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This is a question Meeting people from the internet

Monty Boyce asks: Have you ever had a real-life meet with somebody you first knew from the internet? How did it go? How long until the Asbo expires?

(, Thu 20 Oct 2011, 12:43)
Pages: Popular, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

This question is now closed.

I've met a few
I avoided putting my photo online for a long time not long after I was contacted by a member of the photography website I used at the time. She was single and liked the look of me, we exchanged emails for a few months and I guess I fell in love.
The only problem was she lived 6,000 miles away in Japan but I had a fairly well paid job at the time so getting out there wasnt an issue the real problem was if I should travel that far to meet someone from a website.

Heart ruled head and I found myself just about to land at Narita airport thinking I hope she is waiting for for me down there or I'm in the shit. I had no hotel reservations, no train tickets to Tokyo and spoke only a little Japanese.

After getting through Customs and Immigation I walked out into the arrivals hall tired and a little scared
but in the distance I spotted her I walked over to say hello and that's when I found out the other problem
Her spoken English was just as good as my Japanese, bad.

We spent the two weeks there having small conversations while doing the usual thing tourists do
night times were spent making love followed by a break and then more sex.

The relationship ended three trips and 18 months later, the distance and culture difference was becoming a problem
and we eventually drifted apart.

But I'm getting married next year to someone else I met online.

Yay me!
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 23:47, 2 replies)
tl;dr
Right... I've only really met people from the internet through b3ta, and the vast majority have been splendid types. I'm going to list them all here, because it is Friday night, and I've nothing better to do.

This isn't just an OMGB45H thing, I've stayed at people's houses, had people stay at my house, been to gigs, been to housewarmings, birthday parties, and even a wedding (with 3 more weddings to come!) Anyone who derides meeting "people from the internet" is talking bollocks.

So, here is a list of approx 100 people I've met through b3ta. A lot of whom I am in regular contact with through Facebook, Twitter and just generally seeing them in the course of day-to-day socialising. A few I don't speak to as much as I'd like, and 3 or 4 who I wouldn't be arsed if I never spoke to again!

90Nz0, Aardvark, Amorous Badger, asparagus time, baldmonkey, benkai, bilbobarneybobs, Blue Star, bogus official, Brayndedd, brooza, c3lia, Carowallis, Cheeky Boy!, chorizowagon, chunderbunny, come2whereimfrom, cr3, crazyjude, Curis, cunting for agatha, Dave The Hat, Donkey Gums, Dr Zaarlon, Druid, Easty, Esme Weatherwax, feek, Fluffy Elephants, FoldsFive, funkypixie, gathered crustacean, gianthead, Gizmo.mp3, Godzuki, Golden Fanjita, GrandmaOfShoes, grey kid, Hamster Trippin, Hellsbelles, hoogie, ImNotRightBotheredMe, in vino veritas, JackAction, jenpots, Jessie, Jobe, Kamikaze Stoat, Karl_Hysteria, lazygamer, Limey Treat, L-space, Lu, Malchick, manolith, mcdoof, MCQ, MooCow Byter, moohalaa, mr horrible, Mrs Trellis, Mrs. Sp@m, Mstandot, mugatu, Mushroom, mykeyboy, Nile, Noit, p3te, Pachey, piston_broke, Prof. Kenny Martin, Reckless Rik, Red Rocket, rnuk, rogue, rosie posie, Rotating Wobbly Hat, rubymurray, scott, SexFace, sleepybinky, spangolin, SpringySunshine, swaza, techierob, Tenhole Titty Trumptons, The Cat's Mother, The Doctor, The Furry Dinosaur, The Great Architect, TheFallGuy, TopUpTheTea, Tyronne, Watney Heckbulb hnnnnnnn, Wicca'd Witch, Wildheart Baby, Woodside, Wormulus, Yannmania and Yeknom

I've also met friends and family of people I've met through b3ta who I now consider friends, such as manolith's bird, INRBM's brother, sister, mum and dad, Blue Star's parents, Druid and Limey Treat's lodger, Malchick's uni friends, Pachey's chap, crazyjude's wife, L-space's bird, to name a few.

