Told in Dee’s own words…
I met my spouse in the now defunct AOL chat rooms in 1998. We were in the Buddhist chat room. There were five women and one man talking about the difficulties in getting our families to accept our philosophical choice of non-Judaic/Christian religions.
Someone made the comment that it was difficult to find a man who would accept our decision.
Ed said, I’m a man
Then the discussion turned to the acceptability of Ed as a boyfriend.
I said, he is probably too young or too old.
When everyone revealed their ages there were two of us close to Ed’s age; Myself and another woman.
Then the discussion was who lived closer.
I was the closest, living within two hours of his home.
The other women encouraged me to meet with Ed.
We met the following weekend at the wedding of a close friend of mine.
Our families still do not accept the Buddhist thing but accept our being together.
Happily Blended asked Dee, was this long distance?
I was living in Harrisburg PA and he was on Long Island, NY 3 ½ hrs away. During the early days of chatting he made an already scheduled move from Long Island to NJ. I was preparing to complete my nursing education and moved from PA to Stony Brook NY. It was like musical chairs. He moved closer I moved further away.
Since we had out computers with us and kept the same online names the ever changing phone numbers weren’t a problem.
We took advantage of the chat room format rather than making phone calls so that I could simultaneously work on my school projects and he could play computer games without offending each other by being inattentive. If we wanted private chat we could create our own room and if we wanted to socialize with others arranged to meet in an already existing chat.
Happily Blended asked Dee, tell me is Edd romantic?
Oh, he isn’t romantic. I will tell you his Valentine’s story. One year he didn’t give me anything. Not a birthday present or a V day gift. We were both visiting Home Depot in April and I saw a drill/ screwdriver set that looked interesting. My hobby is woodwork and I am the person who assembles out IKEA furniture. I put the set in the cart and we eventually checked out. At the checkout ED picked up the drill set and handed it to the sales clerk and said, “I’ll pay for this. Consider it your V’day present.”
He still doesn’t understand why the female sales clerk and I were so put out.
Late. No wrapping. No card and far, far too practical.
But I kept him.
Dee and Edd have known each other 14 years and have been living together for 12 years!
