I was pretty handy with a dagger and steadily becoming more and more ruthless when it came to correcting what I would call 'attitude' problems in those young upstarts who seemed to be flooding the lands of late.

He was a complete rogue. I dare say his dagger skills needed a lot of polish but I secretly admired his boldness. Still he was obnoxious and usually drunk and almost as irritating to me as he must have been to the gods. I had joined his clan now - so killing him was no longer an option... I would have to learn to put up with him.

And that's how I met my husband.

No, it really is. In 1998 I found myself a divorced mother of two children under the age of two. Between work and childcare it was virtually impossible to have a 'real' social life. Fortunately for me, I was handy with a computer. I also had always really liked playing games - video games, board games, role playing games... Any kind of game.
 

I admit I frequented some chat rooms in the beginning - being starved for social contact... And there I made some really good friends - one of which inadvertently introduced me to the game that would change my life. The game was a text-based multi-player role-playing (lots of hyphens there!) thing - with a mildly medieval setting. The thing is addictive, I tell you. I had been playing for a year and my character had just become a hero (the highest achievable level in the game at the time) when I met him. And that's where the above story begins.

We were in this virtual world together.. Playing next to one another night after night... Our characters clashed in the most fantastic way. Others commented on the tension between us - like two characters in a fantasy novel.. You know - the ones you're constantly urging to get together while you're reading? As our characters grew closer (reluctantly at first but you can't always choose your allies too carefully when rushing out to slay a dragon) the most amazing thing happened.. we began to get to know one another... Not just the character but the person playing the character and we started to fall in love. The change became rather apparent in our characters as well and people began seeing us roaming together and wreaking havoc wherever we could. Suddenly a team - our characters were married by the gods in January of 2000.

In the meantime, we had met in person several times - in spite of the fact that he lived almost 1000 miles away. We instantly clicked and felt very comfortable with one another. We enjoyed one another's company as much in person as we had online - in spite of the fact that each of us were so very different from our game characters... Maybe BECAUSE we were so different. We often joke now that our alter-egos met each other first. Now let me tell you, that's something that everyone should try at least once.

In January of 2001 he relocated to be closer to us and in March of 2001 we were married in real life. Later that year, he adopted both of the children. Now, just over two years later we're expecting our first child together in November. We networked our computers... and yes sometimes we return to our medieval land together and play when we get the chance. We're best friends and still totally in love and I still can't believe we met! I grin when people ask me how we met and am always happy to tell the story... We literally met in a fairy-tale world - and now we live together in complete peace and happiness in a way that puts the fairy-tales to shame.

"Paglia"