If I've missed any of you off, I'm sorry. I'm not really, but you know me.
If you think I've met you, tell me in the subthread :)

The prize for the b3tan I've known the longest goes to hoogie (34 years and counting). The prize for the b3tan I see the most of goes to in vino veritas (4 days a week at work). And the prize to the b3tan who is more like family than family is of course, my sister - Mrs. Sp@m :)
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 22:36, 5 replies)
FIRST!

(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 19:54, Reply)
If I met PERSONALITY HORSE in real life, I'd be his naughty cowboy and ride him hard.

(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 18:52, 5 replies)
I've met a few...
I met my now ex-boyfriend thanks to a car based website he created. I guess I have him to thank for me meeting my now husband via self same car based website.

We've been together almost five years, married almost two and our baby is due in less than two weeks. I do wish I could've skipped the messy first relationship though.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 17:33, 1 reply)
A happy ending
In January 1998 I was a final year student at Cardiff University. One Sunday evening I was with a friend in a computer room, listening to the charts on Radio 1, when Catatonia's Mulder & Scully was announced as the number three record.

With not much else to do (work wasn't an option) I logged on to the NME chat room, which was abuzz with people discussing how an second division indie band from Wales managed to stage a chart coup. One of the other chat room users mentioned that she was also at Cardiff Uni, and we discovered that we lived in the same street.

This was way before the dawn of online dating, you understand, and it was more of a chat about music than anything flirtatious. At the end of the evening I gave her my email address but thought little more of it.

The next day there was a message from her in my inbox. We exchanged emails for a few days, established a mutual love for the same bands, and eventually decided to meet for a drink at the student bar.

We got on, really well, so arranged to meet again. Within a couple of weeks we were a couple, fell in love and spent much of the next year inseparable. It was intense and passionate and unlike anything I'd experienced before.

We split up later that year after I graduated - it was the wrong time in life for us to be settling down. She broke my heart but I never forgot her. Every subsequent relationship was OK, but secretly I was comparing it to the girl from 1998. It felt like unfinished business, and I never knew whether it was a whirlwind romance or something that was cut off before its time.

In 2004, six years after we first met, I finally gave in and re-established contact. We went for a drink, found that same intangible chemistry that had been lying dormant all those years, and you can guess the rest. We married in 2006 and our little boy was born in May this year. I honestly couldn't be happier.

Looking back, it could all have been so different: if we hadn't been on the same website in that particular hour (I'd never used the chatroom before or since, and it's long gone now); if we hadn't lived near to one another; if she hadn't emailed; if we hadn't liked each other IRL; if I hadn't reestablished contact years later; and if we'd gone in hugely different directions in the intervening years.

Yay for meeting random people on the internet!

I can't stand Catatonia, mind.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 17:01, 6 replies)
I've met people on the Internet that I know in real life.
Oh ...
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 16:19, Reply)
Haha, just remembered this. My uncle joined Friends Reunited way back when it was all new and exciting.
He was worried about being stalked though, so registered with a false name.

A few weeks later, wondering why none of his school chums were contacting him, he realised that none of them would realise it was him due to the false name - so he re-registered with his real name.

And promptly got stalked by someone who professed her undying love and how she'd not stopped thinking about him for all the years they'd been apart since school :D
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 16:14, 2 replies)
B3ta broke my jaw
"I'm just going out to a gay club with some guys I met on the internet" was never going to be an easy sell to Mrs Andrist, but being the trusting woman that she is, she made no objection.

8 hours after my first b3ta bash I arrive home....covered in blood, no lenses in my glasses, cuts on my various parts of my body and a huge gash on my chin (which turned out to be a fractured jaw). I'm now banned from meeting "fucking b3ta weirdos".
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 15:55, 11 replies)
How exactly do you ‘meet’ someone on facebook?
All sounds a bit stalkerish to me.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 15:50, 7 replies)
Yes.
She is a grumpy old ratbag just like me. We get on very well. Unfortunately she lives in LA so we don't get to see each other that often, but we do email a lot, mostly rants about the government etc. She wants to emigrate and live in UK so is looking for a nice 50-60 something Englishman to marry (did I tell you she is completely bonkers?)

