Hello iDate Lovers,

The iDate Team would like to express our sincerest gratitude for those who shared their love stories to us and to the iDate community.

It’s really nice to hear a different in-game love story that leads to a real life relationship, so inspiring and so magical! ^^

“Happiness can’t be found at the end of the road. It is truly experienced along the way. So don’t take for granted each moment of your life and find a reason to be happy each day.”

Congratulations to Cloudz27 & chrysanthia for winning the 30K in-game points and 7 days title banner in “What’s your iDate Story?”.

To Cloudz27 & chrysanthia, may your friendship be guided with love, patience, respect and understanding. Cheers!

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Let me start by saying that a total of 500 words is not enough for me to tell my story.  So I hope that this post can still be considered.

My name is Nicole, I’m in my twenties, employed and an avid fan of online gaming since college.  Since I have a corporate job, it gets pretty hectic and work related frustrations mixed in with a bit of family drama can cause depression.  That was what happened to me.

To cope I would pour my heart out to Christian, he’s my best friend (and more) and we’ve been together for a long while now.  (He too is a gamer like me; the only difference is that I don’t play as much because of work.)  But of course, every girl’s enemy is DOTA /HON so I just kept everything to myself until I couldn’t handle it anymore.   Another factor that fueled my depression was the fact that I missed him and that I couldn’t think straight without his opinion.  I hit an all-time low in my life and I felt alone.  I just wanted to take things as they were.  There was no more thinking about what the future held for me.

iDate was the exact distraction that I needed.  It gave me an opportunity to share my thoughts with total strangers and the pressure that had built in me slowly dissipated.  Pre-OBT was a whirlwind romance; it gave me reprieve and was my escape from reality.  But of course reality knocked on my door during the server downtime in preparation for OBT.  The mellow feelings started to appear again and I lost it.    My emotional breakdown was a surprise to both of us.  In the end I decided that I should not depend on him and not worry over the fact that I hadn’t felt his presence in a long while.  I sent him a long message, I knew that if I tried to see him, I would just cry and not be able to tell him that I wanted to end things.  After that, it felt like the calm before the storm.  I was anticipating that he would be so mad at me.  I couldn’t focus my attention on what I had to do work-wise.

A day after, OBT officially started.  My younger sister also plays the game and we were both excited about the new release.  Usually, I post on my YM status what it was that I was doing at the moment, which happened to be ‘playing iDate’.  Even before I sent Christian the message, I told myself that I wasn’t going to hide from him, physically or on the cyber plane.  A few minutes after the status change, I received a message from him telling me that he was online and that I should PM his character which he named Cloudz27.  (By the way, my Pre-OBT IGN was chrysa and my current IGN is chrysanthia).

The first thing he did when I logged in-game was to say hello.  A 2-hour-long date immediately followed after that.  He never knew that I played iDate before and was trying to teach me a few tips and tricks.  I then admitted to him that during my depression, I had turned to iDate as a means for stress relief.  He was surprised and he felt guilty.  Apologies were made from both our sides and we reconciled.  While this was happening, I couldn’t help but be curious about his current ‘honey’.  I’m girl and of course its normal to have jealous tendencies even if you have no plan of voicing it out.  A couple of dates later, he proposed, explained that his previous proposal acceptance was accidental.

The simple act of proposing to me in-game held a big impact on me.  It signified a new start for our once strained relationship.  To cut things short, iDate was the key to our new beginning, the strengthening of our relationship and the rekindling of our love for one another.

And ever since, there has been no need to greet each other silly with cheesy lines and over-the-top love expressions like most couples do in iDate.

This is the story of how we met again and learned to love again, thanks to iDate I’d probably be still sulking in bed and crying my eyes out.

P.S.  To those who have been our temporary ‘honeys’ in-game, sorry po ha.  Alam niyo naman po na si ‘bes’ lague bagsak kahit ano pa mangyari.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.