‘Open the wardrobe, I have a gift for you,’ the note read. ‘I want you to put it on and meet me in the ballroom in 10 minutes.’
Opening the Victorian armoire, I pulled out a glimmering white and gold gown complete with a corset top and ballroom skirt. After slipping into it, I arrived at the grand Apotheosis Ballroom.
Walking down the red carpet on the golden staircase, I found a tall, dark, and handsome man waiting for me with his hand out asking for a dance. An orchestra began playing, and we were suddenly entranced in a Viennese Waltz, despite never having taken a ballroom dance lesson in our lives.
Though to some, a date like this may seem like something out of a dream sequence, I am here to tell you it can be available at anyone’s fingertips using the help of virtual reality and just a little suspension of disbelief.
After meeting my long-distance boyfriend through social media, getting to know him through this world is how I fell in love with him. And we’ve been inseparable ever since.
Many people have online or celebrity crushes, but not all of them can say that person ended up being the love of their life.
I first came across Adam’s YouTube channel when I was searching for poetry book reviews in December 2020. In his amusing review of a particularly bad book, I found myself smiling from his kind yet sarcastic, confident yet shy, handsome yet rugged persona.
On New Year’s Eve (after the requisite surge of confidence that happens when any woman dyes her hair red), I mustered up the courage to reach out to Adam over Instagram, with a prophetic, ‘Happy New Year, and here’s to new beginnings’.
After a few weeks of witty banter and back and forth flirtation over Instagram, I remember turning to my sister one night and saying, ‘I’ve decided I’m going to make this one my boyfriend’.
This was a bold statement coming from a shy, introverted girl, and an even bolder statement to make about a man who lived nearly 4,000 miles away (I am based in the US, while he lives in the UK).
Yet when Adam asked me on our first date on Valentine’s Day, there felt nothing unusual about using Chrome’s Teleparty extension to watch three of our favorite childhood movies – including Peter Pan (which sparked our initial bond to each other after realising we were both obsessed with the story and characters as children) – while talking and learning about each other through the chat feature.
This little virtual date set the scene for the rest of our relationship.
Along the way of asking me to be his girlfriend, Adam also asked me to join his new poetry venture, The Poetry Cove – the most extensive online community for poets consisting of forums, discussions, game nights, and chat features, which now has over 2,500 members from 61 countries.
It became our passion project, and we were determined to create a place where poets from all over the world could come to meet friends and share their work.
A few weeks into our relationship, Adam remembered an online game he used to play as a teenager called Second Life. It’s a virtual world where users create their own avatars, can talk to each other through their microphones, and travel anywhere in a matter of seconds – whether you want to go skiing, clubbing, to the beach, or explore New York City, you can do it all on Second Life.
In an effort to feel closer to each other, whenever we’d have some free time to spare, Adam and I would log onto Second Life and have virtual dates in any part of the world we pleased.
We went on midnight walks along deserted beaches, caused trouble in western saloons, and even showed each other around our real life home cities. Though we were speaking through virtual characters, the feelings behind the words were very real.
Eventually, Adam decided to bring The Poetry Cove over to Second Life, and we created a Poetry Cove Cafe – a dimly lit, cozy, virtual coffee house with a stage, where people could get together and perform their poetry.
We began hosting open mics every Friday night, and very quickly amassed a group of talented poet avatars, who began attending regularly.
We would gather around the stage on carpets, bean bags, and velvet armchairs, and Adam would kick us off by welcoming newcomers and reading a poem. Then, those who wished to read aloud would take turns by adding their name to a virtual marquee board.
This started off as a business venture, but little did we know that Adam and I would meet some of our closest friends through this.
We spent our days waking up with a ‘good morning’ phone call to each other, walking the beaches and forests of Second Life, chatting with our poetry community, working to grow our business, and ending the day with a call to say goodnight – sometimes even staying on the line as we slept.
Not being able to meet each other in person forced us to develop a deep and intimate bond just through talking to each other, making each other laugh, and comforting each other through a screen.
Not needing to be in the same room as one another to enjoy the other’s company made us certain that we were truly compatible. The distance wasn’t a bug – it was a feature.
A month ago – after nearly one year of being in a relationship – Adam and I finally met in person.
I flew from New York to London to see him, and though it was a bit more difficult than traveling through Second Life, crossing the Atlantic felt like crossing a puddle because we were so excited to finally meet each other.
I’m thankful to say that through this, we got to fall in love twice – once through the internet, and again in person.
Though we were understandably anxious about our first meeting feeling strange or awkward, all of that doubt disintegrated into nothing when we first hugged at Terminal Five of Heathrow Airport. In that moment, coming to a strange city felt like coming home.
We spent our first night together having a candlelit pizza and red wine dinner in bed and watching Friends (one of our favourite shows). We spent the rest of our trip exploring London, going for walks around Adam’s cozy countryside hometown, and just enjoying each other’s company.
We ended the trip by placing a love lock on Hungerford Bridge. Though we only got two weeks together, they were all it took for us to know that from now on, everything we did was to build a future for us together.
Having to go back to the US was lachrymose to say the least.
As an introvert, and as someone who places a lot of value on her personal space and privacy, the thought of cohabitating with a partner had always scared me. That, combined with the cultural dating ‘script’ that had always felt impersonal and unnatural to me, often made it difficult for me to find meaningful connections with people.
Yet somehow, being with Adam just felt easy and right.
I am so excited for what’s to come for us and our future. Adam and I are making plans for me to move to London within the year so we can live together permanently and continue working on The Poetry Cove together.
In the meantime, we will continue world-hopping in Second life, building our relationship, and of course, writing poetry.
To find out more about The Poetry Cove, visit their website here. You can also follow Sophie’s poetry page on Instagram here, and YouTube channel here, or Adam on YouTube here.
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