April 7, 2009

The Czech version of Althouse + Meade.

In the email:
Dear Ann,

I am sure you must have received tons of emails recently, after your blogger love story was published in the New York Times last week. I read the text, too and I could not help but smile.

Me and my boyfriend met on a blog, too. We both blogged for one of the Czech dailies and one day, an admiring comment appeared below one of my texts. I knew who the author was - a co-blogger. He kept returning and leaving more and more comments. I thought at first he was just kidding me – so exaggerated it seemed to me at first...To make the story short: we started sending private messages to each other and chatting on ICQ. We found out we had many things in common and I thought I found my (male) alter ego. We decided to meet in the end, which was not that easy as each of us lives in a different part of the country, about 3.5 hours on the train away. We have been together since. :-)

We decided to publish our love story on the blog about a month after our first date and just like in your and Meade’s case, we received a lot of supportive and surprised comments – our readers suspected something (my boyfriend left lots of hints in his blogs) but could not make the link between us. It was fun to observe....

I think it is rather funny that your story was published on 3 April - that is exactly 11 months after me and my boyfriend met in person for the first time. Although we have not announced anything officially, I’ve received a ring from him and plan to move to the city where he lives in autumn.

I would like to wish you and Meade a lot of luck and happiness.

Best regards,
Anna Leskova, Czech Republic

http://leskova.blog.idnes.cz
http://dulique.blogspot.com

(unfortunately, my both blogs are in Czech...)

It's my dear hope that endless numbers of bloggers and commenters will read and write their way to love.

Don't forget the key step: email. You can love the blogger/commenter to the depth of your heart, but at some point, you need to show up in person and see if the physical presence aligns with what you think you love. To make that happen send email.

37 comments:

Meade said...

Don't forget the key step: email. You can love the blogger/commenter to the depth of your heart, but at some point, you need to show up in person and see if the physical presence aligns with what you think you love. To make that happen send email.

Yes, and also remember the key step number two:

the criminal background check.

Anonymous said...

Now, now....keep it romantic!

traditionalguy said...

There must be something in the Spring weather that awakens the Czech's bold intelligence too.

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

Twenty years ago my wife and I met several times in a strictly professional context. Through a series of letters our association developped into friendship, and after a year of letters ... into love. We still have every one of them.

What I no longer have, unfortunately are my parents' letters back and forth -- Dad was a 20 year Navy man, and they wrote a lot. In their mid-80s they sat down to go over them all together one last time, and then burned all but a handful of typical ones.

They had each decided they couldn't bear going through the letters after the other had died, so they did it as an extended 50th anniversary cuddle.

Peter V. Bella said...

Spring has sprung and love is blooming all over the world!!!!!

Peter V. Bella said...

Meade,
Step three- ASK HER/HIM OUT!!! :-)

ricpic said...

What the hell is significant about 11 months? If the dingbat Czech had said it was exactly 12 months between the start of her romance and the start of the A-M romance I could see it. It would still be dingbattery but not wanting to be a party pooper I'd go along with its "significance." But 11 months?! What the f**k's that supposed to signify?

Unknown said...

"the criminal background check."

LOL. I guess you know it's serious when you exchange Social Security numbers!

cardeblu said...

I gotta tell you, Althouse, I've never been one for romance or anything like that, though in just a couple of weeks it will be our 27th anniversary. However, after finding out about you and Meade and now this couple (and I'm sure there are many more), I've been feeling all sorts of girlie these past couple of weeks.

Sigh...

traditionalguy said...

Love in the time of Bloggingheads. We all have so much to be thankful for: The internet with laptops, and the interstate highway system, and even the serious economic times. They all contribute to bringing people together into communities in their own way.

BJM said...


the criminal background check.


And a credit check, or you could end up wearing green tights.

Kirby Olson said...

I wonder if internet romances last as long as when you meet someone through family or church or job or school, the traditional meeting places.

At any rate, have you two started to be irritated by one another yet? what do you think is the most irritating thing about Meade?

Don't answer that.

Anonymous said...

11
Etymology german- one left
Chemistry sodium
Religion Sodom
Gastronomy salt
Genderology lots wife
Last one left

Full circle in six degrees

wall e
Eeeeeeve

Off topic my shoe size

Full circle I'm six degrees

Anna said...

@ ricpic: I may be a "dingbat Czech" as you put it but I have good manners. Which is something you seem to miss. But since I am a blogger, I know very well that people lose good manners once they can hide behind a nickname...
And to answer your question: of course, there is nothing significant about the 11 months. Just a mere coincidence. Would 11 months, 2 days, 6 hours and 28 minutes sound more significant to you? ;-)
Anna Leskova

Unknown said...

