|
Tales From The (Internet Dating) Front: SuccessesHerein are stories from our visitors, in their own words. So, no sense in our blabbing on. Enjoy! Submitted By:
If you would like to "expose" yourself here (or, at least your writing), simply fill out our submittal form.
Bev When my 12 year old daughter taught me to use a very popular on-line service, after she finished setting up the computer and finding it on there, I never imagined I'd be writing you a "Success Story". I was an overweight, disabled, single Mother and I thought that the computer was for writing letters, usually to doctors and insurance companies. Five years later, three computers later, with two wrists having carpal tunnel, things have changed. :-) The popular ISP pointed me toward soc.penpals where I thought I was writing to two individuals but where I actually wrote to everyone who wanted to read my messages. When the replies started pouring in I was rather confused, but that was typical. With 30 men writing I was soon in my daughter's room typing by flashlight late at night. I told them all that I had no interest in a man in my life but one of them stood out from the crowd and soon changed my mind, I moved the computer to the living room so I could type half the night with the lights on...switching to a local ISP and PINE! This is desperate! This one, special man helped me figure out that my computer's modem was a 2,400 baud and that we ought to try the phone after a few months. Expensive since I was in Minnesota and he was in Texas. A never married bachelor, handsome, working, wonderful in every regard and my soulmate on top of it, in Texas! After about 5 months I gave notice on my apartment and started packing. I even scheduled the U-Haul as he rode a large Greyhound bus across the entire country to bring me home to Texas <VBG>. I didn't tell anyone in MN too far ahead so they couldn't determine legally that I had lost my mind <BG>. We decided to share a computer (his was much faster) and a life and to create a family. By the way, I did many things to insure this meeting was a safe one but this was still a risky choice, of course. Mike is my one true love, my soulmate and my husband as of almost four years ago. We did decide that we both needed our own computers though and we have one for our daughter, now 17, as well! I wanted to tell you of the success I've had overcoming the biggest obstacle in the way of our happiness via the computer. I remained disabled and I became steadily worse, suffering from Chronic Pain and a host of other disorders. I joined an e-mail list, before I even went looking for pen-pals, to learn how to live with chronic pain. My participation on e-mail lists has allowed me to live as well as possible. In gratitude Mike and I started an email list called the Chronic Pain Forum to try to help others and to educate professionals. The URL for our CPF-L is http://home.satx.rr.com/cpf/index.html.
Blake It was on one of the last weeks of college that I met her, she was chatting in one room both under the name "Yey" and "Celts" - her and her online friends liked to trick people by being two people at once.. Me and Fatima, her real name, talked lots over those weeks and we both grew to like each other more. Sadly, it came to the last day I could use the 'net, and I had to say goodbye to my new friend. We swapped addresses to write over the Summer, but she expected never to talk to me again. On August 16th, 1998, just after I got hooked up to the 'net at home, I found her in a chat room. We talked all day, and on that day we let each other know our feelings - we were both falling in love. Neither of us had expected or intended to find someone special on the Internet, but that's what happened. Seven months, lots of letters, pics and several long phone calls later, and we're still together. I live in England and she lives in the Philippines, so you can hardly get a longer distance relationship without contacting Martians! The pain of not being able to feel the kisses and hugs is huge, but spiritually we couldn't be closer. Whenever we get to speak on the phone, there is a certain chemistry between us, and it feels as if we couldn't be more compatible (apart from with musical tastes, anyway!). So many things have got in our way - everything from visa problems to her mother's disapproval, things from a broken arm to a broken computer, even an hoax email attempting to split us up - but we've got through it all somehow. No, we haven't met up yet - I'm flying over there at the end of June - but our story does prove that no matter how far the distance, relationships can still work. You can find out more about us at http://members.xoom.com/blakefatima.
