Shameless sycophant
Bit tenuous as I knew she was a real person but ...

I have been a fan of Jill Sobule's music for a long time. She has the most fragile yet powerful voice and has lyrics that grab me by the heart. She lives and works in America and so I thought I had no hope to see her sing. Less than no hope to meet her.

I befriended her on Facebook (she encourages all her fans to do that until she reached the 5000 limit) and found, some time later, that she was coming to sing in London at an incredibly cosy venue for one night as part of a European tour.

Despite never having been to anything like it before (I can be rather shy), I booked to go, had a wonderful evening listening to a fabulously talented woman sing and then ... met her.

It was a little awkward. She didn't know me from Adam, of course, as I was one of 5000 FB friends but we chatted amiably for a couple of minutes and she was just lovely. I was chuffed to bits to meet one of my musical heroes.

Apologies for lack of funnies or sadness but it meant a lot to me and it would not have happened had I not met her on the Internet first.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 10:50, 1 reply)

I don't exist.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 9:37, 12 replies)

In my period of sexual desperation (i.e. from ages 16 to 29)
I met three women off the interwebs of varying type:

1. While I was a student. She was a student in a nearby city and said she looked like Teri Hatcher. I didn't believe her, of course. She'd also said she'd recently split up with her boyfriend. So off I went to meet her, with not a clue what to expect. She did look like Teri Hatcher, and she shamelessly used me as a rebound shag.

Afterwards, I felt used and cheap, in a good way.

2. She looked like she'd escaped from the zoo, and unable to think of any way to escape, I dumbly followed her to an appalling nightclub filled with mental asylum escapees, bail absconders, loansharks, skanky-schoolgirls and sexual perverts. To complete my humiliation, she'd pre-arranged to meet two of her moose brethren there. I had a few swigs from a bottle of alcopops, said I was going to the toilet and ran fast out of there.

3. She was an American coming over to Britain for her Junior Year Abroad. I took her to a Thai restaurant and realised she was waaay out of my league. Still, she was polite and listened to my anecdotes, before I had to get the bus home.

Lose some, lose some.
(McChinaman banned, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 7:51, Reply)

Moooosic fans (and a B3tan)
Circa 2000, I was part of the Wildhearts mailing list. It was decided that there would be a Wildhearts List meet, at my tiny house in Burnley. It was brilliant, I couldn't have met a nicer bunch of people. One guy came over from Amsterdam, and that was B3ta's very own Waynster. His mate, Nick, showed us his arse. A lot.

Music is usually a problem in times like this, but not so with this bunch. The playlist was all Wildhearts related, and everybody knew every word to every song. It was a fantastic night, and we had a couple more after that, with people coming over from various parts of the country, and some from further afield.

I miss that mailing list. We made some wonderful friends, and everyone was utterly lovely, no creeps amongst them.
(V3lvetPresley, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 2:22, 1 reply)

I haven't met her yet.....
My marriage was loveless and.. abusive, I guess. I tried to leave a million times and always failed, gave in. I joined Tumblr, and got a lovely message from a girl from the USA. We got chatting, found that we both got one another's sense of humour. She helped me find strength, an interest in art, unlocked my passion for writing, and helped me in ways I cannot even describe.

I finally left my wife in March. After difficult times, I truly believe we are in love (and so does she), and, around 1500 hours of skype sessions, hours on the phone, MSN chats, kik messenger chats, photos, videos, voice messages, and around 30,000 emails later, I really think this is go. We meet a week before Christmas, after a few false starts due to illness and my divorce. So no, I haven't met her yet, but I will soon, and this is probably the most important meeting of my life.

Yes, I'm a slushy fuck.
(V3lvetPresley, Wed 26 Oct 2011, 2:14, 48 replies)

I used to use a chat program that was used by about 1000 people worldwide
There was a graphical interface, sort of the very beginnings of "virtual chat room" programs where you could create and modify a character, collect items, own space, etc. I can't recall the name of the program, but there was a good community in the free rooms.

