DF and I met on the Internet back in the summer of 2000, at a place called MPlayer, which used to be a voice chat network. (Doesn't exist anymore, sadly.) I popped into a chat room but I couldn't get my microphone to work, so I was just about to log off when I got a private message from some lad who said he'd read my profile and wanted to say hello. We chatted for a bit that night and off and on again when I got my microphone working, and slowly we became more and more attracted to eachother's voices.
After a few months of friendship, I asked him for his address to send him a mix CD for Christmas. He happened to mention that he was Jewish, so I changed my mind and sent him a Hanukkah teddy bear instead. But silly me, I forgot to sign the card, so when he received it, he had no idea it was from me. Unfortunately we somehow managed to lose touch with eachother before I knew that my gift had been received.
In the spring of 2002 we happened to see eachother on AIM. He asked me if I'd like to help him organize his computer business, and I asked him if he ever received my Hannukah gift. He was stunned when I confessed that I'd sent it to him, and he said that he'd spent over a year wondering who its sender was. After that, we began speaking on the telephone at length -- sometimes until sunrise! I'd go to work with no sleep and with a scratchy throat, but I knew that someone special was on the other end of the phone line.
In June 2002, we finally made plans to meet eachother. We'd spoken on the phone every single day for a solid month, so we both knew that it was time. When I arrived to pick him up at the airport, my timing must have been slightly off, because for the first 1-1/2 hours I couldn't find him anywhere. (This was at Albany International, a very small airport in upstate NY, mind you!) He was easy to miss though, because we'd never exchanged pictures before. All I knew was that he was a 6ft tall guy with dark hair, and he knew I was a 6ft tall gal with red hair. Finally I saw someone coming towards me with open arms, and the first time we hugged, I knew that I'd fallen in love. ;-)
To make a much longer story short, DF visited for a long weekend, and we immediately made plans for me to fly to Chicago and see him three weeks later. It was during that second visit together that we decided we had to be together, and I called my mother back in Albany to tell her that the next time DF came to visit would be the time he and I would be driving my car out to the midwest and moving in together. Seeing as I was 22 at the time and my parents had never met DF, they were pretty shocked! But luckily for me, my mother had also met her DF online (through AIM, no less!) and he moved to NY to be with her after only four months. "Like mother, like daughter" I said!
That was back in August 2002, and now DF and I will be celebrating our 1 year anniversary next month. It just goes to show, magic and fate DO exist if you believe in them enough!