Calla I'd been online, and cyber-dating, for just over a year when I met Clannad on a MUSH (not exactly a chat room; more like an online world where coding is as much an attraction as the people you meet) hosted at a college site. He had some compliments for me on the coding I'd been doing (picture a cyber toy house, with interactive toys and a charming, if occasionally surprising, interactive doll house, all in text). We were both involved in other relationships, mine RL (real life), and his VR-to-RL (virtual reality to real life), and seriously were only interested in conversation on our mutual interests: archaeology (his profession, my hobby), music (he's a cellist; I'm a folk musician), Science Fiction, and - most importantly - cats. Each time one of us were online and saw the other's name, we exchanged pages and chatted... not exclusively with each other, but in a general sort of way. Several weeks after our first exchange, he mentioned that he was going to be in my town, visiting friends for a weekend, and, if I were interested, could we meet? Sure; I always enjoy meeting online friends! We met at the State Fair, me with my girlfriend in tow, he with his friends along. What a fun evening!! Afterwards, we continued our online friendship. Somewhere along the way our other relationships went sour. I believe the seeds had been there all along, but that we were doing our best to make things right. At any event, as our respective relationships fell apart, we turned, comfortably, to each other for consolation, support, and continued friendship. One night, after an imaginative scenario (we built a cyber-snowman, had a cyber-snowball fight, then warmed our toes and tummies with cyber-cocoa before a cyber-fireplace), the realization hit us that this relationship was more satisfying than either of our current RL ones and that we went online expressly to see each other now. A quick decision was made to meet again in person and see if the chemistry was indeed there. It was. The next few weeks were spent tying up loose ends and finalizing the breakup details. I moved in with my mother to finish off the semester, gave notice at my job, and we began cyber-dating in earnest, with regular RL visits to satisfy our tactile needs. After 3 months, I moved myself and cats from New Mexico to Las Vegas, NV, to be with my 30-year-old handsome archaeologist. (I'm 52, btw - and just for the record, we both look like we're in our early 40's <g>.) My mother was aghast, my friends astounded, my son amused: after all, it was he who had gotten me online in the first place! : ) To make a long story short, after a year of living together Clannad and Calla wed impetuously one Sunday afternoon in mid-June of 1997. We both still go online regularly, still keep in touch with our other, and new, online friends and family, including our exes, with whom we are all amazingly very good friends now. I wouldn't say cyber-dating is superior to RL dating; however, I do believe it provides options that may not be available in RL. I can honestly say that if it weren't for the Internet, this couple would never be together. And that would be a shame.
Celeste I am writing to you to tell you that someone can find true love on the Internet. I did and have fallen in love with a wonderful, loving and caring man. I met him in October 1997 on AOL. That night, we chatted online for 6 hours into the wee hours of the morning. From then on we spoke on the computer for a month or two then switched to telephone. As the relationship progressed, I decided to move to Hawaii where he was living. I had family living in Hawaii and had visited quite often so it wasn't like I was going to move to a place I did not know. I moved to Hawaii in April of 1998 and met him the first night I was there. I was very nervous but from then on everything has been going well...I am in love with a man that makes me feel special and unique. Being a person who is overweight, he makes me feel loved and makes me feel sexy and desirable. I have truly found my angel from Heaven.
Chaininghalo I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever meet someone off the Internet not to mention that he would be the love of my life. I met him in an MSN chat room and we became friends right away. I could sense that he was sincere about everything. After a few weeks of talking we were becoming addicted to each other, but still never thought we'd meet. Finally we graduated to the phone and after six weeks of knowing each other acknowledged that we were falling in love and needed to meet in person. Since we live 1600 miles apart, we decided to meet halfway one weekend. I met him at 11:30pm in the parking lot of the Kmart Supercenter and had the most amazing weekend of my life. We had sent no pictures ahead of time so neither of us knew what the other looked like, but we were so in love with who the other person was on the inside that we felt it didn't matter. When we did finally see each other it was fabulous. We have now been "seeing" each other for almost five months and both know that we're meant for each other and will eventually marry the other. Thank God for the Internet!!! :)