It was the summer of 1999 and I met my dad in Amsterdam to start a 3-week driving tour of northern Europe. I wanted to check my email, so I popped into an internet cafe and there, I see someone using the very same chat program. I walk up to him and mention I use the program and it turns out that we had actually chatted online before. In person, he was actually a very tall, lanky, smelly person who looked like he had been sleeping outdoors frequently.

We ended up talking more for the rest of the time I was at the internet cafe, but from across the room at our respective computers, in the chat program. It was weird.
( intesvensk can't recall when I last checked the newsletter, Tue 25 Oct 2011, 23:45, 2 replies)

I'll tell you who I've not met from the internet.
The three b3ta users who have threatened to find me in real life, and presumably carry out violent acts of out dubious legality; among them was Mortal Wombat, last seen earlier this week having a massive online breakdown.

I'd love to have a good barney with some internet folk, but sadly it seems the individuals concerned can't find their own arses with an atlas, or even inhabit any world that exists outside the confines of their own heads.

By the way lads, if your offer still stands, I'm on nights this week so I won't be in most of the time. Next Tuesday or Wednesday morning would be best.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Tue 25 Oct 2011, 23:00, 15 replies)

I just met three yesterday.
Not from this site, though- I'm in Germany and I don't know of any b3tans here. This is a humor site, after all...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 25 Oct 2011, 18:02, 9 replies)

When the internet was young and slow ...
I met some folk from

uk.local.east-anglia

It turns out we were all related.
(Biff..., Tue 25 Oct 2011, 16:58, 6 replies)

I would like to meet this girl

(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 25 Oct 2011, 16:29, 4 replies)

I met some people off the internet
then I created a "comedy" troll account and repeatedly spammed their messageboard in a misguided attempt at "humour"
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Tue 25 Oct 2011, 14:34, 6 replies)

Way back when the gf and I used to play Ultima Online
Someone in our guild decided to arrange a guild meeting with one of the guys coming over from Holland. Some of the drunken highlights I recall

1. My gf, one of our female friends and a female scottish guild member 3-way kissing after getting drunk in a bar. I have that on Camera.

2. One of the older members of the guild going to bed early so we snuck in to his room and pulled back the bedsheets to reveal him in lovely red y-fronts. I have that on Camera.

3. The Scottish guild member flashing her tits at us. I have that on camera too but it's a lot less exciting than you may imagine. Spaniels ears.

Turns out we all got on rather well and ended up going to eachothers weddings over the following years.

I've met dozens of people from around europe after going to various Warcraft guild pissups since then and nobody appears to be a serial killer.
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Tue 25 Oct 2011, 11:49, 27 replies)

I sent Big Girls Blouse
some biscuits once.
Does that count?

She did ask me for them, I'm not a stalker or a mental.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Tue 25 Oct 2011, 11:14, 6 replies)

Had broadband installed a few months ago
The guy from the internet turned up around 11am. He was friendly enough I suppose.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Tue 25 Oct 2011, 9:17, 5 replies)

Internet peoples
I have met a couple, and for the most part, been terribly disappointed. I AM however an eternal optimist and am looking forward to meeting a lady this coming Saturday...should be interesting!

Cheers,
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Tue 25 Oct 2011, 6:18, 6 replies)

I've met 3 women from the interwebs... that fell in love with me.
Now I must say, It's been years since I met someone from the internets, But about 10/15 years ago just on the cusp of broadband I used to spend a lot of time on a website that has now gone called "the great British quiz" the site was basically a rolling chat room that started on irc (the good old days) that a bot asked questions and it was really only a feat of memory rather than knowledge as there was only about 200 questions on the thing.

It seem to be very well populated by bored middle aged house wives, In between rounds there would be general chatting and I seemed to get singled out by the girls there as being "a nice guy" mainly because 2 lines into a private chat most of the blokes would come out with "what are you wearing" and be furiously masturbating whilst informing said women about it.

