This is a story that has made our friends and family shake their heads in amazment, a story of two people who not only found friendship but love on the net. Two souls who were looking for love and were not finding it in conventional ways.

One soul had placed an ad on excite.com looking for a soulmate, and the other saw it. You have to realize that it was completely out of character for Bearcat to look at the "net" as a tool to find love. Well, the ad was responded to by the "cat" and shortly after, he received a reply from one lovely lady.

They communicated through e-mail for a period of time, sharing their day's activities and getting to know each other a little bit. Two weeks after the first e-mail Hez suggested we meet for coffee. That, in itself, was an adventure since Hez had forgotten to mention that there was THREE Tim Hortons coffee shops in her little town. I, on the other hand, had only been to her town twice in my life and therefore wasn't too sure where anything was. After driving around for about twenty minutes I did something which men in general do not do, or so I've been told; I stopped and called for directions. She guided me to the coffee shop she wanted to meet at.

I arrived at the location filled with anticipation and a little fear where I then saw a radiant beauty walk across the parking lot and open her arms for a hug. My heart was immediately intrigued. I met a lady who was open and who was a lot of fun to be with. Our first meeting was on a park bench, where we told stories and laughed. We then went out for supper and parted for the evening.

We continued to e-mail each other, use the ICQ system to chat daily and travel back and forth to see other. A big surprise was that we were still platonic and both were very comfortable with this. OK I lie, I wasn't, but being the gentleman I am, I wasn't going to push the issue and scare her. Then one fateful Saturday night we were on ICQ and she invited me down (the actual words were....I need to get laid, what are you doing tonight?) Being 100 km away and without a car, my son had it, was the worst feeling I could ever imagine. She, being the lady she is, volunteered to drive down and pick me up. The plan was to go "bar hopping" with some of her friends.

We not only fell in love that night, but we fell in love hard. We knew that we had found the "other" person we had been looking for. The trips and the electronic communications became part of our daily routines and we found ourselves wanting to be with each other more and more all the time. To hold the hand of someone who holds back, to kiss someone who kisses back was something I had been praying for a long time.

We saw each other as often as we could, getting to know each other's likes and dislikes, personalities and, of course, falling more and more in love with each meeting. Hez invited me to a gathering of her chat friends in Niagra Falls. This was the beginning of our genuine "living together". I went to her place on October 13, 1999 and we have been a "couple" ever since. The trip was a dream come true, the most romantic place in the world with my true love by my side. The people I met at the "bash" were her friends, the people I hugged goodbye were OUR friends.

We returned to Nova Scotia with the feeling that we were right for each other. We had that reinforced by people who, by nature, call it the way they see it. We, as computer geeks, are pretty free to express our opinions of someone who any of our friends are seeing. We found ourselves sharing everything that we have, and the term mine is never used in our household, well sure, HER underwear is her's. OK… they're hers in public… (weg)

Shortly after setting up house we decided to move to a new location much closer to her work since she had to travel an hour each way per day and we were fearing winter. This was to be OUR home, away from old memories, leaving any bad ones behind and bringing the good ones along. We approached the move with the excitement of a child at Christmas. A new home, our home!!! We also decided to replace a lot of the furniture with our "stuff". Again this was an exercise in the cleansing of the soul, out with the bad memories and treasuring the good ones. Never a day goes by, never an hour goes by that we don't express our love for each other. The difference between teenagers and us is that we know what love feels like, and we both recognize it and thank the "greater power" for each other daily.

We are in our "new home", all settled in and still falling in love with each other more and more each and every day. We have made a "rule" that Saturdays are "computer free", the day is ours to be with and enjoy each other. We spend the day doing crafts, Hez is a very talented artist, myself, I appreciate art but my drawings are second to Coco's, the gorilla for accuracy, balance or color selection.