An Unexpected Love that became True Love
When my S/O and I first officially met, it was September 17th, 2013. We were part of the Team Fortress 2 communities on Deviantart and Tumblr, along with a mutual friend who introduced us. We had commented on a couple of each others' posts here and there, but it wasn't until September 17th when I was sent a message on Tumblr if I wanted to be friends on Steam so we could role play. I gladly accepted, and we chatted for a bit. At the time, I was 17 and my S/O was 23. For the sake of timeline placement, I'm going to use female pronouns for now. She asked me if I felt weird role playing with someone older than I was, and I said I didn't have any problems with it at all. We roleplayed scenarios that would take place in the universe of the game Team Fortress 2. My character was named Jarrod, a Scout for the red team, and my S/O's character was originally a watcher (Not an actual class,) and later a Scout, named Leah. The two characters flirted a bit here and there, and eventually we ended up putting them into a relationship. The roleplay relationship went on for a while, with the two getting engaged and married, meeting each other's parents and so on. It was all good fun, but little did we know that the characters we were playing were more like us than we had thought.
As time went on, the two if us were getting to know each other better, outside of the characters. Seeing how Leah had treated Jarrod, and now that I had known my S/O better than I did before, I had started to develop a crush on her. For a while I shook it off, saying to myself "There's no way a 23 year old would want to date someone who's 17." Soon enough, her 24th birthday came around in November of that year, and the age gap made me a little more unsure of how she'd respond. We continued on as we did, but eventually the roleplay was phasing out of our friendship, and it was more one on one talks between us. Not the characters, but the people who created them. We sort of dropped out of the role playing community as a whole, as people in the community were causing drama that neither us wanted to deal with. So, after a couple of months of us actually being, well...us toward one another, something happened. We were having a steam chat one day, and this is a summary of that conversation; February of 2014, we were talking, and she said, “Whenever we talk, I feel…n-never mind.” I only had one thing on my mind at this point, so I asked “Well, I don’t want to sound like I have a huge ego or anything, but…do you happen to have a crush on me?” Oh, and her reaction was the best in the world. She started to babble and blush, before she let out a quick “yes.” Knowing this, I couldn’t be happier. I took a deep breath and said, “Well, would it make you feel better if I told you that I have one on you, too?” I don’t know why we didn’t start our relationship there, as it took a few days. I think, perhaps, we just wanted to give it all some time. Then, something in me told me to ask, so I did. I asked “Hey…do you think that we should start calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend?” Her response was “A-are you serious?” I gave her a very positive “Yes, I am.” Her response to that was an immediate “YES!”
The thing that made our relationship interesting is that she had given up on love, and I wasn't really looking for anyone at that time. We just sort of stumbled into each others' lives and fell in love. And you know what? I wouldn't want it any other way. I'm happy that we changed our lives for the better!
From that day onward, we were a couple. However, it took us a couple of months to actually tell people. We were actually planning on having me go to Norway before our relationship even started, since we were such close friends, and I talked with my parents about the trip. We weren't sure how people would react to us. I mean, a long distance relationship is full of enough criticism, let alone with there being a 7 year age difference between us. But, eventually in May, we made it public to our friends and families. My parents were skeptical of the whole thing. They gave me the whole "How can you love someone you met over the internet?" "How do you know this person is who they actually claim to be?" Which, I can understand. Then some of my friends asked me questions like "How do you go on dates?" We disregarded all of that, and soon enough my parents were asking me how everything was going between the two of us, how my S/O was doing, and so on. We were happy that everyone was accepting of it. At one point during all of this, my S/O came out to me as genderfluid/genderqueer, and prefers to be referred to with male pronouns, but doesn't mind female pronouns. Basically what this means is that sometimes he feels more feminine, and sometimes more masculine. Physically female, but he has his hair cut short and dresses in more male clothes, but also enjoys wearing feminine clothes and likes to grow his hair out. Anyway, now that we have that out of the way, we can get back on topic and use my S/O's proper pronouns.