The first Woman was 32 (I was about 19) who didn't live too far from me and was married, we arranged to meet for a coffee just to put a face to the name. After about 4 pints (as the coffee was in a pub) she turned and told me that I was one of the nicest people she has talked to on the internet and she had fallen in love with me! Panic ensued as back then I had morals and thought I could never break up a "happy" marriage I made my excuses and left as soon as possible.

Then a few months later I was chatting to another woman, this one lived dahn sarff in Woking (about 200 miles from me) we exchanged phone numbers and used to chat of an evening whilst on the quiz. Three weeks into these phone calls she decided she was going to come up to Warrington to stay for a weekend to meet me. she said on her last day here "I've been to the park thinking.... I think I have fallen in love with you" Again panic, this time including sheer terror as she informed me that people might not approve as of the age difference as she was 48!!! And strangely enough (and if not to prove how old she is) she worked on the launch of the first ATM in the UK and those shots of Reg Varney using the machine, she can be seen stood next to the manager. Again I made my excuses and she was another one added to my block list.

About 8 months later I started chatting to a woman in Manchester who was confiding in me about her deeply unhappy marriage and home life. We arranged to meet in Manchester. Upon arriving she told me that she had fallen for me and wanted me to whisk her away from her dull life and that she had booked a hotel for us for the weekend. my strong moral streak went out of the window as she was stunning and I wanted to get my nuts. After we went our separate ways she would phone me every day (2 or 3 times a day) Telling me how she was unhappy and was leaving her husband. I ended up talking to her for years (and still do now). She ended up leaving him about 2 years later and I had a bit of a relationship with her. Bit awkward as her eldest daughter was only 2 years younger than me. One drunken night she took the knock and went to bed leaving me chatting with her eldest who then made a pass at me. ABSOLUTE PANIC SET IN! so I scuttled off to bed. I confessed all in the morning and she was ok with it (little dance in my head as I thought "YES! I get the mother/daughter thing here") A blazing row ensued between them. The next day it continued which ended up with her daughter storming out and moving into her dads. Then two weeks later her 17 year old daughter pulled the same move. It was at this point I called it a day deciding that there was some kind of strange emotional damage running through the entire family.

Since then I have sworn 2 things.

1: Don't be too nice and listen to peoples problems on the interweb as they take general politeness as a deep connection and are generally starved of affection to be telling a complete stranger about their issues.

2: When chatting to a woman for the first time in a private chat, To get my cock out and ask them what they're wearing!
( tim1701 I have no board signature!!!!!, Tue 25 Oct 2011, 2:39, 18 replies)

I have met exactly 1 people from the internet
She is fantastic and lovely and makes me smile, this in itself is an amazing feet!
I just hope I can make her as happy as she makes me!
oh and she is b3tan - best of all the peoples :D
( SkUG >_O i got a couple of stitches in my eyeball... ow, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 21:23, 8 replies)

Found love again
Sorry, this is a fluffy one

As a few ‘old timers’ here may remember, I was tragically widowed in 2007 when my wife suffered a very rapid and chronic descent into severe mental illness. She took her own life by jumping in front of a tube train.

It was horrendous & I died that day with her. I was inconsolable &.desolate

Then after a year I started getting bored with my right hand (besides I kept thinking of doing it with her) so I decided that I should find someone to shag. Not for love coz I realised that after Sue I would never love again (I was 44), I just wanted a shag, basically. Well, come on. Like you wouldn’t?

So I signed up with a ‘dating’ site looking for larfs, like.

Within two months I met my lovely Marie. We met (in real life) on a first date & didn’t even kiss. Then we arranged dinner a couple of weeks later - managed a kiss then. YAY!.

Three & half years later she has moved in & we’re like a couple of teenagers. Can’t keep our hands off each other. We’re so happy together. Everyone says we were made for each other. My friends adore her, her friends adore me & we adore each other. We're engaged & plan to marry in 2013 in Mauritius (her homeland). Sickening, isn’t it? & we’re both nearly 50. Not many people get a second chance in life.

Funny when I’ve met people who say how sorry they are for me after what I’ve been through. I say: “But I’ve had the love of not one, but two wonderful women in my life. How lucky am I? Plenty of people don’t even get one."

