Online Dating 101 - Love Stories

Good morning, my darling pupils! Today on the blog, Krista Ames, fellow TMP author, is here to share her own personal online dating fairytale. Krista is a sweetheart of a person, so it only makes sense that she writes sweet romance too. I also hear she has a new book releasing next week. Be sure to check out her website for further details. Take it away, Krista!

Hi Evelyn :)  Thanks so much for having me on your blog today!!

I have always, ALWAYS been a Happily Ever After type of girl.  I don’t like reading anything that ends any other way, so when I lived in Florida and my marriage ended I was heartbroken.  Marriage was it for me, but apparently that particular it wasn’t meant to be.  I continued living my life-after-divorce with my 3 wonderful kids in sunny Florida and in those quiet hours I worked on my writing.

One day a friend emailed, begging me to join a social site she’d found called Tagged.com.  It’s one of those sites where you set up your profile and then to add friends you scroll through hundreds and hundreds of people (men and women) to make selections based on what their profile says.  There are chat rooms with probably a hundred different themes, games you can play, and ‘tags’ (little pictures) you can send to your friends. Well, before I knew it I had a few hundred friends which meant I spent too much time on there, but I didn’t do anything else except work and take care of my kids.  Of course this was all just casual for me anyway; I wasn’t looking to hook up with anyone.  I’d heard way too many stories about meeting someone on the internet and it kinda creeped me out.

So, one day I sent a cute little how-ya-doin-hot-stuff tag to one of my friends that I sometimes exchanged a hi, how ya doin greeting with, and afterward I thought, oh crap!  I know his profile said single or at least I thought it did but what if he had a girlfriend or a wife? I was becoming horrified at the thought. I wanted no part in home wrecking so I sent him a private message apologizing for the tag I’d sent and told him I didn’t want to cause any trouble with his wife or girlfriend.

Surprisingly, he wrote back and said “no worries, no wife, no girlfriend, have a great day Krista.”  I was beyond relieved, and I didn’t notice at first but apparently my ‘tag’ gave way to a lot more communication. Before I knew it I had at least 1 message from him every day.  Got to the point where I lived for checking my account to see if I’d hear from him.  Then one day, he didn’t just message me, he asked for my number so maybe we could text each other.  And why would I say no? (Because my mother always said never talk to strangers)  Oh well, what kid ever listened to their mother anyway? :)  The texts burned up our phone lines until one night, after putting the kids to bed, instead of the text beep I expected, my phone was ringing and it was his number.  I froze…Was I ready for that step? 

Heck yah I was!  I’ve always been a sucker for a sweet and sexy voice and his did NOT disappoint.  That very first phone call was over 4 hours long. We never ran out of anything to say.  With the many calls after that, I was getting attached and hadn’t even met this guy in person.  I was afraid it would never happen because while I was still in Florida, he lived in Michigan. :( However, it seemed my life was taking some unexpected turns financially, and with no support from my ex, my measly job wasn’t enough to pay the bills.  I could no longer afford to stay in Florida. 

I made the difficult decision to pack up my kids, leave a job I loved, say goodbye to my mom (who still lives in Florida), and move back home to Indiana where I’m from.  Excitedly, that meant where this ‘friend’ of mine lived was only a 3 hour drive from where I would be staying, so he arranged for us to meet halfway on a weekend, the very weekend I drove in from Florida.  That was such a great weekend it changed my life forever. 

This all happened almost exactly 3 years ago and today I live in Michigan with that wonderful man that I met online and married a year ago. :)

I definitely never would have thought online dating would work but it sure changed my life!  The one thing I really think makes it work is taking the physical pressures out of the picture and enabling two people to get to know each other first.   

Thank you so much for being here, Krista! I loved your story, and I loved even more the number of emoticons you used in it. :D So there you have it, folks. Another online dating love story. Hope to see you next week! 

ETA: Here's a link to Krista's webpage for release info and cover reveal! Click me!