So, onto August of 2014. The 5th of August is my birthday, and 5 days after that, August 10th, I had packed my bags and was on my way to Norway for 2 weeks to spend time with my love. We planned it this way because with me being 18, there wouldn't be anything stopping us from being together. Even though I believe the age of consent in both Massachusetts Norway is 16, we wanted to be sure there wouldn't be any problems there. And, I have to say that those 2 weeks went over extremely well! When I arrived at the airport and saw my S/O face to face, we immediately hugged, and said "Hi!" That was the best hug of my life. When we got back to his apartment, we changed into our pajamas, ate some dinner, and cuddled on the couch for a little while before going to bed. I couldn't believe it. I was able to hold the person I love in my arms for the first time. It was nothing but love between us! For the most part, we just lived our lives as we usually did, except this time, we could kiss and cuddle as much as we wanted! We didn't go see any sights of Norway, but that didn't matter. I had the best sight in all of Norway by my side! I got to meet his family, have some Norwegian food, and possibly the best thing I tried was O'Boy. It's similar to Nesquick, except it knocks Nesquick way out of the park! And, of course with most couples you leave alone together for two weeks, we did make love. He was my first, and I'm very happy about that. I wouldn't want it to be anyone else! Eventually, it was time to say bye for the first time, and it was tough on both of us. We actually stayed up all night on our last day together. We watched some YouTube videos, Doctor Who, and Skyped with some friends who wanted to see us together for the first time. Soon enough, his friend was knocking at the door ready to drive us back to the airport. I remember that everything was fine, until I had to get in the security line. We kissed and he said “It's not a 'goodbye.' It's a 'See you later.'” We said our “I love you”s and I was off into the line...but then I took him by the arm, saying “Just one more hug!” and we began to cry. That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.
The last week of my summer went well. Soon enough, it was off to college for me. The two of us Skyped as much as we could. My overall college experience has gone over just fine. Thing is, my S/O was worried that I'd meet someone else there. But, I'm not that type of guy. I'm loyal to my Norwegian cutie! I could never do anything to hurt him! During my first semster, the two of us started playing on an online Minecraft server. And, honestly, it's a lot of fun. Then somewhere along the line, he applied to become staff on that server, or a mod, whatever you'd like to call a staff member on a game server. For a while, I was happy for him, being able to keep a watchful eye on the troublemakers that joined the server. But, that meant making new friends as well. This is when I started to get jealous since he was getting attention from other people. Keep in mind, this is my first serious relationship, so I was used to our old friends, and me being one of the only people to give him a lot of attention. Eventually, my jealousy got the best of me, and I had to tell him how I was feeling. The thing is, when I don't really know people, and they interact with my S/O, I'll get jealous. However, I'm not a control freak, nor do I want to be so I would never in a million years tell my S/O that he can't talk to other people. But my jealousy got so bad that I was feeling depressed. So, when I told him, he reassured me that I'm the only one for him, and that he truly loves me. He also mentioned how he gets jealous when I hang out with my own friends, and that I talk to other people in my college classes. This sort of thing happened twice, once in December and again this past April. I understand that we can't be the only people in each others lives, but my jealousy is a major flaw of mine. But, after two deep conversations of reassurance, I can say that I no longer get jealous as much as I did. Sure, there are little bits of jealousy here and there that I feel, I'm human after all, but I'm no longer letting it eat at me. I've definitely gotten better at handling my emotions, and getting to know these people before my mind jumps to ridiculous conclusions. (Continued on next post)
As time went on, the two if us were getting to know each other better, outside of the characters. Seeing how Leah had treated Jarrod, and now that I had known my S/O better than I did before, I had started to develop a crush on her. For a while I shook it off, saying to myself "There's no way a 23 year old would want to date someone who's 17." Soon enough, her 24th birthday came around in November of that year, and the age gap made me a little more unsure of how she'd respond. We continued on as we did, but eventually the roleplay was phasing out of our friendship, and it was more one on one talks between us. Not the characters, but the people who created them. We sort of dropped out of the role playing community as a whole, as people in the community were causing drama that neither us wanted to deal with. So, after a couple of months of us actually being, well...us toward one another, something happened. We were having a steam chat one day, and this is a summary of that conversation; February of 2014, we were talking, and she said, “Whenever we talk, I feel…n-never mind.” I only had one thing on my mind at this point, so I asked “Well, I don’t want to sound like I have a huge ego or anything, but…do you happen to have a crush on me?” Oh, and her reaction was the best in the world. She started to babble and blush, before she let out a quick “yes.” Knowing this, I couldn’t be happier. I took a deep breath and said, “Well, would it make you feel better if I told you that I have one on you, too?” I don’t know why we didn’t start our relationship there, as it took a few days. I think, perhaps, we just wanted to give it all some time. Then, something in me told me to ask, so I did. I asked “Hey…do you think that we should start calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend?” Her response was “A-are you serious?” I gave her a very positive “Yes, I am.” Her response to that was an immediate “YES!”
The thing that made our relationship interesting is that she had given up on love, and I wasn't really looking for anyone at that time. We just sort of stumbled into each others' lives and fell in love. And you know what? I wouldn't want it any other way. I'm happy that we changed our lives for the better!