Congratulations, Anna.

I wonder if people are going to start blogs now as a way of finding love!

vnjagvet said...

Looks like Anna can take care of herself in the blogosphere! Something else she has in common with our hostess.

Unknown said...

But 11 months?! What the f**k's that supposed to signify?

Your emotional age?

Meade said...

Delightful letter, Anna. Best wishes, love, and happiness to you and your guy.

chickelit said...

Don't forget the key step: email.

But suppose email never provokes a response?

ricpic said...

I made the 11 months crack to break up the mortal tedium* on this site. Trooper's too taken up with fixing people's tax returns at this time of the year to do it, so someone has to.

*mortal tedium is a Beckett phrase, for the culturally challenged amongst you.

Unknown said...

Ricpic, I've exchanged comments with Trooper York: I know Trooper York's work; Trooper York is a favorite of mine. Ricpic, you're no Trooper York.

ricpic said...

Did I claim to be Trooper York? I'm a cut aboveTroop. You just lack the discernment to see that, mickay.

JAL said...

And here I thought Trooper's absence has something to do with Lent ;-)

JAL said...

Congratulations to you (and him) too, Anna!

My youngest daughter is seriously in love now and it is somewhat astonishing in its power.

Radish said...

I wonder if internet romances last as long as when you meet someone through family or church or job or school, the traditional meeting places.

I know married couples who met on BBS systems 15-20 years ago. Certainly they've been together longer than the divorcees of my acquaintance who met their ex at school or through friends. The medium of acquaintance seems less important than what people want and do after they meet.

Dave TN said...

But suppose email never provokes a response?

Well if email doesn't work you have to track them down. How dare they ignore your email! Do they think they are funny? Laughing at you to all their snooty friends?!#

michael farris said...

Anno, ricpic je blb.

congrats on finding nebeska laska, but why no links to the blog of your boyfriend?

I can half-assed half-read Czech, (meaning I get about a quarter which is more than most here can) but I kept reading 'lyžování' as either (ass)licking and/or (ice)skating.

Molly said...

My husband and I met when we both had Livejournals (and were extremely young -- I was seventeen). I was posting on a message board for Reed College, where he was a freshman, and where I was hoping to go to school. We read through the past three or four years of our lives spent journaling before we met, which was just a few weeks after finding each other. Looking back, our decision to meet and start a relationship (we lived in different states for a year and a half) would seem legitimately insane to anyone who knew us. But it's been almost seven years!

Unfortunately, we both deleted our mortifying teenage journals and have no record of our early romance (other than the handwritten letters we sent to each other). At least you and Meade will have these blog posts!

MadisonMan said...

Maxine, why are you not worrying about Meade's kid?

My Dad and his sister have the letters their parents wrote, and neither could read them -- Dad said it was like being between the sheets with them: Mortifying! I have a couple letters from my great-great-grandfather to his wife from during the Civil War. Fascinating. Also from when they were courting (in the late 1840s!). Fascinating.

Lawyer Mom said...

I'm not one of the trendy te-ta-taters 'round here. But I did see the NYT piece Sunday and threw up a cheer. Congrats to you both.

amba said...

OT (but not really): quotes from Pascal

We conceal it from ourselves in vain - we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.

amba said...

I wonder if people are going to start blogs now as a way of finding love!

Was there ever any other reason?

amba said...

LawyerMom: threw up a cheer?

Anna said...

@ michael farris: My boyfriend decided to discontinue his "public" blog (the one where we met) a few weeks ago. You can find him today at http://kocourkuvpelisek.blogspot.com/ (again in Czech only...) :-)

chickelit said...

Yes amba but le coeur a sas raisons que la raison ne connait point.

AllenS said...

Dear Anonymous Girl,

I'm looking for romance with a beautiful girl who owns a tractor. Please send picture of tractor.

AllenS

From Inwood said...

I'm confused. Life imitating the movies.

A Hungarian play (Parfumerie) becomes an American Movie about low-tech letter writing & romance, which becomes a Movie Musical (In The Good Old Summertime) & then a B’way Musical (She Loves Me), & then is remade into a high-tech internet exchange, non-musical love story (You've Got Mail). Then two Americans really fall in love through the 'net & now two Czechs....

Oh Dear.

And what would Barney Frank say about all this? I mean where's the remake for him, you homophobes? (You've Got Male?)

BTW, Prof A you can call your love story "You've Got Meade".