Strangers On A Plane (or That Time I Threw Love In The Trash)

In 1998, when I was 17 years old, I went on a camping trip to Scotland. Now, this is not a story about the beautiful green fields of Scotland or how they obsessively use crosswalk signs, or even a story about how I was in Scotland, and still managed to run into people who knew someone I knew in Baltimore. No, this is a story about love, but not the sappy "The Notebook", love at first sight kind you may think it's going to be.In the months leading up to my trip, I somehow started talking to this girl from Iceland online. On America Online, to be more specific. See, back in the '90s AOL chat rooms were a pretty big deal. This was the beginning of people being able to connect with other people who had the same shared interests... or jacked-off typing dirty words to each other. I can't fault this generation for sexting, because my generation brought you Cybersex; it's much more depraved. There was one girl who asked me to scan my dick and send it to her. At the time, I had a scanner, but it wasn't one of those flatbed scanners where I could just lay my junk on it. My scanner sucked paper in and scanned it. Basically, it looked like the output of a big copy machine, where the hole was the size of a sheet of paper. Yeah, no. My junk is not going into that thing. No.I honestly can not remember if I had this type of online "relationship" with an Icelandic girl, I honestly don't even remember her name. (From this point out let's refer to her with some random made up name... Like "Lady Sif." I wish it were because I changed the name to protect the innocent, or in case she were to see this story, but it's because I don't remember her name. Honestly, her reading this is as unlikely as I'm going to remember the type of pizza I ate this morning for breakfast.) The only reason I remember her at all is because we met. I think.I met Lady Sif online in one of those chat rooms. She was a foreign exchange student from Iceland living in North-South- I don't know. One of the Carolinas. I remember we talked a lot online; for months. When I found out I was going to Scotland, and that we were going to have a layover in Reykjavík, Iceland I of course told her about it. (Probably because I asked what fun things there are to do in the airport.) She told me that she was also flying back home the same time I was going to Scotland. I was like,

"Wow! That's cool. We should meet up in the airport."

That's the extent of conversations online that I can remember having with her. I'm sure we talked more, I'm sure I told her about me, and things that I did, and how my day was, and I'm sure she did as well. A couple of weeks before my flight, I received an envelope in the mail. It was from Lady Sif. I opened it, to read a very heartfelt letter of Lady Sif confessing her love for me. Talking about how she couldn't wait to meet me in the airport.I was 17. I hadn't had any real relationships with a woman that resulted in either party saying, "I love you." I had never heard from anyone, nor had I said "I love you", to another person with the exception of my family. (That's only because you're supposed to say that to family members whether you mean it or not.) I was terrified. I didn't know how to react to that because here is someone telling me something that I did not feel in return. I had never met her in person. To me it was just a person that I knew and talked to.So I freaked out! I didn't just threw the letter away. I hid it in the bottom of the trash bag, just so no one else could find it. Mostly, this was because I was embarrassed, but there was a little crazy, psycho tone to the letter too. I stopped going online. I ignored emails and instant messages from her. The only time I talked about it was with some of my friends who I going to Scotland with; and, of course, they made fun of me. They didn't believe me. Who would? I'm sure you're reading this now thinking,

"There's no way anyone would do that; especially to you. You're an asshole, Dennis."

The day came, and it was time to fly to Scotland. As I was on the plane, I saw this very pretty, punky, red-dyed hair, girl get on the plane and sit right behind me. After take off, I decided to start a conversation with her. I had noticed she was carrying a painting when she boarded, so what better way to start a conversation then to ask her about it? When I turned around to compliment the artwork and ask if she painted it, she looked blankly at me and said, with perfect English, "What? Oh I'm sorry, I don't speak English."Now, we were in an English speaking country, traveling to another English speaking country, with a layover in an English speaking country. She was most likely lying, but that's fine, because I get it. I was bothering her, so I turned back around. At this point my buddy Scott, who was sitting across the aisle from me, laughed and made this bombing gesture with his hand. (This was long before 9/11 so you could do that on a plane and no one would freak out.)Actually that's not entirely true. Back in 1996, I was on a backpacking trip to the most prestigious of Scout Camps in the world, Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. Now when I say it's "it's the most prestigious of Scout Camps in the world", that's because it is. It's the longest, hardest, high-adventure camp in the world. People travel from all across the globe to spend the ten days on the trail. When my scout troop and I were at the airport to fly out, I put my external frame backpack on the counter as my checked luggage to get my ticket. The clerk asked me,

"Did you pack this yourself?" 

