Dear Andrea,
I liked your Internet Love Stories column on the internet and I would like to add my comments.  Perhaps the reason it appealed to me is that I've been so often a partaker of love's pain and pleasure.  Platonic love had made up the majority of these events over the fascination with the exterior or physical desire for another person.  That quality pretty much predestines one for involvement on the internet.

I've been married for 20 year and at the conclusion of that marriage due to basic differences in our outlook, I began searching with unmovable optimism for a new mate.  An incurable disease and other tragedies started me on an emotional journey, that our marriage unfortunately was unable to survive.  I hoped that there will be an individual who has the same interests, values as I do and who will accept me the way I am.  I began writing a book about my life, the events leading up to and my search for new paths.  It is continually being written and posted to my personal website.  I must forewarn that it is no small chore to read as it is already 800 pages with an 11 pitch font.

Whether positive or negative, people who read my story felt the need to write and it was among those emails that I received my first message from Melinda approximately a year and a half ago.  Some 4-5 lengthy and detailed letters and poems from her, I realized that Meli's thoughts, feelings and soul is very much on the same wavelength with mine.

Some 15 years ago at a former job I've had, I was told that I have an above average capacity for empathy for others, being able to enter into their views and because of that 2-3 weeks did not at all appear a short time for me to realize that my heart beats a little faster and that this means I'm in love.

Because I write down everything of significance that I feel, think or happens to me, Meli was informed of my newly blossoming feelings the next time she downloaded the newly written portion of my book.  Her response was to distance herself.  After two agonizing weeks she announced that she doesn't know what to do with my declaration and feelings that she read, but at best she can think of me as an acquaintance or a friend.

Her rejection was painful but I was experienced on that topic and I worked hard at processing it.  Who knows what faith will bring us and so I was content with the opportunity to continue our relationship as friends.  I don't know if there is anything worse than love not reciprocated and so I've diligently tried to weed out the remains from my heart.  When Meli visited me two weeks later I had such an overwhelming feeling that we were so close emotionally that I felt as though God had made her for me.

Meli has natural manners, she warms up quickly to people and for her ‘friendship’ meant that she can send and sms in the middle of the night saying ‘I love you’ if she happened to think of me.  As a precaution I no longer posted a continuation of my book on the web and so she was unaware of the feelings that her words, gestures stirred in me.  She considered those to be expressions of friendship, human interest but in me they stirred hope that if I am patient my feelings will eventually be returned.

Terrible times of longing followed when finally in January of this year I've suggested that we say good-bye because a certain end would be less painful than the hopeless state I was in.  I've not been able to sleep for months, sometimes falling asleep at 7 in the morning and I was worn out from this experience.  I know that nothing in life is accidental or wasted and so it was the pain of the love not returned that purified my love further.  What remained was less of an infatuation and more of an unconditional, pure, love.

In May we began to search each other out again and decided that a personal meeting would be in order to discuss what it was that moved each of us and at what stage of the relationship and to try to sort out what is at the bottom of our unusual connection.  Meli also felt that our meeting was destined and that there had to be some reason that things worked out as they did.

She spent a short week-end with me and during the quiet of the night in a mutual meditative state we realized that this was not the first lifetime that we've known each other, but this time around her attraction to me was to work out issues she had unresolved with her young father.

I sighed deeply and with a wide grin adopted her.  This made Meli so happy to be with me that she could not get close enough to me in bed.  We did not make an issue of sleeping together.  I would never do anything to her that she did not want and Meli also knew that.

This lasted for two weeks or perhaps not even that long and the feeling once again overtook me that I must live my life with her.  I am 19 years older than her - so what?  I've adopted her - so what?  She doesn't (yet) feel the way I do - so what?  These feelings seemed to weaken none at all.  I've told her as much over the phone adding also that there were no expectations, she can be herself and I will not pressure her.

We keep stumbling around each other ever since, so this is not the happy end that Tunde and Kornel’s story was, but that's life and these things are all a part of it.

If you decide to publish my story anyway, so be it.

Greetings and best wishes on your pages and your work on the net.

Viktor Arany