It’s lovely. It’s fluffy. & I fucking deserve it, thank you very much.

(apols: width, depth, etc…)
( Dunks, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 20:02, 15 replies)

I recently met someone else online
who shares my love of the theatre and jazz. In fact they've invited me to a scat play tonight, which I gather is some sort of cabaret. They warned me that it can be a bit corny, but it should be fun anyway.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 19:22, 7 replies)

What not to do on a first date
I broke up with my previous boyfriend back in April. Even though it was an amicable enough split, I am a catastrophic blend of naivety, misinterpretation and downright disaster when it comes to being single (the Incident with the Short German whom I Thought Fancied Me but Didn't still has my friends in hysterics periodically) and life was getting me down. So I did what every single woman who has a complete inability to tell the difference between a man talking to her because he's a normal human being and talking to her because he wants sexitime does and joined a dating website. My main aim was to have a drink or two with (hopefully) a couple of nice single men without falling over, giggling uncontrollably over something wholly inappropriate or professing my mistaken belief that Morocco is in South America. After evading the slew of messages from men who completely lost interest after telling them I wasn't interested in casual sex I eventually seemed to be hitting it off online with a man whom we shall call James, for that is not his name. We had lots in common, we talked on the phone and he sounded lovely. We arranged a time and place for a first date.

We met over a beer and everything was going as swimmingly as a polar bear on a melting iceberg, so we decided to go to dinner. This is where things started heading downhill. Foolishly, I'd decided to wear small heels and as we walked over a bridge one of my heels got stuck in between the planks. Blushing furiously, I bent down and tugged at my shoe, hoping to retrieve it swiftly and laugh it off with minimal embarrassment. However, my heel was wedged more firmly than I'd expected and as I bent over pulling at it desperately some cyclists who were coming over the bridge behind us found their path blocked by my now cringing, mortified arse. Luckily I managed to hop out of the way and James rescued my shoe, and on we went to dinner.

Now this is the point at which things started to go really wrong. I'd been feeling a little off-colour all day but had put it down to nerves and the fact that I'd been at a first aid course talking about squeamish things. However, as we sat down to dinner my stomach really began to churn, the insistent churn of a stomach in dire distress that will not be ignored. However, I ignored it as much as I could right up until the starters arrived and the smell made me realise that she was going to blow, and NOW. I swear that day I could have given Usain Bolt a damn good run for his money as I dashed for the loo and the Mount Etna of badly timed vomits proceeded to erupt violently from my stomach. Unfortunately, I had to eventually go back out and explain to James that I would have to go home immediately, no, I couldn't kiss him and I honestly wasn't faking it to get out of the date!!

Luckily, he believed me, walked me home and despite the fact I spent the next 3 days hugging porcelain didn't stop us from having our first date take 2 a week later. We've been happily together for 3 and a half months now, and I have not performed any more gastric pyrotechnics.

Length? Now that would be telling ;)

TL;DR I met a man on a dating site, vommed on first date, now he's my boyfriend.
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 17:37, 2 replies)

In September 2001 I took a series of trains to the Netherlands
From the rattly South Eastern to Dover Docks, to the dawdling Belgian countrysider and the frantic platform-dashing as the conductor informs me I'm going to Haarlem, not Arnhem, the adventure took most of the day.

I sweatily disembarked 12 hours later in a sleepy town, and cast my eyes around for the blonde metaller I was supposed to be meeting. Janneke and I had been chatting around online for nearly five years, and with the new-found freedom being 18 had given me, I figured it was time for a European jaunt. I hunkered down on my backpack outside the station, and waited for her to arrive.

Ten minutes turned to twenty, and then an hour passed. I was more and more frantically checking my watch, wondering what was going on. Was I in the wrong time zone? Had I got my dates mixed up? Should I have gone to Haarlem instead? Panic was properly setting in.

I scanned the traffic, heart racing every time another vehicle pulled up to the station. Nope, not her. Nope. Nope. This bus? Nope, she's not on that one either. Fuck.

