The Gamer's Quarter

[helicopterp]

Today is Mother's Day.

December was a bad month for my girlfriend of 2 1/2 years and me. I broke up with her five days after Valentine's Day.

I was always a very loud kid in high school. My junior year, my French teacher moved me away from one of my good friends and had me sit next to this new girl instead. It was a move to keep me from talking, and it failed miserably. I always thought she was cute, and developed a crush on her. It was never overwhelming--I've had those kinds on other girls before. It was just a crush on a cute girl who was always fun to talk to. We became pretty good friends. It was fine.

My senior year I asked her to prom. It took some guts, but not too much. She was a friend and it was a dance, and I like to dance with cute girls. She already had a date, so I ended up getting a date to prom with another cute friend of mine, but I didn't have a crush on this one. During prom and during the after-party, I was flirting with a friend's date. I called her up the next Monday, and we had our first date that Friday night. We didn't stop dating for 2 years, 8 months.

This ex-girlfriend goes to college about 1000 miles away from where I go to college. I have never been high.

This January I hung out a lot with the cute girl from my French class in high school. She goes to my college, and we had remained friends throughout, seeing each other with moderate frequency. We went to a party two-thirds of the way through the month. She was driving. I got drunk. After she dropped me off at my apartment, I called her and explained in louder tones even than people are used to hearing from me that she was a great friend, a great girl, and I had had a crush on her for a long time. I could not recall what she said to me when I woke up the next morning. It was best to leave it alone.

I saw her that afternoon. Then I went ballroom dancing with her the next night. That Monday, she stopped by my place to lend me two books on Russian art history that I had been coveting, which I gladly accepted. As she turned to leave she quickly rethought her action and sat down on my bed. She said she had to bring it up. She asked if I remembered a phone conversation from early Saturday morning. Dreading what she would say, but shielding myself with honesty, I replied that I knew what I had said, and that it was all true. I could not recall what she had said to me. She repeated (a refreshingly and paradoxically first-time repetition to my ears) that she had a crush on me, too. I should have kissed her there on my bed for the first time. I explained that I still had a girlfriend.

On Valentine's day, my girlfriend received a thoughtfully put together package from me. She loved it. That same day I bought a few roses for the cute girl from my high school French class who had a crush on me. She loved them. We went for a walk to an art gallery that neither of us had seen before.

Breaking my girlfriend's heart was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but the relationship had fairly disintigrated.

Two days later I kissed the cute girl from my high school French class for the first time. It was new and exciting.

Today she swung by my house to give my family a can of gourmet coffee beans. We kissed. It was familiar and exciting. I still have a crush on her. My mom loved the coffee.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Mr. Apol]

After reading all of these, I'm going to write the story of my relationship and divorce. I'll write it on here because I know she won't see it.
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LJ -- Profile

[Dracko]

My relationships, whenever I care to pursue one, which is actually pretty rare despite my typical lonely mood, have so far ranged from entirely fruitless and not even tragically short (Can you call a couple of days a relationship?) to just plain uneventful and disconnected.

And that's when they happen.

lol emo
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[OtakupunkX]

[Lestrade]

Remember folks that a wise man once said:

If you blow chunks and she comes back, she's yours. But if you spew and she bolts, then it was never meant to be.

That is all you really need to know in life.

I don't have any good, morose stories about this sort of thing, which might seem odd considering Empty Words. I had a crush on a girl in high school who seemed to like me okay, but when I made my move, she sort of freaked out at the thought of going out with someone. It turned out that her parents were psycho-Christian — not Christian, which would probably have no bearing, but psycho-Christian — and she was sort of trained from birth to think dating was evil. She is no doubt an oversexed crack-whore somewhere in small-town Ontario by now.

I had one nutters girlfriend upon graduating high school and then I met The Panda in college, and married her. The story of that is adorable, though, I will admit.

I was the person everyone went to for advice and then promptly ignored — always to their detriment, although they never realized that until a few unplanned children later — so I had my head on my shoulders about these matters, I guess.

Also: Shaper... yes, wow. I have to admit that your inherent passion makes a lot of this seem... not unlikely, especially considering some things you've written in your journal in the past. Still, thanks for sharing that; I also vote for this to be an article. Get someone else to edit it, though; you're too close to the material.

[ApM]

[Nana Komatsu]

My grades had started their steady decline towards barely passing because I made a habit of staying up until 5AM every night playing minesweeper, listening to Dashboard Confessional, and wishing for something wonderful to happen to me.

