Add me to the online-but-not-a-dating-site club.

DH and I met on AOL in October 1995. I had recently left a four-year abusive relationship, finished my MA, moved to a new city, got a new job, and got my first-ever Internet-ready computer. I was logged on to AOL for the first time and within a couple of hours, I was in a lobby when that was where you still had to go before you could go into a topic-specific chat room. I asked a technical question about some online screen thing, and "namechangedtoprotecthewhowishestoremainanonymous" responded.

Now, at the time, I had not been exposed to a whole lot of culture outside North Florida. I thought I was talking to a Japanese woman. I just assumed. His screenname sounded Japanese to me. So we started chatting and my new "girlfriend" gave me a great instructional session on how to use my new computer. She taught me how to use Word. How to resize windows. How to make new files. How to navigate around AOL. All sorts of stuff. I really enjoyed talking to her.

The next evening, home from work, I found her online again and we talked for a couple of hours in an IM window. You know how you can get a little gushy when you meet a new girlfriend? That was me. Gush, gush, gush. We talked about our family backgrounds, education, work -- she was a field tech for a software provider at Boeing in Seattle, religion, philosophy, stuff we liked to do, all kinds of things. And we did it again the next day, and the next, all the while she's teaching me how to use my computer. It was delightful be able to really talk to someone after having been so closed off for so long.

So day four or five into this week of getting to know my new girlfriend...she sends me and three other friends from the Newsroom chat group (where she had been headed that first day we met...you had to wait in a lobby for a spot in the chatroom to open up) with a photo attachment and a note: "Sorry for the glasses. KO"

So, I'm picturing in my head a short, pudgy Japanese woman with really thick glasses because she works on her computer so much (and I just pictured her shaped like me from a sense of familiarity, I guess). I, however, didn't have picture software, so I found her online, explained, and she sent me some software and then talked me through downloading it.

Really, I got a great computer education that first week. So it's starting to download and she has to go. I say thank you and wait for the image to come up line by line by line...28.8 modem, people! A minute or so later, from the bottom of the picture, all I can see are very large, black hightop sneakers.

My first thought: "Wow, she's got big feet for a Japanese woman."

I leave the room to go make some dinner and come back about ten minutes later and nearly drop my spaghetti. On my screen is a photo of a tall, gorgeous guy with long black hair playing an electric guitar and wearing black Raybans.

My second thought: "Wow, this must be a photo of her brother."

I go back online and email her saying that there must be a mistake, that the picture is of a guy. A really cute guy. Is this her brother or something?

Him: "Uh, no, that's me."

Turns out his name is Hawaiian, and yes, I've been gushing to this gorgeous, guitar-playing demigod for the last several days. Geez, what did I say? I must have sounded totally ignorant, but we laughed about the mixup. And then our relationship took on a whole new turn.

That was October. I came to his family Thanksgiving with the help of his mothers and sisters -- total surprise to him and the first time we'd met in person -- and then he flew me out to Seattle for Christmas where he proposed to me in a beautiful little cabin on Puget Sound. What I didn't know at the time was that he'd already bought my engagement ring at Thanksgiving and it was on the table in the room where they'd put me to wait for him to surprise him when he came in.

We were actually featured in an ABC news story about online romance that was aired at Valentine's Day.

He moved across the country to be with me in February and we were married in April, just six months after meeting online. We just celebrated our 16th anniversary.

Roxy