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Also, I'd known guys before who had really
great personalities but I'd never fancied them. There was just no
attraction and so I was hoping this wouldn't be the case with Ben & I.
My flight was due to land at about 1pm CST but there was a delay. Then
it took a whole hour to walk from the plane through customs and baggage
handling to the gate where Ben was waiting. All this waiting was
definitely nerve wracking for him. It was also kind of hard to believe
that we were both going to meet the person we'd spent so long talking to
online. I was all impatient & excited after such a long flight but I
wanted a chance to compose myself and brush my hair before I met Ben. I
couldn't seem to find a bathroom though and so Ben just had to make do
with me how I was.
I came through the gate and there was a
big crowd of people waiting, which was pretty intimidating. I knew Ben
the second I saw him though...that would have been a terrible time to
make a mistake. I'd told him what my hand luggage looked like, plus I
was the only one on the plane with light green hair, so he had no
trouble recognising me. He was standing near the back, over to the left
side of the crowd and I made my way towards him. He was supposed to be
waving a beaver chewed stick...this was his romantic meeting gift to me,
as I like collecting things from nature. He had the stick under his coat
though and so I think I went up to him and asked where his stick was.
That moment is kind of a blur though now.
Neither of us liked being in a crowd and so Ben carried my suitcase,
gentleman style, to his car, which was pretty close by. Then as we stood
by the boot/trunk of his car he asked "Are we going to do this?" I
thought he meant 'were we going to leave?' but he opened his arms to hug
me. Thus we broke the awkwardness and hugged for the first time. I've
read lots of other couples sites and many people seem to kiss each other
as soon as they meet. This wasn't right for us though - we were both shy
and needed to relax around each other a little more. Ben has since told
me that he didn't expect me to be attracted to him and he didn't have
too many expectations of a romantic nature. This and his nervousness
meant that he wasn't going to be pouncing on me to kiss me. And I
certainly wasn't going to be making a move on him at the airport. We're
both glad we took our time.
We then made the two and a half hour journey back to Ben's house,
talking about the scenery and such as we went along. I particularly
noticed the abundance of pornographic warehouse stores on the highway,
similar to the DIY stores on English motorways. We were greeted by the
welcoming stick on Ben's porch. Are you seeing the theme here? Not
flowers but sticks. Our own variety of romance.
Well, I'm not going to go into much personal detail about the first few
days of our meeting. One thing I will mention is something on the non
romantic side of things. I sometimes get travel sick and luckily I
managed to survive the flight without being ill. However, it caught up
with me later that first night. Ben & I were talking in his room and I
had to run to the bathroom to be sick. It was a combination of the
travel and nervousness. It did take us a little while to adjust to being
together in person and for us to be comfortable and natural with each
other. We were careful not to rush things and therefore ruin the
emotional bond that we'd built online. Happily, we soon got on well and
were at ease together. As for our physical appearances, Ben was fine
with me having piercings and saw right past them. I felt the first
tingly spark of attraction in the car on the way to Ben's, as I saw the
arm rest and imagined us holding hands there.
Ben & I spent two weeks together in Wisconsin. We got to know each other
a lot better and had lots of fun together, doing the traditional date
stuff that we'd been unable to online. We saw Chicken Run at the cinema.
The two main characters were an English hen and an American rooster who
fell in love. We also were quite touristy...visiting Lake Michigan and a
local craft barn. I met & stayed with Ben's parents and went to church
with them one Sunday. I had my 20th birthday whilst I was there and
Ben's parents were really welcoming and gave me a cake and presents. We
spent the last couple of days before I had to leave in Chicago and
visited Navy Pier.
It was such a horrible moment at the airport having to walk away from
Ben...I turned to go but then went back to hug and kiss him one last
time. I sat on the plane crying...one of the cabin crew came and asked
me if I was alright. I got out my bag of crystals to calm myself down
and inside it was a ring. I didn't quite understand then, as we don't
have a British equivalent, but it was Ben's high school graduation ring
with his name and birthstone. I've worn it round my neck since I got
home. The best decision I made was to take the risk and the initiative
and visit Ben...everything was so good between us in person and things
have just got better since. I'm not saying that we have the perfect
relationship, especially as it was so hard with the distance...but we
worked through any problems we came across.
