Take the leap... to Canada!

So, I wrote this post a few weeks ago when I was on my way home from Canada, but I spaced on actually posting it… so here it is!

April 6, 2010

                It was a year ago that I was dating a guy that I thought I’d be with for a very long time… a guy that manipulated my mind with lies and unfeasible dreams.  He lived 3000 miles away, in Toronto, Canada.  To make things short, we never met, and he wasted 6+ months of my life by telling me he’d “meet me soon.”  Many people are wary of online dating for this kind of thing, which isn’t hard to understand.  After a painful break up and months of distraught, I finally got over the situation and moved on.  I dated some guys after, but not anything too serious.  It’s not that I was avoiding being serious, but more that the dating never really turned into anything.  Now, when I dated this Canadian, I had met him on an online game called Rappelz.  It’s an mmorpg, sort of like World of Warcraft.  I only intended to play the game, and not date anyone from it, but somehow he convinced me to be his girlfriend.  After we broke up, I told myself I’d never date “online” again. 

                Now, I never fully stopped playing this game that we met in.  I backed off, and even went weeks at a time without even logging on, which was easier to do than expected.  Now, here comes the good stuff.  After my breakup, I met this guy (Rob) in the game, and he was merely a friend.  He was entertaining, and very good at making witty comebacks to my remarks, which is pretty unusual sometimes.  After a while, we stopped chatting, because we kind of went our own ways in the game.  Well, recently our paths crossed in the game again, and we rekindled our friendship.  This was back in January.  We went from chatting in game, to friends on msn, to friends on facebook.  Now, just being friends, doesn’t mean I didn’t have a “thing” for him.  I still remember the day that I realized I liked him… it was the day that a girl hit on him, and I wanted to strangle her…  Yeah, brutal, I know.  Smooth move Annette, you got a crush on another guy online.  The real kicker?  He’s Canadian too!

                So, we kept chatting, and one day, he asks me if he can come to Salt Lake City and take me to dinner, and I didn’t hesitate to say yes.  It never struck me as odd?  Things remained the same from then for a while, except the occasional joking about his fund to come save me (which he really did have, and I didn’t believe him).  I’m not really sure how it happened, but somehow we started to talk more, and things got more serious.  We went from 10 to 60 in a week (I say 10 because we had been friends for a while).  I have been very cautious about the whole situation, and there has been this understanding that I would not be his girlfriend until we met.  It got harder and harder to be just friends!  Well, luckily for me, right before I start work at Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, he had a weekend off from work because of Easter.  It started out as joking, but somehow I decided right there and then, on Thursday night, that I wanted to drive up to Canada to meet him.  Sounds crazy, huh?  Well, here are some pros!

                To drive to Canada, round trip, would cost roughly $200, and can be done in 15 to 20 hours.  The trip can also be taken on short notice.  If you add in the ferry costs to get to the island he lives on, it is $26 or $140, depending on whether you take your car across.  To fly on short notice is roughly $1200 to $1500.  To fly in 3+ weeks, it’s about $600.  Some people would say just to wait and fly, but I didn’t want to waste his money (he paid), and I couldn’t wait anymore… as crazy as that sounds.  Also, he still needs to receive his passport, and I never know how my schedule looks in 3 weeks advance.

                So, enough with details… on Friday night, I packed up my car headed to Canada.  It started out rough, with nasty blizzards through Idaho causing me to crash my car outside of Twin Falls, to insane wind through Washington.  One might think “was it worth it?”  Only one other time have I had such a bad experience driving, and out of that trip I got one of the greatest things in my life… my dog Ginny.  So was it worth the drive?  Yes, every second.  My fear of meeting Rob was that he would hate me, and that I would be stuck in an awkward situation.  Yes, the thought did occur to me that I might not like him, but it never struck me as really that big of a possibility.  I expected him to be great, but I didn’t expect him to be AMAZING.  Well, I did, but not as amazing as he is.  So, here on the ferry, headed to Tsawwassa or whatever, I sit here and reminisce about the crazy thing I’ve just done.  I just went to Canada on a whim, and met the most amazing guy I’ve ever met… and I have no regrets.  I hope people don’t think I’m crazy, but even if you do, that’s alright, because I’ve not only experienced meeting an angel, but I got a slice of Heaven too.  Rob likes to call his hometown a slice of Heaven haha.

                So how was Canada?  It was so much fun!  Now, don’t get me wrong, there were some weird things, such as getting used to driving km/h rather than mph, and looking at “monopoly money,” but the trip itself was amazing.  I got to not only meet, Rob in person, but I got to meet his awesome best friend, Ana, and her boyfriend, James.  They let us crash at their place and saved my sanity by helping to prevent another 5 hours added onto my horrendous drive.  After that, we took the ferry to Vancouver Island and I got to see just how beautiful the island is.  Oh, and on the trip from the Ferry to Campbell River, Rob made me hold a tiny crab, and I squealed the whole time.  When we got to Campbell River, I got to meet Rob’s brother T, and their roommate/landlord/good friend Colin, both of whom I know from the game too.  I thought that maybe T would hate me, but I think today we hit it off pretty well… either that, or he’s an excellent actor.  If that’s the case, then kudos to him!  I only met one other friend of Rob’s this trip, and that was Cody, and although I didn’t see him for long, I have to mention him cause he got me Tim Horton’s hot chocolate and it was SUPER yummy.  Delicious! 

                So, now you all know how the “Annette is in a relationship with Rob” surfaced on facebook.  I told him we had to meet, we met, we hit it off REALLY, REALLY well, and now we’re in a “long-distance” relationship, as opposed to an “online” relationship.  Next stop?  Rob comes to Utah!  WOOT!  All my friends, get ready for this action, it’s going to be great.