![[Lucia in Jerusalem]](images/grdnluc.jpg)
Love is a poem that recycles images, acquired in the search for depth of communication. The chronological thread of Randy's and my encounter serves as a springboard for reflections and associations, producing meditations around an image, an object, a memory, and a technology. The question is always how to use this medium to explore the profundities of our relationships.
I have lots to say on this....
There is no doubt, if not for the net, Randy and I would never have met. He lived on the west coast of Canada. I was an American in Israel for the year. We were 10,000 miles apart! Our story is about how an online ascii-based romance can turn into a face-to-face relationship.
Having been online for several years, I turned to the internet as a natural place for support and information when I decided to quit smoking. That's where we met, on smoke-free@msstate.edu. Randy said he was worried about chest pains. I wanted to look and feel better about myself in order to find romance. Little did I think I would find it on the list!
Randy's letters caught my attention and I began to look for them everyday. I didn't know that he felt similarly about me. We did not know anything about each other except what was revealed through words: the turn of a phrase, descriptions of our lives, our work, expressions of our personalities, sense of humor and empathy. What better way to get to know a person? And what better way to both keep one's distance and get close? Cyberspace is funny that way. It is easy to connect and easy to let go. It's all in your fingertips. You are in control. Like letter writing, electronic communication can encourage soulful revelation. Like the phone, it can be as immediate as speech.
We moved slowly toward each other, using a variety of electronic media to communicate. We chatted in real time on IRC, exchanged pictures in the form of graphic files, sent lots of private email, and EVEN spoke on the phone a few times! Then Randy built a page on the web so I could see pictures of where he lives and he could tell the world how much he loves me :) That was the origin of this site. It was a place for us to meet.
The bulk of our communication, however, was spent in hours of real time, screen-to-screen talk, sharing a cursor to play with poetry, articulate dreams and nightmares, sing lullabies, and dance across a split screen. We fell in love. Of all the different media we used, Randy says he loves me best in plain vanilla ascii.
It is possible that had we met in person, we would never have struck up a conversation of any depth or meaning. It is possible that being verbally inclined, meeting though this medium particularly suited us. It is possible that being isolated in our life circumstances, this medium bridged psychological, as well as geographical space. But I believe that we fell in love primarily because we were both open to love. And this particular medium of electronic communication excells in building upon the tension between distance and intimacy.
To fall in love online is to hold each other in bits and pieces. We could share our thoughts, fears, hopes, dreams and desires. We could see each other's face and hear each other's voice. We had all the parts, except touch, necessary to make it a whole.
It is not uncommon for net buddies to meet offline or for discussion groups to have annual "flesh meets." What was special about Randy and I was our decision to get engaged before we met face to face. It being an engagement, we were of course free to change our minds if it did not work out, but we both felt it was important to meet with a sense of commitment and purpose, instead of just checking each other out. The support of other people on the smoke-free discussion list became important to us at this point. We posted an announcement of our engagement and several people shared how they had met their spouses over the net!
Randy and I met face to face after one month of daily, online courtship. He could have arranged to leave his job but I was on a summer break from teaching, so I made plans to visit him in Canada.
I was afraid of the transition from an online romance to a face-to-face meeting. I was afraid that our online love would not translate into physical attraction. It is communication in different dimensions. Randy, on the other hand, felt that the "translation's already done." And it is true, for those who want to establish communication, it is a fantastic medium that can hardwire two souls together. The key is honesty and sincerity.
In order to avoid a crash at the airport, we articulated our expectations, reservations, apprehensions, anticipations. With pictures, we brought the physical into view as much as possible before meeting.
![[online in the lab]](images/644.jpg)
Many nights I sat there in BGU's lab of xterms, in room 644, till the middle of the night with three sessions going--one in netscape, one in talk, and a third in mail--as Randy and I viewed his web site together and made changes online. We treated these concerns as important, with candor, honesty and thoroughness. All the things we did paid off.
We both feel there is something special about having met this way. It provided us with a path for communication that preceded physicality. In this sense, the Internet as a medium enables some old fashioned values in its high-tech capability for heart to heart talk.
Whereas Randy and I used a variety of electronic media to communicate, it was the discussion list format that provided the intitial context for our meeting. A list gives subscribers a lot of freedom to think before they respond, as opposed to chat modes of communication where the timing is closer to speech. Thus, list discussions can foster intimacy and friendship as people share thoughtfully, over time. A sense of community can develop, not unlike a club, a class, or a support group in real life. The difference is 24 hour access from the intimacy of one's home.
The presentation of another human being in plain unadorned ascii text can make for a profound experience. Just the attempt to love makes us sensitive to remarkableness in the other. And when the other responds it can get you into a trance space of loving, twirling romance. Ascii can dance.