During the weeks before Ben came to stay with me in September, we spent
hours talking on the phone overnight. I put the phone down on one such
night, a few days before he was arriving here and instantly thought:
"I've just been talking to the man I'm going to marry." I was thinking
much further into the indefinite future, yet as it turned out Ben
proposed to me on the night of the 20th of September.
Certain things just have to be done in person and proposing is one of
them. I've heard of people who say that they're 'internet husband and
wife', as they've gone through some 'online marriage'. Ummm, that
doesn't seem to be taking the institution of marriage too seriously. Ben
and I hadn't talked about marriage before really. In August my e mail
service had been offering up little wedding trivia facts and I'd been e
mailing them to Ben...so we'd talked about certain customs and
traditions in general. Also, when we were in the park in June we'd seen
a couple rehearsing a wedding and we both said how we didn't really see
the point in that. We hadn't talked about the possibility of us being
married one day though. Yet when Ben was here in September, I knew he
was thinking about asking me to marry him and I knew that if and when he
did, I was going to say yes. I didn't really have to do much thinking to
know that. It just felt right. I can't imagine a better person to spend
my life with. It was Ben who had to spend days considering if, how and
when to ask and worrying about not having a ring yet. I just got to be
passive and girly whilst I waited for Ben to think through everything.
We went to the theatre that night to see Shakespeare's A Midsummer
Night's Dream, which being a Romance, ended with two marriages. We then
took the bus home and went for a walk into Beeston. I could feel that
Ben was working up to asking me, but I wasn't nervous as I had the easy
part. We sat down on a bench in the town square and I waited. I was
being quite impatient, shame on me, especially as Ben was all
apprehensive thinking that being 20 I'd see myself as too young to be
married. But no, I've always wanted to graduate from university and get
married and have children. Maybe because that's what my parents did, but
that's always how I'd pictured my life. Thankfully it's all turning out
as I'd hoped.
At about 1.30am Ben looked into my eyes:
"I want to marry you."
"I want to marry you too."
"Will you?"
"Yes."
And then we held each other tightly with all the good love feelings and
Ben's relief passing between us. All the good feelings felt even better
now, when we kissed it was like kissing for the first time again. I'd
imagined being in such a committed relationship before, but I never knew
how comfortable I'd be with that someone. Ben and I can be totally silly
together, but we can also be completely honest & sincere This really
helped us to overcome the distance and work through any problems we had
when we were apart.
We chose an engagement ring together in Liverpool...a very lovely 18ct
white gold ring with three diamonds. I had a bit of a hard time
accepting that I deserved something so pretty and sparkly and
lovely...but I'm definitely accustomed to it now. Ben had yet to meet my
parents when he proposed. That weekend we went home to spend a couple of
days with them. We didn't tell them that we were engaged though and I
wasn't wearing the ring at this point. My parents both really liked Ben
and when I did tell my mum on the phone the next week, she wasn't
surprised and was very happy for us. I did tell my brother, Jordan, that
Ben and I were getting married and he was all surprised and kind of
screamed, hehehe. Ben told his parents when he went back home and
they're both very supportive of us too. Yey.
I needed a K-1 visa to move to the USA and marry Ben. Our experience of
this process is detailed on our homepage (see link below). Our
application began in January 2001 and I received the visa on May 16th
'01. I was lucky to spend 4 weeks with Ben and his parents during March
& April. I emigrated to the USA on June 24th and we were married on
August 20th 2001. My parents and brother flew over to be there and we
had a small family wedding. It didn't go exactly to plan - the pastor
was 45 minutes late and then kept mispronoucing my name. But the
important thing is that we're now together forever. It does take some
adjusting - going from being a British student to an American
housewife...but I'm perfecting sloppy joes and peanut butter & jelly
sandwiches.
I'm so very thankful to have found my husband online. I never imagined
that I'd leave England to marry a man I met in a yahoo chatroom. If
you'd told me this years ago, I'd have thought you were crazy. It just
goes to show that love can be found in unusual places. For anyone
interested, our website is
here.
"Jennie"
Looking for Part One? It's
here.
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