Yes, please meet Jack, because if YOU met him, YOU would be the only one who had REALLY met him.   You see, I never actually MET Jack.  I wrote words on a keyboard back and forth.  I talked to him on the telephone when there was no unlimited long distance ($35.00 a call!).  But, I never REALLY met Jack face to face, I never smelled his skin, I never looked into his eyes (whatever color they were) or ran my fingers through his  hair. So it goes with a long distance love affair that really never was.  Fantasy.  Pure fantasy.  It wasn't really real.  I mean, how could it be?  Reality is walking hand in hand on the beach--not just talking about how wonderful it WOULD be to do so.

I would wait up until one o'clock in the morning to speak with Jack.  He worked the second shift.at  a correctional facility in Wichita, Kansas.  I was in Eastern Standard Time, he was in Central Time.  It was worth the wait for someone to tell you that they loved you sight unseen--in a week's time!  Then, the next week, he would decide that he couldn't possibly love me after he learned that I had been divorced twice.  In one phone call, he said, "I couldn't possibly be husband number three."  (Grimace)  Online love--PURE FANTASY.

Read this excerpt from my book, Caught in the Net, a story of Internet addiction and romance by Sunshine44:

                                          Hooked  (Chapter Two)

       I would sign on late at night and wait for Jack. After a few weeks, he asked the dreaded question: “When are you going to send your picture?” He wanted to see me. I couldn’t let him see me the way I was! When he asked about my weight before, I just told him it wasn’t polite to ask a lady how much she weighed and laughed it off.

   The pressure was on. He told me he had just sent out his picture and he would be looking for mine in the mail as well. I took out the photo albums and looked for the perfect picture, which of course couldn’t be found. Even the most flattering picture was a few years old. I kept telling myself that it was still “me,” even if it wasn’t a recent likeness. Who was I kidding? Finally, I selected one and sent it in a pretty little pewter frame decorated with flowers, hoping that he would focus more on the flowers instead of the picture of SUNSHINE44.