I was nineteen when I met him. I was in that phase we all go through where we bury ourselves online. We chat and send emails, we set up our first websites with Homestead and play online games until three in the morning. We don't' sleep because there is always some one who is awake and online. You stay up until four in the morning and wake up two hours later at six and check your email.
That's where I was when he and I met.
My first experience with a chat room took place in Lycos. (Their chat rooms closed a long time ago.) I had been trying to find a room where my sister (who lives in Canada) and I could chat while I was at the library and almost all chat rooms were sonic wall blocked.
Then there was Lycos.
I discovered a room called Divorced Moms and Dads (DMD) and fell right into place. I met some beyond awesome people, many of whom I am still friends with now. I was officially the youngest member of the group. I didn't go into the room looking to hook up with anyone. This entire time period was before I had seen "You've Got Mail" and I was just happy to have an outlet.
He and I talked when he was in the room, just like I talked to pretty much everyone in there. It was a few weeks before he started to email me and IM me (enter MSN Messenger) when I wasn't in the room. It came to be that I spent a great deal of my time at the law office where I worked chatting with him while he was working. Were there flowers? I think he sent me flowers. No, he didn't send them. He said he had wanted to send them. So much about him and the relationship we would have could be defined by that simple sentence.
Emails led to flirting, flirting led to phone calls, phone calls led to plans and plans led to him buying a plane ticket and flying out to San Antonio.
It was October 12th 2000. It's weird that I can remember the date.
We were going out that night with The Cake Lady. God, I was nervous. I chewed all my nails off. I could have thrown up at the airport. When he got off the plane, I knew immediately that it was him. And not because I had all of these great pictures that he had emailed but because of how he looked at me, like he knew me. It was like he walked out of the gate and immediately made eye contact with me and smiled. We hugged and then walked down to get his luggage.
I was riding so much adrenaline and so nervous. I can't remember what we said, I just remember the way he kept looking at me. Just smiling and looking at me. He was looking at me like he had just met the girl he loved.
He loved me already.
I thought I loved him already as well, but I didn't. I had a crush and he was in love.
We got lost going back to my place. I got us lost. He got us unlost. He called his mom to let her know that he was there and talked to his sons. I am pretty sure that he had lied about where he was going. I think he said he was making a business trip to avoid that look you give crazy people. I probably would have done the same thing.
At my place, he gave my girls presents. There were Winnie the Pooh toys and some movies. And also, he had ordered me gifts which were delivered to my place. The best of which was the computer. He had bought me a Gateway which I loved and an autobiography kit. He loved that I wrote then. He encouraged it. He would tell me that I should just quit working and write. In fact he told me he bought me the computer so I would write. There was also a massage kit with oils and such and a sex game which I don't think that we played for like a year.
He kissed me for the first time before we went out with The Cake Lady. I was standing in front of my dresser putting something up and he just walked over to me. I knew he was going to kiss me. I remember looking at him and thinking he's going to kiss me. Boy howdy, could he kiss. In fact when it came to all things physical and sexual, he could do them all - very well. He introduced me to my sexuality, I swear it.
Anyway, we took my daughters and loaded them into the rental car (Mustang convertible) and drove to the coast listening to Matchbox Twenty. We had a wonderful hotel room a block or two from the beach. He had planned everything very carefully and enlisted the help of my best friend from high school, Tempest. There were boxes at her place with stuff he had shipped down before hand so I wouldn't know.
This is what he was good at, dear reader. He was charming. It was almost as though he had went and bought the book of what women want and he followed each and every step.
We were there for two nights and they were very Fairy Tale. We went horseback riding on the beach and ate in fancy restaurants. He took me to the beach and set up this elaborate picnic with cheese and fruit and wine, all on a blanket by the ocean.
Oh yeah, I was screwed.
By the end of the weekend, I was head over heels. He has said everything I wanted to hear, done everything I needed him to do. In short he had been perfect. When we drove home, we started to make plans on how we were going to be together.
next...
Labels: History Lesson
