Rosie Hardy and Aaron Nace are together for Valentine’s Day, which no doubt thrills their Flickr fans who’ve been following the couple’s 9 ½-month relationship via the photo-sharing Web site almost since the beginning.

It’s the photos of the couple together that have enchanted a growing number of soft-hearted saps across the Internet because Rosie, 18, and Aaron, 24, are almost never in the same room when the photos are taken. They’re not even in the same country. Rosie lives in Buxton, England, and Aaron in Chapel Hill, N.C. The photographers met on Flickr, and thanks to image-manipulating software, they’ve created a growing collection of wistful, fairytale illusions in which they are together.

At least, if that’s what you want to believe. As the cheer section that makes up the majority of comments on the couple’s photo blog demonstrates, plenty of people do. As the nastier comments on Rosie and Aaron fan blog entries reveal, there are those jaded, cynical haters who don’t buy much of what we see online, this relationship least of all. The collision of fates that make their love story is too preposterous. The couple is too ridiculously attractive. The highly stylized photographs are far too polished and professional. On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.

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