I met Casey in a game called EverQuest.
I was married to my first husband at the time. He didn’t play online games. Our marriage was healthy, or so I thought. He didn’t care, or mind, that I played EverQuest. It wasn’t ever an argument in our marriage. I never neglected our marriage to play it. I usually played late at night when he was asleep.
It was a typical night. I was farming rockhopper hides in a zone called Marus Seru when a group invite popped up. I never accepted random group invites, but I really needed rockhopper hides, so I decided to accept. It went faster in a group. There, I met Casey. At the end of the night, he added me to his friend’s list and any time I logged in, he said hello.
It started slow, but our interactions increased. It eventually moved out of game to AOL Instant Messenger where we sent memes. Nothing more. I have to make it clear that we were meme buddies and nothing more. No romantic interest. He knew I was married. Eventually, we lost contact. For years.
Then, MySpace happened. Around that time, my marriage was falling apart. Low and behold, he found me. He helped me through that whole ordeal, but we were still not romantic. He helped me through my divorce. He became my best friend. Making sure I ate. Making sure I took care of my son.
He lived in Kansas. I lived in Texas. Over the next year, he helped me emotionally through school. Helped me get back on my feet. That’s when we tried a long-distance relationship. A few months into it, we met for the first time at Christmas. It went really well. Not long after that, he moved to Texas. He proposed. And, as they say, the rest is history. We’ve been married 16 years.
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