I’ll never forget creating my initial profile on MySpace nearly 10 years ago. Naturally as with everyone, Tom was my first friend; my page was the basic ugly white with different blue trims and I had no idea what I was doing because it was a totally different internet world for me.
It took a while to amass a decent amount of people as not everyone had joined yet, but once I did, the fun began! MySpace quickly became the most time consuming internet pass time for me. Cell phones weren’t as high tech as of yet, so to socialize online I was basically chained to my laptop. I spent forever finding just the right background, choosing my Top 8 (hilarious that people used to get mad about not being included) and customizing it just right. A few months into having my profile, a very handsome guy sent me a friend request. I accepted and of course as everyone did we would occasionally “show some love” on each other’s walls. Then we began inboxing each other. He was absolutely hilarious, easy to talk to, we liked all the same things, and he seemed too good to be true. Naturally, there were several catches; he was six years my junior and he lived in Florida to my Indiana. This made me take several steps back. I distanced myself. I didn’t always answer when he called. I wasn’t quick to respond on IM (Instant Messenger for those of you who didn’t get to know of the joys of it) and I really tried not to develop any feelings for him. I tried. I failed. We fell in love. Video chat was so primitive back then but we did Skype. We talked all the time either on the phone or online, we even sent each other snail mail, through the actual post office. How romantic and yester year, right?
Months pass and while we absolutely loved all of the conversation, not being able to see each other in person was definitely putting a strain on things. Please remember this was before it was totally normal to meet up with folks off line, it was still pretty taboo then. I didn’t want to tell anyone how we met, we made up grandiose lies, and I certainly didn’t feel comfortable as a woman, travelling to Florida alone to meet someone for the first time. So he decided he would come to me. The weeks leading up to his visit were excruciating! I had told my mother we had met while I was out one night and he was here visiting some family and we continued to talk after he went back home. Pretty slick right?
(Remember spending forever picking out just the right one?)
I'm my mother’s only child she would’ve never allowed me to meet a stranger offline, regardless if I was an adult or not.
The day finally came after what seemed like an eternity. I got to the airport to pick him up ridiculously early. I mean I literally sat there for hours I was so excited. Seeing him come down the stairs towards me was like everything you see in a movie times a thousand. My heart was racing, I was so excited I was shaking, and his smile, when I finally saw it, his smile was everything. Once he spotted me he jogged down the stairs through the other passengers picked me up, spun me around and kissed me. It was amazing. I couldn’t have been happier. The man I fell in love with, the man I thought was far too good to be true, he was right here in the flesh and we had a long weekend together.
I had booked us a hotel room in an area I was very comfortable in and familiar with, just to be safe. We spent the first day just doing cute couple stuff. We went to Circle Center, took pictures together, walked the Circle, anything you can think of tourist like in Indy, we did it, because in all actuality it was his first time here. As the sun set on what seemed like the most amazing day ever, it had really only just begun. We walked the canal, had dinner at a yummy little Indian restaurant we had happened upon, then headed back to the hotel.
I had booked a two-room suite so we wouldn’t always have to be sitting on the bed, made it a little more home like, so we could always watch TV, or eat, in the living area. By the time we had gotten back to the room there was only one thing on both of our minds. I’ll skip the steamy stuff just know that it was pretty phenomenal and we fell fast asleep.
At around 4 am, we awoke to what sounded like gunfire. We were both startled and disoriented, when we realized what it was, we couldn’t stop laughing. Apparently the Indian we had for dinner hadn’t totally agreed with my tummy. I had machine gun like flatulence.
I swear to you that moment, as weird and as gross and as awkward as it should’ve been, solidified us as an actual couple. There was no turning back, we had made love and we had farted in each other’s presence. That’s as real as it gets.
Our long weekend flew by far too quickly. Before I knew it, I was watching him board his flight home, I stood there in the airport window and cried for quite some time before feeling like an idiot and heading to my car. He had left me his favorite Miami Hurricanes hoodie doused with a good dose of his cologne and some other t shirts so I could wear them to bed.
When he made it back to Florida naturally the first thing he did was call me. We were so excited to upload all of our pictures to MySpace and make mushy statuses and posts. We also had to tell all of our group members about the visit. I don’t know if you remember or not but MySpace had really interactive groups, with a message board format and we were the “admins” of the biggest Interracial Relationships group on MySpace. Lame I know. We had assigned officers and the whole nine. Some of these folks, while I’ve never met in person are still my “friends” on the good ol’ interweb; we have just migrated over to other social platforms throughout the years.
Naturally there were folks that were determined to be pessimistic and constantly challenged us on how we could ever possibly make a long distance relationship work, but we did. He visited several more times, we always got a suite at the same hotel, and at this point we were sticking to our lies about how we had met, though his was reversed, he had told his family he met me while I vacationed down there. We had gotten so used to and detailed with these stories they almost seemed real. We managed to have a really successful LDR (long distance relationship) for just over a year. In that year we had only spent maybe a total of 20 days with each other physically.
As the seasons changed, we started talking about making a move. We decided it would be easiest for him to move here. We were making this real. We apartment shopped together online while on the phone, it took a few weeks but we found a place in Fort Harrison, on the Northeast side of Indy that we loved. I went and put in the application, they thought it was really weird my co-applicant was in another state at the time and had to fax over his documents but they worked with us. Once we were approved I put the deposit down and we had a move in date. I was living at my mom’s at the time, I had moved back home after leaving my husband several years prior to meeting my online love. He also lived at home so he just packed everything he could into his car and drove up here.
Longest 16 hours ever! I didn't sleep while waiting for him to arrive.
There were about 10 days in between his arrival and our actual move in date so we used that time to buy everything we needed and to get my 5-year-old son acclimated to having someone new in our lives. He had only met him briefly prior to him moving up here, but he saw his pictures and knew who he was from video chatting.
The reality of what we had done and the heaviness of the situation didn’t really sink in until we moved into our own place. I felt rather quickly we had made a huge mistake, but I tried to stay positive.
My son never really bonded with him; he wasn’t crazy about someone getting mom's attention as he was used to it just being us. Even though my boyfriend had transferred his job to a location here in Indy, he was let go only a few months into living together. He fell into a slump and I thought he would never start working again.
Tensions grew as we started to realize we might be a little too similar, yet we endured.
In fact somehow we managed, through several job changes, moves and different strains on our relationship, to last almost 5 years. Although I knew deep down that we had really fallen out of love a good year or so prior. We were almost like roommates. We were rarely intimate. He would go to bed early or sit in his office on his computer while I was in the living room watching all night long marathons of Forensic Files and on my laptop.
There had been several accusations on both sides of cheating and things continued to deteriorate.
On my 30th birthday I told him I no longer loved him and he told me he had been talking to a mutual acquaintance behind my back.
Soon after I moved in with my bestie and his boyfriend and started to rebuild my life. My MySpace love made hateful statuses and updates about me, said I was the worst thing that ever happened in his life, got our mutual acquaintance pregnant, then married her.
They’re still married, and in a way I feel like everything happened as it should have. It was a time in my life that I will always cherish to some extent because he was indeed my best friend, and it hurt to lose his friendship more than our romantic relationship.
If I would’ve remained with the #1 in my Top 8, I would’ve missed out on so many amazing experiences so I’m thankful for him coming into my life and leaving it when he did.
Now life beyond MySpace and transitioning into Facebook, that’s a story for another time. Until then!