Something wonderful happened to me. Twice.

The boy added me to his livejournal friends list because we both liked the same visual kei band. He was everything I ever wanted all rolled up into one. He was way more geeky than I was, he had the same interests, and he was cute, oh god he was cute. And he wanted to be a girl.

I spoke to him on AOL Instant Messenger every day for months. I would obsess over our conversations waiting for another to begin because he was the most interesting person I ever knew and I fell in love with him.

The band we both loved came to the US to play some shows, one in Los Angeles and one in Texas. We both went to the one in Texas, it was my first time flying anywhere by myself and the entire thing seemed unreal. I met him and it was good. Sort of. I still hadn't had much experience meeting people from the internet at the time, so it was very awkward and there were a lot of moments I totally botched.

When I got back, I went to a party in Chicago, for people who are into the Gothic Lolita (or sometimes EGL) fashion trend from Japan. It was the first time I had ever gone out dressed in Gothic Lolita and my outfit which was cobbled together from stuff I bought at Goodwill and on the internet was pretty terrible. I wore five inch heels that would leave blisters the size of the sole of my foot by the end of the day.

I met a girl. Or a boy. Whatever. I was nineteen and it was the summer break after my second year of school. We really hit it off and started talking all the time online. I thought I fell in love with her. She lived in Northern Illinois and I drove two and a half hours both ways to see her. Her parents were devout baptists, and did not trust me from the minute I met them. We'd make out outside their bedroom after they went to sleep and tease each other over the internet while we were apart. I went to visit her a good 30 times that summer, if not more.

I told the boy about the girl. He was happy for me, but he wasn't. He told me that he loved me. I was too infatuated with the girl at the time to truly understand what he was saying. This was the first mistake.

It was the end of July. The boy had spent the summer out in Baltimore working for the government. I planned to fly out to see him at Otakon at the end of July. Two days before I left I had a nervous breakdown and became extremely depressed. I spent the entire con being completely bitchy to him and depressed over nothing. I don't understand it even now. I was cold and I was distant and I hurt him.

When I came back, I got even closer to the girl. I would go and visit her three times a week or more. Eventually though we seemed to hit a wall. I felt like while I was doing everything I could for her, I wasn't getting much out of it and she wasn't trying. I would love her, and she would happily accept that, but she didn't really love me back, or at least she didn't know how to show it. Or I wanted too much. I don't know.

I kept talking to the boy. The more distant I got from the girl, the more my feelings returned to the boy. The more I realized I really did love him, and what I felt for the girl was just infatuation that was wearing off.

He was driving back from Baltimore to Minnesota where he went to school, and I convinced him to spend a few days with me. The first night he arrived after driving for 14 hours, I seduced him in what I think was against his will. This was the second mistake.

It was my first time, though not his, and it was terrible. I could get him aroused but I couldn't keep his interest. I could tell he didn't want to be with me. It hurt more than anything else than I had ever felt before.

I went back to school and tried to move on. I tried to be strong. It didn't work. I'd still go see the girl on weekends but I felt nothing from her. It was empty. I made a choice, to go after the boy because I truly felt something there.

I talked to the boy but he was distant. I was more forward, more than I was before, and he responded less and less. Soon I was talking to him when he wasn't there at all.

I broke up with the girl. I told her it wasn't going to work. She seemed completely shocked and I didn't really feel any obligation to comfort her. Since then I've run into her twice but never spoken to her again.

The boy stopped responding to me completely. I told him I was going to come visit during our quarter break but he didn't say anything. I asked him to respond, to just say "no" and I would leave him alone. I begged. I pleaded.

"...while I don't feel the same desperate need to cling to our relationship like you do..." was what he wrote. I knew it was over.

As soon as I stopped talking to him, he came around. He'd IM me and leave livejournal comments but I wouldn't respond. I decided at the time to steel myself, to make myself strong because I had become weak, to shut him out of my life because it was hurting me too much. He wrote me a goodbye a few months later.

I still love the boy. I think I will for a long time. He's the reason I took up the bass guitar. The feeling I got being near him was so warm and complete, in a way I had never felt before, and have not felt again since.

Even if he is a republican.

Around this time I met Fred (or kermitisoncrack). Fred was probably my rebound, and for that I feel sorry. I love Fred, but in the way a friend loves another friend, because when I really needed someone he was there for me.

