How I Met My Boyfriend in Red Dead Online

I have played Red Dead Online since near the very start, and honestly… things kind of suck right now. The game is officially-essentially dead and no longer getting real updates. The whole #savereddeadonline thing on social media seems awfully ironic in hindsight. It only seemed to solidify the tombstone. Still, I have such love for the game. And, well, through the game.

I started out on PS4, which is not my primary platform. I’m a born-again PC gamer snob, but upon seeing Red Dead on Twitch streams, I was mind-blown. I had to have it, but it wasn’t out for PC yet. I borrowed my dad’s console.

When I got to play Red Dead Online, I was so thrilled. Setting up my own character was so exciting. As much as I adore Arthur Morgan, I love customizable PCs. I made my character white-haired like Daenerys Targaryen because I am very original (this would be a problem later when I decided to make her hair dark; it did not update her white eyebrows, so she had faint eyebrows forever until they added appearance editing). I had no idea what I was doing, but I was really enjoying it.

My first horse, I named Earthquake. He was a Tennessee Walker. I named him that because in Anchorage, we suffered a magnitude 7.1 earthquake on November 30th, 2018. That was, of course, the day Online opened up to everybody. I was a day or two late to the party.

Something to know about me is that I was the biggest scaredy cat online at first. I ran away whenever I saw a player on the minimap, but wasn’t always quick enough. I would look at the map to see where people were (you could do that, in the early days) and would avoid them at all costs. I actually saved a video clip the first time I shot someone in self-defense, it’s hilarious to me in hindsight, how afraid I was, how proud I was to be able to run away unscathed for once. Most of the time, I got my ass kicked. If open PVP persisted excessively, I’d switch sessions and keep playing. I really did not level up much, I spent all my time hunting solo.

I sometimes joined random posses, though I was often kicked for lack of a microphone. One group I ended up with was very friendly, they were goofing off the whole time, and all the while running back-to-back stranger missions for gold. I sent a couple friend requests on a whim, and they accepted. The next day, I was sent an invite to join a session, and there were those folks again. This became a routine for me. I found myself regularly in groups with the same people doing the same missions. I’d never made that much XP at that rate. There was a horse I really wanted (a reverse dapple roan Nokota) and finally it would soon be in my grasp thanks to these random people running constant stranger missions.

It was bittersweet to see such progress, as my plan was never to stay on PS4. I was planning on upgrading my PC that fall. In Alaska, residents get a dividend every year, it’s usually a bit over $1k. So, I knew how I was going to spend 2019’s. I was going to beef up my PC in time for Red Dead to come out on PC, and it was going to be amazing. Even though I knew I’d probably have to start my character over, it would still be worth it to play on PS4 in the interim, I decided. This was easily my favorite game to play.

In one session, someone joined the posse, and he had–honestly, I was struck by it–the best voice. I remember thinking to myself: I could listen to him talk all day… I almost sent him a friend request, to this day I remember considering it, but I decided not to. Why, I don’t know, I felt weird about it.

The routine I was in, playing with the same groups of people, it made me think it was time to brave social-ness (the thing I am worst at). I decided to get a proper headset with a microphone. While I made money and XP, I also made friends of acquaintances. I got my Nokota and leveled past there. I was dreadfully quiet most of the time, but early in the day, the posses weren’t usually full, and it was the same regular players on first, so with them it was easier to talk. This was the summer after I stopped going to therapy for my anxiety/agoraphobia. I felt like it was a safe way to try and put the skills I’d learned to use.

Now, the guy with the voice? He was one of the regulars. I learned his name really was Nick (it was part of his PSN username). I finally sent him a friend request. Turns out, he played a lot. Every weekday. In fact… he was able to play games at his work, which was at a hotel front desk. He just had to drop everything when there was a customer to handle. I found he was the easiest to talk to out of anybody. He was also my favorite to listen to.

We played together daily. He started playing in the evenings and occasionally on weekends at home. For whatever reason, if one of us joined while the main group was mid-mission, we would always fistfight. Our characters were like mortal enemies, it seemed. I started getting decent at PVP. At every opportunity, we would be lassoing and hogtying each other because that is what Red Dead friends do. He would greet me as his nemesis (affectionate).

He did this thing where he set his status to offline before logging off for the night, all to join my session the next day and surprise tackle me. It was… the best.

Even outside my favorite person, I made good friendships. Game friends, but friends at the time, which I really needed as someone so socially stunted. I got braver and braver, talking to people. Moreover, enjoying talking to people. Summer 2019 was so good to me!!

There were funny things about pairing off in a game. If I went wandering off away from the group, before long, Nick would be following me, tracing my nonsensical routes as though they were the mission objectives. We gravitated to each other.

