Yes, here I have been putting up messages left right and center, and then somebody tells me
"Hey Gaby..what about YOUR story"...Um..Gulp...yeah, I suppose that I'd better put it on or
no-one will ever write to me again!
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How to start?..Now I see what people mean when they have written to me and said that it's
difficult to get started...but I'll try...o.k. going back to April/May 1996. I had a computer,
modem and had just gotten connected and thought that I would give this wonderful world of
"Chat" (of which I had heard so much) a try. It was a Friday evening and after typing
"Chat" in the search engine, I came across "Healthy Choice Chat Rooms" and thought
"Oh well...what the hell". I had absoluty no idea what to do, so I just watched the screen
in front on me for a while and then I realised that I had to press "refresh" (DOH). I remember
that there were about 8 people in the room at the time and I had to be told all the "netiquette"
re: typing the persons name 1st to whom I wanted to speak...NOT to type in capitals etc. I
stayed in that room for about 20 minutes, having to go when one of my children needed to
use the phone, but I "bookmarked" the page ( after someone had told me how to do that!)
and deceided that seeing I had nothing better to do the next evening I would go back again
and look closer at this whole world. I mean to say, here I was, an Australian, in the Netherlands,
"talking" with people from U.S.A, Canada, South Africa and places that I had only ever
dreamed of! Saturday evening came and there I was sort of "stuck" to my keyboard, Sunday
was the same with the exception that all of a sudden there were about 15 people in the room,
let me define that a little more clearly, 14 females and one male! Well, as you can imagine he
was the center of all that attention *G*. What I did not know at that stage was that he was also
living in the Netherlands Not that then I ever could have believed that people who
"chat" actually meet!
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Well one thing led to another and the "talk" got around to ages. Well, I thought, "Gee, I'm the
granny in here with all these "young" people ( not realising that the majority of "chatters" were in
their mid-20's and 30's!) so I said that I was 35...I had also seen that this one and only male
had mentioned his age to be 36! ??Vanity?? After a time people started leaving and I said that I
had to go as well because had to pop down to the local to get some cigarettes, but there he was
offering me one! (Great way to stop smoking....smoke virtual ciggies!), so I accepted one but
after a time the urge for "Real Life" nicotine became too strong and daughter dear was nagging
to use the phone (again) so I really had to log off, but not before he gave me his phone number
and told me to give him a ring! Yeah Right!
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Monday and Tuesday were too hectic to even get near the computer and Wednesday morning
I thought that I would try out the phone number, (curiostiy you see) and I was pleasantly
surprised by the deep masculine voice that I heard on the answering machine. Of course,
this got me very curious. After checking with daughters to see if they needed to use the
phone, I decided to see if he was chatting again on Wednesday, and yes there he was.
We got chatting again and started swapping information about each other...
(physical attributes now!) and I finally gave him my phone no. at work and told
him to give me a ring, not mentioning that I had rung his answering machine that
day! Thursday he rang me at work, I had just gotten in and we were so busy
with customers etc, that I had to use the interviewing room to take the phone call.
One of the 1st things that we agreed on that we should both speak to each other
in our native tounges, i.e. he in Dutch and me in English, we are both fluent in each
but it is easier to express oneself in ones own language. That out of the way we just
spoke about everything and nothing for about 10 mins by which time I was
so needed out front that I had to go, but not before making a "date" (HCC date)
for Friday evening.
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By the time Friday arrived I was what one may call a little bit of a wreck! So after doing all the
necessary cooking and cleaning and checking that the phone was going to be "mine" for the
rest of the evening and for as long as I wished, I logged on and lo-and-behold...there he was
again. We were with the usual group that we had gotten to know..i.e. Kori, Lili and Crystal, and
spent a long and enjoyable evening chatting, laughing and just having good clean pure
FUN.
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Over the next few weeks we met regularly on the net and then I suppose that as things have
to progress in life we finally made that "date" in real life! We were to meet on the 13th July
at 4.00 p.m. in the Central Station at Utrecht. I had to be in the neighbourhood then and it
was reasonably close to where he lived. The evening before we met I spent chatting with
our normal crowd and was warned explicitly by Lili to watch out because he may yet turn
out to be a serial killer!...I found this rather absurd, but just to be on the safe side I rang
a girlfriend and told her where I was meeting him, who he was and told her that I would
"check in" with her at 7.00 p.m. that evening, come hell or highwater, and if I had not
rung her by 8.30 to call the police, 'cause then something was really wrong!
Yes, Lili, you really put the wind up me that evening!!!!
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The next day dawned sunny and hot and I was as nervous as anything and the more the
day progressed the worse I got. At 1.30 I decided that I was NOT going to meet him, at 2.00 I
was, at 2.30 I wasn't, that's how I was feeling, until it was about 10 to 4 and there I was like
teenager on her 1st date scanning all faces that appeared in the station restaurant.
He had told me what he was going to be wearing and I had told him, but I had a plan
worked out that if he was really terrible company in RL, I was going to have to
rush away to another appointment *G*. I had told him that I looked a bit like "Ma Flodder"
(all you Dutchies know who she is) so I bought a cigar and when I glimpsed him standing
outside the coffee room I waved with the cigar! (glad that he couldn't see how my knees
were shaking under the table, Utrecht had a minor earth tremor that afternoon!)
After about 2 hours and 6 coffee's we decided to go and have a meal and
it was time for me to "check in" with my girlfriend. I made the excuse that I needed to
use the ladies and made my call! We spent the rest of the evening just talking and
talking, it was as though we had known each other for a long long time we never ran
out of things to say to one another!
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Now to make this long long story a little bit shorter, yes we are together now! I am not
going to say here that this is the only way to meet a partner, because you and I know that it's
not, but what I will say is that it's one of the safer ways to meet, if you are prepared to
cover all bases before actually meeting each other in "RL". He knew nothing about me
except where I worked, (as a temp) and by the time I met him I had changed jobs again for
the 2nd or 3rd time, he just knew my 1st name that's all. Maybe he could have found out
my address, (I was unlisted in the phone book) but I didn't even give him the
correct area of Holland that I lived in. It has now been close on 2 years
and yes, our relationship is the same as most, we have our highs and lows, but at this stage
I am really glad that I found HCC that lonesome Friday evening!
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