From: llama@tramp.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: alt.angst
Subject: filling in the gaps
Date: 4 Jan 93 20:57:03 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

if you weren't here for my disgustingly public net.romance and are
prone to flame me for being off-topic anyway, just kill this article
now, thanks. i'm tired of being asked in email what happened, so here's
what happened:


	the things that we had the good and the bad
	now it's parking lots
	thought it was a dream
	but it was a tin can
	not a dream, man, it was a tin can
	had i not kicked that... 
	it clattered in the gutter
	it bounced on the sidewalk
			pere ubu, "breath"

it's taken me a long time to decide to write this, and even longer to
figure out what to say. one of the problems of falling giddily and
publicly in love is when it's over, you're stuck with having made a
public fool of yourself. it's even worse if you took a "this is a
*different* net.relationship, really" attitude.

'cause it wasn't.

as long as we were on the net and i could be sine, a [to steal a
phrase] crystalline person who bathed his soul, to whom he could say
"you put your hands on my mind and warm me," everything was cool. but
reality intruded, and reality wasn't all that great.

he came to visit when i was just pulling out of a six-month period of
clinical depression and extreme poverty (from april to august, i had
absolutely no money, literally. in august and spetmeber, i managed
about $60/month). i had gained 30 pounds, i was living under what
could be called squalid conditions, i didn't really care all that much
about myself. the contrast between sine and debbie was striking, and
it freaked him, hard.

of course, to be fair to me, he's terribly concerned with how things
look. you can't spend four years at an ivy-league school without
acquiring a bit of an ivy-league attitude, and it showed. i knew i
wasn't up to his standards, and that just added to the strain. but
still, it seemed worthwhile to try. he claimed he still loved me and
loved what he knew i could become if i tried. i said i still loved him
and was willing to work toward being more in reality like i was on the
net. the extravagant letters continued. the talks in which we seemed
to crawl inside each other's minds continued.

but i was still trying to cling to the idea that i could get out of
the hole i'd crawled into without working. and i was trying to make
him take care of me and make things all better. old patterns die hard.
so online i was giving him amazing things, but on the phone i was
crumbling (even as i was obviously dealing; something would happen,
i'd deal, then i'd call and ask him what i should have done and if i
was okay and if things would be okay). it didn't help that both of us
are not good with alcohol.

so one day he got tired of waiting, tired of dedicating his life to a
future he couldn't even see happening half the time. and an attractive
woman at work was making herself available, and i was too intense and
complicated and fucked-up, and he just wanted to get away.  he claimed
to still love me, but to not want to be tied to anyone anymore. he
called it a hiatus. appearances still mattered; "we make a
great-looking couple," he told me, talking about the new woman.

i was willing to accept the situation (god, i'm stupid sometimes;
"sure, go ahead, fuck her, have fun, i'll wait.") because i thought it
was worthwhile, that we'd just met at the wrong time, that there could
be a re-doing, a re-meeting. but after i found out that my stepmother
was dead, it was like all the things that had been pushing me to
change things had gathered for a final shove. i moved into a new
place, got rid of some people here in austin i didn't want in my life,
reorganized my priorities. i'd already lost about 15 pounds (it's up
to 25 now). and i found the courage, for the first time in my life, to
pick up the phone and say, "no, enough. i deserve better and i'm going
to have it and i can walk away from this because i know that i can
find what i need, that someone else will love me again." then i cried
for two hours.

so why am i posting this? partly because several people have asked me
in email what happened to marmoset. and partly because i gathered my
courage, put on a miniskirt and heels and went to our office party and
ended up feeling like cinderella; people i didn't even know were
saying amazingly complimentary things. a guy ten years younger than i
is actively pursuing me. i feel like i'm emerging into myself as i
want to be. for the first time in memory, i feel powerful.

so i feel good about what happened. i needed that final push. i'm
sorry that it meant losing james, but i think i'm better off this way.
i loved him, i think, but sometimes that's not enough.

--
sine | deb
so much for people who appear from nowhere and leave you gasping, eh?

Newsgroups: alt.angst