Mary Kate, Neil and Campfire:

Your insights about long-distance relationships and those conducted through correspondence are interesting. I have my own private theory about such relationships -- having had two myself -- which I'll share with you precisely because you are strangers.

Before we married, my ex-husband and I corresponded by letter for five years while he was fighting in Viet Nam and I was studying in Ireland. Our marriage lasted three years, just long enough to produce two children and realize that we couldn't overcome our differences. My first relationship after the divorce was with a folksinger who did semi-annual tours in the US. We exchanged letters between brief visits for a number of years until he married someone else.

These relationships enabled me to feel connected and share intimacy with a man. They gave me something to fantasize about and happy things to look forward to - the letters, phone calls and occasional visits. Yet neither relationship interfered with my real life or required me to make choices or changes. I used to be impulsive and not much good at resisting temptation. So, I credit my correspondence with my ex-husband from keeping me from dating and neglecting my studies, and maybe having to worry about avoiding pregnancy in a country where, at the time, contraception was illegal. And the relationship with the performer let me focus on building my career and raising my children, and might have kept me from subjecting them to a series of mini-divorces.

Without these relationships, I'm afraid I might have done something ignoble during the boy-crazy-high-school-and-college years or the subsequent overwhelmed-with-responsibility-single-parent years. So, I'm very grateful for my children and my good career and the many other blessings I've received because I didn't do (too many) dumb things in my life. Then again, these relationships might have kept me from meeting a real life partner - which I now regret not having, especially as I prepare for my older son's wedding and younger son's college graduation this summer.

I know three people who are happily married to people they met over the Internet. But, I know many more who use chat rooms to avoid real interaction, like I did with my two long-distance correspondences. I'm not saying I think it's wrong to meet people over the Internet, but I think it may not be the best venue if you're really looking and ready for "true" love.

But if you are and he is, Mary Kate, then I say follow your heart!