Finding Love On Prodigy
Not quite 10 years ago, I started exchanging emails with The Nymph after we met on a forum. When she finally decided to travel (a considerable distance!) so we could visit (me having a more inflexible job than her at the time) her sisters pitched a considerable fit because they thought that as “some man on the internet” I was probably going to dismember her and stow the parts in plastic trash bags; they’d seen it happen on some breathless television show, you understand.
Well, that’s not quite how it went, and we’re still happy together. So you’ll understand why I have considerable sympathy in me for this tale of a 19-year relationship that began on Prodigy and really got going with a first date that ended with a ride home to the folks in a police car:
My parents weren’t concerned that they never paid for my Prodigy usage nor did they understand why there never seemed to be any long-distance charges for calling the boy I’d met from New York City on the teen discussion message board.
Our parents didn’t mind us chatting online or talking on the phone, which we did for hours at a time thanks to a phone-phreaking acquaintance, and they didn’t object to us meeting in person. They just didn’t want to put much effort into making it happen.
I realized if I was ever going to hang out with the boy of my angsty, riot grrrl dreams, I’d have to do it on my own.
After yet another explosive fight with my parents, I told them I was going to the deli down the street to grab a sub, but instead, I called a taxi from a payphone. Before I left, I told my uncle where I was going and swore him to secrecy.
The taxi took me to the Trenton train station, which began my long trek to the wilderness of Staten Island–a place so backwards that it wasn’t totally wired for cable TV until the early 1990s. Even today, wild turkeys roam the streets.
From Trenton to Hoboken to the World Trade Center to the Whitehall ferry terminal to the Staten Island ferry terminal, where the boy was waiting for me in the arrivals hall decked out in his finest clothes of a Skinny Puppy T-shirt and Docs…
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Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=9614
I’ve been married online (for about two days, before she asked for a divorce so she could online-marry someone else) because I said “I do” during a conversation, and she said “Are we married now?”
Never had anything serious result from an online first meeting, but one lady used FB to reach out and find me, that was a nice few weeks, and another ex and I would spend hours each night on different computers in the same room sending links and things back and forth. After we both went home, we’d get back on chat and message until 2am, only to meet up at Uni again at 6 or 7. I made myself get up that early because I really cared for her, enough to sacrifice my otherwise sacred sleeping in time. We were together for five years, overall I’m glad we had the time together that we did.
Now many people complain about the time that technology takes from us, I say use it to do things, connect with people, video-chat, arrange to meet friends, just remember that it’s supposed to serve your needs. It can be Very useful for helping two people have a meeting of the minds before a meeting AFK.
re:
“…I was probably going to dismember her and stow the parts in plastic trash bags;…”
Er… did the Nymph’s sisters specify just how far into the future this might happen?
They figured it would happen on that first visit, I think. But one of them obviously still thinks I’m just biding my time, from the way she treats me.