New Beginnings, background continued.

The first message I received from this man who lived 4 hours away, way way "up north" was friendly. He complimented my user name, told me about his daughter's horses. I responded, a day or two later, mostly because he had a nice smile. He was relatively new to this rather bizarre world of online dating, and I wanted to give him some encouragement. (Despite my mixed experiences.) We exchanged a few messages, but even now, looking back at them and the emails that followed, I can't really pinpoint the moment when things changed from a lighthearted conversation with someone I was unlikely to meet, to Something Much More Important.

Within a couple of weeks we exchanged phone numbers. The first time we talked, the conversation lasted 3 hours, that felt like five minutes. We talked about everything and anything. Science, politics, religeon, funny childhood stories, what we were cooking for dinner. Somewhere around this time, the possibility of a meeting came up. He was planning a long weekend trip that would bring him near Madison...we could meet for dinner. He would need a place to stay the night in town. I gave it 24 hours of thought and offered my sofa. He accepted. The trip was 3 or 4 weeks away. Three hour phone calls became a daily occurance, and evolved into nightly Skype "dates." We kept in touch throughout the days via text and Google chat. There was so much to share and talk about! Within a week of planning our first meeting, we decided that we could  manage a get together at his farm a week sooner.

All this while we kept reminding ourselves that we could not be falling in love until we met in person...that there might not be any chemistry, that we might just end up being good friends. Also, that the whole distance issue was about to be complicated by his planned move halfway around the world. But the pull was becoming so strong, we decided to just see what would happen...

Now I realize, at this point, this might sound a bit crazy. I know it did to me. But I have a fair bit of experience with the online thing, and had recent opportunities to further hone my bullshit-detector. No alarms were going off whatsoever. Google-stalking produced nothing concerning, and everything I found matched up with what I had been told. He had met and chatted with several of my friends on Facebook, and everyone knew where I was going for the weekend. I had every intention of not sticking around if my 'gut' told me that soemthing did not feel right when I got there, or at any time during my stay.

So after several more weeks of phone, text and Skype, I hit the road one lovely summer Thursday evening after work and drove four hours north. We kept in touch during my drive, and he met me out on the road in front of his tree-lined rural property. I parked my car, stepped out and we embraced, locking eyes then lips. Chemistry: check.