My Nathan

Today is April 25th. Today is a full year after the first time Nathan professed his affection for me over the Internet.
I’ll never believe how lucky I was to meet him.. If just one thing hadn’t fallen right into line, I never would have. I used to be quite an internet geek.. I played several mass player online role-playing games, such as Ultima Online. After I got sick of Ultima Online, and after I had ruined my relationship with my purely cyber boyfriend of 2.5 years, I fled into the bowels of The Sims Online… an evilly boring game where the only dynamic is how many 32-bit dates you could get in one week. Nevertheless, I was on the rebound and relished in the game. It was a haven for horndogs like me. I became a popular player and whirled through more one-day friends than I could count. But eventually I tired of meeting internet slobs and retired to a racy sim house where some of my more semi-lasting sim friends dwelled, like Tabby Katz. I still had a couple of uncommitted boyfriends.. but I was pretty sick of the whole internet dating thing.. Really, I was. In real life Tabby was a 25 year old woman with 2 children and was in the middle of going through a divorce because her husband had cheated on her while she was pregnant with their second child. But she didn’t have a college education, nor a job, and there was no way she was giving custody of their children to that guy, so it wasn’t as simple as just leaving him. So as to temporarily forget about her real-life problems, she “dated” some more creeps in The Sims Online.. And had a somewhat serious (though unlikely) relationship with the very famous Risso. But like everyone else who had played The Sims Online from the beginning, Risso got pretty bored and decided to switch games. He pulled Tabby with him into Shadowbane. I continued to play Sims Online for my few lingering companions, especially Marcus, whom I had a bit of a crush on. However, I continued to talk to Tabby and we became good friends. She wanted me to play Shadowbane with her and Risso, trying to seduce me by telling me about all of the wonderful men in her guild that she had met. I was skeptical and I kept telling myself that Internet dating was for chumps.. So I was like.. “yeah.. uh huh”
 One night I was flirting with Marcus when Tabby invited us both to a chatroom on MSN with one of her Shadowbane men (in retrospect, it amazes me that she got this guy to go into a chatroom to meet new people.. I mean.. Truly weird indeed. He must have had the hots for her). Guess who the Shadowbane guy was! That’s right, Nathan.. The future love of my life! 😀 of course.. At that time he was under the pseudo name “Chimes” or “Richard” (I never made the connection between those names to the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind that we both liked, until he pointed it out to me). Anyway, Marcus and Nathan were immediately at odds with eachother, but I could dish it out as I took it from Nathy.. and so I didn’t really mind him, irritating as he was (aww, love at first sight, eh?). Tabby assured me that Nathan got better with a little bit of time. I guess I believed her, but still held some doubts. But I had fun with my new acquaintance anyway. I teased him about being Canadian and he jumped all over me about being a vegetarian. I never really thought I would talk to him again though. He didn’t seem very interested in me. I added him to my buddy list but I had the full expectation that I would delete his name after a couple of weeks of never talking to him.
 But before that happened I got bored one night and he was the only person online on my buddy list, so I took the risk of getting my head blown off to talk to him. Of course, I found out that he wasn’t nearly as bad when he was relaxed, and that we actually had a lot in common. He lived with his parents on an acreage in Alberta. He was a college drop out (a fact he hid from his parents by making tire tracks in the snow) he had somewhat low self esteem, and had had a few Internet relationships gone wrong, but he was strangely still carefree. I even discovered a very sweet side and a mildly romantic tendancy. We chatted friendedly for hours until one of us had to go. I IMed him several times after that and i always felt happy afterwards. After a week or soI realized that I really kind of liked him. We talked about how he’d drive me to Italy in his float-able car, and sit on the beach, get a tan. I wanted him to hold me and read to me and he agreed he would. I guess that was when we started talking about anything romantic, but i didn’t really take it seriously. I liked the idea but I didn’t make anything out of it at the time.. I figured we were just teasing eachother. I guess we were. Marcus and I were still trying to make something out of our relationship. I wanted to be with him and vice versa, but he was also into some other girl at the time so i gave up.
On April 25th, perhaps the second or so week i had known Nathan. I convinced both he and Marcus to get into a chatroom with me… it was pretty akward though. They didn’t really get along, and at some point Marcus asked me who I liked better then. I hate picking favorites but they eventually got it out of me that I had a little thing for Nathan. Apparently he felt the same.. Later that night we were doing our usual goofing around.. but then it turned into something.. He was tickling me and I pulled him onto a virtual couch and he was on top of me. How was I to know that Nathan wasn’t that kind of boy? I was having fun though. I didn’t necessarily care if it turned into anything at that point. But then he asked if I would be offended if he cyber kissed me. I said no. I really liked the idea of it. I could imagine the soft sweet kiss, and his body pressing against me. Ever sense then I’ve been hooked. I loved him at the point and have continued to love him and I always will.
 Over the last year, I have met him in person 3 times. 4 weeks in all. I cherish every moment we spent.. in real life and on the interent. But I definately want some more of that real life kind of stuff. In august we are moving in together to remedy the distance. I am expecting it will be wonderful. Nathan and I get along very well.. as far as we know anyway. Heehee. I know we will have a lot of fun together. I can’t wait.
 Happy anniversery Nathan. I love you with all of my heart.