After losing a good job, having to move out of my apartment and in with friends, and resorting to taking a almost-minimum wage job at Walmart, I did not consider myself in any condition to try to meet any women. I was in such a bad place that my prospects were limited to those who were in even worse places. I devoted my time to trying to improve my lot in life. I needed more confidence or else I risked making things worse.
By March of 2002, I had health insurance, moved into my own apartment and started feeling good about myself. so I decided to try my hand again at meeting someone on AOL. It was going to be the usual routine: I would enter a chat room, try to connect with someone who lived in Southern California, start chatting and see where that would go. I had done fairly well prior to losing my job, except that I never go to meet anyone in person. I only got as far as phone conversations.
On the night of March 10th, I went into a "Big and Beautiful" room. I participated in the general chat for a bit. Then I asked if anyone in the room was from Southern California. One woman responded and said she was from San Jose. No one else in the room mentioned where they were from, so I figured she was the only one from California in there.
I IM'd her and started by saying San Jose was close enough. I asked her how old she was. She said she was 21. I had to hesitate here. I didn't know if I should tell her my real age. I was afraid that if I did, she would reject me right away. However, if I lied to her and had to tell her the truth later, she would probably reject me then. Since she lived so far away, I figured I would get the rejection now and I could just move on to the next attempt at romance.
I told her I was 37. She didn't seem to have a problem with that. I was relieved that the conversation was going to continue.
She hold me her name was Myz. She was originally from Monterey. She had two brothers, one older and one younger. She was currently taking classes to become a massage therapist. It was her dream to be able to make enough money to be able to provide for her parents. She wanted to be able to buy them their own home and something like a laundromat that they could operate as a business and make their living that way.
I thought this was all very ambitious. I was ashamed to tell her that I worked at Walmart. I told her that I worked in retail. If she pressed for more details, I would have told her who I worked for, but fortunately, she didn't ask anything further about it.
Later on during the chat, she mentioned something to the effect that she was Asian. This IMMEDIATELY got my attention. But I remember getting burned by Niz, so I wanted to make sure we were both on the same page as to what her definition of "Asian" was. I asked her what her ancestral background was. She said both her parents were from Vietnam. I responded, "That's Asian alright!" But she qualified it by saying that she was Americanized. I wasn't certain what that was all about, but things were definitely looking up.
When we both decided to bring the conversation to a close, I told her I hoped to be able to chat again with her in the future. She said she also hoped to find me on-line again. I was really feeling optimistic about this. So optimistic, in fact, that I did something I'd never done before. I actually saved our chat. I had a very strong feeling this was leading somewhere.
And it turned out, I was right.
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