How We Met 1/1/2005
Johns Perspective:
Twas a cold dark wintery night and the stars were glittering.. well, ok maybe
not - but it was December 30th 2000 in England and bloody cold! I was browsing
the web, and I came across this web site called MatchDoctor.com. So, I shouted
over to my brother (who had moved in my apartment "just for a couple of nights"
- 6 months ago..) "hey bro, shall we register on this thing?". He replied "what
does it cost?", "a freebie site" I said. So, with nothing to lose except a few
moments of tedious registration to the site, we both enlisted.
Having browsed the listings of contacts, and perused their profiles, I wrote
a brief "hi" to three people. I received one reply - from Texas. I did not
realize it at the time, but this one reply was to change my life. Her name was
Laurie, a name I had never heard of previously, so I had trouble remembering how
to spell it. Laurie kindly suggested I spell it "Lori", which I did for a while,
but the name was getting very close to our British term for the American
"semi-truck" - Lorry :). Needless to say I did not want to associate this with
the new love of my life. So I soon learned to spell it. However, I was always
rather adept at "pulling" Lorrys see here
We soon realized the limitations of conversing on Matchdoctor, so we decided
to try the software called ICQ (phonetic - I Seek U). There are numerous chat
interfaces on the Internet, but we think none compare with the chat capability
of ICQ. Seeing the lady you pine for, typing in real-time and even seeing her
backspacing errors brings you closer together I think..:-)
During our initial chats across the pond, we soon discovered that we had many
commonalties, and after one chat session lasted 9 hours, it became apparent that
we maybe had something special happening. You ever tried talking to someone for
9 hours straight? It was a new experience for both of us, and we loved it.
Alas, our early chats were brought to an abrupt halt, due to me going away in
the New Year for a predetermined skydiving holiday. Yes I said skydiving. I am
one of those guys who gets the urge occasionally to throw himself from a
perfectly servicable aircraft, that is my catharsis.
Our first phone call was so nice..hearing Lauries voice for the first time
was beautiful, and I promised to call again New Years Day from Spain. It was a
strange time for me in Spain, all I wanted to do was think about this lady from
Texas! I phoned her again on New Years Day as promised. And after a couple of
mishaps skydiving I decided to cut short my holiday and return home to the UK.
We started chatting once again on ICQ, but now with the occasional phone call
thrown in for good measure. The time zone difference worked really well for us,
Laurie would come home from her place of work as I was getting out of bed in the
mornings, so we chatted for a while each morning. Then when I got home from
work, she was soon to be getting ready to go to work! Giving us twice daily
chats.
I am a very impetuous person (ask her!), so within about 3 weeks of first
meeting Laurie in the virtual sense, I was meeting her in the physical.
Lauries perspective:
It all started when my sister and I were searching different sites, when we
came across MatchDoctor.com. We had to become a member in order to browse,
so.... we registered. I am a bit of a skeptic anyway, so when days had gone by
without a single response, I did not really give it a second thought. I had
only been looking for a pen-pal anyway. Then, one day when I was visiting my
sister, she said, "hey you have a message at MatchDoctor.com It was from John,
just a simple, "Hi, how are you?", I must have hit the reply and cancel 3 or 4
times. My sister told me, if I did not answer she would do it for
me....NOT....so I answered.
We started with just e-mailing and realized it was not enough, so we went
to icq..things escalated from there..I was so intrigued by this wonderful man
from across the pond,(as he calls it). He told me he would be gone over the New
Year, as it was a pre-planned trip. I remember thinking...great I meet someone
and he goes off skydiving, figure with my luck, something will go wrong and
never hear from him again. Before he left, he gave me statistics on skydiving
accidents to try to re-assure me.
I could not keep from thinking about this man..wondering when I would hear
from him again. Well, when I did, it was not on the web..John called me from
the airport in spain, seems there was a mishap and he cut his holiday short.
We talked forever, about everything, he was too good to be true. We finished
each other''s sentences and felt so much alike about so many things. We actually
talked for over 9 hours one day... can you imagine..no disruptions, no outside
intrusions...actually, our schedules were perfect....as he mentioned...
I had to meet this man...look in his eyes and know...we had to know..there
was definitely something there...I remember thinking about
obstacles..distance...what if it got serious, would I move? Yes, I would. I work
for a major corporation so my possibilities were endless. Here we were talking
about things in the future and we had not even met..we kept asking each other
if we were crazy. Trying to rationalize this relationship. He flew across the
pond so we could meet, I was so nervous, but as soon as I saw him, I
knew.....
Now it was just a matter of TIME and legalities....some things just cannot
wait....I had already waited all my life for this man...JOHN...
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