Okay. We first met online in late March 1999.
Tina was trying to build an international section for her directory
of businesses allowing people to get close to, or pet animals. At the time I was
hosting a site for my ex wife, about a riding
school and a goat farm which she runs in Cambridgeshire UK. Strangely, the
email Tina sent arrived empty, and even more strangely I didn't immediately
delete it, but, for some reason, intrigued, I left it in my in box. A few days
later I returned the empty note asking her to try again.
There I was, literally
minding my own business. All I was trying to do was find other sites like mine
to list on my directory, and I get this reply that an email had gone out blank.
"Oh, GREAT!" I thought. And just HOW many of my emails are going out
blank?? Slightly embarrassed, I re-sent the original message with a short
apology and didn't think much else about it, other than it was nice of this
person to at least tell me he'd gotten what was left of my email.
After that we wrote to each other pretty much
on a daily basis, and within a few days we were communicating using ICQ.
I hadn't had many responses about
the critter directory, and I was really enjoying the fact that someone
had replied to one of my emails, so I was more than happy to talk to this person
who called himself "Gerry". Once I had added his horse and goat sites
to both my directory and my webring, just out of curiosity, I clicked on the
link that said, "Visit the author's homepage". As I was waiting for
the site to load, some music started playing, and I thought, "Oh, cool!
This is from Rocky Horror Picture Show. I LOVE that movie." Then I saw a
link to his Star Trek page, and something began telling me that this was a
pretty neat guy. Animals, Star Trek, and RHPS? Hmmmm...
Although I had already decided that Gerry was someone I was glad I'd met, there
were a couple of things that made me dismiss any thoughts of a relationship with
him. Not the least of which was the fact that we live on different CONTINENTS,
but another thing I had to consider was that I was seeing someone else at the
time. However, there had been some problems that weren't getting any better, and
Gerry's was a wonderfully safe ear to bend. I didn't have to worry that he would
try to take advantage of my unsure situation, and he was always willing to
listen to me and to give objective opinions and advice. In other words, as I'm
sure you've already figured out, I never saw it coming ;o)
Even though I had begun to realize that my current relationship was doomed, I
still never thought it would be possible even to MEET Gerry, since neither of us
is rich, and I assumed that a plane ticket either direction would be horribly
expensive. We had only known each other for a few weeks, but already Gerry &
I seemed to be SO comfortable talking about anything and everything (and I mean
EVERYTHING...), and deep in my heart, I started wishing that somehow we could
meet in person and see if our relationship was "real". Then, somewhere
during one of our ICQ chats, we ended up looking for airfares...
Later in April I found a site advertising
rather cheap flights to the US. After investigating we discovered that the price
was a lot more expensive than the advertised price, but now that we'd got this
far we decided to go ahead. I booked a flight, and was finally going to meet my
lovely lady in July. It seemed to be such a long time off, & we counted down
the days. As we moved through May, we were getting closer to each other all the
time, it became clear that we wanted to be together permanently and we started
looking into the whole Visa thing. We looked into the various ways that it would
be possible for me to get over there without finding much in our favour.
Meantime we were still becoming closer & closer. Till on June 2nd 1999 at
around 11:30pm I asked Tina to marry me & guess what? ((((-:, she said YES.
Gerry's proposal to me took me
completely off guard. We had both been separated only a few months from our
previous spouses, and I think we were both very much NOT looking for a new
relationship. We had already discussed our feelings on possible future
marriages, and neither of us was much interested in that particular detail. So
on that evening, while chatting once again, Gerry began a sentence with
"Tina..." and then never finished. I waited for a bit, wondering what
he was going to say, and thinking perhaps something had distracted him for a
moment. But then he went offline! Well, OK, that had happened quite frequently
too. He would often get disconnected while we were chatting, so I would just
wait a few minutes and he'd reappear. But he didn't. My phone rang instead. I
was very pleasantly surprised to hear his gorgeous voice on the other end of the
line, but I was still confused as to why he would call me when we'd just been
chatting online. We talked about how we might go about giving this relationship
a go, and he jokingly said something like he guessed he'd have to marry
me. I laughed at that, since I just KNEW he was teasing me, but then he
said, "So what ya reckon then?" I was completely silent for what
seemed like a long time, and when I still didn't hear him laughing at the joke,
I said, incredulously, "Are you ASKING me???" I heard an affirmative,
"Mmm" on the other end, and my heart just about stopped. My brain
slowly recovered from the shock and I realized that he was completely serious.
And when I thought about it, I found that my heart already knew the answer, and
had known it for a long time. I couldn't stop saying, "YES!!!"
Sometime in June we also arranged for Tina to
visit me in the UK early in September. So, as July14th approached, we were
getting nervous & excited all at the same time, we talked online & on
the phone the whole night before I left at 4am UK time to catch the plane. I got
a coach from Cambridge to London Gatwick and it would be 17 hours before I'd be
able to talk to my love again, the longest time we'd have spent out of contact
since we first started talking to each other back in March. I arrived at
Charlotte airport at 3:30pm EST. It seemed to take forever to get from the plane
& through immigration; the guy at the immigration desk hadn't come across
anyone who'd met over the net & was intrigued. I almost got embarrassed at
one of his questions, "You gonna make some moves on this lady then?"
It was all too tempting to tell him I already had, but I restrained myself.
There was a whole mass of people at the exit & I was beginning to think that
Tina must be waiting for me somewhere else when someone moved in front of me
& I saw Tina leaning against a post just ahead of me. We just fell into
each others arms for what seemed like an age, (probably just a few seconds, but
you know how it is). If I remember correctly, the only words that passed were,
"Hi" & "Hi ya", till we'd calmed down.
Well, the next two weeks went all too quickly,
we sorta tentatively planned that I'd make arrangements to leave the UK on a
Visa waiver & return with Tina after her visit in September, so that we
could sort the K1 application together. Unfortunately, when I got home I found
that the tenants I had in my house in Huntingdon had left, and had left the
place in a bit of a mess, so I had to move back there, get it sorted &
re-rent it, all that was going to put our plans back a few weeks. Anyway it did
make things easier for Tina's visit here, as we wouldn't have to live out of my
one room in Cambridge.
August came & went & I went to Gatwick
to pick up Tina. Having travelled all the way there & all but two miles back
to my house, my car suddenly ground to a halt & Tina got her first taste of
British roadside assistance, in the form of Vic' the Maltese mechanic from the
RAC, (Royal Automobile Club). That rather messed up some of my plans, but, hey,
we're adults, we knew how to make our own entertainment (-:
We did Huntingdon, Cambridge, London, Windsor
& Stone Henge, visited friends & family. Tina even got to see some
traditional Church Bell ringing, a British town carnival, some steam trains
& Concorde taking off from Heathrow airport. (click
here to see some pics). It was a wonderful two weeks, but yet again it went
all too quickly and I had to say goodbye to my love all too soon.
