It’s three years ago, or thereabouts. I’m asleep in my bed in my apartment at the end of Ly Van Phuc Street - the tiny road famous for late night chicken.

It’s the middle of the night and my phone rings. I answer and immediately recognize the voice - it’s my girlfriend, calling from halfway around the world.

“Do you know what time it is here?” I ask.

“Yes.” A long pause; I can hear she’s crying but doesn’t want me to know it. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

The rest of the conversation you can imagine. But at the end, a muffled, “When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

________

Maybe it was naive to think that we could stay together living so far apart. I know many people have had long-distance relationships, but what are the odds? It’s difficult enough to have a short-distance relationship.

This is a problem I think most expats face, although in another form. Maybe you did not leave somebody back home. But if you love someone here, there’s always that question: When are you going back?

Living as a foreigner in Vietnam is to live in a state of perpetual impermanence. Almost all of us plan to leave at one point or another. People come and people go; it’s a constant. I’d guess that I’m invited to an average of two going away parties every month.

Think about the effect this has on our approach to dating, and even friendship.

Whether you meet another expat or a Vietnamese person you like, and you start to become close, there is always that question looming in the shadows: When are you leaving? When will this end?

Of course there are foreigners who’ve lived here for many years, and plan to stay for many more. They run businesses, learn to speak Vietnamese, marry into Vietnamese families, have children.

But one thing that I’ve learned is that, no matter what, a foreigner can never become Vietnamese. This means that, even if someone from another country considers this home, Vietnam will never be truly theirs.

For those who marry Vietnamese, the uncertainty must be even worse. In this country, marriage does not give you the right to become a citizen.

Some new and unexpected Government regulation, for example, might make it impossible to stay. A work permit could be revoked, a visa denied. What then?

All of us “immigrants” have chosen to come here. But love is not entirely a choice. I guess that’s why we say to “fall in love”.

If that happens there are ways to protect yourself. A friend of mine remarked recently that he is purposefully rude to all strangers. He does not want any new friends. “They’re just going to leave,” he said.

A bit cynical maybe. But as a foreigner, if you do let yourself “fall”; if you take a partner’s hand in Vietnam, to dance that oldest of all dances... well, my friend, you are dancing on thin ice.