How Kaete and Zishan Met...

Zishan and I met at a goofy little internet forum currently known as Forumopolis. At the time, he was in school in Boston, and I was working at an art school in North Carolina.

We'd both been members for two to three years, but hadn't really talked much to each other. Then one day, Z popped up in my AIM screen, and said hello.

It started with awkward little conversations (I was painfully shy) but quickly led to longer and longer AIM sessions every day. And then one day, out of the blue, he asked me for my phone number.

I think I spent the entire first conversation doing nothing but nervous giggles. We talked about movies, comic books, novels... soon we were talking every single night for hours at a time, only hanging up with the phone batteries started to die.

I became known to Z's friends as that mysterious IGF (Internet Girlfriend) while my family jokingly called Z my "Boston Boy."

Yet all this time, and we still hadn't met! It was a difficult proposition - drive or fly all the way to another state, to meet a person off the internet?

In the end, my mother agreed to drive with me up to Boston. We stayed at a family friend's house, and then drove out to the school to meet Z for the first time.

Yes, that's right, Zishan met me and my mother at the very same time! I remember my first thought was "He's so tall." Z took us both out to lunch, and it was obvious what a wonderful, sweet guy he was. My mother, needless to say, was charmed.

And as for me? I was in love.

A valentine from Z...