But the great success story is that of my son and the woman he met on Facebook. They now have 2 kids and were married last year.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 15:34, Reply)
Yup.
Engaged as well and she & I just celebrated our daughter's 2nd Birthday. We're not total weirdos either (I don't think).
slight edit
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 15:11, 3 replies)
Nope, not met a single person through anything other than real life
There's some I'd love to meet from here.
I'd like to know if the funny, talented ones are social cripples with adult acne (it seems only fair that they're afflicted in some way).
I've been tempted with a bash, but I've not seen one down Brighton way and I'm not sure if they're a bit clique-y and a newby like me might be quite the odd one out.
Anyone got good reviews of turning up single handed to a bash and enjoying meeting new people, or did you just sit in the corner by yourself and get slowly paralytic?
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 15:00, 27 replies)
Met a girl on the interwebs *ba-dum-disch*
she had a voice like a chipmunk. I didn't met her, skyping was enough. told her that my speakers are broken everytime she called but I got used to her voice afterwards.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 14:46, 3 replies)
FIRST!

(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 14:25, 1 reply)
I've been taken up the gary
by a Level 4 Paladin
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 13:38, 3 replies)
we met up
and she had a willy :(
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 13:34, 11 replies)
Some of my best friends are people that I've met through this site...
I expect most of you know about Jessie... Well I met her through b3ta, that counts on its own.

As well though, I've met quite a few of you lot now, at various bashes and things, and several of you are among my very best friends - indeed, some of you will be at my wedding. There are even b3tards I class as friends who I've never actually met in "real life", which I guess some people could take as a little odd.

I still know people who, despite all the stories (and non-stories) on here this week, think that OMG PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET IS RAPISTS AND MURDERERS. To them, I'd say look at this thread (warning - it's hard going, I still can't get to the bottom with a dry eye):

www.b3ta.com/board/10050833

Look at all the support and emotion there; how can that be a bad thing?
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 13:19, 7 replies)
I hate it when you meet a '40 year old man' in real life
and they turn out to be a bisexual teenage girl.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 13:04, 2 replies)
Jenny - The Girl I Met on The Internet
There are no funnies in this story, just a tale of a love lost and a head full of ‘what-if?’ The following account is true and I hope you’ll bear with me because I feel I’m about to bare my soul....

By a bizarre chain of events I ended up in touch with some people who were following/supporting/street-teaming for Crispian Mills at the start of his solo career after splitting up Kula Shaker and onwards to when he formed ‘The Jeevas’ in 2002. Along the way I met a whole bunch of people via the internet – fans who were passionate about music in general and some industry bods who weren’t actually as nasty as you’d think.

Within this circle, I became very friendly with some people who were living (and studying) quite close to where I was living and eventually we all met up for our first night out. From then, things snowballed and we began to meet up more frequently, spending weekends away at gigs and having some of the best times of my life.

I was married at the time, though due to various issues we began to grow apart – I wanted more from life than just 9 to 5, a mortgage and eating curry in front of whatever drivel was on the TV on a Saturday night. My wife seemed happy with this and couldn’t understand my need to be more than I was. By February 2004 this came to a head and we split. Immediately, my new ‘music family’ rallied around and the nights out, gatherings and gigs became more intense. I remember feeling distinctly hedonistic within my new-found freedom. For the first time in years, I felt alive; I could achieve anything.

Within my little circle, there was Jenny. She was a student at Sheffield University, originally from Hertfordshire. I’d describe her as being a well educated, tall brunette with curves and boobs to die for. We shared the same taste in music, we had the same vision, and we knew what we wanted out of life.

