few months, she made it clear she could not be in the relationship any longer because she needed the physical side of the relationship also. I knew this was for the best but it hurt nonetheless.

About three months after this break up I found a new significant other who I am still with. The relationship I am in now is great, emotionally, intellectually, and sexually. I could not be happier. But I have started talking again to the ex. She has recently moved and has her own apartment now and I now have the funds to finally open the door to actually meet her in person. We have been discussing a trip because we have wanted to meet for many years but have never had the chance. This creates many problems. My ex and I have discussed how if we were able to meet face-to-face, something will happen. We both still have feelings for each other and we may get overwhelmed given the excitement of actually seeing each other. Hooking up seems like an inevitability.

I have no fucking idea what to do. I would love a little help. I feel I can articulate this situation and my feelings of not wanting to leave my current girlfriend to my current girlfriend but given the situation I feel as if she would immediately be very angry and break up with me. This reaction is completely understandable because I would obviously be cheating on her if I hooked up with my ex. I just feel as if I need to gain some sort of closure on the relationship by going through with this trip and actually having what I could not have many years ago. I know all of this is selfish because I just want to have the relationship I missed out on but I can't help to feel that there is something genuine and real there that I need to experience. I guess my question is, should I go ahead and see this ex and go where that takes me? If I was to do this, I feel it would be unfair to not let me girlfriend know about the situation and I would love some help on how I could tell her about this. Let me know what your take on the situation is and any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

What To Do About My Ex

Your ex is not your ex, WTDAME, because your ex was never your girlfriend at all.

I realize that the Internet has changed everything about sex and relationships, WTDAME, but one thing hasn't changed: you're not actually seeing someone if you've never actually seen that person. (And seen them in person—not pics, not cam sessions. IN PERSON, in the flesh.) You had brief and impassioned Internet flirtation with a woman who lived at the other end of the continent—WHEN YOU WERE 16 YEARS OLD. You were not in a relationship, you were not in love. You were typing.

Should you meet this girl in person? Only if you're prepared to risk destroying your current relationship—a great relationship, the best you've ever been in, one that satisfies you emotionally, intellectually, and sexually—for a person you've never met. (I'm going to assume that you've actually met your current girlfriend and that your sexual relationship involves actual physical contact and not just opening a chat window.) Bearing in mind that the odds are slim any woman a boy meets by age 20 is going to turn out to be the love of his life, WTDAME, I actually think you should go meet this woman, assuming she's a woman, in person. It's that or obsess about what-might-have-been all your life. And I don't you need to tell your girlfriend exactly where you're going or exactly why. Tell her you're going to see an old friend. Go and meet this woman and if it turns out—against the odds—that she's the love of your life, and if you two do hook up, break up with your current girlfriend—your first and only girlfriend—when you get home.

But if—and this is the far likelier outcome—you go and meet this stranger and the physical attraction you assumed would be there isn't, WTDAME, make your apologies, say your goodbyes, chalk the experience and the trip up to your youth and stupidity and go home and make it up to your current girlfriend in a thousand little ways.

And this you can do—taking off without being honest about where you're going—because you are young and stupid and you are allowed, this once, to be a deceitful little shit because you need to resolve your curiosity about this other woman, your supposed "ex." You also need to learn your lesson, WTDAME, and I predict the lesson will be this: in future don't risk a good thing—like your current girlfriend—for bullshit reasons.

UPDATE: What about pics? Webcams? I've updated my response—I figured they had exchanged photos. But seeing someone's photos, or grainy webcam sessions, and meeting them and smelling them and inhaling their pheromones and getting a whiff of their breath and BO, etc., is important. He may not be chemically into this woman, however hot he thought her pics were—if they were her pics.