Two years

Two years ago, plus a few weeks, I went to a dance to celebrate the launch of Soliel Snook's new garden centre.
I was with Eleanor and I remember lamenting that there wasn't a whole lot of chat in local chat. We decided that most of the conversations must be going in IM. Eleanor and I spied a new comer to the ranks. Tzaiqan Belgar.
This avatar was dancing with Autopilotpoppy Patty. The assumption that Eleanor and I made was that no two week old newbie was going to make it to a dance in the thick of Caledon company, and escort one of our grand ladies. He had to be an alt.
At the time there had been a run of Alts messing round with people so we were not being quite as nuts as you might think making that assumption.

I was therefore even more mystified about who this Tzaiqan really was when a few days after the dance he IMed me with a "hello, I noticed you at the dance". My suspicions ran over time but I was most curious to discover who this person really was.
Well. It wasn't at all what I thought. Instead what I had on my hands was a charming and flirtatious pom who didn't quite know the way we did things. Following his own rules, he read my profile, decided he would like to say hi and did.

We enjoyed our company for a few weeks. I don't know what Taz was expecting, but I wasn't thinking of much more at the time. we chatted about partnership and what it was. My opinion was that it was an agreement between two people. It is whatever they want to make it as SL was not the real world, defined by RL laws.

We spent more and more time together and finally found ourselves at a dreadful Elvis impersonator's dance. A third party decided to cause a fuss and somehow I was put under pressure by the fuss maker to choose Taz.. or not. Well one thing.. I shouldn't have felt that pressure. Second thing: I have never regretted making the decision.

Taz and I partnered: a commitment to get to know each other better. We did, and we still do two years later