From that day onward, we were a couple. However, it took us a couple of months to actually tell people. We were actually planning on having me go to Norway before our relationship even started, since we were such close friends, and I talked with my parents about the trip. We weren't sure how people would react to us. I mean, a long distance relationship is full of enough criticism, let alone with there being a 7 year age difference between us. But, eventually in May, we made it public to our friends and families. My parents were skeptical of the whole thing. They gave me the whole "How can you love someone you met over the internet?" "How do you know this person is who they actually claim to be?" Which, I can understand. Then some of my friends asked me questions like "How do you go on dates?" We disregarded all of that, and soon enough my parents were asking me how everything was going between the two of us, how my S/O was doing, and so on. We were happy that everyone was accepting of it. At one point during all of this, my S/O came out to me as genderfluid/genderqueer, and prefers to be referred to with male pronouns, but doesn't mind female pronouns. Basically what this means is that sometimes he feels more feminine, and sometimes more masculine. Physically female, but he has his hair cut short and dresses in more male clothes, but also enjoys wearing feminine clothes and likes to grow his hair out. Anyway, now that we have that out of the way, we can get back on topic and use my S/O's proper pronouns.
So, onto August of 2014. The 5th of August is my birthday, and 5 days after that, August 10th, I had packed my bags and was on my way to Norway for 2 weeks to spend time with my love. We planned it this way because with me being 18, there wouldn't be anything stopping us from being together. Even though I believe the age of consent in both Massachusetts Norway is 16, we wanted to be sure there wouldn't be any problems there. And, I have to say that those 2 weeks went over extremely well! When I arrived at the airport and saw my S/O face to face, we immediately hugged, and said "Hi!" That was the best hug of my life. When we got back to his apartment, we changed into our pajamas, ate some dinner, and cuddled on the couch for a little while before going to bed. I couldn't believe it. I was able to hold the person I love in my arms for the first time. It was nothing but love between us! For the most part, we just lived our lives as we usually did, except this time, we could kiss and cuddle as much as we wanted! We didn't go see any sights of Norway, but that didn't matter. I had the best sight in all of Norway by my side! I got to meet his family, have some Norwegian food, and possibly the best thing I tried was O'Boy. It's similar to Nesquick, except it knocks Nesquick way out of the park! And, of course with most couples you leave alone together for two weeks, we did make love. He was my first, and I'm very happy about that. I wouldn't want it to be anyone else! Eventually, it was time to say bye for the first time, and it was tough on both of us. We actually stayed up all night on our last day together. We watched some YouTube videos, Doctor Who, and Skyped with some friends who wanted to see us together for the first time. Soon enough, his friend was knocking at the door ready to drive us back to the airport. I remember that everything was fine, until I had to get in the security line. We kissed and he said “It's not a 'goodbye.' It's a 'See you later.'” We said our “I love you”s and I was off into the line...but then I took him by the arm, saying “Just one more hug!” and we began to cry. That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.
The last week of my summer went well. Soon enough, it was off to college for me. The two of us Skyped as much as we could. My overall college experience has gone over just fine. Thing is, my S/O was worried that I'd meet someone else there. But, I'm not that type of guy. I'm loyal to my Norwegian cutie! I could never do anything to hurt him! During my first semster, the two of us started playing on an online Minecraft server. And, honestly, it's a lot of fun. Then somewhere along the line, he applied to become staff on that server, or a mod, whatever you'd like to call a staff member on a game server. For a while, I was happy for him, being able to keep a watchful eye on the troublemakers that joined the server. But, that meant making new friends as well. This is when I started to get jealous since he was getting attention from other people. Keep in mind, this is my first serious relationship, so I was used to our old friends, and me being one of the only people to give him a lot of attention. Eventually, my jealousy got the best of me, and I had to tell him how I was feeling. The thing is, when I don't really know people, and they interact with my S/O, I'll get jealous. However, I'm not a control freak, nor do I want to be so I would never in a million years tell my S/O that he can't talk to other people. But my jealousy got so bad that I was feeling depressed. So, when I told him, he reassured me that I'm the only one for him, and that he truly loves me. He also mentioned how he gets jealous when I hang out with my own friends, and that I talk to other people in my college classes. This sort of thing happened twice, once in December and again this past April. I understand that we can't be the only people in each others lives, but my jealousy is a major flaw of mine. But, after two deep conversations of reassurance, I can say that I no longer get jealous as much as I did. Sure, there are little bits of jealousy here and there that I feel, I'm human after all, but I'm no longer letting it eat at me. I've definitely gotten better at handling my emotions, and getting to know these people before my mind jumps to ridiculous conclusions. (Continued on next post)
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