Pen Pals

In 1996 every family across our country was infiltrated. We received endless CD's in the mail to launch a new internet program called America Online.  I was 13 and begged my parents to sign us up and they did!  It was an amazing new revolution called "the internet", especially for a young teenage girl such as me, who had strict rules and curfew. Now, I had ultimate freedom online, and I went straight for the teen Houston chat rooms. Since I loved music with an extreme passion, and played clarinet, I created my user name as Muzicbabe.  I began searching for other members who were in my age bracket, in Houston, and who enjoyed many of the same bands and hobbies as I did. I found several new friends always adding them to my "buddy list".  We all exchanged phone numbers and had group conversations, sometimes with up to ten people, creating phone parties, talking and laughing late into the night. Many of my "AOL buddies" and I exchanged mailing addresses. We sent each other pictures, letters and became pen pals.  As the years passed, though, I developed real life boyfriends, became active in after school activities, and excelled with my clarinet in wind ensemble, I strayed from the computer more and more.  I graduated high school, and the late night AOL friends simply vanished back into cyberspace, rarely ever thought of again.

Making A List...Checking It Twice

In the spirit of Christmas, this week’s “how we met” story is about a couple who share their love with others every day.

Steve and Oddny Gumaer are the co-founders of Partners Relief and Development. Partners Relief & Development is a registered charity in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States, working with communities impacted by war in Burma. Partners relief strives to provide free, full lives for the children and refugees of Burma.

Do you know the Alanis Morissette song, 21 things? It’s a guitar led and gritty song about all the things she wants in a lover. The point, however, is not the merits of this rock song, it is that I had a list like this too.

In 1989 I decided that living with Phil Anderson, even though we were best friends, was not cool anymore. We lived on the fourth floor of Hua Mark Condominiums, just across the street from Ramkamhaeng University in Bangkok. Phil had this habit of blowing his nose in the shower between yodeling and doing bird-calls;every morning…really. It drove me nuts. He was also a large he, not a lithe she. He liked to eat Turian. I describe Turian, the fruit many Asians refer to as “the king of fruits”, as a cross between decomposing garlic and dirty athletic socks with a suspiciously urine hue to it. How much better would it be to wake up with Meg Ryan next to me than waking up to Phil with his Turian breath and bird calls? So I started hunting for Meg.

Remember that at this time I was still dressing like a 50 year old, wearing aviator glasses (they weren’t cool back then), and dressing in either grey or baby blue button up shirt-sleeves. The exception of course was the very stylish madras cotton ones, colored like a rainbow, reserved for special occasions. I wasn’t exactly Meg Ryan material.

Darkest Before The Dawn

John and I met, in all places, in a nightclub.

A few days later over coffee, John told me of his situation: he was an asylum seeker in community detention with no working rights.

John had been forced to leave his home and family in Nigeria nearly four years earlier. Even though the civil war had ended, the unstable and volatile political situation continued to take thousands of lives and threaten the country’s stability. Several attempts had been made on John’s life and he finally had no choice but to flee, leaving behind everything he knew and loved: his career, his community, his family, and his future. He had his life, but had lost everything else. 

Zen and the Art....A Work In Progress

Frankly, this is not all that unique or, dare I say, Hollywood romantic.

In its basic elements we were both in our early thirties, both divorced, with the usual trappings that go with the status at the time.  In addition, Barb was what is now known a a single parent with two boys. We were brought together by a neighbor of mine who knew her from work.  We met...became a couple...and sort of decided one day (seven months later) that we should get married before taking off on a three week motorcycle tour of Western Canada and the US. The trip had been planned anyhow--probably the first honeymoon trip that was planned before there were even thoughts about getting married.
By way of background, those were the days when motorcycle touring was a bit of a rage for those in the Midwest.I, of course, took to it as a way of experiencing the world from a different perspective--an activity that drove my co-workers and parents crazy as they could not see how a corporate lawyer could ever be seen on a motorcycle.  Barb took to it because it was a way to see the world, and, I suppose, me.  It was a real low profile wedding--we both had been there before with the big church weddings and just did not feel the need again.  What we both had in common, I suppose, was a spirit of adventure--we were followers of William Least Heat Moon's book--"Blue Highways and I struggled with "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Pirsig.

The Adventure Continues

In 1966, I was 18 yrs old and on my way to college. The last thing my parents told me was, “Do not get involved with those Mennonite liberal girls." During Freshman orientation students went to a Professor's home for social interaction Sunday afternoon before classes started. My roommate and I signed up for this event as well as Alice and her roommate. I was attracted to Alice even though she was not as conservative as the girls from my church. We played the game “Booby Trap,” and I sometimes gave her hints on which piece to remove. After eating pizza we got up to leave. Alice was impressed when I opened the door and waited for them to file through. She was quite happy when her roommate and my roommate went first and it just seemed natural for me to walk her back to campus. We talked quite a bit and decided to meet after evening church so I could teach her how to play table tennis. After church Alice got this scary feeling, “What if I don't recognize that guy?” Oh, well, she thought, “I'll go with the guy who is carrying a table tennis paddle.” Yes, we found each other and went to the Student Center, but it was locked. We sat on the steps and did a lot of talking. By the time the evening was over, we felt like we had known each other for years.

How To Save A Life

As these two writers recognize, there are good and bad people both on and off line. It takes courage to pursue a relationship when your trust has been used up. Sometimes, though, the hero does come "riding in" across the internet lines just in time to save a life.

Before I met Steve, I had been in and out of two long term relationships.  It took a lot of guts, but I had broken up with my previous boyfriend of five years to explore my feelings. After I had broken up with my ex, I was participating in some weird on-line relationships.  Needless to say, that didn't work out...it was just an experience, that was all.  For the most part, I found that (as in any community) the on-line community was filled with people who are good people and people who are not so good.
I had made a lot of online friends over the years and one of them was Steve.  Out of all of the people that I talked to, Steve was the only person that I had a genuine respect for.  Aside from the fact that we shared the same interests, I saw that he had a lot more to offer as a person.  He is the most intelligent person that I had ever met in my life.  He is also very sweet, charming, and funny, and shares the same sarcastic sense of humor that I do.  It's like I had finally found somebody who just 'got me'.

Finding Love Where You Lease Expect It

I was in and out of a relationship with a man for eight years. He wasn't the best of men; he had been in and out of jail, but I still thought he was my soul mate. We had grown up together, so I knew what I was getting myself into, but I didn't care. All I cared about was how he made me feel. I felt special and loved everyday.
Two days before Christmas 2008, this man who had told me how I was the perfect girl for him, and that he loved me, now was not in love with me anymore. It crushed my heart into a million pieces. The day after Christmas I moved out of our apartment. Suffering from anxiety and depression, I was in a very dark place.
Over the next few days, my mom joked around with me about going on an online dating site. With nothing to lose I did. I signed up for a free site and within a few days I came across Eric's profile. I thought he was cute, but he was from a city 300 miles away. I sent him a message anyway. We quickly started emailing each other, and I noticed myself smiling again. He was so funny. We then started to text each other, both of us too shy to actually call. About 3 weeks later, he sent me a text that said "I am going to do something out of character" within seconds my phone was ringing. We talked for about an hour and I remember the whole time I was smiling.When I got off the phone my jaw hurt! From then on we talked for hours on the phone. I could feel myself coming out of that dark place and being able to do things I hadn’t been able to do in months.

Beetlejuice

Twenty years ago I met my husband for the first time. I was studying for college mid-terms on a Saturday night before Halloween. I needed a break, so I headed down to the Brat Stop on I-94 in Kenosha,WI for some ice cream.The Brat Stop was a one-stop shop for cheese curds and beer, and, if you were in a dancing mood, you could enjoy live music in the bar. 
I skimmed the shelves and to my surprise, no ice cream. How could a place that boasted of dairy products not have ice cream? Majorly bummed, I walked into the bar and ran into a friend who waitressed there. She told me to stay for the Halloween party. I wore no costume except for a cut off tie-dyed Jimi Hendrix T-shirt and those awful tapered pants that could make the skinniest girl look like she carried a hot air balloon for a butt.The usual costumes walked by – a guy dressed as a devil, a woman dressed like a zebra, etc. Then I saw two men walk in. One guy was normal except he held a small alien that smoked and held a beer. The other was a dude in Beetlejuice clothing with baby powder in his hair.

Love Boat

My husband and I met in 1991 when I was on a cruise celebrating my divorce. He was on the same cruise along with nine friends. The water was extremely rough, and I was so sick that I was wandering around trying to get topside for some fresh air. He found me on the stairs,I was looking really ill. He asked me if he could help me, and I answered “I need outside”.He helped me find some open air on deck and introduced himself. At the time I was pretty tired of having guys bolt when they heard I had kids, so my introduction went like this “Hi, my name is Patti and I'm  twenty four and divorced with two kids.” As expected he said he had to go meet some friends and took off. The next night at dinner I realized he was at the next table and everyone at my table had just heard the story.They all encouraged me to go apologize for being rude. So, I walked up to the table and tapped him on the shoulder and said “I don’t know if you remember me from last night, but I just wanted to say thanks for helping me and I’m sorry I was so rude.” The man sitting next to him laughed and said "Wow! He wasn’t kidding. He did meet a cute red head last night, we thought he made you up." They invited my friend and me to hang with them that night, and we got to know each other over the course of the trip. He was in Illinois and I was in Pennsylvania, so I knew I could never see him once the cruise was over. I was wrong. He called me often over the next few months, and then offered to buy me a ticket to come visit him, because he knew as a single mom I couldn’t afford it myself. Well, love bloomed and he flew me out once a month for about a year. He did get cold feet at one point and broke up with me for a few months and then called to explain that he was sorry. It was just that after his divorce he really didn’t want to go down that path again, but now he realized he wanted to be with me. His friends later told me they were telling him to call me, too. We saw each other for about six months more and then he said “Why don’t you think about moving to Illinois with your kids, because these flights are expensive and it’s almost cheaper to buy you a house.” Within about three months we found a house that he purchased, and me and my children moved. We have lived in Illinois since 1993 and were married in 2002. We will be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary on October 13^th and will be together 20 years this Thanksgiving.