It’s our 3 month anniversary today. Wow, only 3 months? We were just marvelling at it while chatting on MSN. It feels much, much longer than that, to both of us.

You can sort of understand why it feels longer though – in the space of 3 months, we have developed and cemented our relationship to one that is strong and that has already survived a couple of tough times.

For those who don’t know – I’ll give you a little snapshot of who we are. I am Ben, I’ve just turned 30 years old, and I’m from Brisbane, Australia. Satomi has just turned 33 and is originally from Inami, Japan. We met on cyberspace just briefly through my best mate, Steve, who lived in Japan for 3 years. Satomi decided to study English in Australia, choosing Brisbane to be close to her best mate Catherine. Steve introduced us and suggested Satomi move into my spare room for the 10 months or so she was planning to be here.

So April 2006 came, and Satomi became a co-lover in the Albion Love Den (my place – long story), along with my large-headed cat Potsie. The first few months saw us bond over food, crappy 80s music and long drunken talk fests in the Love Den. The cultural and social difficulties meant we surfed a ‘tolerance’ friendship, which developed in time to a deep, close connection. Pretty soon, our social lives became entwined, with each of us being the ‘plus one’ for the others’ parties, barbecues and drinking sessions. It was inevitable, but I developed a crush on her.


I tried to suppress the feeling, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable in her short time in Brisbane. One day, she began to tell me about a couple of dates she’d been on recently… and it was hurting me to hear about them. It was then that I realised my ‘crush’ was something more. A period of trying to deny my feelings followed, before I could hold it in no longer and told her how I felt. It wasn’t immediately reciprocated, but within a couple of weeks, we were going out on a ‘date’ (how do you go out on a date when you live together already?). While the period afterwards was a bit of a blur of stolen glances, meaningful gestures and trying to also be ‘normal’ flatmates, we decided that November 17 would be the official beginning of our relationship.

We knew each other so well, and connected so deeply right from the start, that it was a matter of weeks before we recognised that we were actually in love with each other. That quickly developed into a realisation that we were each other’s ‘one’. We knew we felt the same about life, about the world, about where we wanted to go in life. And, after a couple of blissful months, I proposed. She accepted, gleefully, and we set about planning the rest of our lives together.



Everything would be perfect now, apart from one small problem. Her student visa expired on January 22, 2007. She had to go back to Japan! And 3 weeks ago tomorrow, I watched her beauty disappear down the escalator at the Brisbane International Airport, and out of my life (physically) for the next 8 months. We decided that the time spent apart would be spent focussing on her coming back – applying for a Prospect to Marry Visa.



The timeline is long and involved, but essentially Satomi will be back in Australia in September 2007, and we will be married early in 2008. The time between now and then is spent developing a long distance relationship – thanks to email, MSN chat, webcams and internet phones (so cheap!). While we’re sort of getting used to it now, the initial couple of days were, as you can expect, absolute torture – I’ll let Satomi take up the story for the 2 days immediately after her departure…

Ben
17 February, 2007.