Okay, I'll try to cut a long story short here.

Joy used to live in England. She only moved to France at around the age of eight or nine, and before she moved, she was quite close to a friend by the name of Kate. Fast forward a few years later, when Joy and I are both fifteen, and I happen to be friends with Kate, but I don't know Joy just yet. Also, it's worth noting that Kate has always been a huge fan of the video game 'The Sims' (in which you build a virtual family).

One day, I was clicking around Facebook out of sheer boredom when a notification appears saying that Kate has tagged me in a photograph. Intrigued, I click through, and it's an in-game screenshot from The Sims. Of a Sim. Who is modelled on me. Then I realise that Kate has made an entire album of such pictures, and she's more or less recreated all of her closest friends in Sim form. I was clicking through the pictures, and laughing as I recognised who was who, but then I came to a Sim I didn't recognise. I glanced down at the name. 'Joy Beill Dodson'. Interesting.

Out of curiosity, I clicked through to Joy's profile. And as cliché as it sounds, the first time I laid my eyes on her profile picture, I was quite infatuated. I clicked back to the Sim version of her, and paused thoughtfully. Then I left a comment.

"How to compliment someone you've never met... I know, nice nose!"

I clicked 'Post' (back in the days when you didn't just hit return to post a comment) and there it was, in black and, uh, pale blue. A little later, Joy replied to my comment. I clicked the notification to see what she'd said.

"Ugh, I hate my nose, thanks".

That made me laugh. Not really thinking what I was doing, I clicked through to her profile again, and after gazing admirably (and at that point, somewhat stalker-ishly, I suppose) at her profile picture, I pinged her a friend request. Things moved pretty fast from there on in.

She accepted the friend request, we chatted on Facebook Chat for a while, then we exchanged MSN addresses (oh, the days of MSN) and talked on there, and before long we were having webcam chats! And a few weeks later, I asked that faithful question. And she said 'oui', and just like that, we became girlfriend and boyfriend. We started making arrangements to meet up face-to-face.

And in August of 2009, just after I returned from a three-week holiday in Colorado where my father got married to a woman who he met online (like father, like son, I suppose), we met up when she came to England. On August 21st 2009, at around 2:00pm, I first saw her walking towards me. And we hugged, and it was breathtaking, unforgettable. A few hours later, after walking along the seafront, we shared our first kiss. It was a wonderful day, and we had five more together before she returned home to France. And from there on in, we visited one another every few months.

In a matter of weeks from now, on June 27th 2012, I'll be visiting her. And on the 18th we'll be flying back to England together for another summery week. And after that, she'll be moving back to England. She'll be living five minutes away from me, with one of her father's long-time mates. And I can't even begin to describe how relieving it will be to have the distance between us gone for good. It'll just, it'll just be wonderful.

But what made me fall in love with her? Like, the very first thing that sparked a little bit of admiration for her? It has to be the eyes. Aw, man, even though the first picture of her I ever saw was in black and white, her eyes just drew me in. And when I saw a colour photo, even more so. The deepest of blues. But anyway, yeah, that's more or less the story of how we met and fell in love!

I am thank you! And hope you're well too!

I come on a lot of things randomly. Heh. Heh.

Nope. Low self-esteem makes me loathe myself.

They do great vodka.

Soon ;)

The glass is always completely full. Partially full of water, partially full of air.

I'm 17. 18 on May 1st.

I don't have any standalone consoles of my own. My mother's partner has a Playstation 2 and a SNES, but I never really go on those. I just emulate consoles through my PC. I have emulators for the SNES, Playstation X, Nintendo 64, and Sega Genesis. My favourite games of all time include Crash Bandicoot (1, 2: Cortex Strikes Back, 3: Warped, Wrath of Cortex, Crash Team Racing, and Crash Bash) and Spyro the Dragon (1, 2: Gateway to Glimmer, 3: Year of the Dragon). I'm also quite a huge fan of the Zelda games, especially Ocarina of Time, and some Mario and Sonic games, mostly the originals. And then there's Portal and Portal 2, of course, and also a lot of online games or mobile apps, like Angry Birds, Alchemy/Doodle God, and the plethora of amazing titles over at http://nitrome.com.

'Mockingjay' by Suzanne Collins.

The ability to sketch professional illustrations.

Always.

Blue.

WHY THANK YOU.

Depends how tall they are. If they're tall, I'll look up at them. If they're short, I'll look down on them. If they're 6ft 3in, I'll look straight into their eyes because we're the same height.

I follow different people for different reasons. I follow regular everyday people such as myself either because they're my friends or because I find what they have to say entertaining. I follow blogs about graphic design, typography, photography, and so on because I have an interest in such things. I follow companies I'm a loyal customer to so that I can keep up with the latest news from them, and perhaps benefit from any special deals they introduce. And I follow general news outlets to learn of current affairs. So it's quite a broad spectrum, really, but it all primarily boils down to me being interested in the things the people I follow contribute to my Timeline.

God, my girlfriend, Adam Young's music, Taylor Swift's music, LIGHTS' music, Twitter, Helvetica, nice typography, nice graphic design in general, nice photography, good prose, good poetry, good-looking interior designs, pizza, lasagne, Oreos, people who are honest, people who don't take anything too seriously and thus know how to laugh at themselves instead of getting ridiculously offended, people who understand that pointing and shooting an expensive DSLR set to Auto mode doesn't equate to them being a photographer, warm weather that's not too hot nor too cold, the scent of petrol, the scent of freshly-cut grass, the scent of the pavement after it's rained, the simple pleasures in a life that isn't too stable but leans more to the spontaneous, and many other things.

Nope!

Whiskey.