How Yahoo Personals indirectly changed my life...

In August, 2003 I became separated from my wife of (at that time) almost 9 years. This came about for a variety of reasons. One of which is the purpose of this entry. And one of the reasons I am now divorced, by the way. (A lesson to you married guys - NEVER post an ad on singles websites looking for other women IF you want to stay married. Conversely if you are looking to get out of a marriage this is a good way to get the ball rolling. Trust me on this one boys...)

Anyway-

On many an occasion I found myself sitting in front of the computer in my parents house where I was living at the time. I logged into Yahoo Personals to check out the ads of women nearby to see if there was anyone interesting enough to write to. I had posted an ad there myself sometime previous, but had not gotten any responses.

So just for the halibut I put in the Yahoo Personals search engine the area where I was living in in NH (while married) with a 100 mile radius and got a number of ads in response to the search. I'm shuffling through these ads, looking at the pictures posted in each ad when I came across one ad in particular. The pictures this woman posted nearly took my breath away, they were so stunning. So I read the ad, which was short and liked what I saw.

Too bad I didn't have a subscription to the Personals so that I could write this woman a note. I had to contact this woman but didn't want to spend the money for a membership there. Aaaah but my brother did have one!!! So I logged into the Personals under his name and found out this woman's Yahoo alias. I probably then wrote her a note and sent it off, not expecting any response, as my track record incicated would be the case. I also put this woman's alias on my Yahoo Messenger list, in hope of seeing her online someday, so that we could talk via instant messaging.

Fast forward about a year or so from this date and you arrive at May 2, 2005. The day that changed my life forever. I finally was using Yahoo Messenger at the same time this beautiful, mysterious woman was!!!! So I quickly typed a note into Messenger and got the response I thought I'd get, which was: "Who are you?"

Since I was expecting this response I quickly told her my name and briefly how I knew who she was. We started talking. As my luck would have it, this woman didn't live locally to me, but instead lives in a city called Yoshkar-Ola, Russia. This explains in part why I never saw her online - she is 8 hours ahead of Eastern US time.

Anyway, we started talking on Yahoo Messenger and found a connection. We have been talking frequently since then, and have found ourselves falling in love with each other. Now I know you will say that it is crazy and impossible to fall in love with someone online - how can you get to know someone without meeting them in person? I thought the same thing myself. Nonetheless it can happen, and HAS!!! We have, by mutual agreement, become unofficially engaged!!! This arrangement will become officially official when she comes to visit me in July. And I couldn't be more happy about it!

I also assume you think I am totally crazy. (Which may actually be true to some extent). But I have no other explanation for the fact that I do not sleep well if I do not talk to her for more than a day. I think about her all of the time. As a friend of mine will attest, I commented to him that I thought I was falling in love with this woman, but didn't want to admit it - precisely because we haven't physically met yet.

Miracles do happen, though. The other day we were talking online and she sincerely expressed her feelings for me and asked me if I would honestly do the same - tell her how I felt about her. Man! Was I relieved that she brought the subject up first!!!

I must say that I do not believe in coincidences. Chance can't make things happen, never could - never will. There is only fate and how we deal with it. So there is fate working for my benefit for a change. If she hadn't put that particular city in her Yahoo ad, I never would have met her. My life would be the poorer for it, too.

She is the sweetest woman I have known in a long time and she's very physically attractive to boot. I would be crazy to NOT want to marry her, someday. Just come calling in July and I'll introduce you to her!