Fourth anniversary

Four years ago today, I married a wonderful man.

He has been my best friend since high school. We met on the internet, which carries a terrible connotation these days.

Back in '98, I started a little website about a videogame that I liked, mostly to teach myself HTML and to participate in the videogame's fandom. After a while, I started writing fanfiction with the characters from the game. I read other people's writing, and thought that it might be fun to host other people's writing and artwork on my site.

Along came this really nice guy who wanted to post his stories on my site. His writing was pleasant and cheerful. I had quickly learned that on the internet, you judge people by their work, and can generally get a good index of their personality. And I liked this guy. His screenname was CJ.

We chatted on AIM quite a bit. We were both in high school, and his dad was in the Air Force, so they moved around a lot. His parents disapproved of videogames, so his visiting my site and writing stories was an act of rebellion.

I operated my website about nine or ten years, along the way opening a forum for people to post about videogame related things. I knew a good number of people online, and remained friends with CJ. I secretly developed many crushes on him over the years, but reminded myself that internet relationships were stupid, and would snap myself out of it by re-reading I Kissed Dating Goodbye, by Josh Harris.

CJ joined the Army and went away to Kuwait, then came back months later, and was stationed in Arizona.

I started an ambitious new project on my site: a radio drama, scripted by myself and voice-acted by the people who visited my forum. During auditions, CJ proved himself a perfect voice for one of my favorite characters. (The drama wound up being voiced by people all over the world, including a genuine Aussie, whose accent I simply adored.)

CJ took leave from the Army and asked if he could swing by our house on his way up to a convention in northern California. I said yes, and we had an interesting meeting of him and two of his Army buddies who were on a road trip together. We didn't have much time to talk together, but we exchanged phone numbers.

Once in a while after that, he would call me just to chat. I loved talking to him and hearing his voice. After he got out of the Army a while later, he began calling me every night.

We talked on the phone every night for a year before we both realized that maybe this relationship was something other than friendship.

Long story short, he moved down here and we got married, and it's been extra-wonderful being married to someone with whom I have such a long history. We're such good friends, and we love all the same things. I love him with all of my heart. :-)