Diane and James ~ A True Geek Love Story

It was July 2008 and I had just lost everything I loved in life. Due to major changes I had to quit my three-year job of managing a comic shop, left my closest friends and moved back to my hometown of Artesia, NM where I had nothing but my parents.

It wasn’t easy, I started to get depressed, was very bored and restless. The thing I missed the most was having an easy outlet to geek out. I missed the conversations about the things I love; comics, video games, sci-fi, the usual geek stuff. I grew up in Artesia and was constantly bullied and misunderstood so I knew there wouldn’t be an outlet for that mental craving I had so I turned to surfing the Internet, a lot.

As I was surfing I remembered a link a friend sent me right before I moved and didn’t have the chance to check out, to http://www.sweetongeeks.com. I thought to myself well at least I can find a few people to geek out with, maybe satiate my deep cravings for expressing my geekiness. So I set up an account. I wasn’t looking for love, just friends.

After a few days and sending several tribbles, dilithium crystals and towels out through the wink system I met a few interesting people and my cravings began to be appeased. I spent a lot of time on the site, meeting new people, checking profiles, seeing who was on there.

One day when I was on the site, checking my mail, I saw a picture of the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen in my life in the random profile spot. The first thing that struck me about her was her smile, the kind of smile that would have launched the entire Starfleet on a mission to destroy the Borg for just her. Then there was her profile name, Dirty Dee, a mixture of sweetness and a slightly wild side. I immediately clicked on her profile and read the whole thing. When I got to her interests and saw Guitar Hero I immediately sent her a message with my Yahoo Messenger name asking her to chat with me sometime.

The next day, August 22, 2008, I was online and she added me. I freaked. This was the first time I was nervous about talking to someone from SOG so I definitely knew I was attracted to her. I was so nervous I sent her a few messages and hopped offline. The next night she was online so I took a deep breath and messaged her. We talked for five hours straight just about Guitar Hero. I was amazed with this woman.

Over the course of the next week we chatted online every single night, one day for 13 hours. We never ran out of things to talk about, and we got to know each other quite well. I found out her name is Diane, she prefers DC Comics over Marvel, has a large collection of geeky t-shirts, loves South Park, a fan of Hello Kitty, loves the band Kiss, is an uber-science geek, and is a beautiful person in the strictest meaning of the word.

We both knew we were falling in love, yet we were both leery of getting into a long distance relationship. A 1,330+ mile distance is difficult in any relationship, especially in a new one. As hard as we tried to fight it on September 2, 2008 we gave in to what felt so natural and started dating.

Diane and I have been together for over a year and a half now. We’ve grown together as individuals and as a couple. We both passionately work on my 5,924 issue comic collection. When we started dating, she enjoyed DC universe but hadn’t read much. For her first Christmas gift, I bought her a copy of the JSA: The Next Age, Superman and Legion of Super Heroes, and Green Lantern: Rebirth TPBs and she’s been in love with the DCU since. We share a mutual passion for Geoff Johns writing, Adam Hughes art and the Green Lantern. I remember when she saw Hughes’ Real Power of the DCU poster she had a complete geekgasm, snagging a copy of it as soon as she could. She absolutely loves that poster, and I can’t help but find it totally sexy.

She opened a comic box at her local shop and started reading several titles, including Blackest Night. Anytime a new issue of BN came out, it would prompt a long geek out over the awesome moments of the issue, discussions of what’s going on, speculation as to what’s happening next and talks on the metaphysical aspects of the story.

We spend a lot of time online together via Skype and Facebook. We’re always sharing links of things like fire hydrants painted like Mario, Hello Kitty schwag, the newest news on the DCU, cool Kiss merchandise, all varieties of geekdom.

We’ve discussed the future. We know we’re going to get married; we exchanged Promise Rings the first day we were together in person, February 14, 2009. We’re going to make the move eventually to where we can be together always. We want to have children, and we’ve decided to name them after DC Comics characters. To this day I still can’t believe she agreed to that one, it takes an amazing woman to agree to something like that. I look in my future, and see her.

The one thing I can’t wrap my head around about her is she isn’t the woman of my dreams. The woman I dreamt about all my life, my ideal perfect relationship, falls so short of what I have with Diane. She is my universe. There are so many things about her I love: her smile, the way she looks me deep in the eyes and says nothing yet at the same time telling me I love you, her laugh, her amazing personality, how she fills everyone around her with hope, the way she is totally unashamed about being a geek and totally flies her geek flag high for all to see. She doesn’t let the world tell her who she should be, she carves her own path, her own destiny.

As I said in my SOG profile, all I was really looking for was understanding and I found it in Diane. I know I’m going to be with her for the rest of my life and I couldn’t be happier.
I love you Diane, I always have and always will.

James