And then I saw a motorbike, a weedy rasping scooter of a thing, come buzzing down the access road to the station. Blond hair streamed behind the helmet. A petite figure clad in tight leathers. My heart was pounding.

I stood up in anticipation, and watched as a homeless man ran out of nowhere, straight into her path. She swerved, lost it, and gracelessly slid with the bike into a concrete upright. The crunch of bone and steel was sickening.

They wouldn't let me into the ambulance since I wasn't a relative or a friend. Heartbroken and bloodstained, I took the next train home, and had to explain to every conductor, the border guard and my own parents that the bloodstains and my early return weren't linked in the way they thought they were.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 17:09, 7 replies)

I'm scared of B3tans...
Every time I see a London bash being advertised, I go through this long drawn out process (sometimes takes weeks):
1) I should go to that. I like most people off that there B3ta, I think, and there's a few of the ones who make me laugh are definitely London-based. Yeah. Sounds good. It's not as if I have anything better to do.
2) Maybe I won't fit in. Maybe I'll be the wierd one there. I shall try to persuade my only colleague who is also on B3ta to come too (always fails. He doesn't like people). Doubt begins to settle in.
3) I'll give it a miss this time. Maybe next time. I'm not sure I understand the B3ta hive mind well enough to risk it yet.

Thing is, I'm sure that at least some of you are lovely. My concern is that I might not be.
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 14:16, 25 replies)

I went to Islington on Saturday night to watch PWEI
Before the gig I was sitting outside a pub with a mate, waiting for his friend to turn up with their tickets. A chap wearing a PWEI T-shirt approached and started chatting to us - not entirely unexpected at an event like this, but eventually he asked me: "So who are you, then?"

He was meeting some people off a PWEI messageboard and had mistaken me and my friend for "people off the internet".
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 10:56, 4 replies)

An Unexpected Invitation
I'd been chatting to a woman on the internet (a real one - she'd sent pictures which weren't stolen from facebook, or taken at an the only angle from which she looked vaguely human). We'd discovered a lot in common - both from the same area of the UK, similar sense of humour, both enjoyed writing - and I was enjoying our chats.

But I was completely surprised when I got a phone call from her, totally out of the blue - I hadn't given her my number, she'd tracked me down. That's not too stalkerish, it was my work number so easy to find.

She was slightly drunk, and I could hear friends in the background egging her on. The content of the conversation was, basically, "How soon can you get here and shag me?".

Unfortunately, "here" was about 8 time-zones away. Arsebiscuits.

We did eventually meet up, when we both happened to be passing through the same city at the same time, but that was some months later and we'd both managed to get engaged in the meantime. So I missed out on a total shagfest, simply because I didn't have a teleport device to hand when I really needed one.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 10:44, 3 replies)

It's a small small world
I have a friend who I have known for over 30 years. We have been schoolfriends, wingmen, drinking pals, occasionally business partners, went to each others weddings, and are godparents to each others children.

Was talking to him the other night, it turns out we both have accounts on a website called Facebook.

Could have knocked me over with a feather.
(username failed moderation, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 10:15, Reply)

Ah yes
Back in the pre-internet days when I was a wee nipper of about 12, I met some of the local sysops from the local BBS scene. Nice chaps, one of them even drove the school bus and would occasionally invite my friends round to watch videos - he didn't invite me, which turned out well when he was sentenced to 3 years for child abuse. Mercifully it appears I was an ugly child.
(UncleMikey A wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 10:07, 4 replies)

I once met somebody from the internet without knowing it until some time into our conversation
at my ex-girlfriend's birthday party. She introduced me to a bunch of her friends and it was only on the train back to the city that me and one of them worked out that we'd actually met several years back in a Fandom-related RPG in which she played a Harry Potter character and I played one from Good Omens. Good times, good times.
(Lieutenant Colonel Oblivious brought to you by intravenous sugar, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 6:45, 1 reply)

mortal wombat

(mortal wombat yeah, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 4:37, 7 replies)

mortal wombat

(mortal wombat yeah, Mon 24 Oct 2011, 4:37, Reply)