Online Dating and Marriage

Sorry this is so long, but I love to read these whole stories so I thought I would share my whole story.

I met my hubby back in August of 1997. Of all ways, I met him through an online Yahoo personal ad that I had posted.

He lived in S. California and I in Wisconsin. He was originally born in the same city as I live but moved out west when he was about 12. He said he was initially attracted to me because I was a Packers fan. We started out slowly with emails that were all about 5-6 pages long. I was hooked after a few emails. After a month or so he insisted on calling me, but I was way to creeped out to do that. I said there had to be a way for us to "talk" without the phone. I then heard about this newer thing called AOL instant messenger. I had been accessing the internet through AOL so you would have thought I would have heard of it before but I was a little slow on using the internet. After using my little dial up connection and getting booted off many times, I finally got instant messenger downloaded. We "talked" every night after that. I couldn't wait to hop on the computer as soon as I got home from work. It took me another few weeks to finally get the courage to let him call me. I was so nervous and scared but I was already in love. I remember one line in an email he sent me. He said "I am falling for you quickly but it's way too soon to talk about the L word, so if I do, please hit me over the head with a frying pan". From that moment I knew he was all mine.

After 6 months of talking and endless phone calls, I had a trip out to Las Vegas for work. I was only going to be about 3 hours from him so he said he was going to come meet me. I never told anyone. I was pretty stupid because he could have taken me away and noone would have even known. Anyhow, I spent the day setting up a booth at a trade show and I was all dirty and dingy and decided he was going to meet the real me. I didn't get cleaned up, no makeup, and pretty bad looking. He called my hotel room and I about had a panic attack. I almost didn't answer the telephone. Finally I did and he said he would wait for me by the elevators. I took a back route down so I could get a glimpse of him before he saw me. We hadn't even seen pictures of each other so I had no idea what to expect. Well I saw him standing there in dress pants, dress shirt and tie and I was in LOVE.

He came to my room and gave me a huge bag of gifts. He even bought me an answering machine because I didn't have one. He took me to a really fancy steak place and man did I feel underdressed. I could hardly eat because I was so nervous. He drove me around the back road of Vegas because he had lived there as a teenager. He took me to some beautiful places that most tourist would never find. It was a very romantic evening. He spent a few days in Vegas, even when I was working.

Every time I had a trip to Vegas he drove out to be with me. I finally told my boss about him and he eventually became one of the workers each time we were there. They all liked him. The only problem was my boss and coworkers had met him but my family hadn't.

I decided this was pretty serious and that I may consider moving to California to be with him. I took a trip out there and spent a whole month living with him. I thought a week would be too short to see if I really liked living in CA and a month worked well. I asked him to come to WI to meet my family. He did the following month and that's when we told them all I would be moving to California. They weren't too please but they liked him and could see I was in love. The resigned themselves to the fact that I was going to do this no matter what.

A few months later I packed up my belonging and moved to Sunny Cal. Within 6 months we were engaged. My family kept fighting withe me about the wedding which we had planned to happen in April of the following year. We finally decided that enough was enough and we just wanted to be married. We planned our wedding in 2 weeks time and said our vows in his parents back yard on 1-1-00. It didn't make my family too happy but oh well.

It's been 5 years of ups and downs but I wouldn't trade it for anything. A few months after we were married we though we might like living in WI better because I could be with my family. I applied for a job in the beginning of April and they wanted me there in 2 weeks. He couldn't get a job transfer so he had to stay behind. It took 6 months to get him back here with me but he's here with me and I wouldn't change a thing. Life happens and we aren't always the perfect couple but we are content.

Aug 97 - met online
Feb 98 - met in person
Sept 98 - went to test the waters in CA
Feb 99 - moved to CA
Aug 99 - engaged
Jan 00 - married

Ours pretty much went in 6 month increments.

It's funny because when we first met and told people we met online line they would give us that strange look. Now it soesn't get the same reaction. It's so much more prevelant now then it was back then.

My family is full of online love matches.

The same year I met my hubby my dad met his wife. They met after us and ended up married before us.

My step mom has 2 sons that met their spouses on the net.

My little step brother has been dating a girl for a year that he met online.

I tell friends these things and they think we should go on the Jerry Springer show because our family is so "Strange".