  We investigate the lowest energy configurations for string - antistring pairs
at fixed separations by numerically minimizing the energy. We show that for
separations smaller than a critical value, a region of false vacuum develops in
the middle due to large gradient energy density. Consequently, well defined
string - antistring pairs do not exist for such separations. We present an
example of vortex - antivortex production by vacuum bubbles where this effect
seems to play a dynamical role in the annihilation of the pair. We also study
the dependence of the energy of an string-antistring pair on their separation
and find deviations from a simple logarithmic dependence for small separations.
