10 years ago today I was a few days from being flown out 13 000km to meet my friend from MySpace. Yikes!

Saying "flown out" makes it sound a bit meaningless. But boy were we serious. It sounds very dangerous and IS very dangerous to just be flying across the globe like that. But I trusted him. Wholeheartedly.

We were friends first. For months. He seemed so sensible it didn't cross my mind that he'd be interested in me. But soon enough he was the person I spoke to every day, about everything.

I'd been to his country once before and had hated it. So he suggested that I visit so he could show me a different experience of it.

At the time, I'd been planning on travelling anyway and had savings, and my dad helped me out, so the money was a safety net in case things went South with my MySpace friend.

And so while planning my trip, we fell in love. Genuinely. I remember saying we were not going to be officially official until we meet in person. I don't know. It made it seem less weird.

Thinking about it now, it sounds so crazy and scary. To be on an 11 hour flight to go spend months with some guy from social media. I mean, what the hell?!?

So I quit my job (there was just no way of doing it using leave days) but luckily a few days later another company gave me a job AND they were willing to wait for me to return from my trip. The universe was aligning all the stars.

And on the 18th of November 2007 I landed in his city at 6.05 am. They'd lost my luggage. But that was the least of my worries.

After passport control, I went straight to the bathroom and spent 2 hours there properly thinking about this crazy thing I'd just done. Like, WTF!

But eventually I dragged myself and my hand luggage to arrivals. I thought "if anything looks weird, I know how to scream and how to book myself into a hotel".

Ad break - baby is crying. Lemme go help husband calm her down. More later.

Okay, where were we? Yes. Arrivals hall, doors open and there are dozens of people, waiting in anticipation for whomever they were picking up.

I stand there, looking like "is someone going to claim me?“ but no one rushed up to me. I read the cab drivers signs, looking for my name, because maybe he sent a cab, but, nothing.

I get out the way and stand behind everyone but facing the opposite direction. Where was my guy? So much was running through my mind. Was this some kind of joke? It didn't make sense because he'd insisted on paying for my ticket.

I start planning in my head - gotta find a hotel. Figured I could afford to stay for 3 weeks and pay charges for change to return ticket and a small amount of shopping.

I was determined to make this a good experience. After all I had flown from Johannesburg to a different continent and hemisphere

At this point, it looked like every man at the airport was walking up to me and they all looked dangerous and nothing like the guy I'd fallen in love with

Had I been catfished? (I didn't actually use this term because I didn't know it 10 years ago, but you get me.) I was being super paranoid - should have thought of all this before leaving Joburg, right?

And then I heard the voice from the phone going "Baby!" and there he was. It was him! It was real. And that overwhelming feeling of trust came back again.

We kissed and hugged, walked outside for a cigarette before heading to his car. Everything about it felt comfortable. There was no need to scream or book a hotel.

Why was he not at arrivals when I got there? Because after 2 hours of my plane having landed and no me, he decided to go ask the airport to make an announcement on the airport intercom

I didn't even hear the announcement. I hadn't even noticed that I'd spent two hours being paranoid before going to arrivals.

We went on to spend my trip being boyfriend and girlfriend. Seeing things, doing things, and in love enough to know we wanted to spend our lives together.

Eventually, we broke up after my return.

So since that day at the airport, I visited him many times. He visited me in Jozi many times. Moved on with technology as it moved - Fring, Skype, Gmail, you name it, we've used it.

As you know, long distance relationships are not easy so we have also broken up, sworn off each other, moved on from each other. Even stopped being friends.

But eventually we accepted that we are incapable of quitting each other.

We've seen some of the world together - went to cool places like Mauritius, South Korea, Australia and many others

Me and my friend from MySpace are now married. I moved from Jozi to the city where we first met in person - London, and today, our baby is a week old.

I left out a lot of the details, (saving them for the movie script ). But that is my fly out story .

Fin.

I just made my husband read this thread. He just found out now that I spent the missing 2 hours hiding in the bathroom. This whole time he thought I'd spent sorting out my missing luggage