Fred wore striped socks, that's how I noticed him. He came to our club's anime screenings, and he knew the visual kei bands whose promotional videos I showed between episodes. We talked more on IM than in person, even though we were both living in the same building, a few floors apart. He'd come to my room and put on pink and green nailpolish, copying songs onto his ipod.

It was winter. I was feeling good again, having gotten over the boy I felt like I could do anything. I felt like I could conquer the world. I felt invincible.

This was culminated by the homecoming dance at my school, held the first week of December. I'd never been to a dance before, and Fred asked me to be his date. He wore a suit that looked like he got it at goodwill, and combed his hair. He held my hand. And when "Broken" by Seether and the girl from Evanescence came on, he asked me to dance.

I still get choked up when I hear this song, iTunes randomly played it earlier tonight which is why I ended up writing this story that I've never told anyone before. At that moment, I hit my peak, the greatest moment in my life maybe. It was the last time I have felt completely all right.

Nothing in my life has been the same since then. It has been all hills and valleys, going down more than up.

I saw the boy again last summer. I went to Otakon to meet a completely different set of people and I ran into him on the last day. Well, I didn't say anything and he didn't say anything, but he looked the same, and I looked the same, and there's no such thing as a coincidence so it had to be that way. I felt... at peace. I still love him, but I was able to restrain the part of me that was going to give him a hug and beg him to tell me things would be all right.

Things won't be all right, I know that now.

I know that I had two good things and I lost both of them because I was greedy. I wanted both and I got neither, which is exactly what I deserved. And until I change myself so this does not happen again, things will not be all right.

But maybe they will be.

I don't know.
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resetbutton.net: videogames for unattractive people

[dongle]

Growing up, I loved videogames. I played them for a disgusting number of hours each day. I was primarily a computer gamer since I loved the variety and experimentation that was so prevalent on the platform, but my 2600, NES, SNES, and PSX got plenty of love as well. When I got into high-school, I stopped playing games. It was partially because I had new interests, but the late 90s/early 00s were not exactly a gaming renaissance either. Fast forward five years to January 2005, and I finally found someone whom I cared about who also cared about me in return. In the special way, no less! We quickly became almost married and spent every free moment together. I thought I had my entire life figured out, figured out with her. I worked extra jobs while in college and saved money for our apartment together. Suddenly things went awry in summer 06. She had fallen for a tall, preppy New England sailor and had realized that she did not respect me or my field of study (ancient history).

For several weeks, I was lost. I blew a lot of the apartment fund on new clothes. I caught up on almost 7 years of games and started posting on IC. I had to create a new life for myself, and this time it had to be for me, not for the pleasure of a partner. I tried several different internships, and eventually became comfortable working at a museum doing research and assistant curatorial work, along with web-monkey type stuff. Eventually I got some confidence back and started trying to date on craigslist, okcupid, facebook (ugh), and myspace (i'm ashamed of myself). A dozen terrible dates later, I gave up and decided to start playing jRPGs again.

Two weeks ago, a vegan hipster girl found me on okcupid and complimented my dry, selvage, Japanese jeans. We talked and had wonderful conversations, though they were mediated by the shit that is IM protocols. I was smitten, and decided to take the 150 minute bus ride to visit her. We met after her shift at an Apple store, ate vegan Indian food, and went back to her dorm. Posters advertising shows by awesome bands plastered the walls - Melt Banana, Thunderbirds are Now, and a lot that I did not even recognize. She presented me a mix CD in a hand made and decorated cardboard sleeve. It was awesome, and I knew only a few of the bands. There were also some stray copies of her zine lying around, including her interviews with underground Boston acts. She was so cool. I have no idea what she sees in me.

Mr. Apol, it is 9 months later and I am still interested in your story should you choose to tell it.

[Nana Komatsu]

[ryan]

I met a lovely young lady around 6 months ago. I had talked to her for a while before and we hung out some, but it was late August when we actually started dating. I was also engaged years ago. To say that I am embarrassed of that is an understatement. If I could go back in time to slap myself, I would take advantage of that. Gladly. As it turns out, it was because of my ex's question to a manager about employment that I met who I am with now. Shortly after I was hired, a quirky young lass was as well. We were friends for a few years, then I went to a new job and we didn't see each other anymore. Eventually I saw her in a film at a local film festival, and we began talking again.

