Online Lovers

by Ann Patty

  Give thanks to Mother. For She is wise. She takes care of her own needs.

  30 November 2009

  ~CA~

  ~ ♥ ~ )O( ~ ♥ ~

  SUBJECT: First Encounter of Our Last Kind

  From: Cara Ann

  To: Aron Anam

  Date: Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 11:32 AM

  First Encounter of Our Last Kind

  I often Wonder and Dream,

  What our first encounter of our last time will be.

  What I will do, feel, think, and be like--how will I react?

  Overwhelmed, I don't believe I will be able to say much,

  because no words will be adequate.

  I might get the urge --and want to joke . . .

  "You found me! What took you so long?"

  "It's about (our) time!"

  "You sure travel a long way just for a date!"

  But no sound will escape my lips; my voice will be locked.

  My body will be on fire from the onset; at our journey once again rekindled,

  I will unconsciously lose my breath, or hold it, and my chest will heave.

  I will want to jump out of my skin and into yours.

  I will need to smell you, but you will be scent-less because we wear the same cologne!

  Or, perhaps your scent laden with the stench of us will drive me lividly wild ~

  And when we first touch our fingers, I will hold and outline your hand staring in disbelief.

  Then clasp your hand tight as if to suck the very life force from your kind, yielding palm.

  My nostrils flared will roam the nap of your neck, sniffing just below and behind your left ear.

  Inhaling deep, you will fill up the void in my lungs, heart, body, and soul, and finally my loins.

  After this I don't know who will make the first move,

  It does not matter really, but it would be nice if you could --and would.

  Truly, I believe I will be lifeless and numb realizing the reality we created.

  And, in wondrous awe that the Good Gods and Goddesses, and our Guides aided in manifesting our dreams.

  For in all my Fifty+ years here on earth beholden to me, you stand before me not only in spirit!

  As my twin, your maleness will tower over my shadow in the physical, and you will become REAL.

  To touch and feel your skin, hair, and breathe upon my neck, face, ears, between my breasts and thighs;

  To stare deep into your eyes that mirror my soul, we lock and I see our Star gate waiting.

  Another galaxy, another time from which we birthed;

  Our origins linger as we catch up to once again rejoin as one.

  For in your arms just the notion that we are actually together will most assuredly have me mesmerized.

  Take care of me Anam because I know--you know how to start our dance.

  So please Dear One, lead me softly, safely, with your giving hands into our waltz.

  And, if I miss step -or forget, guide me gently into (y)our familiar path lined in light.

  This I know you can do, Anam. And, I would be ever so grateful.

  Red Flags

  Red Flags are those gut instincts that make you wonder about a person's legitimacy. Until you really know a person, they can paint in words whatever picture of themselves that serves them best.

  Of course liars never prosper. There really is no point to fibbing online. If one is interested in a scam, or fluffing their ego, or just for entertainment then that in itself serves a purpose to no end. However, anyone really seeking a sincere relationship will come clean, eventually. Such is the case with John.

  From the get go there were tiny signs of deception. I do not believe John ever intentionally wanted to lie. Just make himself look better. You tend not to care too much about what is said, unless there is a vested interest. However, time proved some data erroneous.

  John's initial age post put him at 51. Within our first month he wrote he was 58. Should I be concerned? True a 7 year age spread was quite a bit. Yet, I tossed it off to the liberties one takes when offering yourself on the open market. You don't want to look too old. We had established a friendship, that was beginning to develop deeper. That was when half truths turned into full admissions.

  Name identity is always intentional. Obviously you don't want to spill the full name, address, phone disclosure to a recent acquaintance. So you use a made up name. I used my middle name. Only a partial truth, or full truth depending on one's perspective.

  John used this name up until I called him on it. After a couple months the name John Carter was a bit to simple for this Irish gentleman. That name, like John Doe or Jane Smith, just didn't sit right anymore. John came clean, after I prodded him, but he still get's called “John” for this entire book.

  People adapt pseudo names to serve all sorts of agendas. Mostly they don't want to be found out. Given time and a reciprocal amount of trust online most folks want to dig deeper. Thus full disclosure began.

  As writers do when they get together they write. About what? Everything. We wrote a whole lot. About our lives, of course. Our dreams. Our lives. I had many, many questions that John never addressed.

  He promised he would when he “had time”. It never happened. He also promised to address my writings separately. “Over the weekend,” he would repeatedly write. Yet, he never did. Too many instances of hopes gone silent. I was disappointed. But, I dismissed his actions to his other life. I was but a mere mistress. One not to be counted too seriously. Without thinking, I took back seat.

  However his empty promises got more blatant. John said he would call me. He even set up a time and date with a real telephone. I prepared a private location, charged my cell phone and waited. I watch the clock time come and go. So unlike the man I'd come to know, after six months.

