It was your typical fall evening, October 14, 1998. I (Kel) was sitting at my computer, in my apartment. My roommate was at work. As usual, I was idly chatting on ICQ.


Then I received a random message,
"Hi There!"
I replied with a simple "Hello."
That was the first time I connected with the person who is my soulmate.

Over the next few months we chatted on ICQ for hours. Some days, when I wasn't working, we would spend the whole day online together. Even though we only had each other through the puter, we felt a special bond. We would say and think the same things at the same time. Our relationship grew as we chatted.

Although we knew in our hearts, we were still wondering what it would be like if we were together. Would that bond still be between us?

After several months of getting frustrated with only words and outrageous phone bills, (she was living in Cranbrook, Canada and I in Minneapolis, MN, USA) we searched for a method to talk over the puter.

Unfortunately, all the programs that made it possible for us to talk were incompatible with my puter. We spent many, many long hours of frustration trying to run these programs.

In June of 1999, I purchased a new Gateway Pentium III. We quickly found Media Talk (TM) and the hours went past very quickly as we found ourselves talking to each other almost every waking minute that I was not at work. Mel even told her 14 year old daughter that she was going to marry me, even though we had never actually met in person. We both felt like we were in love with each other, yet we still needed to meet to know if it was real. Curiosity about physical attraction was on both of our minds. The physical attraction, although not the most important thing, still has to be there.