Have you ever experienced a completely wild plot twist in real life?

My little brother hitchhikes a lot.

He was trying to hitch to Hodge, Alaska, to run a half marathon there before hitching to my parents' house near Fairbanks.

He got picked up near Seattle by this woman.

They're chatting, and my brother is telling her the story of how he rode his bike from Alaska to Argentina.

The woman says her neighbor's son had done the same thing.

Turns out she was my parents next-door neighbor.

I played EverQuest about 10 years ago and joined a guild.

There was this dreamy High Elf Cleric who was always playing at the same time as me.

Who am I kidding? Everyone played all day on EverQuest.

Anyways, we always played together,

sometimes out killing things, and sometimes just sitting around in the city talking.

Over the course of six months, this woman became my reason for logging on. We eventually got

married, in-game, which her real-life husband, who also played the game, didn't think was that

funny. We were very close, and she told me many details about her personal

life and her husband. It felt like I was on the shotgun end of an affair, but I didn't know any

better. It felt great talking to her. My head was in the clouds. Anytime she signed on,

my mood improved, and I looked forward to it every day. Eventually, she sent me pictures of herself.

She was a pretty, blonde-haired woman of

27 years old, a one on the binary scale, which is the only honest rating system, and she asked me

for pictures in return, but I said, no, because it would be weird for a 12-year-old boy to send

pictures of himself over the internet. I don't think she saw that coming, and I don't think I ever

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