Love all a-twitter

For Bigongiari, who had come out of a long-term relationship months earlier, not being able to meet her email friend, Cullen Van Brunt, 38, right away — he lived in Colorado — was an advantage. “It forced us to get to know each other without sex, without any of the physical stuff getting in the way. We got to know each other’s minds so well that by the time we met, we were just so comfortable with each other that it was like we’d known each other all along.”

Separated by thousands of kilometres, the elovers met in New York City last April for the first time. Though she felt certain she’d met her love match, Bigongiari approached their first face-to-face meeting with an open mind. “I knew that all we had to do was see each other and that would just cinch the deal, only I wasn’t 100-percent sure, so I said to myself, ‘Okay, slow down; you won’t know for sure until you meet him in person.’”

Van Brunt arrived, breathless, at the Manhattan eatery where they had agreed to meet. “He’d run halfway across Manhattan with this vase of tulips just to meet me,” says Bigongiari. “I love tulips; they’re my favourite flower.” Though she’d never seen a clear photo of him — “His picture on the site is him with a panda in China, and you really see more of the panda” — Bigongiari’s fear about lack of physical chemistry evaporated instantly. “I thought he was absolutely adorable,” she enthuses. “The only thing I noticed was that he was really shy. He’d look at me and then kind of look away, and I thought, ‘Oh, maybe he doesn’t like me; maybe he doesn’t think I’m pretty or maybe he’s not interested.’ As the night went on, however, I realized that he was just nervous.”

Though she’d never seen a clear photo of him Bigongiari’s fear about lack of evaporated instantly.

His nerves soon wore off as the friendship they’d built online translated fairly seamlessly into a 3-D romance. Bigongiari still remembers when he took her hand in his for the first time. “He was holding my hand, and I was looking down and thinking how wonderful and warm his hand was.” Before the end of the night, Van Brunt had asked Bigongiari to marry him. “He asked me several times that weekend,” she says, laughing. “I actually upset him because I said that I’d consider it — I was thinking, ‘I just met him!’”

During a trip to Van Brunt’s home in Colorado a month later, Bigongiari accepted his proposal. The twosome made their mutual affection official: Their wedding took place last September. After the wedding, Bigongiari sent out a friendly email of her own: “Long live the World Wide Web!”

Martha didn’t get married or find the elusive romantic chemistry she was seeking online, but she did find a friend. She’s still in regular contact with her email partner, and, now that romance is off the table, their friendship has continued to grow online. “I would say that we’re very good friends, and we’re both intent on remaining as such. It’s been really wonderful getting to know someone so well in this manner, and I don’t regret a minute of it.”

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