Her best friend is who I am seeing now. So far things have been wonderful, but I am also realizing how much more difficult I am to be around because of what happened before. After being with her 5-6 years, my ex married someone else about a month after we broke up, and after I paid thousands of dollars in medical bills and moved back home. She was seeing him before we broke up. I know it isn't fair, and I fully recognize how frustrating it is, but anytime I hear of the very little my current lady-friend has done in the past, I get irate. Although when I get upset I just don't talk, but she quickly found that out. In the beginning, she was a bit too eager to share what she had done, but now it's not talked about - we leave each other's pasts alone. But the thought of her making out with a random person when drunk (the extent of her Wild Days) is enough to make me turn away. I find that kind of behavior distasteful. Since then I have agreed to not smoke and her to not drink/cut back on drinking - not that she did that much before, but it was 100 times more than I did. She was understanding, considering my brother's problem with drinking and me giving up my nasty habit. I tell myself to get over this and to ignore what she's done - especially considering I was with someone to the extent that I was - but my brain hates to let go.

We do compliment each other in our curiosity about each other's happenings, both on the watch, just making sure that this is as good as it is. We keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but we both know that it hasn't and won't; we're still a bit too happy for our own good, it seems. Time, I look forward to your assistance in sorting this out.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[helicopterp]

Cute French class girl and I split up in mid-October after a seven-month relationship relatively clear of bad patches, or really any arguments at all. It was her call. I like to tell myself that she was just too busy to put in the kind of time that she wanted to for a serious relationship. To some degree, this is true. But that wasn't all there was to it. I fumbled some near the end of it, and she wasn't as in love with me as I was with her.

Getting over the shock happened first. Getting over the hurt happened next. Finally understanding why it ended came after that. I still have a crush on her, though.

Do you know when something just feels right? Well, it just felt right with her, and that wasn't an accident. I know she still likes me a lot and cares about me as a friend, but I can't help but think that there is still the potential for much more.

I plan to do something stupid and punny to make that clear to her sometime next week, and that will be the last time I try to reconnect with her.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[player 2]

If a girl breaks it off with you she is very well aware that you still like her and that you think things are right. I know you'd like to think that you can win her back by declaring your love for her, but all it will do is place an ultimatum on her, and bitches don't like that shit.

Be a good friend - an awesome friend, even. Tease her by attracting other girls, but make her know that you still like her by rejecting these other girls when she is around. If she talks to or about other boys, act bored or some other empty response. Don't be negative - it will only push her away.

If her being with you makes you happy make her happy when you are with her.
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Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653

"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[Nana Komatsu]

[dessgeega]

crazy. i posted in this thread a little over a year ago, and that must have been almost a year since we broke up.

nothing really interesting's happened in the last year, aside from a friend and i deciding a relationship was impossible, at least at the moment. we did decide it was cool for us to make out, though.

these days i watch other people have sex more than i have sex myself. but it's not a bad deal.
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[Six]

happy valentine's day, thread!

i bought you an e-flower and some e-chocolates isn't that romantic

[dessgeega]

but which is more a romantic valentine's gift, chocolates or roses? everyone votes!

(screw the roses, send me the thorns.)
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[dhex]

[helicopterp]

Thanks, Player 2, but it isn't going to be ultimatum-y. The l-word isn't going to play any role in the conversation. I haven't seen her or spoken to her for a month, which I think is good for both of us. And I've been dating other people since we broke up. I don't even plan to put her on the spot with anything. After I make my stupid pun and pause for laughter (even if there isn't any) I'm just going to ask her to think about it, after which I'll be out of town for the next four weekends, and busy with class and work during the week, so I can't even be around to put unwanted pressure on her.

It's tricky because I graduate in May and then try to move somewhere out in the real world away from Athens by August at the very latest. So I don't have a lot of time left, and I want to spend some of it with her.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Nana Komatsu]

[dhex]

no, it was more like "why are you trying to fuck my girlfriend in the ass."

which is even more stupid, if you think about it. frankly, i was mostly insulted by the question of my ability to be a slippery shit if i chose to be rather than any ethical implications.
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[Lestrade]

True story: back when my wife (then just a pal) and I were in college (Jesus, this was about eight years ago now), there was a period when we went from "friends in the same group" to "friends hanging out more just by ourselves." I was secretly in love with her, and for me, hanging out meant a lot more. But anyway: one thing we used to do a lot was visit a local library, because the view outside the window was amazing and we could nab magazines for free and hang out there for an afternoon.

