I Flew to Canada for a Girl Because of Animal Crossing
By: Paul Lombardo
Tags: Travel, Relationships, Features, Gaming, Love

After growing to know each other over the internet, I learned more about this mysterious internet girl. She lived in Canada, loved games almost as much as she loved her cats, and was quite the artist. Minecraft was one of her favorites, which prompted me to ask her about Animal Crossing. “Surely this girl had played Animal Crossing before… every girl who plays video games has!” I remember thinking to myself. Wrong. Don’t assume things about people, this lovely lady was full of surprises.

Some debilitation eventually convinced her to purchase a copy of Animal Crossing: New Leaf on her Nintendo 3DS so we could play together — and when I say play, I really mean it. My ex and I had the most fun on Animal Crossing I managed to have with anyone. We went on so many different digital dates.

I remember dressing up my character in a fancy suit for our museum date, wandering the halls while discussing typical subjects such as our favorite animals and pieces of art. This little adventure created a mutual interest between us in paleontology, producing many YouTube nights dedicated to watching videos on the Mosasaurus (one of her favorite dinosaurs).

If we weren’t parading around the museum, my girlfriend and I were stomping about the town, showing each other the progress we made on our creations. We also loved going on island adventures with seafarer Kapp’n, giving way to the many mini-games that Animal Crossing: New Leaf had to offer. We officially started dating on March 20th of 2019, a date that comes into play a bit later in the story.

After Animal Crossing overstayed its welcome, eventually took our video game dates to other titles, including the aforementioned Minecraft. We built a massive world together. Inviting our mutual friends over to contribute to the fictional town of Solaria only made the experience that much more exciting. These amazing memories are how we made up for being long-distance. Without video games, I doubt I would have ever been able to develop my first real relationship with my ex. After all, what else would we have bonded over? She was a country away.

Time-skipping ahead to around October, my girlfriend and I began talking about meeting up in real life. It took a bit of money-saving and convincing between both of our parents, but the plan was set in motion. I acquired my passport, some plane tickets, and flew out to frigid Canada from my warm and comfy Florida a day after Christmas. This was nothing short of a daring adventure for a teenager who hardly left his bedroom, let alone the country.

A lot of my friends called me crazy for flying out.

What if she isn’t even real? Maybe it won’t be the same in person. Are you sure this is wise?

These questions never bothered me. I paid no attention to them, following my heart to America’s maple leaf top hat. At the end of the day, I had a wonderful time freezing my butt off. Sure, it was cold, but I was in a warm company. That’s what mattered to me.

Good things don’t always last forever, unfortunately. I flew home, which made things a lot harder for us. Long-distance doesn’t always work out. After experiencing the warmth of being together in person, suffering through another year apart seemed so much more daunting. What could I do to save this amazing relationship? Visit again, of course!

The aforementioned date of March 20th also coincided with one special thing: the release date of Animal Crossing: New Horizons! For us, this was amazing. Our first anniversary lines up with the release day for the game that brought us together!

All was well. I purchased another set of plane tickets to go see her on March 26th, 2020. We had the whole situation planned, an anniversary together to remedy lost time until next Christmas. Everything was going according to plan until one key factor ruined it: COVID-19.

On the date of our anniversary, March 20th, both the United States and Canada mutually decided to close the borders for non-essential travel. Our magical plan was destroyed and our relationship was severely strained.

Eventually, after months of trying to make things work, we mutually called off the relationship. With no border opening date in sight, we felt like there was no hope left. Animal Crossing made our relationship, but the cute real-time social simulation game couldn’t save it.