'round 2005, I wrote a short story online. It got well circulated (relatively for its time), reached the inbox of a girl after being forwarded that story by her then bf. She loved it but eventually lost her copy and spent a good time looking for the story back to the extent of writing a paraphrased version of it to get people's attention.

A few years later the girl and I ended up in the same online writing circle. She recognized my penname and told me she loved a story I made years back.

During one of the group's eyeballs, she was there but only for a short bit and nobody bothered to introduce her to me. So I kinda knew what she looked like already but she didn't really see me and we didn't get to talk.

We talked about it online, and told her we should just meet up separately. So we did. And that was the only time that she learned that "redkinoko" was in fact a guy and not a woman as she had imagined. Much awkwardness followed.

That meetup ended up into more dates and we became a thing after a few months of dating.

So whenever people ask how we met, I tell them,

the first time I met her, I did not know

the second time we met, she did not know

so a third time we met and as they say, the third time's the charm