The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Hey Ladies...

Re: Hey Ladies...

Chuchundra — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:08:51 -0000

I met my wife through a plain old Internet personal ad. The old Spring Street personals network which used to run on all kinds of interesting sites like Salon, The Onion and The Village Voice. There pool of potential matches was much more literate and liberal than your generic personals site. I met a lot of interesting women through that before I found my beloved.

I've had friends who met and married through all manner of internet forums. More than a couple have met through the Ny Giants board that I frequent. My wife knows married couples who met through a listserv, in the pre-web days.

On the other hand, I believe my ex-wife met the man she eventually left me for on a World Of Darkness MUSH. But ya know, what goes around comes around.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Whit — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:01:45 -0000

I met my partner in a reptile chat room on msn before msn chatrooms got shut down by british pedo scares. That was Sept of 2002, and after two false starts and two years not on speaking terms, we finally seem to be on the same page, and deeply in love. I'm trying to get a job in the Burgh to be closer to him asap.

Seriously though, I out-nerd you all. A reptile chat room.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Juba — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:07:47 -0000

BTW since it has gone unremarked upon, nice allusion to Charles, Idris Elba's character from The Office. (Wow, and I thought Stringer Bell was a bit of a prick--he makes tight-ass String look like Poot!)

Re: Hey Ladies...

jnfr — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:11:56 -0000

I met my husband in a Muse, back in 1994 (that's a text-based online world for those who never did such things). We've been married since '95. Played EQ together, still play WoW. Don't knock it til you've tried it!

Re: Hey Ladies...

canadienne — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:01:15 -0000

Call the thread, Andrew wins.

I found one of my best friends online -- she happened to live in the same city, we met in person, and now both our families hang out together.

Re: Hey Ladies...

brucds — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:15:08 -0000

You know, I don't really care how Ann Althouse, who I happen to loathe, finds a husband. But I was annoyed that Bloggingheads decided to devote the better part of an episode to the "news." What a waste of cyberspace...

Re: Hey Ladies...

rassia — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:48:58 -0000

Well played, Jamakama! Coffee all over my keyboard...

Re: Hey Ladies...

nkoren — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:57:44 -0000

I met my wife via the "random" button on the crappy old Opendiary journalling site. I would hit that button repeatedly when bored; the pages it brought up generally reminded me of how glad I was not to be an angsty teenager. But one day, it pulled up the journal of this brainily hot-sounding chick who was working in a township in South Africa. I was working in India at the time, and my observations of the slums there formed an interesting counterpoint to her observations of the townships. So I left a comment on her journal, then she left a comment on mine, and when we both moved back to the States a few months later, we immediately moved in together.

I still maintain that this was probably one of the stupidest things that either of us had ever done. Yet somehow it worked -- that was seven years ago, and our lives have gone fabulously ever since.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Tinare — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:35:11 -0000

I didn't get to read all of the entries yet, but what a great way to get to know one of your ancestors. And an interesting view of a life at that time.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Tinare — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:26:30 -0000

And I just heard Jerry Lewis's voice...

Re: Hey Ladies...

Darkrose — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:16:49 -0000

I met my wife when she started an RPG on LiveJournal. We wrote porn together, and eventually we decided to meet in person.

That was six years ago this April.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Madrone — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:21:18 -0000

*wonders what server you played on*

Re: Hey Ladies...

bread & roses — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:19:02 -0000

I have a friend who married a man she met at alt.sex.fetish.hair. They have two kids and seem quite happy. The thing is, she's really, really, really hairy- she shaves twice a day, 'cause she'd grow a full beard otherwise, and looking for people who aren't turned off by women that hairy, much less turned on by them, has got to be pretty thankless in real life.

"Hey baby. Come here often?"

"... um... maybe I should show you my belly before we take this any further."

And being majorly into WoW, or blogging, isn't so specialized, and I think it's less of a turnoff for non-blogging non-WoWers (I *think*) but still both of those strike me as interests you're most likely to find a companion in online. If you show dogs, dog shows might be a good place to look for dates.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Hill Rat — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:11:33 -0000

I thought for sure the next line was gonna be, " . . . in the place I'm callin' out to ya!"

