I met my girlfriend on Twitter. Our first date we stayed up half the night retweeting tweets and creating new hashtags. She blogged about me on WordPress. I started a LiveJournal. We connected on so many levels. Things between us quickly got more serious. LinkedIn. Google+. I helped her edit her resume. We debated the merits of open source programming. We once stayed up all night on Facebook, naked, liking each other from head to toe. There was nothing like spending a cozy Sunday morning curled up with a book and simultaneously posting our reviews on Goodreads.
Our families met on Skype. My mom, her dad, a blocky Internet connection and a pixellated bond we all shared. Everywhere she reviewed on Yelp, I was soon to follow. She checked into my heart on Foursquare and I became the mayor of her soul. I clicked on all of her bookmarks and they were del.icio.us. We traded Spotify playlists. I bought her everything on her Amazon wishlist. I visited her sister's farm and fed her Angry Birds. We tried to Meetup, but she couldn't remember her password.
And, sure, some thought we were only Friendsters. That she was just my PayPal. But before we knew it, MySpace was her space, her space was MySpace, and it was like we were living on our own private SoundCloud.
We had our first fight in the comments section here at The Huffington Post. She thought I was spending too much time online. I thought she wasn't spending enough. We each booked an electronics-free weekend on Airbnb. On Monday, we reported back. Mine was liberating. Hers was tragic. She was sick. Like a Bolt.com of lightning. One by one, her accounts started closing. She used to be Pinterested in everything, but now she could barely even Plurk. Was it a virus? No one was sure. I pleaded with her to post on the WebMD message boards but by the end I'm not sure if she was even getting my e-mails. We shared one final retweet before she said her last goodbye. A sad face emoticon and she was gone. Forever. It was FunnyOrDie without any of the Funny. It was a BlackPlanet without her, aSmallWorld, MyLife barely worth living.
And all I could do was go back to playing college football and tell everyone the story of my lost love.