About three months after I became single, I committed the cardinal sin (never sleep with a female friend) and the next morning, I awoke next to Jenny. The next couple years were a rollercoaster ride of emotions with her – we were on and off as a couple (we split 3-4 times, each of us dumping the other) and it became an ongoing meme within our little circle of how long we’d stay apart before we got back together again. But that was just the thing – no matter where we ended up or who we were with, there was an invisible force that pulled us back together. I couldn’t help myself, even when I was dating other people I couldn’t get Jenny out of my head. She was everything to me and no one could even come close to her.

In April 2006 we got back together for what would be the last time. Later that year I started university as a mature student after quitting my job. I met another circle of people who would guide me through the next three years and we became a band of brothers who I’m lucky enough to still see now. I wanted Jenny to be accepted by this group and immediately they took to her (she was impossible not to like – so warm and personable, even though she professed to be painfully shy), but something was wrong. Jenny had jealousy issues with my friends and began to be more demanding of my time. Having learned from the mistakes within my marriage, I told her that I wanted to be with her but not to live in each other’s pockets – I accepted she had friends all over the UK (from uni) and I didn’t have an issue with her seeing them. The other problem was we were in a long-distance relationship, which meant clashes over weekends with each other and weekends where I was supposed to be either researching my work or going out with my uni friends.
Somehow we got through the tense times and I graduated in 2009 with a first. Although times had been tough (mostly me taking out my uni stress on Jenny) she’d been my rock and never faltered. However, the jealously intensified in the run up to the graduation ceremony ; I don’t want to go into detail but what i will say is 37 missed calls from her in one evening when I was having a meal with my non-uni friends was the final straw. In August 2009 we split for the last time – this time I was the one who broke up with her and frankly it was horrible. Jenny was heartbroken, I was heartbroken and my friends couldn’t understand what I’d done. The question that kept coming back to me was “Why didn’t you talk it through?” To this day I still can’t answer that.

In the months that followed we stayed in touch, I still loved her and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. We both dated other people but again, no one could hold a candle to her (when you live in Hull, surrounded by slappers and women just looking for a meal ticket then the pickings are pretty slim). In February 2010 she came up to Hull for a mutual friend’s birthday night out, we shocked a lot of people turning up together and she looked stunning. That night, we slept together for one last time. I just remember her touch being electric – like the first time all over again. The next evening we went out for a walk around the village and she said she was over me and didn’t love me anymore. I was hurt but I didn’t show it, I just accepted it and wished her a safe journey home. That was my second mistake; it was the tipping point where I could have told her I still loved her and wanted to try and make it work between us.

Later that year I began dating again and I met the girl who I’m with now. She’s fabulous, pretty, funny, charming, and intelligent and for the first time since I was with Jenny I feel complete. We really just ‘get’ each other; there are no pressures on us to be anything other than a couple and living in the same city certainly helps.

Yet, when it’s quiet, when I’m alone or even when I’m driving to work I find myself thinking of Jenny and the question that keeps me awake at night.... “What if?” To me, Jenny will always be ‘the one that got away’, she will always be the one girl who knows me better than anyone else on the planet and she helped me become the person who I am. I’ve learned a lot since we split and the person who I am now would have the emotional maturity to deal with relationship issues, not just got straight to “We’re finished”. I know she’s seeing another guy now; I just hope she’s happy and above all that he sees her through my eyes.

There’s so much more to this story, so many more players and so many interwoven stories. I swear blind that I could write a book about the whole thing but the danger would be that either no one would read it or even worse – it would end up as a dreadful screenplay, somewhat similar to ‘P.S. I love you’.

So there we go, that’s my story about Jenny – the girl I met on the internet.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 12:24, 13 replies)
I am quite lidderally about to leave to have lunch with a woman who I worked with ...
ON THE INTERNET!

In that we used to write copy for a dot com.

