A Match Made Online
By Michael Murphy and Beverly Pekarek

"When are we going to have a date at another site?" This was the Private Message I sent to a woman (at least I presumed she was a woman, this is cyberspace after all!) named Tasha, a regular occupant of the renowned Chat Room found at James Taylor Online. Not long after I took up residence in this Chat Room, I began to notice that almost any thing posted by Tasha was a thing of substance and wit ... and sometimes pure beauty. As a few weeks passed, I found that I was more and more intrigued with this lady. I gradually learned bits and pieces about her in the context of chatting with several others at the same time. And the more I learned, the more I wanted to know.

I had heard a few other chatters use the phrase, "I have a date at another site," so late one Friday night on the week before Thanksgiving I decided to ask Tasha "out," so to speak. "When are we going to have a date at another site?" I typed into the input box, selected Tasha from the SEND TO Menu, and clicked ENTER -- not even really knowing what I would say if she said yes or what I expected to happen. We lived in different states -- she in Illinois, and myself in North Carolina (The Land Of JT).

After a significant pause for contemplation (and, I suspect, for effect!) she answered. We exchanged email addresses and she explained to me what Instant Messaging was. Being a new computer user from the country,I had never heard of such a thing. We agreed to write, then my email server promptly went down for two days. Cyberspace can bring new meaning to the old male promise of "I’ll call you!"

After my email service returned and I explained that I really did try to write her, we began to Instant Message. The connection that we made after we began communicating one on one was surprising. It was amazing in both the speed at which it happened, and in the strength and the depth of it.

Tasha's Side of Things

Michael is correct in saying that I made a "pregnant pause" before responding to his Private Message. There were several issues to consider. I tend to enter into a friendship with possibilities wholeheartedly, which involves a time commitment as well as an emotional one. Did I have the time and want to make another connection? I had already made several good friends that I had met on James Taylor Online, and my email commitments were growing by leaps and bounds. Most notably, my friendship with SuperD had evolved into what I hope will continue to be a life-long closeness. There is also the element of risk. But I learned a long time ago that you can't run away from pain. I have also learned that you can run towards something that may bring you joy. All of this thinking only took about thirty seconds before I responded to Michael's / Gunky's Private Message. You see he had this endearing quality that I couldn't quite put my finger on. How could I leave it alone without knowing why I was interested.....so I wrote back: "Sure, that would be fine?"

We began to e-mail frequently, then began using AOL's Instant Message feature. I found that the more I talked with Michael and the more I learned, the more I wanted to know. By talk I mean conversation on the computer since we had not yet spoken on the phone. But we could talk for hours, and technology being what it is sometimes, we would both get booted, and it would take a considerable amount of time to find our way back to one another. On the day of "the phone call" we were having a particularly serious discussion, about relationships I believe, not friendships. Something was changing. In the middle of this discussion we both got booted and the unfinished conversation we were having just hung in the air as I stared at the monitor.

Within a minute the phone rang and I knew who it was. Evidently Michael had decided that this particular "boot" was unacceptable. "No, no, no, this would not do at all to leave things the way they were," my hindsight hears him saying. I picked up the phone and said "hello." On the caller's end I didn't get "Hi" or "Hello, this is Michael." He just began singing James Taylor's "Something In The Way She Moves" -- all of it, in perfect pitch, and beautifully. He has an exceptional singing voice and sings as well or better than James or David Wilcox.

When he stopped singing we still had not spoken words to one another. I said definitively "Michael," and as I recall, he said "yes dear." That three minutes and seven seconds changed the direction of my life forever. There wasn't a doubt in my mind about who I would be spending the rest of that life with. He had stolen my heart in that amount of time, and I never want to be by anyone's side but his.

The Gunky Narrative Resumes

As Tasha said, by Thanksgiving Day we were also talking on the phone and I had something new to be thankful for. Days with mutiple IMs and multiple phone calls became the norm. I soon came to an inescapable conclusion: I was in love. And with a woman I had never met in person or even seen a picture of. Had someone told me this could happen to me, I would have Laughed Out Loud! But true love had taken hold of me in an irresistible grasp.

We had our first geographical convergence in O’Hare International Airport on the 15th of January, 1998. On the 16th, we announced our love in the place where it all began, James Taylor Online Chat. With SuperD acting as the Angel Gabriel, sounding his trumpet that big news was to come, and Roo standing by to render cyber first aid to those in shock, we posted "GUNKY LOVES TASHA!!!" in the biggest fonts available. By the end of that first 11-day visit I had an engagement ring on layaway, and on the 8th 0f May, 1998 we became officially engaged to be married. We are now happily planning our future together. Ain't life grand?

Return to Table of Contents