When Harry met Sally...

It was one of the silliest ways to meet. It would seem that both of us were the most jobless and pathetic people in the world. But well, the truth remains that that's how we met. We met on a game on Facebook. One of those things where you seek out people playing the same game so that you can increase your number of friends, neighbours, clan people, citizens et al. There are chat-rooms in this game, where you could meet people and make friends. We would hang out with each other and a bunch of other people in these chat-rooms, our avtaars cackling away at each others' jokes. Therefore, soon we decided we wanted to be friends, in the real sense of the term, rather than just add each other for the sake of increasing the game points.

Are you judging us? You may. I probably would judge somebody if they told me this is how they met. But I can't deny it. This is our story. We met when we were both completely free, with nothing to do on our hands and completely bored. But we gradually became very good friends. You know, when you meet someone online, and you know that they are never actually going to collide with you anywhere in your life, you lose all your inhibitions. You talk as if nothing bothers you. You share your secrets because you know it's not going to make any difference if this stranger knows them. You probably assume that this will fizzle out after sometime, just like so many other of your internet friendships have. We both did the same thing. Except, we didn't expect to become such good friends and understand each other so much. We used to even wait for each other everyday, wait so that we can chat and tell each other how was our day, what did we do, what did we eat, if anything special happened that day. And then, the conversation would slowly go on to some things we might have done in our pasts, anecdotes from each other's lives, dreams and hopes for the future, embarrassments, achievements, everything. We still never ran out of things to say to each other. We would still wait for each other to turn up online. And if any of us wasn't able to make it, we would leave a message explaining that because we knew that the other person would be waiting for us.

Naturally, this friendship meant something important and gradually became more than mere friendship. It is the nature of things, I think. He told me he had a crush on me quite soon after we started chatting. I didn't know what to say. I think I said "Thank you." or some such inadequate response. But, even though I liked him, I had never thought that it could ever be a relationship. Mostly because: He is a Pakistani. I am an Indian. I am living in the UK. I am going to go back to India after I finish my studies. And most importantly, I had never met him. It was an online friendship. The thing that I never expect to last for too long. So, we left it at that and never brought it up again for another 4 months or so.

But the chatting, the friendship and the relationship continued growing. There were always "I love you"s uttered at the end of conversations and a conversation without hugs and  kisses smileys was rare. But we were still friends. Friends say these things to each other, don't they? Finally, there came a point where none of us could pretend any more. We had fallen for each other. I don't remember who said it to whom first and frankly, I don't care. Because, finally, both of us were ready enough. I am the cynic and he is the romantic. That is probably why it took me so long to accept it. And even today, I have moments of doubt and uncertainty. For how long will this long-distance, internet relationship survive after all? But, I suppose, we'll work it out. We have been trying and doing it for the last few months now. I guess we can do it for one more year, can't we?