Fictional love, poverty, Mrs Lestrange, horrible hairballs

[macloudt]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Tabouli" <tabouli at u...> wrote:
> Ahaaaa!  (Tabouli scents one of her pet topics).  OK, everyone, 
come clean, come clean.  We've all been enthusing about movie stars 
and fictional characters in HP... where do mysterious characters you 
correspond with by letter or email fit into the picture?  Do people 
consider their fellow HPFGU listmembers (at least, those they haven't 
met) to be fictional characters or real people?  I seem to remember 
we have at least one internet marriage veteran on-list.  Do you 
people think you could fall in love with someone without meeting them 
or even knowing what they looked like?  (I did, with tragic results, 
though that was snail mail only).

Hey, you're all as real as can be :)  But then I would say that, as 
my DH and I started out as penfriends.  We didn't fall in love before 
we met face-to-face, but were just penfriends.  It was when we *did* 
meet face-to-face that things turned gooey and mushy.  In fact that's 
how I ended up where I am, in the, erm, mediocre seaside resort town 
of Weston-super-Mare.  Most of the locals I meet don't understand why 
the heck I left Toronto for this place!

Sorry your snail mail relationship ended up nasty, Tabouli...I've 
heard of this happening several times over.  When Stu and I first met 
face-to-face I was staying with family in Holland, and flew over from 
Amsterdam to Bristol.  In my pocket was enough money for a hotel and 
an emergency trip back to Amsterdam in case he turned out to be a 
complete nutcase (I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid).  As it 
happened he turned out to be exactly as I had expected from his 
letters to me.  So here's one happy ending for you!  Now if I could 
just get him to learn to do laundry...

What intrigues me is the mental picture I have of many of you, all of 
them nice, seeing as you're all such nice folks :)  Do you folks do 
this as well?  I can't help but have a mental picture of people with 
whom I correspond but have never met or seen a photo of (five years 
of studying sociology and cultural anthropology does these strange 
things to your head, see).  What *really* gets me is the number of 
times I'm waaaaayyyy off the mark!  Hmm, maybe I need to hand my 
degree back...

Mary Ann
(5'8", size 6, naturally blonde hair, perfect complexion, and just 
renewing her international modelling contract...*cough*  *hack*)