Once we were there during the evening and I was listening to a Walkman. She wanted to know what I was listening to. "Uh, I don't know if you want to listen to this." She looked at me quizzically. "Actually, it's awesome. You totally have to listen to this." I gave her the Walkman, thinking, if she digs this, I will club her and drag her home to be my mate.

"Yeah, it's pretty... intense." she said.

It was Sepultura's "Orgasmatron."

I knew then it was a done deal.

[Dracko]

I've been in a relationship for the past three weeks, but it's just like any of the other ones I've been in so far: Detached, aimless and not much fun at all. Just longer. I've been holding on to it out of curiosity but it simply doesn't seem to work. Breaking it off shouldn't be damaging to any friendships, though.

The lack of any sexual developments in the past few years though has been disconcerting, and I'm starting to view such pursuits as necessary again, for the first time in quite a while.

This Valentine's Day I snook into film lectures to watch movies about voyeurism (Restored version of Hitchock's Rear Window) and slavery (Kubrick's Spartacus).
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dessgeega]

tristan taormino throws some bangin' parties, lemme tell you.
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[Dracko]

dess, you familiar with Melissa Gira's blog, Sexerati, at all?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[player 2]

[Nana Komatsu]

WHOA WHOA WHOA NSFW NSFW NSFW
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resetbutton.net: videogames for unattractive people

[dhex]

[helicopterp]

Psst, folks- I like a girl and I'm pretty sure she likes me.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Swimmy]

Ho-ho! The wonders of Facebook tell me that you require congratulations!
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[ryan]

I'm getting engaged shortly. She has a ring, but we're working with an arbitrary timeline just to make things easier. While I'm not a huge fan of waiting, our circumstances - I'm getting my MBA, she's going to get her Masters in Library Science, we're a few hours apart until I'm done - makes it understandable. Dumb LSU.

I would show her the stuff I'm working on, but I don't know if I can answer why all the guys look so feminine/like Meg Ryan. I don't know either. "That giant monster looks cool! Right?" She is a big fan of the DS so far - Mario Kart DS (nod to Nana) and Big Brain Academy - and the Wii, but I won't be pushing it.

She's met Sir Andrew, John (box) and John (dalenixon) as well. And Matt! You called while we were over. Although I think I threw her on the deep end on that one: she watched Andrew play that voice-action Konami game and something else, not really knowing why it was so bad or why it being so bad was so entertaining. I'm renting her Six Feet Under through my Blockbuster Online account, so I'll say we're even for that.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[antitype]

Reading over these posts, I don't feel so awkward about remembering that the first girl I ever really loved lived in Simi Valley, California, while I was still in Michigan -- most of our communication was based on expensive telephone conversations, IMs, and email. It was a true Long Distance Relationship.

I first spoke with her when, in the early days of LiveJournal, I discovered the Xenogears community that she was moderating. I imagine this fact would lead anyone to the conclusion that she was exactly what you'd expect a girl on LJ moderating a Xenogears community to be, these days, but she wasn't that. Naive as I was back then, I thought she was an extremely intelligent and charismatic creature, standing in stark contrast to the obnoxious fangirls of the day. She cared about Xenogears like I did (with a sharp disdain for all the vapid fandom that surrounded it), and we had many long conversations about what it meant to us -- I was nineteen at the time, and she was two years younger, so I suppose it was a time in each of our lives when that world and those characters could still resonate deeply. That we shared so many of the same insights into this game drew me to her (not specifically because of the game, but her insights and the beauty of her thoughts, her way of speaking, etc.), and we went from there.

Inevitably came the trading of images, self-portraits, and she was the most absolutely gorgeous female I'd ever laid eyes on. To this day, I think, she represents the ideal form of physical feminine beauty to me, and ... well, fuck, considering the way this story ends up going, that's not an easy thing. These are the first two pictures she ever sent me:



I'm pretty sure I'd already been forming a nerdy little crush, but at that point I think a little part of me died just knowing that she was so far away -- a feeling I'd get to know very well over the next few years. For a long time, actually, we skirted around our growing feelings for each other just because of the fear of actually falling in love with someone who was only virtually real, intangible, more or less existing in a world apart from our own. It was probably this very feeling that made me want her even more. I think we both felt after every conversation we had that we clicked really well, and we understood each other, which was something we both seemed to lack at the time, but with so much distance between us all we could do was long for each other silently. It was barely spoken, but clearly understood. Or at least I felt it was.

