We have a red balloon.

I'm going to take advantage of having to post every day (and sometimes more) to write about some things I might not normally write about. I have a few stories in me of various things that happened to me throughout life, some funny, some romantic, some kind of sad.

One of my favourite ones, however, (and a pretty romantic one) is the story of how I met Andrew. You might already know it, but I'm a gonna tell it again!

Andrew and I met online. Not only online; on an online dating service. I'd been single for a year or so and had heard good things about Lavalife (although I've been told that apparently Plenty Of Fish is the good one nowadays). So, with a little trepidation I signed up. I was working a full time job at the time and didn't have much of a social life outside of it. I didn't really want to date at work, having seen the radioactive fallout that sort of thing brings, and so Lavalife seemed like a good possibility. Part of the draw was how easily I could distance myself if I didn't like the vibe I got from anyone.

At first I wasn't too sure. It was fun and I got a lot of male attention (especially after putting up a picture. If you don't, all you get is requests for pictures). I didn't feel any kind of 'click' with anyone, though. As soon as I started chatting with anyone it seemed like they wanted to meet in person right away. I wasn't into that. I wanted to talk a bit online, then move to talking on the phone, and then we could discuss meeting in person. Basically, I wanted to take things slow and it didn't seem like anyone I encountered was on that wavelength at all. Plus, I wanted to talk to people who used things like punctuation, grammar and few (if any) smilies. I'm not perfect in any of those areas myself, but I'm a bit of a writing snob, I admit. It was getting a bit frustrating, and I wasn't sure how much longer I wanted to stick with it.

One day I noticed a guy whose tag line read, "I have a red balloon." A couple of years before that Jerome had sent me one of the best books in the universe; The Happy Hocky Family. In it there is a small story about Baby Hocky and his balloon. His balloon was red. I instantly recognized this guy's tag line as a reference to that most genius of books and wanted to commend him on his obvious fantastic taste in reading material.

A dirty little secret? I never actually ponied up any cash on Lavalife. Not paying means not being able to do certain things, like initiate an instant message session or send an email through the system. Frankly, if you're a woman who's at least halfway good-looking you get enough male attention that you don't really have to spend any money. You could send what was called a 'smile' for free, which was basically a little teaser. The 'smiles' started off with something like, "I'm smiling at you because ..." and then there was a drop-down menu with a selection of various quotes to choose from. Some said things like, "... you have beautiful eyes," or, "... your profile intrigued me," or, "... your smile brightened my day." Crap like that. What I chose to send to this guy was, "... message me and I'll tell you." I didn't want to blow smoke up this guys Uno so figured the one I chose was safe and non-committal.

And ... he didn't message me back. I could see when he was online, since after you sent someone a smile they'd appear in a list of contacts, but he didn't get back to me. After a week or so I figured I'd try one more time, and if he didn't want to talk to me I'd give up. I just wanted to high-five him about the book, and if he didn't want to spend the money to talk to me then fair enough. I deleted the smile I'd sent him and resent it. I don't remember which teaser message I chose that time, but within minutes he messaged me. And this is what he said:

"You must really want to talk to me."

How suave! I was just so excited to tell him about my appreciation for the Hocky Family quote that I ignored that and rushed on to say how much I love Lane Smith. That seemed to impress him and after the initial slightly bumpy intro we continued to chat for a bit, then moved to chatting on MSN, which was free for both of us.

We chatted for a while that night. Then the next night. Then the night after that. Within three or four chats we were already floating the possibility of meeting in person. Within two weeks, we did. Andrew (for it was my Andrew) decided to come to Kingston to meet me. We settled on meeting in person at the East Side Mario's on Division street, a place that he knew from the time he'd spent in Kingston sailing.

I was fifteen minutes early, he was fifteen minutes late. Those that know us know that those are two fundamentals of our personalities, and those are things that have not changed since then. The hostess seemed concerned that I was waiting and seated me at a table by the window. I watched each car drive into the parking lot, my heart pounding and stomach full of butterflies. For reals. I finally saw him step out of his car. He was wearing a dress shirt and khakis. He came into the restaurant behind some people, and I got up from my table to go to meet him. We walked up to each other and instead of saying hello and shaking hands I just grabbed him and kissed him. Muchos. It felt like exactly the right thing to do, and according to Andrew, it was.

We sat down and ordered food and drinks, but I don't think either of us ate much. We talked and smiled and picked at our food, then left the restaurant. That was on a Monday night. Andrew didn't go back to Ottawa until Thursday morning, and by the time he left Halo had already decided he was good people. Believe me, Halo's approval meant something since he was a very shy, nervous little guy.

After that I pretty much knew I was a hopeless case. Andrew's defense on not responding to my first smile is that I was cute, but too far away to consider as a possiblity. It's a good thing I was persistent, wasn't it? Within a few visits after our first one we knew we wanted to pursue a real relationship, and so we decided to take a big risk and move in together to find out if it would work. Luckily, it worked like magic and we're still happily living together more than three years later.

So, who do we have to thank for our random chance meeting? Lavalife? Yeah, I suppose, but I think that there are more people that go away dissatisfied from their service than there are true success stories. Lane Smith? Partly, yes. His genius could probably bring warring nations to peace. But the real blame gratitude goes to our wonderful friends, Jerome and May. They are the ones who introduced us each to The Happy Hocky Family, and without that hook Andrew and I might never have met. And that does not bear thinking about.

Andrew? I love you.