  Later that night I emailed him. He replied promptly. His daughter and family had a crisis a half hour before “our time”. As a parent I understood and told him it was not meant to be. Yet, it was my initial email that prompted him to be accountable. A sad ongoing re-occurrence.

  Thereafter I suggested another phone date. John says that he did not have a secure line at home or at work. I suggested for him to get a track-phone. One of those untraceable cells that connects to nobody. No response came to such a logical remedy. It is convenient to hide behind words and letters inside an email. And, yet John would continue to write me with such fervor and intent. I was hooked to his fishing line.

  And there became a pattern of promises unmet. Early on John wanted to meet. A conjugal visit. I told him 'no'. I was just starting my divorce and it felt wrong. My mental state was not strong enough to cope for all that lie away. Adding a night with John into the mix was not wise.

  But months wore on. As we intertwined our words our emotions, mental, spiritual, and our sexuality besieged us both. Our emails had grown over-the-top intimate. I had the freedom to roam in his direction as family and friends occupied my way there.

  John made a big ado about meeting on several times when I was to be on the road. By this time I was more than compliant towards his requests. I wanted to meet him. It was time. And, yes I thought seriously about fucking him.

  We were both at a time in our marriages where we were severely undervalued. Neither of us had met with intimacy for far too long. We both wanted—needed human touch. The life force of physical contact is a powerful aphrodisiac.

  So John suggested we meet during one of his work hiatus. Didn't work. His trip got called off. I suggested another rendezvous spot. He did not respond before I departed. He suggested one or two other join ups. I said YES! I would be on the road and available.

  Those thoughts perished. Never got a call to my cell phone. Not even an email before or during. I was the one to email him, either from the road on once I got home. It was like he went poof, gone, once the possibility to meet was tangible. Perhaps reality, what he said he wanted, became to real for him. Once again I was beginning to believe that John, too, was a idealist wit
hout commitment.

  Once home as typical I would write John. His emails would pick back up. Never was there a mention or an excuse of his foiled intentions even though I asked, in email. Was he a coward? Did John just prefer to dream dare? Were his intentions of getting together genuine? I would answer 'yes' to all these.

  John was severely controlled by his wife. Well, that is what he said. In fact he stated he was controlled to a form of abuse. He was stock shit scared of her. He appeared to be a really decent, nice guy. Over their years together he turned subservient to her. Rather than argue he caved. I get that as that is what I did in my own marriage. It is easier to roll over on your belly.

  Barking to begin an argument was to much effort. Yet apparently they did have lots of arguments. John wrote me on the days his wife worked. Every other week, and at stolen times his letters would swoon me.

  John wrote me for over a year. Incessantly and sometimes 3 times in one day his letters came. My writing, because I like to write, was out of control during this time. He validated my life, as his life paralleled my own. Obsessed with having an audience of one, that would be John, I wrote volumes.

  Times turned tough for me around my divorce. I wrote John the details. He would advise some, but he was having his own troubles. In fact our whole writing life together was really about troubles. None of it was healthy.

  Venting our worlds to each other in a simple, but complicated email proved to be the purge we each depended upon. As if my divorce was not going well enough, the night my kids converged on me, the worst night a mother should not have to endure, I got another surprise.

  John's notes had slacked off. I was worried as he just had an extensive hernia operation. Even with that he had written me and we never went more than a week without contact. But it had been a long while.

  I was obsessed and worried so I check his local paper for news of god-forbid his death. Instead, I see a nice family portrait. Centered and sitting alongside said wife (that he said he abhors and is going to leave) and surrounded by family. And, oh, by the way! The newspaper says the family has plans to open another restaurant! Stupid me.

  John was the one to tell me months earlier of his intention to leave said wife of his. He talked of a life with moi. It was totally John that introduced that we be together. I liked the idea. He seemed so perfect. On line. All that genuine bullshit and here the paper says he and his wifey got plans for a new future! Okay, now I am dumber than a box of rocks. I was shocked. I trusted John. Sh*t. Red Flags Galore!

  An hour later my kids show up to tell me I'm the most horrible person on the face of their planet for divorcing their dad. Life that night sucked.

  I was devastated. My lover was a liar. I knew he was married. Those were the stakes going in. But, deception I do not handle well. Oh yes, I wrote him. After I cooled down and could compose a calm letter. After all I didn't want to lose him. There is sick irony.

  Yes, he said he was sorry about not writing. He had been depressed. And he did not mind me snooping into his affairs on the Internet. Said his 2nd biggest wish was to open an Irish Pub. A long time dream it was.

