by Melissa DeRisi

Created on: April 18, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Officer's Log: 15January2004.
Lima Island will be barricaded this weekend and I, Captain Indigofae, have hand picked the best and brightest for my crew. Johndopp will be on sails. Timm and Zowee will handle guns. Underlord can take carpentry, since I'll be captain. Master of bilge will be Skippyjeff. Ahh, Skippyjeff. I heart him.

Never the looking for love type, I was not expecting to find my soul mate on the virtual seas of an online role playing pirate game. Soon after I began to regularly play Puzzle Pirates, I joined a crew called the Plague and met some of the most interesting adults that are still my friends to this day.

When we created a forum for the crew a new level of communication opened up. To begin with, the majority of us posted pictures and updates on our real lives. To assist with group activities like pillaging and barricaded islands, we began using instant message voice chat. Video conferencing with several people while playing or "dock tarting" (standing in a circle on the dock talking and doing nothing productive), feels very similar to hanging out at a coffee shop or restaurant in person.

Without analyzing the differences between real life and internet life, the time online became natural. Before I ever saw his picture or heard is voice, Skippyjeff and I shared many "laugh out loud" moments. Crewing one of the smaller ships, we'd have between four and seven people with us. In conversations, Skip and I would often type the same response at the same time or finish each others' sentences.

A favorite thing to do while pillaging as a group was to write out a line from a song we were currently listening to. The others would guess the artist or write out the next line from the song. Sharing musical interest is another way of bonding; with friends and more then friends. You've probably already guessed that Skips musical interests were right on track with what I listened to.

As Skip and I spent more of our leisure time online together, playing, talking, sharing, I began to look forward to the next time we'd be "together." The sound of his voice shivered my timbers. Not a "noob" to the internet, I had this idea that there were two kinds of people who hooked up online. There were those that were actively looking for a relationship and use dating sites. And then there were the perverts who want to do naughty things with web cams. Not fitting into either category, I did not immediately recognize that I was falling for Skippyjeff.

After playing for almost a

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