When Two Geeks Collide
Posted by Nina on May 25, 2007
So yesterday while rummaging around LJ I came across this post. Wow, 2 more geeks unite through the internet! Then it dawned on me.. I have never really explained how my husband and I met. So for those of you who don’t care.. come back tomorrow… as for the rest, I’ll try not to bore you too much..
One night while chatting with my friend (yet another geek) he tells me about this super cool new IM messenger he downloaded. He says “It’s way better than ICQ and the random chat feature lets you browse users by interests and web pages!”.. this in itself tells of my geekdom.. who still uses ICQ but us anyway? So thinking he might be right I began to use it. Girls are apparently very few and far between online because every loser who wanted cyber sex messaged me. Yes, shocking, I know! I was ever grateful for the ban feature!
So one day I decide to try out the random chat feature that lets you find users who are browsing the same website you are. http://www.bhphoto.com Yes, thats right. I met my husband because he was browsing the same photography website I was. He is more of a programming (C++) geek, while I am a visual arts geek.. but anyway.. So I check his user details, a year older than me, from Russia, living in California, married. Harmless. Or, so I thought 
Thinking he was married our chats only consisted of general getting to know each other talk and photography. We never really chatted about our personal lives.. at first, anyway. He had used the ‘married’ sign to keep women at bay.. (worked great, right? lol) Somewhere between December 2002 and March 2003 we fell in love.
The distance between California and Michigan is great. It sucked. We chatted online all day and on the phone all night… literally! So Thanksgiving of 2004 he finally convinced me that he wasn’t a Russian serial killer and I invited him to come visit. He brought me a little pink quartz heart stone and gave it to me at the airport. At the end of this trip we began looking at engagement rings. We talked about marriage very early on.. including the running joke about us flying to Vegas to get married a week after we met.. only this time we were serious. We didn’t buy anything only looked.. ok, well I looked, and begged, and hoped. He said goodbye and headed back to California and started looking for jobs in Michigan. This alone should tell you how much he loved me! (are you even still reading? or have I bored you to tears yet?)
December comes and Sergey comes to visit.. he immediately tells me he has to run to the mall and get stuff.. this “stuff” I assume was gifts for me and my parents. My proposal was definitely a night to remember! I knew it was coming but I had no idea when. On December 23, Sergey took me to Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi, Michigan. Upon arriving I thought we were only going shopping for his winter clothes or Christmas gifts for my family or something. We walked around the mall for a few minutes and suddenly I spotted ‘Build a Bear Workshop’ and knew instantly he was dragging me in there. This whole trip had been a set up for him to build me the teddy bear I had been begging him to build for me for nearly 2 years! We walked over to the counter and picked out the cutest little monkey and he began to build it. He asked me only moments after he placed the monkey in my hands.. I am sure he said many warm, loving, and romantic things.. but I can’t remember any of them.. it all seemed like a dream.. He says I grabbed the box out of his hands and didn’t even say yes.. before I knew it, I was hugging him and wearing my beautiful new engagement ring.
I couldn’t resist showing off my ring so we quickly drove over to my grandparents house.. time was passing quickly and was nearly 11pm.. After all of the expected ooh’s and aah’s, we decided to return home and crack open a bottle of wine.. I however had other plans.. on the way to the car, I slipped on some snow and proceeded to twist my ankle.. I spent the rest of the night and the remainder of his stay in bed with my leg propped up on pillows! He moves to Michigan in January of 2005. September 2, 2005 we get married.
And we live happily ever after.
g33k + g33k = <3
P.S. I quit using odigo not long after we met.. ICQ is still much cooler.
