Internet Love - Workable

I had heard of the chatrooms on the internet but it had never appealed to me. Talking to total strangers that you cannot see struck me as too strange. One day I was surfing the net when I discovered MSN's chat rooms and making up a nickname decided to just watch and see what all the fuss was about.

There on the screen were twenty or so people chatting away about anything and everything. As I studied the conversations afraid to join in and expose myself as a 'newbie', I was drawn to one person. She was intelligent, witty and expressed a love of the UK, my home. She was from California a part of the States I had never seen but was interested in. So summoning up all my courage I said hi and introduced myself.

We began to chat and I found that it was very relaxed to the point that I was amazed when the conversation ended we had been chatting for three hours totally ignoring everyone else in the room. We parted company saying that we hoped we would bump into each other again. All that next day I wondered if that was just a polite goodbye or if she really wanted to continue our conversation.

That evening I logged on, half of me hoping she would be there the other half dreading she would'nt. Sure enough she was'nt in the chatroom and I sat at the computer screen only half reading the conversations that flashed up before me. Then her name appeared and with the usual "hi room" she said "hi Vince".

My life suddenly became brighter in that instant. I kept telling myself it was crazy, here was a woman I only just met, hardly knew and yet I had missed her all day. We chatted again, and the hours vanished along with the other chatters leaving us alone in the chatroom. I had been married and dated countless times in my then forty years of life but never had someone taken my interest so completely as this stranger from across the sea.

We discussed everything, our likes, dislikes, our troubles and our pleasures and the more we talked the more amazed we became at how much we had in comman. Weeks went by and every evening we would meet up and talk, the three hours becoming five then eight. We exchanged pictures both afraid we would blow it by doing so but as I looked at her picture on my screen I was amazed at the fact that no one had snapped up this American beauty in the years since her marriage had broken up.

The weeks had become months and we both admitted we had feelings for each other, our friendship becoming something far greater. Then came the time that anyone whose ever had a internet relationship will know....the meeting. She had said that she would fly to the UK to meet me but I insisted that I flew to the States. I explained to her my fears that should she come to me and for some reason we did'nt hit it off then she would be a woman alone in a strange country where as for a guy it was'nt so bad. She finaly agreed and a week or two later I found myself on a plane winging my way to San Diego.

We had arranged that I would be met by her brother who would drop me off at my hotel and that I would ring her once I had freashened up and she would come over and we would go out for a meal. Forty five minutes of pacing up and down after I made the call there was a knock on the door. I opened the door to the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Both of us nervous as hell we kissed hello. We looked into each others eyes and that kiss became another filled with all the emotions that had delevoped over the months of on line chatting. I stayed for two weeks taking her out after she finished work at the local hospital.

And we fell head over heels in love. I returned home, and missed her like crazy, the online chat now seeming so pale in comparison with holding the woman I loved in my arms. She missed me too and so I jumped on a plane and went back this time for a month. This went on for five visits each time I would extend my return ticket because we could'nt bear to part.

I finally asked her to marry me and she agreed having discussed the fact she wanted to move to the UK to be with me. It is now two years later, Christmas 2000 and Linda is here for the holidays. This coming year we are to marry and Linda is finalizing things prior to her move to the UK for good. My family and friends love her to bits and I feel like the luckest man on the face of the earth. So for all you out there that read the internet horror stories of romances gone bad, take heart they can work out.

Love is a wonderful thing and if true will over come both time and distence.