Paul & I met at a web development forum in early 2003. I had seen him frequent the forum for a few months, then he wrote to me complimenting me on my code. This was the beginning of our friendship.

We corresponded with messages & then spent all night talking. Because Paul lived in a poor Internet reception area, we were only able to talk via text chat. We continued to chat like this for 6 years until he got faster Internet which provided us the opportunity to audio chat. Later he got a bit better speed & we were able to webcam, but this wasn't until after the first time we met in person, which was in 2009.

During this time Paul & I worked on several web projects together, some were on other project teams, most were when we contracted each other for services. I have a web design business; he has a web development business. I contract Paul to do all my development/programming work, and Paul contract me to do his design work.

However, Paul went above & beyond the call of duty. He worked with daughter on her website & created a network for her. On several occasions & still now he has connected to my Mum's computer and taught her how to use it & fixed it when it broke.

In April 2006 I decided to give up smoking & every day I used to tell Paul of my progress. I measured each day a success & he would congratulate me. I used to smoke up to 40 per day, I haven't smoked since. I think Paul's support was an important factor in me giving up successfully.

Paul really cemented his friendship with me when I had a business crisis at the end of 2007. The web host that I used to host my clients' websites folded his business without advising his resellers (which I was one of). Consequently, I had clients that had their websites down, and I have several websites that were down also. I already had serious trust issues, especially on the Internet, yet Paul convinced me to trust him with organising my clients. At that stage I had little choice because I didn't know what to do. Paul moved all my clients & my websites onto his servers and then helped me to find an alternate web host in Australia, then moved them all onto the new servers. He then safeguarded me for the future by writing a backup script that wont leave me or my clients vulnerable again.

We continued to chat every day about work related issues, world news, politics, family, our hopes & dreams. Then in September 2008 everything changed. Paul and I had gotten to the stage that we were having quite long supportive chats with each other. I continued to be surprised that he was single. It seemed unusual to me that someone as nice as him was single. I kept trying to encourage him to get out & about and to meet someone, but he seems disheartened by the current social scene where he lived in Cornwall (UK).

One day in September 2008 I felt the mood of the conversation change. I don't know why, but something prompted me to ask him "Do you really like me". I waited ages for a response & then finally he said "yes". I was quite surprised as until then I had no idea Paul had feelings for me. I always felt he was special to me, but he was in England I didn't entertain a relationship at all. I pushed him a little further and asked, "A lot?", and he answered "yes".

I was a little gobsmacked but continued to chat with him about all kinds of things while I processed what he had told me. I didn't want our good friendship affected. I spent many sleepless nights & I was often distracted over the coming weeks.