Two NerDs finding love through Imgur

So. Never though I would be writing one posts some day. I was more the kind of people who would glance at them and grunt grumpily before going back to real life xD

I'm posting this not to brag or annoy people but to maybe encourage others to give things a try, especially when you feel stuck in life.

Year and a half ago, I had just got the worst burnout of my life. Tough few months at work, exhaustion, then cutting off my narc mother, the end of a relationship... I was down in the pit with depression on my left and vodka on my right. Functional enough to go to work and pay the rent, but no more. Struggling on top of that with rethinking family memories with new hindsight, and realizing many of my lifelong difficulties came from being ND (between other things). I was struggling, feeling forlorn, lonely, hopeless.

One night in March I was chatting and keeping my brain busy on Imgur, reading, answering with puns, almost shitposting. Until one conversation tickled my brain - people talking about how hard it was to meet someone, find love, be happy, when you have a background and carry baggage with you. The conversation was both bitter and relaxing, before visibly, others were meeting a lot of difficulties.

At one point though, tipsy and angry that I was, I overshared and let fly with something like "dude as if normal dating didn't suck enough, try meeting someone when you're an emotionally damaged autistic weirdo with C-PTSD"...

One person answered with "Fuck dude, I know that well, that's where I am too. You okay ? Wanna DM ?" That person was her.

That late in the night, on what had been an awful day in an all-around awful trimester for both of us, she reached out to a complete stranger. Just to offer a few words of comfort to a random someone online.

We chatted the day after. And the day after that. Early in the morning and until it was so late at night, it was early in the morning again. Sleep-deprived but gleeful and with a new reason to get up from bed. A new friendship, and somebody to speak up that seemed to understand so much, to have experienced so much of the same things, to see the world in that strange, unique way.

Quite early on I had said "let's be friends". We lived in different countries and both of us had stable jobs and a rent to pay. That friendship was the most precious thing in my life for so many months. It still is, but it used to be, too ;)

Until one day (three months in?) I realized that this friendship was heading somewhere else. That tingle traveling down my spine when I heard her voice, that breathless expectation when we couldn't chat on a really busy day. The daydreaming, and finding myself smiling at empty when I remembered a bit of conversation we had.

I was falling in love. I told her - hesitantly. She said "me too".

We had already decided to meet IRL in October. The wait felt several years too long.

When we finally met, something clicked in place. A few hours after meeting physically for the first time, we were as much at ease talking and moving around each other as if we had been living together for five years. It felt like suddenly remembering the steps of a dance you couldn't remember having learned. It felt fantastic. Gleeful (that word, again), but in a serene way.

One week in October and I knew I wanted a life with her. One more week in February and I started to set thing up to leave.

On the 3rd of June, I took a plane from France and towards Ireland. With just one luggage, precious papers and a few clothes. All the rest I donated. Having left my flat, quit my job, nothing held me back.

I have been living here since then. A few weeks I spent walking in that gorgeous Irish city, listening to the people's charming accent and seeing for myself how nice they can be.

And I get to live with my great love. Actual love, not the poor excuses for it that I had known in the past. This one is special. I see it every day, in smiles and gestures small and great. And I have no regrets dropping everything for it.

Finding love online. And by sheer luck. AND on Imgur...

Strange times for strange people.

It also means happiness is possible to everyone. In due time.

Thanks for reading :)

Edith : Most Viral, wow ! Thank you all for your kind words !