I wonder how differently things might have turned out if I'd been more forthcoming back then. See, she had this friend, who she said was just a friend, and she was going to move into an apartment with him. Maybe this is just another sign of my naivety, but I didn't doubt this (though it did make me a bit jealous) and I probably failed to express much concern. I had no idea who the guy was, so what did I have to go on except that she said he was a friend? She even insisted that it would stay that way. And so it went.

Of course, once she moved in with him she wasn't online very much for months and months, endlessly promising to set up a new internet connection but endlessly failing to do so. She'd occasionally pop on back at her ex-step father's, where she'd been living before (her mother and biological father were out of the picture, and I'll touch on that later), just to post on her LJ and give an update. By that time we'd inevitably drifted apart a bit (this was a full two years after we'd first 'met'), but it was when she wrote about the aforementioned friend/roommate having become her boyfriend, and later breaking down her bedroom door for a reason she never disclosed, that I felt compelled to speak up. I told her I loved her, though I wasn't sure just how, and that I regretted not telling her sooner. I was more worried about her than I was hurt, though I was certainly hurt; I felt a little betrayed, even, but I knew that we were still worlds apart and I couldn't blame her for going to the arms of someone who was actually there (and would later learn that with all the things going on in her life she really had no choice but to grab ahold of the nearest person who would care for her).

Evidently, it turned out, the roommate/boyfriend's door-breaking behavior was becoming somewhat typical, and I think she was scared. I may remember things differently than she would, of course, since she was there and I was here, but whatever her reasons were she started talking to me more often again, and we both seemed to have a mutual sense of regret over having missed our chance -- especially on my end. It was a fairly typical and misguided teen sense of "I was supposed to be with you" (until this other guy came along), and I made this no secret. I believe she largely felt the same, though, because it wasn't a terribly long time before she started saying she was thinking about breaking up with the guy, though she just didn't know how to go about doing so. We talked more and more, more than ever before, and I learned things about her family that she'd been afraid to share before -- things about her father and their estrangement due to her manipulative and genuinely schizophrenic mother, at the time living out of a car somewhere in the valley. She was living in a world of resentful confusion and abandonment, which was something I could relate to after my parents' divorce and my father's remarriage -- I was even living with my ex-step father at the time, too -- and she needed someone to hold onto. Her friend was there, and though I believed her the first time she said she loved me (which itself just about set my heart on fire, just hearing her say those words), I was still here, and admitting to our feelings for each other only made things complicated.

I could think of nothing but promising to make a trip out there to visit her, and maybe even go as far as just moving there, since I didn't feel like I had much to stick around for in Michigan. Agreeing to this, she told me that she would finally break up with her boyfriend (which would be easier, since she'd moved back in with her ex-step father). All I could do was wait and hope that it would go as smoothly as possible -- she'd seemed confident since she'd felt he was becoming somewhat distant anyway... We were both sorely mistaken, and breaking up with him opened up a whole new world of hurt and complication. He was savagely tenacious, distraught at the thought of losing her, and he simply would not let her go. She was so taken aback by his reaction that she would barely even speak with me for a week, all the while being harassed by his persistent phone calls, pounding on her door in the middle of the night, and worst of all his alternately sweet and vicious pleas: flowers one day and "You're a crazy whore, just like your mother" the next. One of the things I most vividly recall is when she answered the door while she was still on the phone with me and he suddenly forced his hands between her legs to see if she'd had any underwear on (she'd been wearing a nightgown). I hated the guy, though I also felt like I was partially to blame for the whole mess. It was endless, and she only began to seem open and warm with me again when he finally seemed to let go -- and then it would start all over again. It went on this way for months.

We had little time to just us, with all of this stupid fucking drama out of our minds, and it was usually late at night, after hours of conversations about who knows what, playing little bits of songs for each other over the phone, laying in bed and eventually getting so tired we'd just burst out laughing at our somnolent murmurings, never wanting to hang up the phone because it was the only thing that made us feel like we were almost together. It was really all I wanted back then, and I would have given up anything and everything to be with her.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, we'd occasionally end up having all manner of phone sex during these late nights, because, well, we were extremely pent up and it was all we had. It was certainly a substitute for the real thing, but I would have to admit that our pent up lust and oh fuck, the things that girl would say (who knew such a pretty girl could even think like that), made it even more mindblowing than some of the actual sex that I've had. I mean, when you want someone so badly and you only have your voices to share with each other, you're going to do your best to make up for what you're lacking. We did, anyway.