The end.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 12:20, 3 replies)
Reader,
I married her.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 12:09, 5 replies)
I met a girl from the internet once
Her name was Dot Com :|
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 12:08, Reply)
I have met a few people IRL from the internet.
Mostly normal, but one exception was this charmer - seemed reasonably normal, but obviously not:

www.northwalesweeklynews.co.uk/conwy-county-news/local-conwy-news/2011/04/28/conwy-paedophile-gets-14-years-for-sickening-images-55243-28594207/
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 11:39, 4 replies)
Back in the dim distantness of 'back then'....
....I was a regular on a number of news groups (Usenet) - At the time there were a number of allied news groups with a core group of users who posted in all of the groups, and they had had a number of 'meets' over the years. Myself, being one of the few regulars based in the UK, found it a bit tricky to make these 'meets' but after a while I became quite pally with one of the girls in the group and arranged a trip over to Washington State (where she lived). There were no axe murders, no weirdness, just a jolly fine visit for a couple of weeks to wonderful part of the world (Whidbey Island) While I was there, we met another regular who drove down from BC to meet up for an afternoon.

A couple of years later I became pally with another girl in the group, and the two of us have met up a number of times in SC - one time another couple of the groups members drive out from Arkansas to meet up for a day or two - and now myself and this girl are engaged and hoping to get together permanently before too long.

This has not been an exciting post. Sorry about that. The Washington trip was over 10 years ago, though, so that certainly fell into the time period of the 'internet axe murderer'

Massive drugs/length.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 11:34, 2 replies)
Met some nice B3ta people and Doctor Who fans
But didn't say anything to them in case they thought I was a stalker.

Firstly Joel (rathergood.com) when Seven Seconds of Love were supposed to be supporting The Beat - it was a shame I didn't get to see them play - there was an incident with a microphone and the band got knocked off the bill.

Rob (at the first B3ta comedy night in the Old Blue Last). Along with several other b3tans. I seriously enjoyed mushybees set.

I'm find chatting with complete strangers (which I did plenty of on both those occasions) but I can't talk to them if I know who they are (off of the TV or in this case B3ta).

I went to a Doctor Who convention once (just to see what they were like). Having found this on the internet, I suppose it fits the QOTW. Bought Mitch Benn a drink (and he bought one back - nice bloke) and managed to accidentally insult India Fisher (who does to the Masterchef voice-over now).
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 11:30, Reply)
Not exactly on topic but...you'll see where it fits (ooer Mrs etc)
As some of you know, I play the guitar, I'm divorced and (used to) study Aikido. These facts will all become relevant later.
As I was divorced, I had a flat with a spare bedroom, which I rented out to a mate from Aikido. With me so far?
Said mate had a brother (who also had studied Aikido) in a band - we went to see them on several occasions and a jolly good time was had by all. Mate's brother then started coming over to my place for jam sessions on my extensive collection of acoustic guitars, we started to perform in pubs, had many drunken nights together and became firm friends.
In the course of a conversation one night, mate's bro was waxing lyrical about a website he'd found that was hilarious and had pictures & stories on it and was a jolly nice place to hang out - in a cyber sense.
"Oh yeah, what's it called"? I asked
"B3TA" he replied.
"Fuck RIGHT off! Seriously?! I'm on there" I opined.
"No! I'm Pooflake" He said.
"Well fuck me rigid, I'm Captain Placid".

Admittedly it was only a few months that we'd both been B3TANs but it was a revelation that we'd known each other ore quite a while, jammed and gigged together but never knew we were both on B3TA.

And yes, we've met other B3TANs, all of whom seem normal.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 11:20, 7 replies)
Mullet
Me and my sister had an internet friend from our home town. We agreed to meet him in Manchester one day and he brought his cousin along. Internet friend was nice, the cousin was something else. He was at least 20 years older than the rest of us, had a perma tan (probably tantastic with this being the North), a long bleach blonde mullet, a wife-beater vest, shitloads of thick gold chains and ended every story with "and then I round-housed 20 Asian lads". Bizarre.
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 11:11, Reply)
hello...
I met a guy on the internet...he put an ellipsis on the end of every sentence to try and sound sexy and mysterious...
And when i met him in person he talked really slow...
(, Fri 21 Oct 2011, 11:00, 2 replies)

This question is now closed.

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