How to fall in love without even trying

People meet on the internet everyday. There are plenty of friendships developed over those cables and phone lines. At some point people developed something that moved beyond personal ads like the one I used to read for hope and amusement in Village Voice too long ago to count. In fact that is how Sunny met her husband of, dang, twenty years! She answered his ad, a xerox copy of that ad resides in a plastic red heart-shaped ad. To this day she laughs over his "nices" and "vices" list on that piece of paper.

TGF and I met over the internet but not at a site like mat*ch.com, and certainly not e-hypocrisy given their policy of not working with anyone who does not identify as heterosexual. She joined a listserv that I had been a member of for the better part of eight years. We bantered mostly onlist but eventually a bit off as well. At some point we spent more and more time off list emailing. She wrote about craving chocolate and I offered to send her some excellent stuff (some argue that since being bought out the quality has gone down. She freely sent me her mailing address 2500 miles away. Then realizing her potential mistake emailed me back asking if I was a stalker or a serial killer. My reply that I was no serial killer but being a stalker was always a possibility. See, bantering.

It's hard to explain how we went from emailing a few times a week, to every day, to the first phone call, to talking 5-6 days a week in a span of less than two months but that's what happened. On the phone and over email we talked about relationships (she was just leaving a long-term one, I was in an long-term open relationship), our families, passions (her include muscle cars and all things Coke), yearnings. Everything really. The attraction built incredibly fast, she has one of the best voices ever which is a big thing for me. We also fought during this time, a foreshadowing I'm sure of what our therapist calls our "core issues".

The draw was so intense I think it fueled some of our fights because we saw, or more accurately sensed that we represented big changes for ourselves, each other. But I do wonder how many couples who meet over the internet fight as intensely as we did before they have looked into each others eyes. Oh those eyes. Did I ever mention her gorgeous blue eyes? Her eyes are so expressive, I can call up about a dozen visions of her eyes representing a dozen moods. The first time we met, we each flew from our respective homes to Vegas, one of her favorite places. We flirted, touched, walked in the opulence that is Vegas, and had tense moments, probably out and out fights. All in the three and a half days. I remembering thinking that that weekend would be my only chance to actually see her. There was an irrational set of fears that she and all that could be would disappear so I searched endlessly through many shops seeking a charm for the bracelet I didn't own that would represent her somehow, some tangible evidence, a fetish item that I could look at, touch long after she had evaporated.

Neither one of could say what we knew before Vegas, nor could we speak those three little words in person. I fought within myself the entire trip, "say it, don't say it". I could have stripped a field of daisies in those three days. The first meeting only confirmed what I knew: that she had my heart; it also confirmed that this was not going to be a mellow, low key relationship. I was right and that's just fine by me. It is a relief to yell with emotion and not have to turn right away to comfort the other person. Just like I have never been as open hearted, I have never been more in touch with my anger which is a good, if challenging thing.

It is so true that love comes when you're not looking at least as often as when people haunt the halls of love.