NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT
Damian Gadal enjoyed the bachelor life - the outings, barbecues and croquet games with his group of thirtysomething friends.
When not socializing, you could find him in his apartment in a Victorian house on the Westside surfing the Internet, sometimes through the night.
That has all changed now.
Five years ago, Gadal wandered into 30-plus, an on-line chat room (also called channel in Internet parlance) ``because it didn't seem to be the flirty, X-generation scene.``I was looking for a place where you could talk about literature, music. I intended just to have fun - no flirting ...``I hadn't planned on all this happening,'' says Gadal, 37, accounting coordinator for the city Waterfront Department and a longtime Santa Barbaran.
What happened? Two years ago Gadal met Guylene Kraft from Rocklin in the chat room.``I was exploring different areas of philosophy at the time, and the channel fit my perspective,'' says Kraft, 35. ``I liked the mindset of what people were typing on the channel."
During their chats, Gadal and Kraft discovered they were of two minds in many arenas, including a mutual interest in martial arts.
Kraft, along with 20 or 30 other people, would log onto the channel every day. Besides discussing general topics, the group shared their personal lives.``We went through an entire pregnancy with one of the participants,'' says Kraft. ``She scanned a picture of her baby for all of us to see."
In the meantime, a friendship was developing between Gadal and Kraft.
They met in person for the first time at a gathering of 30-plus channel regulars at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco last September.
The meeting was inauspicious, a little awkward even.
Meeting chat room pals face to face for the first time ``is like a blind date type of thing,'' Kraft says. Conversations tended to be impersonal. ``Everyone talked about updating their computers."
She recalls her first impression upon meeting Gadal: ``He was a little bit shy ... I liked his eyes. They looked kind and generous."
Gadal remembers his initial impression of Kraft also. ``She was wonderful, polite, a little bit shy. It was like meeting a pen pal."
The morning after the chat channel dinner, the two exchanged perfunctory goodbyes in the hotel's lobby. No romantic sparks.
After the gathering, the two continued to correspond. During one of their chats, Gadal learned that Kraft was spending Christmas week alone in a tiny cottage in a coastal town in Northern California.
On impulse, he invited her to spend the week in Santa Barbara, and he would be her tour guide.
She accepted.``I was dumbfounded,'' Gadal recalls.
He put his buddies on hold while he played host. He took Guylene to local beaches and the Santa Ynez Valley and introduced her to Santa Barbara's many attractions. On Christmas Day, the two had dinner with Gadal's family in Los Angeles.
After the whirlwind week, Kraft returned to her jobs as a senior computer operator at Sierra College in Rocklin and a computer consultant with Hewlitt-Packard in Roseville.``We had really hit it off well,'' Gadal recalls of their week together. ``After she went home, we were e-mailing each other a lot because we missed each other."
After the Santa Barbara trip, Kraft, who grew up inland, realized she had fallen in love - with the city's beaches. So she made a lifestyle choice.
Kraft quit her job and headed south to look for a job in Santa Barbara.``She shows up in her little two-door car and everything she owns in it,'' recalls Gadal. That was Jan. 23.
At the time, Kraft had no romantic designs on her chat room friend.``I moved here to stay with him until I found a job and my own place."
Then, ``we went a lot of places together, enjoyed each other's company and fell in love."
Neither of them liked the idea of living together as an unmarried couple, Gadal says.``We decided to get married when we realized we were completely compatible and in love with each other."
Their wedding ceremony took place between two fallen eucalyptus trees on Butterfly Beach during low tide at 10:30 a.m. on March 1.
The Internet, as it turned out, was not only the couple's matchmaker, they also used it to coordinate other details of the wedding, including finding a minister and wedding rings.
The couple located two Santa Barbara ministers, one of whom lived half a block from their apartment. The neighboring minister, the Rev. C.
D. Franklin, performed the ceremony.
During another computer search, the couple found a jeweler from Lompoc, a husband and wife who show their wares at the Sunday art and crafts show on Cabrillo Boulevard. Gadal and Kraft bought two handcrafted gold wedding rings from the jewelers.
According to Gadal, their marriage surprised family and friends, even pals on the 30-plus chat channel. Even though he truly liked being a bachelor, Gadal says, ``my life has changed for the better."
Now, he and his bride walk on local beaches, go to movies and hit all the ethnic festivals in Oak Park. And the new Mrs. Gadal also found a job as a computer systems operator at the Santa Barbara News-Press.
The couple continue to spend a good deal of time at his and her computers, keeping in touch with their friends on the 30-plus channel.
Gadal admits he is addicted to the Internet, but at least its an obsession his bride can understand. ``It's like computers are in our blood,'' he says.
So it's not surprising that on a recent evening when Gadal had just come home from work - a time when many folks are unwinding with a drink - Gadal was tapping on his computer keyboard.
Interrupted by a phone call, he explained to the caller that he was messaging to a woman in New Orleans, a 30-plus regular, ``who didn't know we got married.``So I'm sending her one of our wedding pictures."