Once upon a time in a sleepy Swiss village bordering the Black Forest there lived a well-traveled businesswoman. She shared a very small castle with her beloved Himalayan cat and with the occasional visitor from back home.
She was a very busy woman. Every day she went to work in the morning to return home late in the day to her anxiously waiting cat who she loved before anyone else. After all the cat had been her companion traveling around the world with her for the past five years.
And so life went on. Week after week, month after month, until two years passed. The woman grew older and a little bored with her solitary existence.
On top of boredom, there was the fear of forgetting how to speak English, forgetting the skills she'd spent years learning while working in Australia and the US. For the last four years, she had been surrounded only by German and Swiss-German speakers.
Then one day, a good friend visited. They discussed a good many things, including our woman's dilemma. Her friend suggested finding an English speaking/writing pen-friend. 'But I'm too busy for a pen-friend' our woman said 'and where would I even find one?'. The friend wouldn't let go and suggested seeking out the WorldWideWeb for help.
The year was 2002 A.D.
Fast forward a few weeks and after extensive internet research, all in all about 5 minutes, our woman had created a new email address, made a profile on match.com 'seeking English speaker for pen friendship, started browsing other people's profiles, and quickly hit 'publish' before she could change her mind.
It didn't take long for the first messages to hit her inbox. At first, she was getting a lot of contact offers almost exclusively from Nigeria. 'This is very puzzling' she thought to herself 'why would all these Nigerians contact me? And why would they want to date me across continents? I specifically said 'pen-friend' ONLY. I don't want to date right now'. It just didn't make any sense to her.
But good German that our woman is, she dutifully replied to each one of them, politely refusing the offers, and then switched off her public profile to investigate further. Why did they contact her? She of all the other women out there? Didn't they understand what I was looking for? I just wanted to practise my English, not go on a date. And especially not with someone on a different continent! She was frustrated, considered giving up. Just keep watching movies in English - that will be enough. But she decided to give it one more try.
Yet other messages did arrive, first contacts were made, emails were exchanged and our woman rather quickly realized that most men, no matter from where on this world, wanted more than just a pen friendship. Each time a new contact was made, pretty soon after the question got asked: When and where do we want to meet? I'd like to meet you personally. Our woman nearly gave up again. Why can't men understand that I.just.want a pen-friend?. She said it, clearly, she wasn't ready for more.
The year was 2003 A.D.
A few months later and two, three or more failed attempts at establishing a pen-friendship in the bag, meeting with strangers in a dark alley a well-lit public and busy place our woman was ready to call it quits and de-activated her match.com profile.
From Nigerians to an American to an Aussie to a couple of Germans, they all wanted a date while our woman was just looking for a pen-friend. And after all this effort, there was only one guy left.
He had transferred fresh from America with the company he worked for to Germany. After perusing match.com and seeing our woman's profile a few months ago, he contacted her and they have been exchanging emails and chatting online ever since. But neither our woman nor the guy seemed particularly interested in meeting IRL.
Well, obviously, they didn't explore the surroundings together, but they stayed in touch via email and phone nonetheless. Chatting after their busy workdays seemed to suit both our busy business bees well. For maybe two months.
That's when it hit our woman. Over the brief time that she had been on match.com and meeting different men - she had changed. She realized that she actually wanted more than just a pen-friend. Yet the one guy she had stayed in touch with, lived 300 km (4-5 hours drive) away and he seemed all too happy to just chat and write over the distance.
Tired of waiting our woman one day packed her car and drove the 300 km north to visit her best friend. Her friend had offered her a place to sleep after meeting with the guy in the neighboring town. Our woman's cunning plan was to a) meet our guy in the afternoon to go inline skating together in a park and then b) have dinner with him before c) returning to her friend the same night, then d) drive back home to her Swiss castle the next morning. Everything was planned out perfectly!
Plan a) was executed almost flawlessly, with only minor disturbances.
Plan b) went well if not quite as expected i.e. a home-cooked dinner on a first date?
Plan c) failed miserably as our woman didn't even make it back to her friend that night.
Plan d) sadly did happen.
Just remember, folks, people and even the best plans can change, sometimes overnight and oftentimes for the better, because our woman had just found her soon-to-be new BAE (Before Anyone Else).
To be continued... maybe.