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I first saw this game during its beta on twitch and bought it on the release date. Back then I never expected to find the love of my life and best friend because of it. This is kind of a long story, but I’ll try to keep it reasonably short.
The first time I played it, I was immediately hooked. I ended up going on twitch and finding a small streamer called Kronovi (not sure if any of you have heard of him lol). When I saw the things that he was pulling off, I just got addicted. It quickly evolved into making a bunch of friends on Twitch and Discord. Eventually I got invited to a private match where I met a player named weewoo. We became kind of friends for a couple months, talking fairly regularly, until we ended up playing almost every single day with a bunch of other good friends.
Over time we got closer and closer and then she went on vacation in Canada. She basically disappeared for a while. Even after she got back home, we barely talked for a few weeks. It felt like things had just fizzled out.. Then one day, us and a few others spontaneously decided to go to RLCS Vegas on a whim after we had initially decided to not go (What a save!). I should probably mention is that she lives in Oklahoma, and I live in Germany. Imagine falling in love with somebody on the same continent, pfff I could never. Not sure what I had gotten myself into, I flew all the way from Germany to Vegas. It was nerve wracking to say the least… That was the first time I met any online friends in person, that final walk through the airport to the baggage claim made me almost pass out lol. After a few awkward seconds saying hello to everyone, being in each other’s presence just felt so right. From then on there was hardly any awkwardness between us, and we couldn´t have gotten along better in real life. We spent some unforgettable moments together and met so many awesome people from the RL, Twitch and Discord community. We saw Cloud 9 beat Dignitas in the final, I never thought I would get so hyped over a game of RL! Truly an awesome experience and I urge everyone who loves RL Esports to try and go to one someday!
After #LANVegas we started to get way closer and spending a lot of time one on one, which we hadn’t ever done before. A few of our close friends, some who we had met in Vegas, kept telling us we should just get together already because they could clearly see what we had. But the distance from Oklahoma to Germany was really the main problem. She really didn’t think it could work, she tried to ignore how she felt and hoped it would just go away (her words not mine lol). Nonetheless, Rachel (weewoo) decided to come visit me in March the following year. My parents immediately fell in love with her and I think they knew instantly where this would lead. Very quickly, hanging out as friends turned into cuddles and a first kiss. On one of the last days she said "are weeee a thing?" and without much hesitation, I said “Yup". At that point we decided to go with what our hearts wanted. What was the worst that could happen right? Sadly, all nice moments pass too quickly, and she had to return home.
As soon as she got back we were planning another visit. We saw Dreamhack Dallas was right at the time I could visit her so we decided to go with one of our best friends (who we met for the first time there). That trip was also the first time I met her parents and I felt so welcome from day one. Once again, we met so many of the same awesome people and even more. Also, Jeff Goldblum was there so that was pretty cool.
She visited me once more in August, which is when we decided that I should stay with her for a few months to see if this could actually work. We ended up spending over three and a half months together from October 1st, to December 10th. Then, four days later, she flew to Germany for 3 weeks to spend Christmas and NYE with me, and left in January. Writing that out sounds like a crazy amount of time lol. We were with each other 24/7 and liked each other more than ever. You would think we would get annoyed with each other at some point, but somehow we never did. Up to that point, that was the best time of my life. Before she left, we decided that she should move in with me. Shortly after she got home, we talked about how we were already so sick of being apart, this huge distance and time difference. That’s when I casually asked her if she wants to get married. Joking around and making fun of the thought for a while, as we had done before, we got serious about it. I still have the quote written down in our exact words. It went kinda like:
“You wanna get married on October 10th?”
“Yeah sure man”.
Not the most romantic proposal or engagement, but it was very fitting for us. We didn’t want to get married just to close the distance, we did it because we genuinely wanted to spend the rest of our lives with each other, and we were ready.
Shortly after, she started to get a bunch of paper work ready and prepare for a trip to Germany in March, but then Covid hit.. That complicated things quite a bit and the next seven months were filled with a lot of pain, loneliness, and really long calls whenever we could. She ended up working and saving a lot to be able to move here. With how things were going with Covid, we thought it may be October or later before we could see each other again, and that we would have to cancel the wedding... :( Fast forward to august and despite all the travel restrictions, she was able to fly to Germany because we were getting married. Once she was finally through border control, the relief was endless. Seven long months disappeared in a heartbeat :)
Very soon October 10th was here, and the best day ever commenced <3 It´s truly incredible that I found my wife because of a video game. There were so many things that happened just right to bring us together. To say it was unlikely for us to ever even meet is an understatement lol.
But yeah, I just really wanted to share this story and say thank you to Psyonix, Twitch, Discord and the whole RL community for creating some awesome friendships and for meeting my wife. Even after over five years of playing RL, it’s still by far the most fun game I’ve ever played and I’ll be eternally grateful for it. <3
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