2004-01-21 at 7:35 a.m.
So the bottom line is... DON'T BE FUCKING STUPID!!!!!
Internet Love. What bullshit. My view on falling in love with someone over the internet has been tarred by doing it myself, several times. I think that only makes me smarter to the situation. I know what happens when it goes sour, which it ALWAYS will.
You do hear a few stories out there of people who meet online and end up getting married or what not, but those stories are few and far between. More often than not, reality WILL hit one of you and leave the other one sobbing on the floor.
I actually had a pretty long term relationship with someone over the internet when I first started internetting several years ago. Not only did I love him purely and deeply, we were absolutely best friends. He was someone that I really could imagine myself meeting and being with for a long, long time. He was normal, just like me. He didn't have these high expectations of my being a beauty model or what not, because I certainly am not even close. He was so completely honest with me all the time. He had his heart in it... and his real life girlfriend. Funny, huh? I think alltogether, we had an awesome internet relationship for close to a year and a half, if you add up all the times we tried again. Finally, even though it ripped out my heart, I let go of that relationship and we were able to maintain a friendship. Life took us different places and he is now married with a baby due to arrive in the very near future. I don't talk to him very often anymore because I'm jealous of him. You like how I can just admit that? I'm jealous that a) he found that stability, that home life and b) I'm jealous because he gets to bring his baby home and I.. don't. He will always hold a place in my heart and part of me will love that guy forever, but not in that sort of way. Just the way that he has impacted my life and you never forget someone who has done that to you.
I had another... bout.. of internet love. In fact, today marks a special day for that relationship. You know what I'm talking about. Anyways... Granted, this one has probably brought me the most important thing in my life right now... friendship... I definitely wish things had been different in some sort of way? This was the first time that... a true real life relationship evolved. We spent a small amount of time together in person and more often than not, we had a good time. Ultimately, we were just too different of people. The sad part about it was we never were happy with being too different to be together because we tried it several times until we finally realized that it didn't stand a chance. I did love her, tho. I truly did, but maybe not quite in the way that she loved me, or maybe just not enough to fulfill whatever needed fulfilling, if that makes any sense. She's my best friend today tho. Maybe that's why a relationship between us was never meant to be... because she was meant to be my friend forever, not just until the love ran off. This internet love was probably the one that caused me the least amount of pain and her the most... but it was only so little to me because we have what we have now.
Fuck, onto the most painful internet love that probably ever existed on this planet, and all of you regular readers know just who I am talking about. Clare. God, oh god. I was oblivious to how she felt about me for a long time. At first she sort of annoyed me.. then I got to know her. We chatted day after day, hour after hour and I slowly felt myself falling so hard for her. Even knowing she lived so far away, in England, didn't put a damper on my heart. Then she told me she loved me first... and my world turned around. God, I loved her, too. Every day we chatted, I fell deeper and deeper. Then it progressed to talking on the phone and eventually my world revolved around my time with her. Deep down, I knew we didn't stand much of a chance to spend our lives together, but there was hope. There was this amazing sliver of hope that held all my dreams. You wouldn't believe how hard one could hold on to such a tiny little sliver, but you can.. you really can. Eventually, you are clinging to this little tiny sliver and it's what's making your world go round and absolutely nothing else in the world matters. Day after day, minute after minute, your happiness with life increases. You're so easy going and happy that nothing can truly bother you. Then it does start to bother you. This is when reality hits. This is when you start to realize you've been living in a dream.. and as much as you still love this person, you start to feel sad that that's as far as it can ever go. Do you let go of that teeny sliver, no? See... then reality smacks one of you in the face real hard, in this situation, it was her. She realized that there was no potential in what we had and she found something different. She was smart. My world shattered, honestly. I don't ever regret loving her, but I do regret involving myself into that internet love.
It was this one that closed my heart down. Not only from internet love, but from real love.. for a long time. Long enough until I could get a grasp on what love truly is. The one word that could explain love in it's entirety is COMPLETE.
When you fall in love with someone on the internet, you don't even get close to complete. You don't get to look into their eyes and gain trust by reading them. You can't see them when they tell you they love you. They can't hold you when you need to be held and you can't do the same for them. Eventually you see that you wont be happy falling asleep, snuggling a pillow every night. And like I said before..... reality hits, like a snowplow. It hits hard and it hits fast and there's not a damn thing you can do about it but die a little more inside... and suck it up.
That's why internet love is not for me. It's truthfully not for anyone and I don't support it and I never will... ever again.
I have an internet friend... a male internet friend... who has been through thick and thin with me and never left my side. He was there for me through the whole Clare thing and he was always there for me.. in the best way he knew how.. over the internet. I do love him, but in a different way.. not.. in an internet love way. THAT I don't regret and never will. Ever.
So the bottom line is... DON'T BE FUCKING STUPID!!!!!