In 1997, I met my husband thanks to an obnoxious coworker. I was a 27-year-old data entry clerk at the California Department of Food and Agriculture. My coworkers were other recent graduates making ends meet. We were friends — all of us except one.
This particular coworker, as she liked to remind us, came from a wealthy family. She didn’t talk to us often — that is, except when she felt like bragging, as she did the day she trounced into the office to announce her brother had won a radio.
My coworkers and I decided we, too, would win something. And our prize would be cool because it would be won online. (Remember, in 1997, the internet was a shiny new toy.) Unfortunately, I was the only one with a computer, as very few people had personal computers then.
So, every night, I entered all of us into a plethora of competitions. I got in the habit and kept at it even after I got a much better-paying job, working the night shift at a publishing plant. In the process, I discovered a site that paid virtual coins for clicking on other webpages.
One of the sites it paid me to visit was American Singles, a simple and slightly boring bulletin board. As I was about to log out, I met a 26-year-old guy calling himself Dionysus. We immediately hit it off, and I stayed logged on.
We chatted every night for 6 months
He was finishing his degree, and though he was in the UK, because I was working the night shift, it was basically like we were in the same time zone. We talked about everything, for about six hours each night for six months. I told him things I hadn’t shared with anyone else. In fact, I got so wrapped up in talking to him that I completely forgot to keep entering contests.
I chatted with abandon, completely unaware that he was paying for the internet by the minute. When his bill came, he decided it would be cheaper to fly to the US to meet me in California. He asked if that would be OK, and I said yes.
Then, he came to the US to visit me
I was both anxious and excited, and those co-workers, with whom I was still friends, didn’t help. They asked how I knew the man I was talking to wasn’t a 60-year-old grandmother. I didn’t; I’d only learned three months into chatting that his real name was Adrian.
His timing was also unfortunate. At the time, there was a story all over the news about a stalker using the internet to prey on a young girl. So, when I told my mom a guy I met online was coming, she panicked. “He’s an ax murderer, I’m driving down,” she said. I begged her not to come, but our conversation did nothing to alleviate the apprehension that had been building. A stranger from another country would soon be staying in my apartment. Was this a good idea?
It was a bit awkward at first, but we got through it
When we finally met, we discovered a few cultural differences. Though English people generally don’t tend to have a flair for the dramatic, picking up stakes and coming to a new country just to meet someone you’ve been chatting with online is pretty bold. So, Adrian tried to compensate during our first visit by making his surroundings a bit more English.
On his first night in the US, we had pizza. I opened the box and took a slice. He sat staring at it. “Do you have a knife and fork?” he inquired. I assured him I did. “Can I have them?”
I gaped, and watched with amusement as he attempted to eat a pizza with utensils. After a while, he gave up and ate with his hands. (When we went to the UK to meet his family, I understood. You can’t eat British pizza any other way.)
Since pizza was not an unalloyed success, I decided to take him to Starbucks, thinking, who doesn’t know about Starbucks? It turned out, the British. (The chain’s first store opened in London in 1998, and Adrian had never been to one before. He asked me if it was named after Battlestar Galactica.) Welcome to America.
But we persevered and, over time, learned one another’s routines, insecurities, and quirks. When it got serious, I took him to meet my mom. She really liked him — possibly because he passed the test of not hacking me to death.
We dated for about three months after he came to the US. During that time, we toured San Francisco and camped on the beach in Monterey. Then, he asked me to go to the UK for two weeks to meet his family. His family was incredibly welcoming, and one of his friends took a week out of his life to show me their corner of England. I loved it, and I loved his family.
When we got back to my apartment in Davis, we settled down to watch a documentary about mummification. As the narrator described the process, Adrian asked me to marry him. I said yes, and we eloped in 1999.
It’s been 27 years since we met in person. We are now 54 and 53 years old, and of course, we are still chatting.
Read the full article here