Elisabeth Hey, I am writing to tell you how the meeting turned out with my dear, dear, cyber-boyfriend! We met in my city, (Atlanta), on Thursday morning, of October 15th, and he stayed here until Monday evening of October 19th. Cerissa, he is the most wonderful guy I have ever met in my life!! I cannot tell you how wonderful the time we spent was! It was as though we are made for each other! He is gorgeous, and we spent every waking minute together exploring my city, and having the best time! We are in love, for sure. If it were not for the internet, we would never have had the opportunity to meet. As I stated before, both of us had become disillusioned with the whole dating scene, and it was something that even if we lived houses apart, would not have amounted to anything. The best part was the 100% communication that you can have over the internet. We became friends before lovers, after 3 months of chatting daily online, and on the phone, and the physical came later. I would suggest anyone who is in a cyber relationship to be sure that the person they are involved with is honest, get more than one picture, have them send you pictures in the mail, call you on the phone, call them on the phone, investigate to be sure that they are being honest. That is the only danger in this sort of relationship. Otherwise, I say when you are sure, put all you have into it!! This person could be your true love, and you must romanticize and cater to them daily. Send them letters, and cards, and gifts snail mail. The more personal contact, the better a chance of being real. Call them on the phone, try to be with them in more than just a chat room, as much as possible. And most important: Go and meet them!!! Just do it, don't talk about it, look up round trip tickets to their city, go ahead and pay for them. This may be the investment in your future!! You have to just get out there and do it!! But the sooner, the better. The longer you wait, the more fantasy it becomes and you will find it is hard to get beyond the fantasy world your relationship resides in. Cerissa, as for the honesty part, I say that from personal experience. Before I met "Jared", I was brand-new to the internet, and chat rooms. I got online and I went to a popular chat server, and met someone right off the bat. Well, naive to this surreal world as I was, I fell prey to a cyber psycho! LOL, he told me every lie in the world! When we first met, he told me he was a popular musician, and was hanging out in this particular room to find out what the gossip was about his band. From there, I believed I was in love with a rock star for about a month. however suspicious I was the entire time, once we met online, I was instantly lost in his articulate nature, and dashing ways. I eventually was overwhelmed by suspicion, so I checked out some web-sites about this particular musician and nailed him on some lies he had told me. The point being this: I never got a picture of him, (he had four or five of me), I continually asked, and not even thinking about snail mail, he told me over and over that he did not have a scanner, and could not get to a copy place. (Sheesh, they are open 24 hours in my city, and he lives in NYC) At this point, I met "Jared" and the first thing he did was ask if he could send me something in the mail. I was skeptical and gave him a PO Box number. Well, he sends me about five pictures of him and his family, an ankle bracelet, and a letter telling me why he had been single and what he was doing online in the dating department anyway, and how I just very well could be the "one for him", and you just never know where you will find love. I was of course, hooked!! The rest is history..........I hope!!!
JJ I met Bill online (in Feb.) when I asked this question in a forum - 'Why aren't guys interested in women in wheelchairs?' He responded, saying, 'I am'. We started e-mailing each other daily then he started hinting that his birthday was coming up. I called him on the big day and the 'relationship' took off. We e-mailed each other about a dozen times a day (he was at work) and called each other (me on Wed., him on Sun.) and talked for hours. He kept asking me if he could come see me and I finally decided that I could trust him so he came (in June) and stayed in a hotel. Since I'm in a wheelchair, I has an issue about vulnerability. He told me that if I wanted anything physical to happen, I'd have to make the first move. He came for a 3-day weekend and it was WONDERFUL!!! We felt like the 'chemistry' was there over e-mail and the phone but we wanted to make sure that it would be there in person. We went to Disneyland the first day and that's when I realized that this was the guy I've been looking for all my adult life. We spent the next two days getting to know each other better (both emotionally and physically). When he left, I felt like my best friend was leaving. Soon after, his company transferred him and now he's 2,000 miles away instead of 1,000 and I don't know when I'm going to see him next. I feel like we're going to spend the rest of our lives together as soon as we get our lives situated. Take a look at my website dedicated to my Sweetie: www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Villa/5480.
Nina I had recently moved to a new city and didn't know many people in the area. I posted an Internet personal ad on a whim one day, hoping to at least start getting out. I never dreamed I would really meet someone special. I met 3 different men - all normal, polite and interesting. But the last one was exceptional. We have been inseparable ever since and are now engaged to be married! My sisters and friends thought I was crazy to meet men this way, but now that they know my fiancée, they feel differently. It took some courage and self-esteem on my part, but I am very very glad I did it!
