The uncertainty that plagues life in crisis-ridden Venezuela is also wreaking havoc on relationships

abcnews.go.com:

In crisis-ridden Venezuela, nothing has been spared the uncertainty that plagues everyday life

CARACAS, Venezuela — Victoria Estevez finally met someone who saw past her shyness. They spent two months learning about their likes and dislikes, texting about their families and friends, and walking around their hometowns on Venezuela's Caribbean coast. On a trip to the capital in December, they held each other for the first time.

I-like-yous followed, and by February, they were calling it a relationship.

And then came heartbreak.

“Remember I had told you that I have a brother in the Dominican Republic? Well, I am going to leave the country, too,” Estevez, 20, recalled reading in an early March WhatsApp message from her new boyfriend. He was the second guy in a row to blindside her with imminent plans to emigrate.

Nothing, not even love, has been spared the uncertainty that plagues everyday life in crisis-ridden Venezuela, which has seen several million people leave in the last decade or so. As a presidential election looms later this month along with questions about Venezuela's future, many more are considering emigrating, wreaking havoc on the country's economy, its politics and its dating scene.

Young people are debating online and among themselves whether it's worth it to start a relationship — or whether to end one. Others are wondering when it is too soon or too late to ask the crucial question: Will you leave the country?

“How had he not told me that there was a possibility he would leave?” Estevez asked after she was crushed.

The last 11 years under President Nicolás Maduro have transformed Venezuela and Venezuelans.

In the 2000s, a windfall of hundreds of billions of oil dollars allowed then- President Hugo