Part 2 AOL. Stalker or Not?

I was living by myself and depressed so my daughter brought her old computer over to keep me entertained. I wonder if she remembers that night she brought it over. She was showing me how to get online and I kept hitting the enter button to try and speed the process, until she reached over and smacked my hand and told me to be patient. Whoa !! Talk about a role reversal. I had got me my first AOL CD-ROM in the mail and was so anxious to get it online and get me an email address. When I finished everything and got on there, the first thing that caught my eye was the tab that said Chat Rooms. I'm thinking do I really want to check them out? Heck yea I did. I went into the room for people in their 40's. I met a lot of people in there but saw some were in their 50's and 60's so I popped out and went into the Room for the 50 something's. As Zane says it " Fate stepped in there with me " as that's where I met Tony for the first time. He was just finishing up his divorce and I had just left an abusive marriage. We chatted online for months until we started calling each other. He kept after me for months to set up a meeting place but he lived in St. Louis Missouri and I lived in Jonesboro Arkansas. Tony was originally from the Blytheville, Arkansas area and had relatives there in Jonesboro, he called and said he would be attending a funeral in Jonesboro on the weekend and I should come up there to see him. Ummm. I chickened out and stood him up. I didn't hear from him for days and I'm starting to feel really guilty about not meeting up with him. But, I get an email and in that email are pictures of him standing outside the Gibson Piano Plant that I worked at. Alarm bells went off in my head. I actually broke out in a cold sweat. I'm thinking what the heck have I gone and done ? I've got a stalker. I called my Mom into the room and showed her and about that time the phone rang and she answered it. I could hear him asking to talk to me and I'm waving my hands saying No Way !!! My next therapy lesson, I brought it up as she was really encouraging me to meet people. All I could tell her was the first person I wanted to meet up with was a stalker. After a few months go by I come home on a Friday night after work and there's this big van parked in my parking spot in the driveway. When I walked in the house, there he was standing in the middle of the living room. I must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights as Mom quickly explained that she had talked to Tony's aunt in Blytheville and she assured her he was not a stalker. I didn't think of it then but now I wonder just how did she get his aunt's number and how did she even know his aunt ? We continued dating long distance for almost a year. Tony proposed but I just didn't feel the need of a marriage license. so we decided we'd just live together. I moved north as he had the better paying job and there I remained for 18 years.