Lucky in Love: How We Met

My husband and I met on Internet Relay Chat (IRC). I initially used the system to communicate with my boyfriend who had moved to another city, but I loved talking to people all over the world. I met Loren online when I was bored and sick with both mono and strep throat.

I didn’t have a computer in my dorm room. In order to get online, I either had to go across campus to a computer lab or reserve a computer in the lab on the bottom floor of my dorm. There wasn’t a simple button to click and connect to the internet, either. I learned how to create a virtual terminal connection with other computers and use IRC. It was a complicated process that I shared with my friends. The once empty computer stations were now constantly in use; my friends were all reserving computers to talk to people across the globe.

Once I started using the computer to chat on IRC, I was hooked.

 

After three months of having only talked online and on the phone, Loren drove from Illinois to Texas to meet me. He’d sent me a photo of himself, but I wouldn’t send him a photo of me. He decided to stop waiting on me to send a photograph, and he came to see me in person. The first time I laid eyes on him, I felt as if I’d known him my entire life. There were no awkward moments, as we truly had become very good friends.

 

Five minutes after he’d left on his return trip to Illinois, I told my roommate that I knew I’d just spent three days with the man I would one day marry. Just before he reached the interstate entrance ramp, he stopped at a payphone to call and tell me he didn’t want to leave.

 

 Read the next part in the Lucky in Love Series:

Lucky in Love: On the Way to the Chapel

March: Lucky in Love