Sandy When you venture into the world of Internet romance, you don't know what you're getting into really. It's basically a leap of faith. It may or may not work out. But, for all of you either in an online relationship, or thinking that that might be the way to find the love of your life, I want to let you know . . . YES it does work!! If your first few don't work out, don't give up. If it does work out, be willing to relocate (after you've met in person, of course). This is my story (I'd advise you NOT to do exactly as I did, though). Jack and I had talked online before in our favorite chat room, off and on for a couple of years. At one time, he was involved in a relationship that he'd started online, and I was living with a man that I'd met online at the time. Well, the relationship that I'd been in turned bad, and that guy and I broke up. Come to find out, Jack had broken up with his girlfriend, and again was looking as I had been too. It was the summer of 2000. We began chatting more and more intimately on MSN Instant Messenger. We begin chatting daily, and found that we had so very much in common. On July 14, 2000 (yes I still remember that exact letter), Jack wrote me an e-mail telling me that he was falling in love with me. My heart skipped a couple of beats because this wasn't something I had expected, but at the same time, I was beginning to have deep feelings for him too. As the summer wore on, we started talking on the phone. As each day went by, I wanted to meet Jack more and more. It was beginning to hurt my heart that I couldn't be near him. September came, and I had the perfect opportunity to move. Even though Jack and I had not met yet in person, I found stepping out in complete faith in God that this was the man that He had promised me 7 years before. On Sept. 26, I packed up a U-haul, and made the 900 mile drive to where I was about to meet the man I had so deeply fallen in love with. (I knew what Jack looked like, as we had been emailing pictures back and forth). When I got out of the U-haul, and went into Jack's arms the very first time we met, I knew that I had done the right thing. For the next year, Jack and I grew closer and more in love. After about 6 months, Jack asked me to marry him online, in front of all our online friends in the chat room where we'd begun our relationship. On Sept 29, 2001, a year and 3 days after I'd moved from Massachusetts to West Virginia, we were married! On March 29, 2002 (Good Friday), Jack and I celebrated our 6 month anniversary. Our marriage is one that was definitely made in Heaven.
Silken Hi there. Well, here's my success story...mind you, that kind of takes the suspense out of it right off the bat, doesn't it? Back in May, I happened to start chatting with a gentleman in a chat room, Yahoo actually. Before long we started exchanging phone calls....and letters....and then he decided to fly up and visit me. This took some doing, as he was in Texas, and I'm in Canada. This is not just a quick drive down the street. We met in person two months after we had first chatted. I was as nervous as could be, waiting for him at the airport, but from the moment we met, things clicked just as they had online, and pretty soon he was extending his stay to spend more time with me. Is it possible to fall in love online? I think it's possible to begin the process of falling in love...but it was spending RL (real life) time together, however brief, that convinced us we had very deep and serious feelings for each other. Well, after that the phone calls and chats and e-mails and letters flew fast and furious back and forth. He even put in a toll-free number so I could call him and not run my bill up. We talked sometimes six and seven times a day. Neither one of us doubted we were in love. Real love, just as real as if we had met on the street, or been introduced by friends....I don't think love discriminates on the basis of how you met. Mind you, some people do. Most people were pretty open-minded about it...and many thought it was the most exciting and romantic thing they had ever heard. Getting to know someone online - without the distraction of the whole "dating game" - with the relative anonymity and ease of opening up that the medium seems to create - makes it easier to go beyond the superficial, social chatter that usually happens, or at least I have found has happened in my experience. Mind you, neither one of us could have been telling the truth about who we were...what we thought...but at the same time, don't you take that chance every time you trust someone? What makes it more likely that talking to someone face to face results in honesty and real depth of feeling? For my part, I have known people who lied to me face to face, and those who lied over the Internet...but I think that's just a sad commentary on people, not on an emotionless technology. But I digress. Pardon me, I do that often. If I could make a living digressing....ahhh... Anyway....three months after he had come to visit me, he sent me a plane ticket and I was on my way to Texas. Again, it seemed like we had never been apart - and to make a long story (because frankly, long stories are the only kind I tell) short....we're now engaged to be married. Happy ending? Not quite yet. We still have a few wrinkles to iron out. I'd like to stay in Canada until my 16 year old finishes high school before moving to Texas. He's looking into getting a work visa so he can live with me in Canada until that happens. Have you ever been to Canada? I tell you, a man that would willingly give up a Texas winter for a Canadian winter....well, that's a man in love. And keep in mind I said willingly, not enthusiastically. The guy ain't dumb. :) We're planning a wedding this June. We are both very much in love. We like each other's friends and family. We share common interests. And chemistry? Ohh boy! Have we got chemistry!! Chances are, we would never have met any other way. I'm not saying the Internet will make it more likely that you'll find the love of your life. But if he's not just down the street, it'll make him a hell of a lot easier to find! Good luck!
If you would like to "expose" yourself here (or, at least your writing), simply fill out our submittal form. |
