In Honor of Valentine's Day, a Story

I'm posting this not because I really want to win a $100 Visa Gift Card, although that would be nice, but because one of my favorite bloggers posted something today that struck pretty close to home.

http://www.jennepper.com/2012/02/i-am-sooo-excited-that-i-get-to-be-part.html

It's part of a promotion for eHarmony, which I admit I've never visited before and kind of find the commercials pretty cheesy.

But I will tell the story of how Chris and I met, which was online.

It was way back in June 2003. I had just graduated from college and knew I'd be moving to Sacramento to get my Master's there.  I knew nothing about Sacramento, other than visiting it all of twice -- once when my mother was attending a conference and the other time to meet friends in Old Sacramento to have lunch and then go on to their parents' house in Oroville -- so I was curious as to what there was to do there (it was nothing like Berkeley or San Francisco).

I put a profile on Yahoo! Personals, but didn't include my photo. I didn't want any creepy people choosing me simply based on a picture. Plus, it was in the old days before digital cameras were ubiquitous and I had all of one picture online and it was for my aunt's friend's Internet endeavor of selling shirts to women NASCAR fans (how unlike me is that?! I laugh just thinking about it).  The endeavor ended quite abruptly by the way, because they tried selling them at NASCAR races, which was a big no-no for those NASCAR staff.  Anyway, I don't remember what I put on my profile, but I know that I put something about checking the "News" at The Onion because sometime after I posted my profile, I got an IM on my Yahoo! Messenger from some guy named Chris saying "thanks for reminding me to check The Onion today."  We chatted for a bit about ourselves, about Sacramento, and that was about it. I thought he was nice. A few days later the law firm I was working at removed Yahoo! Messenger from my work computer and that was that.

Flash forward a few months later and I had moved to Sacramento, started classes, and was working part-time at a job downtown. I liked my job, but I was miserable in Sacramento.  I didn't know anyone, my roommate was less than ideal, and more importantly, I didn't know what to do in Sacramento at all. I was, in short, super lonely.

I decided to try my hand at online dating in earnest, but I was way too cheap (and poor) to actually pay to contact someone, so I waited to see who would contact me. I had several guys email me, but none that piqued my interest enough to respond to them. I, did, however, come across Chris' profile again. I extrapolated his email address based on his Yahoo! ID, asked him for some help with things to do in Sacramento, and a few days later he got back to me. We chatted online and soon after, on the phone.  And when he suggested meeting up to play Pub Trivia on a Sunday night at a local English Pub, I was hooked. What better way to this girl's heart than trivia! (I had played some pub trivia back in Berkeley, but it had been several months, so I was itching to play some more).  So I plucked up my courage and went to meet him.  Apparently, he didn't need as much courage as his two good friends were there with him (if I had known anyone to be a wing man or woman, I would have brought them, but I didn't).  I impressed them by figuring out an anagram that spelled out Melissa Joan Hart (I'm pretty sure part of that anagram was @$$), helped answer some other questions and sipped on some hard cider.  I had the first fun night since moving to Sacramento five weeks prior.

We went on our first official date, without his friends, three days later.  It's not a classic online dating story. I didn't meet up with anyone else. But it's a good story, and it's our story. And 8 and a half years later, we still chat online everyday, but not with Yahoo! Messenger of course. Oh no, Google Chat is so much better and doesn't require installing any pesky software that your employer might decide to delete. :)

Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone!