So although he tells it well, here’s my version of the thing…
Yes we met on the internet. No, it was not a dating site or one of those singles/personals bulletin boards. It was this IRC network that we’ve both been hanging out in for several years. Hanging out in, but not so much talking to each other, or interracting with each other at all really. One day someone pastes a link to his site in the channel. I click. There are pictures and I take note - he’s cute. I coninue to click in my online stalker way. Go through all the photos with the specific intention of looking for a female presence in his life. Click, click, click. Awww damn. It’s not immediately apparent - he has nothing declaring “the love of my life, _____,” but there is a girl. So I cross him off in my internal list of possibilities and move on.
Soon after my stalk-fest we talk a bit. I don’t recall why, or how, but I probed about the girl in the photos. He seemed squirmy and I resumed my quest. It was obvious to me he didn’t think she was the answer to all his questions.
So we talk a little more. Things move fast. One day we’re talking about how a burger needs to built in exactly the right order, ensuring proper heat distribution in order to melt the cheese while keeping the tomato cool and lettuce crisp, and a couple of weeks later we decide we absolutely must meet.
Somewhere between the two he becomes single (no, that has nothing to do with me… it was coming). In February I magically (for the first time in my postal employment history) am handed a 3-day weekend. Found out I had the weekend off thursday morning, invited myself to his place, and by thursday night I was in his arms. And everything was perfect . And safe. And wonderful.
And then I had to go home, and it wasn’t wonderful anymore. DIstance doesn’t work for me. It’s hard for anything to go anywhere when you are thousands of miles apart. So one day I’m at work talking to him via IM on my phone when I realize it’s not working.
“The more I think about it, the more I wonder why I’m still here.” At that point all I could think about was the fact that we weren’t together and how much my heart hurt because of that.
Yes, Mark. Sappy. Shut it.
So I decide to move. And even though next week I cross the border to a new home, last week I went up to see him again. The weedend was fantastic. We went snowboarding and stayed in a hotel in the mountains. It was fabulous - sun and snow and mountains for miles. And falling and bruises and ouch. But still, totally amazing.
Today I pack. He arrives tonight. I’ll drive up to the airport in BC. Tomorrow we play tourist in Seattle, and Sunday we will pack/clean/get ready to leave. Sometime next week we should be on our way to Calgary. So fast.
So happy.
