When I went into prison I thought I was in a happy relationship but she soon decided that she couldn’t be with a jailbird and broke things off. Prison was incredibly difficult and this just made things worse. Nine months later I was out of prison and ready to face the world again, but without a partner.
I’d lost my job as a security guard when I went into prison and struggled to find work on the other side. As such, I had a fair amount of free time in between trips to the job centre and sending off CVs and letters. I’d fill my time with all sorts of things, including playing computer games, going running and teaching myself to cook properly! I also started a bit of online gambling. I have been a casual gambler for years but always went into bookmakers to place bets. However, I decided to have a go online and was astounded at what was available – poker, sports betting, blackjack, slot machines. And online bingo.
I’d never played online bingo before but decided to give it a whirl. I was playing bingo games from Bright Bingo and ventured into some of the live chat rooms. I hadn’t spoken to many people since coming out of prison and thought this was the perfect opportunity as they didn’t have anything to judge me on.
I got chatting to a few people which was nice but nothing special. Then, after a couple of weeks, I got chatting to someone known only to me as ‘XxLazyCakesxX’. We hit it off almost straight away and would spend hours playing against each other on the bingo. Sometimes we would barely play at all and just sit there chatting. It turned out that she had also been in prison a few years earlier for fraud, which was a massive thing we both had in common.
We soon exchanged email addresses and continued our conversation away from the bingo room. We had loads in common and she seemed genuinely interested in me, which was perhaps the biggest attraction of all!
By this time I’d learned that her name was Sonya, we’d spoken on the phone a few time and we’d exchanged photos. We then decided to meet up, so I made the drive from where I live in Newcastle to her hometown of Bristol, which as you’ll probably know is pretty much the length and breadth of the country! Still, it was totally worth it and I was blown away by how even more beautiful she was in real life.
To make a long story slightly shorter, we continued to hit it off and then got engaged a few months later. It was quite a snap decision and our families weren’t exactly thrilled at the time but we’ve been together for nearly two years now and couldn’t be happier. We got married at the amazing Leigh Court in Bristol and had a wonderful day.
Who’d have thought that a 35-year-old man would find the love of his life playing online bingo? You do find love in the strangest of places!