Online Love

If I asked if you ever fell in love with someone you met online, many of you would probably say you have. A lot of you are probably still with that person. What if I asked if you fell in love before you even met them in person?

I was a teenager when I first gained access to the internet. It was the 90s. I was one of the dorkiest kids in my class; I had only a few friends. I liked boys, but they didn’t seem to like me. Once, I asked out a boy and he said he’d date his cat before he’d date me. Another boy I asked out told me he’d only go out with me if I paid him five dollars a week. The first boy later asked me out. When I said yes, he laughed and told me it was a dare. I was convinced I was too ugly. Too annoying. Too… something. What was even wrong with me? Why didn’t anyone seem to like me?

My best friend’s parents signed up for an internet plan in 1997, but it was expensive; not only did they have to pay for the service, but since it was dial-up and we lived in a rural town, with no cities closer than about 90 miles, the number for dial-up was long distance, which made it even more expensive. So the few times I was able to use the internet, it was strictly for research for an essay.

I wanted to meet people. There are 7 billion people in the world. Surely not everyone would think I was too ugly or annoying.

Sometime later, my cousin’s mom got a computer and internet. It had become less expensive by that point, I guess. My cousin went to her mom’s that summer and signed up for a Yahoo! account. She also signed…