This is how we met - according to Nina

As promised we will share with all of you Steemers how we actually met, as it truly is quite an unique story. First we will share the story from Nina's point of view.

Once upon a time... back in 2005, when we were both still young and innocent... Hans was living with his family in a small village in the Netherlands and I was living with my family in an even smaller village in Norway. With that in mind you might assume that we met and fell in love at school camp, a big festival or at some beach party in Spain during our school holiday. And that we kept together despite us being young and living miles apart. But none of this is the case.

It was quite a normal day and I went to school in my home village. I was quite a descent student, that did my homework, listened interested to what the teachers had to share and did what students were supposed to do. But this special day I was getting kind of bored of everything. I had done everything we needed to do and was quite ahead with my work. To avoid students from browsing the Internet during lessons when we were supposed to do other work, all access to Internet was blocked at this moment, except from Itslearning, a teaching platform. At this time they still had a chat on Itslearning where students could connect with other students that used the platform, also from other countries. Obviously Hans also had a boring time at school, because this was were we got connected.

This was pretty much my first experience with chatting. As chatting was really not my thing to do, I was not very serious about it. I just wanted to chat, kill some time and then continue my real life. Still, this boy named Hans fascinated me in a way which made me keep in touch and even exchange contact information, which I usually avoided. With Hans I actually kept surprisingly much in touch.

This is not what keeps our story unique. A lot of people meet each other online, meet up for real and become a couple. We kept chatting for hours every day and night for more than five years without meeting up for real. Hans wanted and tried to make it happen many times, but I was hesitating and rejected every time Hans made an attempt to meet, mainly due to certain circumstances which is another long story.

The time went by and we kept chatting daily year after year. I secretly felt more and more in love with Hans, if that is possible without having met. Based on our conversation there should be no doubt that we had an affection for each other. We had created some kind om imagined relationship which we often referred to as «The Thing». Still I never believed that I meant something for him too, until the day he told me:

«Nina, you know, you are one of my best friends and the girl who means the most to me».

That meant the world to me. I decided that I had to figure out what I really wanted with this relation we had created. I wanted to be more open and honest about everything, but I don’t think I managed that. This made things very difficult and we surely had our ups and downs.

Hans evenly suggested to meet. Even though I now wished to meet him more and more, some things made it difficult and I always made up bad excuses. For Hans it clearly seemed to be difficult to understand as he didn't know about what made it difficult for me. Every now and then it seemed to make him doubt about everything and take some big steps backwards. This «Thing» we had created meant a lot to me. Whenever we seemed to loose it or it lost its value I got very upset. We talked it through and started again, and again, and again, many times.

Then, after many years with this imagined relationship Hans got a real relationship. Of course that influenced the imagined relationship between us. We kept in touch, continued to chat, but not as intense as earlier. For me this felt like a great loss, because I really loved him. Then Hans was doing an Eurotrip and his next stop was going to be Oslo. I had been in Oslo for some days and was just about to leave the city that same morning. I decided to give it a try and texted Hans:

«Hi Hans. This is Nina. I don’t know if you will like to receive this message, but I am in Oslo now and are leaving early tomorrow morning. If you still want we can try to meet at the train station».

My heart was pounding as I didn’t know if Hans would even answer my message, but he did. We texted a bit back and forth and figured out we would have a few minutes between Hans his train arriving and my train leaving. Unfortunately Hans his train was delayed and we did not manage to meet. Still this was the start of something new.

A year later Hans was visiting Norway again and was going to be in Oslo at Christmas. This meant I got another chance to meet him. When I told my family about my plans they were not happy about it and I eventually decided to stay at home. Hans however never gave up. He decided to drive all the way from the south of Norway to the very north. Because of the winter weather, the driving conditions were not good and Hans got into a car accident. He got delayed, but at least he made it out alive. It was a few days before Christmas and 2010 was about to end. Early in the morning this Christmas day I received a message from Hans:

«Hi Nina.
I will be in the city center in about two hours,
if you want you can meet me there. Hans».

And then we met. It was a very cold winter day, but from the moment we saw each other and finally could give each other the long awaited hug, I couldn’t feel the cold anymore, only happiness. The next three hours went by fast. Then Hans had to meet up with the friend he was travelling with to continue his journey. We shared another hug which I wanted to last forever. Then I was left alone again, with thousands of thoughts, feelings and questions.

The following year started quite well according to our relation. We talked a lot about our meeting, how it was and how it made us feel. In the beginning Hans seemed to be satisfied with this as well, but as the time went by he seemed to want more progress. Due to circumstances I was still not ready for it. In lack of progress Hans seemed to lose his interest. Our contact became less frequent, which worried me a lot. I really loved him, although I denied that, trying to save myself from disappointment.

But during this year a lot changed in my life. Most importantly I was done with my education and moved to another part of the country. I don’t know if I was actually ready for the next step, but at least, I decided to suggest that I could come visit Hans in the Netherlands. After all the rejections of meeting I can imagine this was difficult for Hans to believe. Still he immediately agreed on my suggestion and we found a date which would be good for us to meet. Shortly thereafter the flight tickets were booked.

This time we stayed together for almost a week. It was an amazing week! I don’t know what more to tell about it, it was just amazing.

On one of the last days of my stay it happened - TADAAAA, and we were a couple who lived happily ever after :)...

Hans his story will follow soon!