Love-Romance-Relationship-Couples

When Online Romance Goes Offline

In a recent post, I highlighted a list of dating websites that were specific in nature, thereby giving people an outlet to meet through common interests. Every couple shares an interesting story of how they met -- online or offline. Today I'm sharing stories of couples who met in unconventional online spaces. I hope you enjoy their stories in their own words and get inspired. Love can happen anywhere.

Andrea and Chris Wrenn

I was instant messaged by a gentleman on Aug. 22, 2000 while I was in a chat room on AOL. I didn't usually talk to anyone I didn't know via instant message, but for some reason I responded. By his use of language, I could tell he was intelligent, could spell and like me, could type fast. This helped to make ours a real conversation via instant message. We learned that we both had similar backgrounds -- small town, married high school sweetheart, divorced after being with first spouse for the same amount of years, kids, not big drinker/partyer types; he was military and I was a military contractor.

We typed back and forth for hours. Just before we signed off, he challenged me to give him a call. I did just that and we ended up talking for a few more hours. We talked online and via phone for the next two days and set up a time to meet in person and set up a lunch date at a place near the Air Force Base.

During out 2.5 hour lunch, the one thing that I remember to this day is how I felt his eyes could penetrate my soul, as if he could see right through me. Since that day, we have spoken to each other every day. In 2002, he asked me to marry him and we had a 13 day engagement, marrying on the parade grounds on the military base July 4. Together (through previous marriages) we share five children between the ages of 19 to 32 and several grandchildren. Had he not sent me that message, and I not responded... who knows what life would have brought.

Talia Mark and Michael Hunter

One day as I was driving from Florida to my parents' house in South Carolina, I heard Steve Harvey on the radio talking about BlackPeopleMeet.com. I had never heard of the website before, but thought it would be something interesting to check out. When I arrived in Myrtle Beach, my mom, sister and I created a login for the site, spent about 25 minutes on it and went about our day. A few months later, I logged in again, wondering if anyone responded to my profile. I was not actively seeking anyone, mostly because my job as a Multicultural Marketing Manager for USA Swimming kept me on the road a lot and didn't leave me much free time to date.

There were a number of responses from men who didn't fit the profile of what I was looking for. As I began to shut down for the night, an instant message from a man in Missouri popped up that simply said, "How are you?" In my profile, I made it clear that