Re: Hey Ladies...

jacy — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:36:27 -0000

My significant other and I met playing online trivia on the old MSN trivia site 13 years ago. After a year of online back and forth, we moved to real life back and forth, and now a move across country, a house and many children later we're happier and more devoted to each other than any "traditionally introduced" couple we know. So it does happen.

The truth is, we never would have connected offline: we were separated by geography, politics and religion. We would never have been in the same place at the same time. The scariest thing I can think of is that it would have been so easy for us to miss each other.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Incertus(Brian) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:50:38 -0000

You know, I'd never really understood just how important letters were a hundred years ago until I started this side project transcribing my great-great grandmother's diary from 1895. I'm doing a post a day, and have been at it for just over a month, and I'm forcing myself not to read ahead so it can unfold for me slowly.

Anyway, my point is that I know some bare bones of the story: she's going to marry this man she's exchanging letters with--he's the widow of her best friend--and they'll move out west at some point, where she'll die relatively young--mid 40's. But it seems that every other entry, if not more often, she's either getting or receiving a letter, and apparently they're lengthy ones. Makes me wish I had access to them as well as this one diary, so I could see more of her life, because they were obviously an important part of it.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Tonya — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:57:01 -0000

I'm already 'married' to Idris Elba. The offer of friendship still stands. :)

Re: Hey Ladies...

Metal Fingers — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:56:00 -0000

Seriously... We need a post about the new DOOM!

Re: Hey Ladies...

Winston Chang — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:51:34 -0000

Being the leader of a World of Warcraft raiding guild does have certain...perks. You might want to look into that, being level 80 and all.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Andrew Fly — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:25:24 -0000

When I saw the title, I immediately thought "get funky" followed by cowbells. I guess that's what Ann Althouse is doing! (hopefully w/o the cowbells.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Tony Comstock — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:11:08 -0000

Peggy and I met on Mindvox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindVox

Re: Hey Ladies...

Deborah — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:04:53 -0000

A relative met her husband online, in a Star Trek forum. I'm pretty sure it took them more than 10 days to get engaged, though.

But I do remember an online community deciding to post when a member went off to jail for attempted murder--this person was smart and coherent and the only off thing was how much free time she had to post during the day; turned out she was on leave from her job while awaiting trial. I'm reeeeaaaally glad I never did a "hey if you're in the area come by my house" thing with her. One truly does miss contextual cues online--usually at the risk of a bad date, but freakiness doesn't always translate. (Alternatively people you know as normal souls in real life might sound scarily obsessed and Wrong About Cuddy when posting on the House forum.)

Re: Hey Ladies...

Persia — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:35:50 -0000

When I was in an online RPG, three couples hooked up while I was playing, and two are still together.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Adam Hyland — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:32:53 -0000

God, I love this blog.

I ran with a few wood elves, some of whom were in a relationship. Turns out that over a year another two (2!) pairs moved in and one of those two got married. I was 18 at the time and so this was a little mind boggling. In retrospect I think it is just as healthy as marrying someone from college, work or a pub crawl, if not more.

There's a lot of Ann Landers kind of advice out there for folks who are looking for a relationship. Lots of analogies, provisos and tripwires. The truth is something of a corollary to the Anna Karenina principle. Happy families are all alike--the rest of us have to engage our quirks and freaks in our own way. Sometimes we need to get acclimated, discover over months and years that we can love someone. Sometimes we have to follow that spark down the rabbit hole.

It probably helps if you and your wife are watching the running of the bulls and you shout "TRAIN!!!" that she knows what you mean.

Re: Hey Ladies...

Jamakama — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:23:11 -0000

Now I can't get the image of you out of my head - of you wandering the streets of New York as Blackwolf the DragonMaster, wizard staff in one hand, McDonald's Fillet of Fish in the other.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugk37TvIR8E