Over my old Commodore 64, in the days of BBS’s, I met the man who became my husband.
Today, New Year’s Day, we are celebrating our seventeenth wedding anniversary.
Both of us think that we knew each other much better because of the time we spent in putting the textures of our lives into written words.
Do you know of others who have had such successful marriages begun in cyber space?
How have other computer relationships worked out for you?
Zoe, what a nice story and lovely day for an anniversary! I hope it’s been wonderful for you and your husband.
My boyfriend and I met on the net…somewhat. In late February of my sophomore year of high school (in his senior year), we were both invited into a private chat room made by a mutual friend of ours. I discovered that not only did this boy (who I had never even heard of prior to this) attend the same school as I did, but we also shared an alarming amount of mutual friends. Over the next few weeks, we continued to send each other e-mails and messages, continuing our conversations for as long as eight hours straight sometimes. (I also believe that we got to know each other much more thoroughly through writing via the Internet as opposed to talking). By mid March, we still hadn’t met IRL, and had only yearbook pictures of one another to get an idea of looks. Needless to say, we were both very anxious by then, and had made a date to meet during our lunch period, as we had it at the same time. Unfortunately, for reasons I won’t get into for the sake of bandwidth (basically, I lost a hall pass), I was given an in-school suspension on that date, and was extremely miserable over missing the chance to lunch with this boy. So when I was allowed my 15 minute lunch break during the suspension, I found him waiting at the cafeteria with a box of chocolates, where he handed it to me and said, “If you only have a short time to eat, you’d better eat something that’s really worth it.” He was (and is) definitely a keeper.
The search function is going a bit nutty on me right now, but I remember there being a thread (which is now outdated anyway) about couples that met online before. At any rate, there’s even a number of married couples who met here and likely more doper couples who are not yet ready to be married, choose not to be married or are unable to marry who met here. While most haven’t been married 17 years, it’s still amazing how many have met this way.
Shall we start a Doper couple list? 
(I’ll start with some of the married Doper couples: Weirddave & GingerOfTheNorth, Mr. Cynical & Miss Creant, Geobabe & UncleBill, MsRobyn & Airman Doors, USAF, and I’m sure there’s more – I know there’s a number that are committed to each other in other ways!)
Now that I’ve talked about everyone else, I’ve never met an SO in cyberspace, but it sounds like an adventure!
sigh…I knew I had forgotten the last part of the story. We broke up shortly after his graduation, and were both miserable and lonely all summer. He went off to college and decided we shouldn’t continue being in one another’s lives because we fought occasionally, and didn’t find any girls to date, and I was too heartbroken to date any guys back where I was. So when he came back the next summer, we ended up getting back together and have been to this day (I’m in college). If everything keeps going this way, we’ll end up an Internet marriage…sort of. 
Congrats, Zoe.
Congrats Zoe. You and your husband must be one of the longest-running relationships that started via a computer!
That’s a lovely story, Zoe.
My sweet angel and I met using an online dating service (udate.com). Our first date was on 30 December 2001, and we got engaged on 21 December 2002.
Woo-hoo!
Congrats, Zoe! My wife and I met about three years ago online, at www.playbill.com, a great theatre site. The chat room no longer exists (which was kind of like our old pizza hangout being torn down or something 
) but we moved in together about six months later. About two years later, this past April, we got married.
A bbs I used to hang out at in high school was started by a couple that met on compuserve CB simulater back in the 300 baud days. They even got married online(pre internet), and supposedly they were the first couple ever to do so. They were on a few talk shows, and IIRC they came out and filmed one of the BBS partys.
There are many successful relationships started online, and yet I often do not like to admit that me and my man met because of an online chatroom.
We chatted, off and on, for a couple years in a public channel, and moved on to ICQ. I never saw him as anything more than just some guy I talked to online, despite the fact that we lived in the same city.
After losing touch for a few months, we got back in touch in about April '01. He had just broken up with his gf (whom he met through the same chatroom), and I was just in the midst of hooking up with someone else (whom, come to think of it, I also met in the same chatroom). When my love interest moved to Europe for 2 months only 2 weeks after we hooked up, my original guy was there to hear me out and comfort me.
We finally decided to meet for drinks, no hidden agendas, just a friend thing. That was May '01. He moved in with me September of that year, and now, as we enter '03, we are still very happily living together.
He is my everything. And it is scary to love someone so much, but I do. There are no official marriage plans, but we both see this as a permanent relationship.
Really, no reason to be embarrased, but I suppose there is a stigma attached to “internet relationships”.
Well I’ve been dating someone I met over the internet for almost three whole weeks now, by my standards that’s a successful relationship.
Then there’s TwistofFate and TirTinuviel, Demo and Psycat, Fierra and Anthracite, RickQ and Brynda, and I think Anahita met her husband on another online forum …
I met KellyM on the computer in 1993. We played a game together via email off and on for years and then started talking via ICQ. We met IRL in 2000, and fell in love and she moved in January of 2001. Our child will be born this year!
Montfort and Anniz have been married for over a year; they met here at the SDMB. Also, I think matt_mcl and Potter met here.
Congratulations, Zoe. Add Gunslinger and myself to the list of SDMB couples who met on the boards.
Also nocturne and Reinhold, Satan and Drain Bead, TruePisces and Verrain, fizzestothetop and me, …
Not sure if you can count this as an actual computer relationship - but here’s our story…
cadolphin and I met in 1974 at a church sponsored dance. We dated for a while, then due to a misunderstanding on my part, which is too long to go into right now, we parted ways.
Fast forward to 1999. I’m doing research to find lost classmates for our 25th high school reunion, and just on a whim I type her name into Google, and her home page pops up!!!
I e-mail her, we exchange e-mails, instant messages, and pictures for a while, we get together in May 2001 for the first time in 27 years, and get married in September 2001.
It’s scary sometimes how much we’re alike. It’s like we’ve been married for 28 years instead of 1 1/2 years.
Does that count?
dont forget Airman Doors and MsRobyn, are married and had the first Doperbaby, Aaron
Rico, that’s a great story. I am so glad you guys re-found each other. Stories like that make me a believer in the idea of true love.
Congrats on your anniversary, Zoe. Here’s to many more to come.
As ruadh mentioned (thanks, it is nice to be remembered), RickQ and I met here at the dope. He moved here in the spring and are celebrating our 6 month anniversary next week. Ok, so it isn’t 17 years, but it counts to us.
Well, UncleBeer and I met at my very first ChiDope way back in October of 2000. We didn’t start seeing each other until well after that, though (around 18 months). Not engaged, not married, but definitely serious. Does that count?
Although Mrs. Bricker and I met first IRL, we both credit e-mail, IMing, and even NetMeeting-type voice communication (along with actual phone calls, of course) with sustaining our courtship, since she lived in the Carribean and I in Northern Virginia. So it wasn’t a case of meeting on-line, but we were grateful for the chance to get to know each other much better via our computers.