I’ve basically had a girlfriend since the time I was seventeen. Certainly not the same one that whole time, mind you… While my stutter has absolutely decimated most areas of my life, it has never impeded my ability to attract the opposite sex. I’ve had seven serious relationships which lasted over two years, and was even married for seven years. That being said, my pre-internet dating life was much more challenging. I was never single, but there weren’t any real back-up options had anything happened to the relationship I was in. The internet was life-changing for me. I had always been good with women, but I knew I had the potential to be great. The internet gave me that opportunity. Suddenly, I was able to convey the things I had always wished I could… and I was right. I had always had it within me, but my stuttering wouldn’t allow it. I just happened to be single during the first summer that I had internet. I had just turned 27, and I had the summer of a lifetime. I’d just purchased a new Kawasaki Ninja, which I put so many kilometres on, travelling all over Canada’s east coast, meeting different women. I was unemployed all summer, so that was basically all I did, every single day. The climax of that summer was meeting my wife-to-be on the early evening of September 11… Yes, THAT September 11. Thankfully the day ended on a much more promising note than which it began. I’m not trying to boast or brag with this comment. My ability to attract women has been the only area of my life where I’ve enjoyed any real success, or felt like a winner, so it’s kind of all I have that is positive. Unfortunately, the absolute love of my life…the girl with whom I’d spent eleven years, and have been in love with since we first met in 2005, unexpectedly left me last November. I’m still devastated, and I’m really starting to wonder if I’ll ever recover. The emotional pain has only intensified over time. Out of the ridiculous number of women with whom I’ve shared moments over my lifetime, she was the one. But now she is gone, and eight months later, I still have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do with myself… Oh… I forgot to mention that my stutter is very severe. I once had a speech therapist with over twenty-five years experience tell me it was the worst she’d ever witnessed.