  So John was compelled to move forward since he was now unemployed like the rest of the world. Then he says his number 1 and favorite thing to do was to write to me. I was his tucked away, very safe secret that he treasured. Then it hit me. I don't want to be his F*ing SECRET, or anybody's secret. That is simply NOT healthy.

  I wrote back a supportive note. I was addicted to John's notes far more than even I will admit. I never wrote anything back to challenge him. Arguments he got from his wife. We were online lovers and friends. I didn't want to let go. Of course I encouraged John to write. After all he said that writing me was his number 1 all time favorite past time. And being unemployed obviously he had plenty of extra time to indulge in me, correct? NOT.

  During the crap of my divorce a most terrible family event happened. The suicide of my sibling. I went to another state to help for an extended period of time. Never once came a note from John. He was dumping me.

  Without the decency to tell me he was pulling back. During my darkest hours of those months that past not one email came from John. He abandoned our ship without saying good-bye. He was returning to his familiar harbor. I was not one to beg him back.

  But, my last note to him I told him bluntly that my baby brother blew his brains out on the night of the lunar eclipse just days before Christmas. That I hated him for leaving me during a time when I needed his emails to light my darkened tunnel. I wanted him to know he chose a really crappy time in my life to step offshore without so much as a note.

  John wrote back a very nice note and explained that he had hit rock bottom with depression himself. He admitted that he could not write me in my hour of need because his needs were too much. He apologized profusely and did not write again. John's note was decent. But through his apology for not writing me came his own needs alongside mine, first and foremost. In my opinion he should have saved his issues for another letter.

  Another dawning: This note was NOT about me. It was about him. I was beginning to understand his wife's position. John really pissed me off. Again, this is the difficulty with online relationships. Not communicating directly in plain view sight leaves much for speculation.

  I do not let go of friendships easily. Online or off. John knew one thing about me most people don't get. Tell me the truth, whatever it is, and I'll handle it straight up. Don't lie. Don't deceive me. John understood that. It was a simple concept yet John chose to dishonor my needs.

  I'm sure what he told me about his depression et all was true. But his vacant emails told me otherwise. Even during his times of other health impairments he wrote. There was more going on than he was letting on.

  All I required was an email that closed off our affair. I like things in a tidy box. There is no question or guessing when people tell the truth in their heart. I can't get mad at that. I get mad at deception.

  Perhaps John did not have the guts to tell me that he was rebuilding his marriage. Maybe he wanted to stop our online affair. Perhaps with my imminent freedom, John felt he would have to let me go. I will never get why he couldn't be upfront with me. Except that the answers are in the Red Flags.

  In time I got over John. I decided to stop writing him to see what came from him. Nothing. For a very long time thereafter I thought of John. Not a day went by that I didn't think of him, or the us that might have been.

  Finally I released John. I let him go without further thought. It had been over a year and then one night I looked at the moon and the drifting thought of John reemerged. I wondered how he had been. So I wrote a hello note to feel him out. I wasn't addicted to us anymore, just curious of John's whereabouts. Several notes passed between us and John was intent on visiting me—as a friend. He set a time and date to call. True to form he never did. Not true to form, I never emailed him again. This pattern was not going to change unless I changed the dance. So I stopped dancing.

  John owed it to our friendship; an explanation for his unaccountable acts of selfishness. Of being a flake, really. That was how I saw it. because it replicated the disrespects of my own marriage. So similar were the issues I never got closure on, or got to have a dialogue over. Maybe in the end it was about surrender. No matter how hard I wished it weren't so, I had to let go as it was never going to be any other way.

  Part of our email affair was like an abusive relationship. A person does not know they have been abused until removed from the situation. I don't consider our time together abusive, but it did make me aware of some of the same unhealthy paradigms that existed in the marriage I was leaving.

  John's non commitment to follow through was reminiscent of my ex putting our marriage on a back burner. John incredible penning of wooing love letters had me addicted the way my ex kept stringing me along with words of 'next time'. Our time in email bed was intoxicating, yet not healthy. I needed to heal from my broken marriage and here I was flirting with a man in the same si
tuation. And, regardless of all his intent and purposes John was not leaving his wife. Because HELLO!!! I was his SECRET.

  Should I be mad at what happened? Sounds like I am. Emotionally, this online break up devastated me. Probably because it came at a most vulnerable time for me. It was one more hurt in my line up of losses that winter.

  I was upset, because I didn't understand why John left. I had no claim to John and his life. Even though we suggested lives together, truly we were both dreaming. We just wanted to escape from our current lives. We both knew the stakes going in. Derailment just happens.

  Truly 'we' were never meant to be. Me a free bird and John grossly entangled in a large extended family, broken finances, depression and an unknown future. I earned my freedom. It was hard won and there was no turning back to dysfunction. Perhaps John will find his path to peace. I hope he does.