It was early October, 1996....
I was living in north east Pennsylvania. I had just purchased my new Macintosh Performa 6400 and was eager to set it up. AOL was not entirely new...but it did not have a firm chokhold on the market. Of course, a free trial of 10 whopping hours for AOL came with my new computer. I joined AOL under the screen name CeltsRisng. One of the first things I found was an online bulletin board for people interested in Scotland. Since that is where I was born and raised, I made a post.
I was interested in finding a penpal from Scotland. It was a purely platonic endeavor. A little more than a month later, I had signed on to AOL after getting home from work. I was greated with "You've got mail!". Now this was a very rare occurence indeed. There was no mass spam mailing...and I had not corresponded with anyone as of yet...so there was normally no mail for me to read. The e-mail was from someone named CelticSoul. This person said they liked what I had posted and wanted to have a penpal as well.
Now...this is where it gets tricky. I thought I was corresponding with someone from Scotland. This CelticSoul person thought THEY were corresponding with someone presently living in Scotland. It took us over a month before we finally realized that neither of us were in Scotland. In fact, the day I found out this person was not in Scotland was the same day I found out this person was a female. You see, the e-mails were pretty non descript. We included things like...."What type of music do you like....who is your favorite poet....Have you seen this movie yet...? Well, this day, she did not sign her e-mail with the usual, "CelticSoul". She signed it..."Anne". My reply to that e-mail was signed, "Matthew". And thus we found out a little more about one another.
Fast forward to February. We now knew that I was living in Pennsylvania and she was living in Kansas. We had exchanged addresses and sent one another small trinkets....books...a tape of favorite songs...letters...etc. Then one late February day I got up the nerve to ask for her phone number...and she e-mailed me her number. I called her the very next day from work (on my lunch break). That call lasted about 10 minutes...with hardly a word to be said. It was very awkward and I felt like such a dork. I did nearly all of the talking...because when I stopped talking...there was silence. Later we both signed online and IM'd each other...and we were laughing at how easy it was to talk online and how hard it was to talk on the phone. I told her that now that we have broken the ice, the next call will be much better. So after we signed off of AOL late that night...I called her. She was not expecting the call. We talked from midnight until around six AM.
Over the course of the next few months, we would talk for a few hours in IM's then talk on the phone for an hour or two. It became very difficult to talk in IM's when all we wanted to do was talk on the telephone and make things a bit more real. One evening, I asked Anne about her graduation from university. She was graduating in mid May and we had been talking about meeting in real life. I asked her if I could come out to visit and come to her graduation. That worked out well for both of us. I booked fare for 10 days in Wichita, Kansas. The plan was for me to stay in the guest room at her apartment...even though I offered to get a hotel room many times.
I arrived in Wichita the day before her graduation. The meeting was wonderful...there in the airport...few words were said...few words were needed. Most of that first day is still an amazing blur...lots of staring into one another's eyes...lots of talking...it was sublime. THe next day, I attended her graduation. The odd part was afterward I had to go to her parents house (we met at the graduation) and meet her entire family...aunts...uncles...cousins...grandparents....friends....it was family overload for me. I do remember one of her uncles saying, "So this is the wierdo you met on the computer?" Heh....
The next 8 days were spent just Anne and I pretty much. I did meet some of her friends, but it was mostly just the two of us. She took me to see the sights of Wichita (yes, there are sights here...the largest city in KS...500,000 people). We spent a lot of good time getting to know one another. I did not want to leave...she did not want me to leave...but my stay had come to an end.
When I arrived back in PA, we began to talk even more on the phone. My phone bill for the month of June was over $1200. I asked her if she wanted to seriously pursue a relationship...even if we did live 1400 miles apart. We both wanted to. I told her that I did not want this to be a long distance relationship...and after much talk, we decided that I would move to Kansas (it would be cheaper to move than paying a $1200 phone bill every month
). I applied at nearly 40 places in Wichita. One day, I was home for lunch...the phone rang. It was a lady from Kansas wanting to conduct a telephone interview with me. She said she has never nor would normally ever consider doing an interview over the telephone...however she felt motivated to do so and would let me know at the end of the interview her reason for doing this odd interview.
The interview went very well. It turns out that the woman interviewing me was very big into geneology. Her ancestors hailed from a one streetlight town called Catawissa in Pennsylvania. On my resume, the job I was presently working was in Catawissa. She had always wanted to come back east and visit the town where her ancestors hailed from...and she took this as a good sign that someone from there was applying to work for her. It turns out that I took it as a good sign as well. I was offered the job right over the telephone.
I called Anne and told her about everything. I told her that I had a job and was going to move out to Kansas at the end of July. So one hot July morning at 6 AM, I loaded my car up with everything I could pack into it...I couldn't even see out the rear or side windows. I started my car up and drove west. 23 hours later...only stopping for fuel and some Jolt Cola...I arrived in Wichita Kansas. That was July of 1997.
June of 1999 we were married in a Renaissance wedding in the backyard at her parent's house. We honeymooned in Scotland. We bought our first house last year in March of 2002....and I am announcing here for the very first time anywhere....that on Tuesday of this week we found out that we are expecting our first child together.
Yes, I know it's a long story...but it is story worth mentioning (and I know Pils likes details and I didn't want to leave anything out...
). Internet relationships can and do work out. The internet is just another means of meeting another person....and since I did it nearly seven years ago...I sort of feel like a pioneer
Regards,
Moonwynd
Yes, the choir does have some interesting women in it too ... I'm a flautist and went to band camp, had met a few boys there too *grin*
- somebody STOP me!
