I'm not sure why I felt this way about a guy I knew nothing about except for his screen name. I left his information up but I never IMed him, and I left the room. I sat at my computer looking through my mail and debating if I should talk to this guy or not. I finally built up enough courage to say "hello" to him not knowing what would come next. Right as I IMed him he told me that he was just about to sign off because there was nothing for him to do, so I offered to let him go because I hate to feel that i'm pressuring someone to talk to me. He denied my offer and we talked for about two hours. I am normally a pretty happy person so i'm always putting those little happy faces at the end of every other sentence or so. I kind of had to stop myself, because he pointed out how much I was "smiling".

He told me not to stop, but he noticed it so much because he was not a truly happy person. I mean he would make a face but, it would be a straight line as if he was always serious. Nothing made this guy smile so, of course, I found him as a challenge. By the end of our conversation I kept count of how many times I got him to smile and I still remember and remind him of it to this day. After about two hours he told me that it was really late where he was and he had to get going. That's when we exchanged our location and names.

Andrè, that name just made me melt when I repeated it out loud. When we said our goodnites I of course repeated his name back to him. This first night of conversation with Andrè sent me to bed smiling. The next night I got online and to my surprise Andrè was there too. I felt this overwhelming sense of happiness when I looked at his screen name and I wasted no time IMing him. He was pretty happy about talking to me again, but his day kept him in a horribly sad mood. And when he gets sad, angry, frustrated, etc. he gets really quiet.

Silence online is one of my pet peeves, although I have learned to deal with it, because sometimes people just don't have anything to talk about. Either way I continued to talk to him and ask him questions and I finally got out of him that he was reading over a script he had written for an assignment. I love to read stories and poems and things and I asked him if I could read it. He agreed and when I read it, I fell in love, head over heels, with Andrè's intelligence. I mean every word was even spelled correctly. I was in awe. I had to keep talking to him and see what else I could find out about him. A month passed and he and I never missed a day of chatting with one another. 

I would find myself emailing him just to say "I can't wait to talk to you later". One night we were talking and he was telling me about a retreat he had gone to with his school. He told me about a girl that he saw there, and he found her absolutely gorgeous. That broke my heart, but I didn't let it get to me. I mean what should I expect? We are two time zones away from one another. He was my friend, my very close friend, so I should be able to handle such news, and besides, I didn't want to get into another online relationship again and I was pretty sure he felt the same. I asked if he had approached her but, he said "no" because he was too shy. "Him? Shy?", I thought to myself. That was just an odd thing for me to even think of.

After about 2 hours of talking about everything, he started to go into this negative conversation, and he was putting himself down. It broke my heart to read those words. After arguing with him about how smart he is and things like that, I finally gave in and I told him how I felt about him. I was scared out of my mind. I told him that I just had to tell him that, and if he didn't feel the same, I completely understood. He was quiet for about a minute, a LONG minute, and he finally said, "Chimère?" I answered him, and he said, "I friggin' like you A LOT!" My heart nearly jumped out of my chest and all I could do was put my head on the table.

He finally confessed to me that the reason why he didn't approach the girl at his retreat was because of me. He also confessed that ever since the first night we chatted he has had his eye on me. He saw me in the chatroom and he just stared at my screen name and he had no idea as to why. He didn't want to be with the girl from the retreat without knowing if he had a chance with me or not. I was speechless. Everything felt so unreal, so much like a fairly tale, but from that moment on I knew that my life would be so much better with him as my boyfriend.

As time pressed on, I called him (oh man! what a voice!) and sent him letters and pictures of myself and I received the same. When I got his picture I was so ecstatic because he was so very attractive to me. Looks, of course, did not matter to me, but I was overjoyed that I could be with someone so handsome. After four months of being with him, my life has been great. Of course, we have the problem of family acceptance (my family), but I don't let them tell me who I can and can not date.

No one can come between us, and all I ask for is support. I don't have it from my parents, but it does come from friends and other family members. So, all is not lost. I Love Andrè more than life itself, it might sound strange coming from someone so young (both of us are 18), but if Romeo and Juliet can do it at such a young age (I know it was a story), then so can we. Our love is too real and too perfect to ever let go of. I hope to soon be in his arms, and share his kisses. That's the only hard part of our relationship, but the more you wait, the better it will be, and I stand by that strongly.

Well, that's my story, and i'm glad I am able to share it with so many people. Thanks for reading. And to all of those people in an online relationship, good luck and I hope that everything goes well.

*Love can bloom in the most unexpected places*

"Chimère"