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Relationships Online: Words on a Screen
by Tonya L. Chatelain




Can someone, anyone, please tell me what makes us so desperate for love that we would put ourselves through the pain of falling for some words on a screen? After all, they're just little black letters that a total stranger is writing to you and who knows how many other people every day, professing their love and devotion a week after they met your screen name.

 
We, as normal, pretty content with our life, human beings, who would never in our everyday life fall for such BS coming from anyone we just met in real time, slip so easily into the lines that just rush across our screen, knowing in our head that there is no way this could be true, but with our hearts soaring, we happily type along, without a care in the world.
 

The words of love and adoration just pour onto your screen each and every time you two talk and your heart swoons as you read and absorb each one of them. You watch in amazement at how your fingers just fly over the keys as you type adoring words back to them. You cannot remember the last time you were this happy or felt this loved by anyone.
 

Pretty soon the lines of reality are all but blurred and you can't even remember how you two met. If asked how you met by one of your friends you would never say on a computer, because you know people would think it wasn't real then, and you know it is. Heck, you can no longer even remember if you met them in a chat room or if they instant messaged you out of the blue one day, but no matter, because you could really care less as long as they keep on being this wonderful person with all their typed words. The how, when, or where you met isn't important, the only fact that matters is that you're in love.

 
You know the only thing keeping you two connected, since there has been no exchange of phone numbers yet, is AOL or another ISP of your choice. They are your best friend, because that is the tool that brings you and the new love of your life together each and every spare minute you have to spend with each other. You forego movies and dinners out with your friends because you have just got to get online, soon you even forget the hurt you were feeling just a week ago because you had just been dumped by your real time love, but none of that matters because something special has brought you both together.

 
The fact that you both live half a world apart and barely speak each others language only makes the love that you two now have for one another that much more special, because if it wasn't for the black letters on the screen, you two would have never met, so in your heart and mind it must be nothing but love and fate that brought you both together, you tell yourself and each other.

 
Uh-oh, reality sets in much faster than one would expect when you ask them for their phone number and they tell you that they would love to, but that their mother lives with them and since she is old and frail they don't want to disturb her. But, if you really want a number they can give you their pager number and then call you back after she has gone to sleep. You decline so they will not feel that you're pressuring them, but you give them yours in hopes they will call you, and all you can do is say you understand, but you really don't since you were sure they had told you that their parents were dead.

 
Then comes the day you realize that the feelings you are having might not be mutual. You have no clue as to what went wrong, you two were just happily typing along and then they say something in your IM box that you know wasn't an answer or comment to anything you said, or asked them, so you ask, "Honey, are you talking to someone else?"

 
You get back for an answer, "Yes, I am. I'm talking to my sister, she is having a major problem and needs my help. If you can give me about ten minutes I'll finish up with her and be right back to you." You're happy with this answer for a minute until it dawns on you (because you remember every little morsel of information on them they have ever told you) that they once told you they were an only child.

 
You sit there biting your nails, waiting for them to come back to your talk, all the while not knowing how to broach the fact that something doesn't jive. You bring it up casually so they don't think you think they lied to you, they then answer with, "Oh darling, don't be such a worry wart all the time. You know I would never lie to you or hurt you for anything in the world, after all you are my girl. I didn't mean she was really my sister by blood, all I meant was to me, she feels as close as a sister would. After all, I've known her for days now, she just E-mailed me out of the blue and we're just friends." You again accept this as gospel, but this time an uneasy feeling sets in.

 
Then comes the days they don't bother showing up for the standing online-date that you two have had every day for all the three weeks of knowing each other and when the lame excuses comes from them as to why they are now missing those times, you swallow your pride and buy it because you can already feel that happy, elated feeling you two once had, not so long ago, slipping quickly away.

 
The fact that they are calling you the wrong name now and again and the fact that they don't return your long, thought out e-mails with anything more than a one-liner, if at all, is starting to bother you, as well as the fact that in your mind you're starting to question them and all they say to you; So much so, that you are contemplating creating a new screen name to try and trap them into a lie, so you know for sure once and for all, and you hate the fact that you feel you have been driven to this sort of underhanded action by the love of your life.

 
The pain is tearing you up inside, even more so than it ever did with your real life ex's, or so it feels like it. And you're losing weight because you can't eat or sleep, of course you're not complaining because after all you did tell them you were about fifty pounds skinnier than you really are. It's a good thing this has happened, you reason with yourself, once they come to their senses and start acting like their real self again, you will then be able to finally meet them in person because you will really look just the way you told them you looked to begin with, never stopping to think you have lied about you to them as well.

 
It doesn't dawn on you until now that perhaps they now are acting like their real selves, and before was nothing but a put on to win you over. That it also just might be the way they get their thrills as their spouse lays in bed asleep next to them, and now they have found fresh words from a fresh screen name to get their thrills from, so they have moved on and left you to being the same desperate person you have always been, looking for something that can't be real, because it was only some words on a screen.





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