The story of us is long and unusual for all its short life span, fraught with long distance and full of love, so I will serialize it, in between my posts about my last 15 days in Tampa and packing my life into two suitcases.
In February of 2010, a new internet sensation was flying around the blogs and forums, called ChatRoulette. Everyone was doing it and coming back with great stories of pranks, random sing alongs, and funny costumes. For you Luddites out there, it was a randomized video chat program, connecting you anonymously with the average of 30,000 people from all over the planet. You clicked 'connect', a second video would pop up, and there you were chatting with someone from across the world or next door. You did not know who they were, where they were, and you could always click "next" at any point and say goodbye to them forever. Or, like me, you could end up finding someone who asks you to move to Europe with him.
But I am getting ahead of myself. After hearing about ChatRoulette so much, I decided to check it out. And what do I find? Lots and lots of naked men. A parade of them. Sometimes just penises, sometimes couples having sex, all shapes and sizes. I guess anytime you have randomized/anonymous interactions, sex is going to become part of the fun. I always clicked NEXT, as I have never found penises terribly good conversationalists.
But once you got past the parade of penis, there were some very interesting, real people to talk to. I had one very talented Londoner sing and play Beatles songs for me. I had a group of drunk French people tell me about their night of being chased by cops. I had a guy from Turkey profess his love for me. There were horse head masks, young couples drinking, strange videos, people doing magic tricks. Thousands of humans, all looking for a connection, curious about your life, and then moving on. I spent many hours just surfing the faces, and learning about other people's lives, sometimes spending an hour connecting with someone, sometimes just seconds. It was quite fun.
One night, I had been on for only about 20 minutes, and was having a pretty boring night, a lot of "nexts", or black screens. I was just thinking about signing off, when a cute guy in a red pullover pops up on the screen. He types that he is from the Netherlands, and his name is G. For some reason, I break my normal form of giving the pseudonym of "Alice" and tell him my real name. We chatted for at least an hour, were both curious about each other's lives, discovered we were both travel junkies, kayakers, and lovers of the outdoors. He was curious about my job as a zoo keeper. I was curious about Holland. Then I was interrupted by my roommate coming home, and I had to leave G for a moment.
What I thought was going to be just a quick hello, turned into a much longer discussion with the roommate. I thought for sure that G would sign off, and that was it. When I finally got back to the cam, there he was, waiting patiently. That shocked, flattered and impressed me. He finally admitted it was past 3:00 in the morning for him, and he had to work the next day!! We exchanged emails, and while I really thought he was nice, really cute, and felt some connection, I really had no clue if I would ever hear from him again...
