ari, just reading your email scares me. Why did you show him where you live?

I know, I know!!!, Dotsie. I felt he was safe!
ARI

I was wondering the same thing Barb, and as Smile said it does sounds interesting....

smilinize,

There is a great love story attached...to be sure!

Larry happened to be watching the TV show 'Prime Time Live' on a Thursday evening. Now keep in mind that he could never get the station it was on in clearly, but that night it came in very clearly... Anyway, the story was about Matchmaker.com. Friday evening he couldn't sleep so he got on his computer and filled out the profile and joined Matchmaker. He then got his 'matches.' Our compatability was 80% or so...they tell you if you match 40-50% it's great! Anyway, he e-mailed me to check out his profile and provided his phone number if I was interested. So I called him. This was on Saturday morning. We got together that evening (I almost cancelled because I was tired, but at the last minute I decided to go) for dinner at Applebee's. Then we went dancing and then talked until about 4 AM. Sunday we went out to dinner with two of his friends; he gave me a tiny green package tied in gold with a beautiful saying attached. Monday I got a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. Then he said he got cold feet and I didn't hear from him Tuesday. Then Wednesday we got together again...and never parted. I moved in with him that weekend, and we got married seven months later on a dinner cruise in Tampa Bay.

Although we have had our moments, we rarely argue and truly respect one another. We can talk about anything, we like almost all of the same things, we both love to read and dance and have fun.

Now you know our story. In fact, I wrote a story about it called 'Thank You, Matchmaker.com.'

I can't get over these internet romances. It's nice to hear about some of the good ones. All I ever hear about are the rotten ones on the news. I'm amazed.

Newwriter, wehre can we read your article?

I agree, Dotsie. What a mixed bag of stories here. Ari, yours is a cautionary tale for all of us. (I tend towards being too trusting myself.) But I love hearing about the on-line relationships that have worked.

Prill,
I think there are many more positive online meetings than we know about. When asked by people we don't know well how we met, Dan and I just say we met at a concert in the park. People think meeting online is freaky and they look at you weird. But the friends who know the whole story tell us about others who met online and are happy together. Many of our single friends are online now looking for what we found.
I think lots of people meet online nowadays and possibly don't speak of it because everything on the news is bad.
The key is probably to first of all, always be safe, always be a lady, and meet in person at the earliest possible moment.

Smile-- Sounds like a plan, especially the meet-in-person part, so long as you do it on neutral territory. It's easy to get swept away by someone when your relationship only exists in two-dimensional cyberspace and words are your sole connection. But within a few minutes of meeting someone face to face, I think you often know whether there's any real chemistry there.

I believe for the most part that dating on the internet is wrong - and is often a false sense of familiarity that can lead to all sorts of problems when you meet face to face.

BUT having said that.

I met my husband on the internet.

Sometimes it is a God thing, but my story is not a common one and have only met one lady (Dana Zini) with one similiar.

Here is my story:
Following my divorce, I hit a very low point in my life where I in many ways I turned my back on God and my faith and every thing that was good in my life. I had failed miserably - or so I thought at the time. I didn't think I could do anything right again, in love - even as a single mom to my little girl. I logged onto AOL around 10 at night and did a search on members' profile currently logged on for the phrase "I can do all things through Christ" (which is part of Philippians 4:13). One guy was logged on in the whole internet world of AOL, MikeActs18.

I instant messaged him and just laid it all on the line - every horrible thing that I had done and everything my ex had done to me and I asked a question "Can God forgive me?"

I knew God could - but I needed some sort of affirmation from an outside source. Mike delivered the affirmation through verse and verse of positive scriptures. Over the next two months, Mike held me accountable to studying my bible, memorizing scriptures and attending a "sister" church to his that was on opposite sides of the same little town of El Paso.

I was heading out of town to visit family for the holidays and during this time, he was going to move before I would return. I didn't know where he was moving too - frankly, I was just focused on pulling my head out of the sand and getting back to God and bringing up my little girl alone.

We decided that under the circumstances we would meet for lunch. We met, and I was shocked. The moment I saw him I started to cry - tried to compose myself- and then laughed deliciously at God's sense of humor. It turned out that my online mentor and friend, who I credit with restoring my faith in God and Men, was the same "Jesus Freak" who had lived in the apartment complex I lived in almost five years earlier - me as a newlywed, him as a fresh divorcee and single dad to the little girl I watch from my porch daily...same guy with the Schnauzer who almost daily became kibble for my German Shepherd.

We were both overjoyed to realize this connection, but still we moved on - him moving literally and us simply keeping in touch over the web and through e-mail in "accountability" e-mails and "hi, how are you" stuff.

I decided that I needed to move and start a new life with my little girl. I wanted to stay in TX so I put a map of TX up on the wall and threw a dart - I hit Corpus Christi.

I put up my resume for jobs in Corpus Christi, Houston and San Antonio and got call backs from Corpus Christi only.

In passing in a e-mail, I let Mike know that I was moving and it looked like I would be moving to Corpus Christi.

"Oh really, wow, that's awesome...because I live in Corpus Christi."

God, really does have a sense of humor. I had no interest in guys and dating, trying to keep my wits about me, move on past the divorce and he keeps crossing my path with Mike? =)

I got the job, packed up a full-size Ryder, loaded my then two year old into the cab, my two Siberian Huskies into the car on the car carrier behind the trailer and drove from El Paso to Corpus Christi myself.

Anyways, to make a long(er) story short(er), I decided to take a chance on Mike. I went out on a date with him and walked down around the bayfront in Corpus Christi and ended up walking around the Rose Garden at Heritage House. There was just something very "different" about him, the way he loved God and the way we kept crossing paths.

I am glad I did. Almost two years after our "initial" online meeting we were married in the Rose Garden at Heritage House near the Bayfront.

Now we travel the same path together and I couldn't be more happier and daily enjoy loving Mike whose favorite verse is "Acts 1:8", hence the reasons for his old screen name MikeActs18.

Dotsie:

Go to www.writing.com. At the top of the page there are three blocks. The first is blank. The next says 'Genre', the next says 'Any type.' In the blank, type in 696711 and hit search. That should bring up the item. Click on the name of it and it should bring up the story.

Let me know if that doesn't work...