Try this: The Greatest (and perhaps most absurd) Love Story of the 21st Century

A few months ago, my relationship status on Facebook changed from "single" to "it's complicated." It stayed there for a while, then a few weeks ago it changed to "is engaged to Gregory Pleshaw." This, of course, sparked a shitstorm of comments on both his page and mine, people alternately offering hearty congratulations and expressing confusion. I mean, as far as most people in our respective lives knew, neither of us was dating anyone with any sort of seriousness or regularity, and now...engaged? To who? After the flurry of comments, we each decided to clear up the situation to those who weren't in on it. I wrote:

All right, everyone...look. Since Gregory cleared it up on his wall, I may as well clear it up on mine. I was hoping that the status about being a merry prankster would clue some in, but...really. We are NOT actually engaged. I'm NOT getting married. To him or to anyone. It's too hard to explain in any sort of detail to anyone who doesn't *know* Gregory or anything about the nature of our relationship, but we are involved in an online relationship that works for both of us on a level we each need it to for the moment. He's an *amazing* human being who has opened my mind and heart to things I never knew were out there, serving me a larger slice of life and teaching me some really neat stuff. I love him with all my heart, but it's not necessarily the most traditional or orthodox kind of thing. So...not nearly as detailed or eloquently conveyed as his description, but that's the nutshell version. Sorry to have gotten you all atwitter.

Gregory's explanation was much more involved than mine, really, and included more detail about his work and the part I play in it, but the basic sentiment was the same.

Okay, so hold on - Gregory who? And...what? Haha. Let me back up.

This is the story in a nutshell: Gregory and I have never met in person. We met online back at the end of March when we both commented on a mutual friend's status update. (Said friend actually does know him AND me in real life). Our exchange moved over to email, which segued into chats, which then became frequent and regular Skype/video chats. Through the course of getting to know each other on a cerebral level, we discovered some very significant and unusual commonalities. Without going into too much detail (because, honestly, I'm not trying to be coy or weird, but this stuff is really deep and private, which is one of the reasons we bonded so tightly over it), I will say this: somewhere along the line, we fell in love.

For real.

Some day I will tell the entire story, but I'm still trying to figure out how to write it myself. I'm attempting to decipher feelings I've never had before, or had so long ago I'd forgotten how to process them. All I know is that I am involved in a deep connection with another human being that is so intense it kind of blows my mind sometimes. Sounds perfect, right? It might be. But there's just one catch: he lives on the other side of the world. When we met, he was living in Thailand. Right now he's in India. It's just where his work (he's a writer) has taken him. He has no immediate plans to return to the United States. His plan is currently to stay in India until the fall, at which point he will return to Thailand to spend Christmas with his mother (she's an English teacher there), and then, if all goes according to plan, New Year's and a few weeks beyond with...me.

This is provided I can come up with the money to actually make it happen. But since he's a broke-ass writer, and I'm a broke-ass graduate student, we're having some trouble figuring that part out. So now I'm seriously considering holding a fundraiser type of thing to finance the trip. I thought, "Hmm...if I could get 2000 people to donate ONE DOLLAR, I could buy a plane ticket to Thailand and finally see if this thing is worth the emotional investment I've made, if it's worth the tears and the fluttering heart...if it's really, really REAL and can actually WORK on a physical level so we can figure out just what the hell to do with the damn thing."

Crazy idea? Sure. But really no crazier than anything else I've ever done in my life. Self-indulgent? No doubt. Risky? Uh-huh. But isn't love made up of these very elements by nature? The BIG question remaining, however, is whether or not we can actually make it happen.

Because, see, lots of people meet on the internet every day. Lots of relationships have been born on Facebook, Myspace, etc. So what makes ours so special, unique, or worthy of trying, that 2000 people with an extra buck would toss it our way to help make it happen? Well, there's the fact, first of all, that Gregory's current project involves LIVE-WRITING a book ON Facebook. He and I MET on Facebook. I'm part of the story. (As an aside, I'm also writing a book, the final chapter of which I'm planning on writing overseas). Consider it..."research."

As far as anything else goes, all anyone really needs to know is that he and I have this incredible, intense, and amazing connection that we have determined MUST be tried physically to see if it works in the "3-D" realm. It could be the most mind-blowing, happiest-ending thing ever, it could end up being the biggest carnage-strewn disaster in the history of mankind. Who knows? Nobody - until we TRY. But trying is gonna cost a lot of money that neither one of us has. And so this is where our "investors" come in. If it doesn't work, we call it a day and move on, and a couple thousand folks are out a dollar. Oh well. Better than me being out two grand that I don't have. And if it works? Two thousand people can take credit for it. Either way, they're off the hook for a wedding gift, ha.

And then what happens? Not sure. I had the idea that maybe we could take it even a step further and turn it into an "online reality show" of sorts. People are going to want proof that their dollar actually went where it was supposed to, so we could add that extra element. It could be in the form of a website, or even just an expanded Facebook fan page or something. We haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still deciding if I'm actually ballsy enough to try it. And yeah, I know - it's risky. But like I've always said, I'd rather die trying than die having not tried. I think he's worth a shot.