I also somehow decided his daily challenge progress was my business. I would bring Gila monsters tied to my saddle halfway across the map, so he could get the daily checked off for skinning them. This was before Rockstar nerfed the gold output for dailies.

When Nick had to AFK for work, I would helpfully lasso him and keep him on the back of my horse for safe keeping. For some reason, this would usually prevent the AFK kick timer from triggering. In group PVP, we always paid special attention to the state of one another. We really were turning out to be a team.

I saved and saved up my in-game gold bars for what I found to my most favorite horse, the Silver Turkoman. I was, of course, eager to show off my new beautiful mare, Banshee, to my favorite person. Nick was not so impressed. He was like, oh, I have a silver turk, too. And I was like, really? And you never use it? It is so expensive! He said to me with great accusation: you think I’m not a baller???

Despite the lack of a screenshot, I can still see it. Daytime. Clear weather. Valentine stables. Nick came out of that barn on a sad, short, with-its-head-drooping reverse dapple roan Nokota. Not a silver Turkoman. Nick was uncharacteristically silent on the mic for a minute. I made fun of him endlessly.

From there, he then had a singular mirrored goal to get a silver turk himself. Which, he did, eventually. A stallion he named Pony Montana.

It became normal, how we’d often match horses. Typically, the Silver Turkomans, or we would switch to have my Black Arabian, Senka, to his Black Arabian, Pony Soprano. Beyond that, there were the outfits. We had probably three or four separate coordinated outfits at any one time. I made a monochrome counterpart to his preferred gray snakeskin suit. We had a black and gold/tan set. He matched a blue regimental outfit to my blue leather ensemble. You could only carry 5-7 outfits at a time depending on your saddlebag choice, so much of it was devoted to matching properly.

One day, Nick was talking of how he’d just went to a concert in a funny outfit in real life. He had it set as his profile pic, but you had to be real name friends on Playstation Network to see it. I remember trying to keep my voice steady when I very casually suggested, oh, maybe we should be real name friends.

So, my first look at Nick was him dressed in a hula skirt and coconut bra. No pic to put here (sorry?).

I suppose it was not the worst first impression. It led to following each other on Instagram, doing video calls on Discord, which led to Google Duo video calls because the quality was better… and a slow realization I was falling in love with someone who lived 3,000 miles away from me in Alaska. He lived in freaking Ohio (in a bus, but that’s another story).

Instead of upgrading my PC, I ended up using that year’s dividend on a trip. This meant round-trip plane tickets, ANC to SEA to CVG, and back. I got a hotel room for one week at a nice hotel in a historical building in downtown Cincinnati.

I will say… this was all very reckless. I trusted only what I felt in my heart. That this man was special, that I had never felt this way for another person before (indeed, I’d never dated), and I had to know if it was all true. If it would feel the same in person, or if I was in love with the idea of a person.

There was always a non-zero chance that person did not exist. We all know about catfishes. Nick and I video called frequently, at different times of day–often planned, sometimes spontaneously. I made sure he knew what I looked like without makeup! He showed me many parts of his life. Living in a bus was hardly glamorous. Both Nick and I did our best to really present ourselves accurately, but mostly in hindsight, I realize how it still was such a leap of faith.

The moment of truth would be in January 2020. Traveling alone was the most stressful and scary and amazing thing I’ve ever done in my life, given my panic disorder. In spite of my nerves, I had this absolute certainty that this was what I wanted to do.

In advance of the trip, he had promised me in a Discord message, if he ever saw me IRL, he would pick me up and spin me around. All romantic, like in the movies.

I remember meeting him in that beautiful hotel lobby, just outside the elevators. My mind was entirely nervous TV static of nothing. He was there, a real person, exactly as he’d been in video and photo. Despite the lack of surprise, it hardly computed in my brain.

He had this serious expression, determined the second he saw me. Some fast strides later, he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me up and spun me–exactly like he’d said he would. For me, our first moments together were a blur of laughter and boundless joy.

When I returned home, I found myself in quite the state. It was impossible to just… accept being apart. Knowing someone is one thing, but being with them is a whole other concept. I found long distance to be entirely unsatisfactory in comparison.

With some convincing and–to put it lightly–concern from the developing pandemic, I moved to be with him permanently in Ohio in March 2020. Now, do I recommend moving into a 35-foot half-converted school bus with a man, his father, their dog, and two cats? Only if it’s for the right person. Which it was. 🥰 I will say… it wasn’t easy.

Four years later, we are still together! We are in Alaska for the moment. We came up here in late 2021 and are soon to return to Ohio in early 2024. That is where we will settle down after all.

We still play video games together as a team, but this time from the same state, the same city, and the same home.