Online Love

Hi! I love your site. It is a definite must read for anyone who has a computer. I have been online for the last 3 years, and I think the Internet is a fantastic place. However, bad things happen to good people. Everyone needs to be cautious when chatting with strangers. That also goes for blind dates, and answering personal ads. I have done all of the above in the last few years. But I always used my brain first, and took steps to protect my identity, address, etc. from any man I dated. I have had my share of bad dates also, and oh, the stories I could tell you! My girlfriends used to love listening to my tales of the different men I met for dinner. And yes, some were losers and some were not. I never gave up though. I just kept looking. And in November of 1997 I found my true love.

I have a website that is very popular among the BBW crowd. My page is linked on alot of pages, and I used to chat quite frequently on IRC. Since I was a single 28 year old gal, my pic and bio were posted on 5-6 different BBW websites. From those postings I usually received 2-3 emails a day from guys. Most of them were outright proposals to just meet and have sex. Those I deleted at once, since I was not looking for that. Occasionally, I would respond, chat online with a guy, maybe call him once or twice, and meet for dinner. After doing this for about 1 and a half years, I was sick of it. I was beginning to give up hope. I stopped answering personal ads, stopped replying to emails, and turned down any blind dates. Family and friends kept telling me, stop looking so hard, it will happen when you least expect it. I was like " yeah right". But it actually happened to me.

On November 1, 1997 I received an email from a guy who lived in my state, who wrote that he saw my bio on a BBW page. He went on to say that he thought I was pretty and we seemed to have a few things in common. He meant that about my comment that my favorite ice cream was mint chocolate chip-the green kind. He seemed nice from the letter, spelled most things correctly and I figured I would write back to him. We exchanged emails for about a week or so, everything was going fine. We agreed to meet on IRC and chat live. We did that for about another week, for hours on end. I was careful, asking questions, being honest, never giving my last name or phone number. We had alot in common, agreed on the same things, and thought the same way about most stuff. He actually gave me his phone number and asked me out for dinner on a Saturday night. I called him the Friday night before, and we spoke for 6 hours non stop. Thank god we lived in the same state.

I was so excited, he seemed fantastic. We had exchanged pics, told each other a little bit about our past history etc etc. But I was still a little nervous of course. After giving my friend his name and number and telling her where we were meeting for dinner I left for out date. I spotted him at once sitting in his car in the parking lot of the restaurant. I pulled in next to him, and he came over to me carrying one pink rose and a box of mallowmars! (He had found out earlier that I craved them all the time.) It was so sweet. And so was he. We went inside and had to wait for an hour or so to be seated. That was fine, we talked, and laughed and joked. It was not awkward or tense at all. We had like a 2 hour dinner. I was in love! He was gorgeous, funny, smart, sweet, basically everything I was looking for. He seemed to be liking me too, so I was in heaven. After dinner, he walked me to my car, and it was just beginning to snow. We stood outside for a few minutes, I explained I had to go as I hate driving in the snow, but he did not want me to leave. He offered to buy me a cup of tea at a McDonalds a block away so we could chat for a while longer. I figured why not, I was having so much fun. I followed him in my car to the McDonalds( to this day he kids me about me thinking he was an ax murderer and not getting in his car). When we got there, we realized it was only a drive thru McD's. So we laughed ourselves silly in the snow outside the cars. We chatted for a bit longer. He asked me out for the following week. I of course accepted and tried to to burst into hystericaly giggles. We were standing quite close to each other and I was getting ready to say goodbye. I had decided I had to kiss him, I just had to! And my policy was always, no kissing on the first date!! But he melted my heart! I just kept smiling at him, while he was talking nervously to me. I belive I just said to him, are'nt you going to kiss me now? And he did! And it was heaven. We were standing there in the deserted parking lot in the snow, kissing for the first time and then we heard a very garbled version of "Can I take your order please"? coming out of the McD's drive thru window. We looked over and there was a car there placing an order. We cracked up laughing!

I could go on and on, and tell you thousands of things about this relationship. But I'm sure it would bore you and your readers! Let me just sum it up and tell you this. That night I met the man I was going to marry. We are living together and we wed November of 2000. I still have all the emails he has ever sent me, I used that very first one as part of our wedding invitation. We are madly in love, meant for each other and it was all made possible throught the Internet. Good things can happen, but you just have to be patient and very careful. Thanks for letting me share out story with you.

:)