How We Met

Whenever someone finds out that Julie and Sheldon met when Julie lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Sheldon lived in Langley British Columbia, the question "How?" always is asked.

1999·05·01

It was May 1, 1999 and Sheldon was minding his own business, working on a website for The Vitamin Centre. It was a Saturday evening and once of the few evenings that Sheldon was not playing slowpitch or refereeing hockey.

Julie was babysitting Jacob at her brothers. She was playing hearts on Yahoo, enjoying her first time on the internet. Jeff and Jen, Jacob's parent's were at a social nearby and Jeff had a feeling that she would be experiencing technical difficulties and would probably be bounced from Yahoo. This was in the days of dialup and it was a frequent experience.

The ICQ Logo

Leaving his wife at the social [a bad idea to begin with], Jeff returned home to find out that indeed, Yahoo had bounced Julie and she was bored. He went to restart her game and she asked about "chatting." Jeff was not a fan of regular chat but he offered to show her how to use ICQ.

They did a search on the ICQ white pages for Christian Males who like Hockey and a few options showed up, most were offline. However, there were a few who were online at the time, a couple of Mormon's a Jehovah's Witness and "Shoden", Sheldon's screen name.

Being online quite a bit due to his job building websites, ICQ's from unknown people often appeared on Sheldon's monitor and he was used to ignoring them but when a nurse from Winnipeg [his place of birth], said "Hi Shoden", he felt the desire to respond and take a break from work. They chatted for a bit, Julie was looking for a church in Winnipeg and Sheldon was able to point her to one. He gave her his email address and asked her to let him know how church went that Sunday. At that point, he didn't spend alot of time thinking of the conversation.

1999·05·04

A few days later, Sheldon received an email from Julie, she was excited to have an "Email Buddy" and had driven to her brother's internet cafe to send him the email. Sheldon replied to her questions, asked a few of his own and the emails started to fly. Every few days, then every day, Julie would drive to the cafe or to her brother's to email or chat with Sheldon.

1999·05·22

Three weeks after the first ICQ session, Julie and Sheldon finally have a conversation on the phone. It lasts four hours and was a sign of things to come.

1999·05·28

Eventually, tired of driving the 20 minutes extra after work, Julie bought a computer to email and chat with Sheldon.

1999·05·31
A month after their first chat, Sheldon emails Julie a picture.

1999·06·03
Four days later. Julie emails Sheldon a picture of her and her dad. Sheldon sticks his foot in his mouth and this leads to the first fight. Learning from many people who had taught Sheldon about relationships, Sheldon apologizes, apologizes, and apologizes again. Julie still brings this comment up occasionally.

Julie & Sheldon

1999·06·14
Julie sends Sheldon a list of rules to follow.

1. Don't EVER stop telling me jokes, now matter how silly they may be
2. Don't EVER stop being sensitive, caring, mushy, those are qualities every woman dreams of (me included)
3. Don't EVER think that you can beat me in wrestling! There is no
logic here, i have no strategies, I can't tell you how, but i WILL
be victorious.;.)

1999·07·03
Julie and Sheldon see each other for first time. It's Canada Day Weekend, Sheldon has a ball tournament but Julie is impatient [still working on this] and decides to fly across the country and see her friend. It was a fun weekend, Julie stayed at her aunt and uncle's and Sheldon would drive 45 minutes each way to pick her up and drop her off each day. Both parties wanted the relationship to work but due to Sheldon's immaturity [Julie's opinion], it wasn't meant to be.

They see each other every couple of months for 5 more trips then due to the awkwardness of wanting something to happen but not having the necessary feelings, they stop seeing each other but continue talking on the phone almost every night.

2002·09·27
Sheldon flies out to Winnipeg to see Julie for the first time in almost two years. The awkwardness had disappeared and they enjoyed the week together.

2002·10·22
After a long conversation about "Love and Feelings." Julie admits that her feelings had changed and the two people decide to try dating again.

2002·12·16
Sheldon and Julie get engaged.