Now, I was a real smartass as a kid, (hell, all teenagers are) but I was well advanced for my age. The reason I'm so good at being sarcastic now is from years of practice. So, instead of just saying "yes, I did," I said, "Don't worry, there's no bombs or anything in there." He and I shared a chuckle, and that should have been the end, it wasn't.The woman next to him got very mad about it, and told me that what I said wasn't funny. A few minutes later I got pulled into a backroom by two security officers (I don't think TSA was a thing back then), The older, portly gentleman who checked my backpack wearing a remorseful look on his face, and Miss "That's Not Funny." The guards told me that they received a security complaint about me, and that I was a flight risk. That they needed to strip search me and that I might not be allowed to make my flight. "Yeah, no shit you received a complaint. It was from her, because of the joke I made that HE laughed at." Now I'm 15-years-old, in a Boy Scout uniform, locked in a room asking to take off my clothes. You would figure I'd be used to that situation, luckily I wasn't. So if you weren't convinced I was a Master Level Smartass by my previous comment, you will be after this one: "Fine! You want to see a 15-year-old boy's pecker? So be it." I immediately undid my belt buckle and as I started to lower my pants, the guards very uncomfortably stopped me. Told me that what I said wasn't a joke, and that I needed to be careful because that comment could've have gotten me in a lot of real trouble. I sighed with relief and rejoined the rest of my troop. Despite the obvious embarrassed look on my face, and how many times I explained what happened, it didn't stop my friends from making every cavity search joke imaginable.It's a four-and-a-half-hour flight to Iceland. Naturally the girl and I did start talking. Come to find out, she's an exchange student returning home to Iceland... that had been staying with a family in... one of the Carolinas. And she had a layover in Baltimore.

HOLY. CRAP. This was her.

I immediately got flushed in the face. Her name was Lady Sif (or whatever her real name was.) Just like the girl I was instant messaging with online. Just like the girl who sent me the letter telling me how much she loved me. What else am I going to say to her but how funny it is that I was talking to a girl online... who had the same name, and same backstory as her. Everyone around us got quiet. What was probably a few seconds felt like hours. The silence was eventually broken up by someone who continued some friendly smalltalk.Here's the part of the story where I want to tell you that, when the plane landed we agreed to part ways but continued to talk online. That she eventually moved to the States where we fell in love, and we're now married with two kids, living in a house with a walk-in closet and white picket fence out front. Or, that she smiled and winked at me. That she motioned towards the back of the plane, and that's how I joined the Mile High Club at seventeen. Or, even this was all some prank orchestrated by my friends or her host family, because it would be funny. I'd even settle for any sappy Lifetime "story of the week" style ending. The type where a woman overcomes adversity in her life, and proves she don't need a man, by getting together with the most handsome actor by the end of the movie.But, that's not how the story ends. The problem with this story's ending... is there isn't one. There is no epilogue. No closure. All she did was give me an awkward, slightly puzzled look, and that was it. We didn't speak again. When I got off the plane, I told my friends that she was the girl. I'm sure they didn't believe me. I was convinced it was the girl I was talking to online for all those months, and I still am to this day.Most of the reason why I can't remember the finer details of what happened is not because it was so long ago, but because I stopped thinking about it. I never really told the story to anyone. I never found much of a point in telling a story that doesn't have an ending. It ends much like many instant messaging conversations ended - no "goodbye", no wrap up, no summary of events. At some point, one person just decides to stop typing.