One of these nights, though, was pretty much where everything came crashing to an ugly end. I'm not even sure how to write about it. We'd been doing our phone thing, and just after we'd both finished she said something about hearing a noise outside -- right outside her window, which was at the head of her bed. I wasn't alarmed immediately, thinking she'd just heard an animal moving around, or the wind, but she sounded nervous. She sat up and moved her blinds a bit to see her startled step father moving quickly away from her window -- I could instantly hear the fear in her voice when we both realized that he'd been standing there in the dark, outside her window, watching her masturbate. I can't even describe what I felt, and I can only imagine how violated she must have felt. It was a feeling like something out of a David Lynch movie; surreal and terrifying. With everything that had been going on in her life -- like forces conspiring to keep us apart and keep her locked in this world of pain, I felt -- I couldn't even believe that this was actually happening. I just told her that she had to get out of there, and she naturally agreed... Of course, with a father who didn't want her and a mother who couldn't help her (and no other family to speak of), she only had one place to go: her ex-boyfriend's.

It's hardly worth talking about the way things went after that, but considering what had happened and, of course, considering that she was living with her ex-boyfriend's family (and they'd apparently begun to patch up their friendship), she barely had any way of speaking with me. Or she no longer wanted to; maybe it was too painful. I don't know for sure. The last few times we spoke she finally confessed to me that her step father had once molested her when she was very young, and that until he'd been caught peeping that night this had been a thing of the past, forgiven and forgotten. I sometimes wonder, thinking about it several years later, how much of what she told me was true, but it all seemed to make sense at the time and I never felt like I was being manipulated or deceived... I honestly can't say for sure; there was just so much and my memory isn't becoming any clearer. All I knew was that I was in love with her, and I guess I wanted to take her away from all of the shit. Well, I couldn't.

Eventually she let me know that she was back with the abusive boyfriend, which made so much sense it sickened me. I'd lost her in the end and there was nothing I could do about it anymore; she'd been forced into this other life by awful circumstance. I guess she couldn't fight it anymore, so she pushed me away and chose what was there.

I always felt like what she and I had, between all the shit, was something so pure and beautiful that I could never capture it again. It was stopped short of where I felt it was meant to go and there was nothing left for me to do but carry this story with me. It took me a long time to get over her, but I don't think I'll ever be able to forget her entirely. She was the personification of the ideal beauty to me.

Tying in the too-easy NGJ reference, aside from the weird parallels to Xenogears here, I suppose I also love videogames like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and even Rez as much as I do because (aside from being excellent videogames) they represent this failed relationship in a nutshell. The girl is still trapped within the system; within the castle; on the altar. And yeah "LOL LONELY GAME" it up -- I have to stop and laugh at this, too -- but there you go.
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antitype.livejournal.com | last.fm

[Shapermc]

Man, that sounds very real with just a hint of Lynch. Possibly even a bit of Waters without the biting humor.

I had a similar relationship, although it wasn't so long distance (only a few cities away) that ended up in nearly the same manner. It's hard to watch, and even harder to realize there's nearly nothing you can do.

Anyways, I just wanted to mention that she looks exactly like Rose McGowan before the botox:


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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[antitype]

Yeah, shit, the young Rose McGowan is pretty close -- the biggest difference is that Rose's jaw looks slightly more prominent and angular. Lots of beautiful women with fair skin, dark eyes, and long brown hair remind me of her, though. I suppose she had a sort of archetypal beauty.

Speaking of Lynch, I actually have a silent video of her (which she recorded with her webcam) mouthing the words, "I love you" to me. Watching it some time shortly after things had gone to shit, and remembering that I'd once told her how the "You'll never have me" line from Lost Highway is one of the cruelest things I've ever heard (not just because of the words, but the way she says them and then gets up and walks away), I couldn't help but imagine her saying that, in that video. I guess it was actually that moment that it really sank in.

My next girlfriend (not a long distance thing; I met her in California) told me one night, laying on the futon in my apartment bedroom, that she'd read something about how this was a hypnotizing technique -- that if a woman wanted to make a man hers forever she'd only have to bring him to the brink of arousal, whisper in his ear, "You can't have me," and then get up and walk straight to the door, even slamming it on the way out.

Oh, that next girlfriend was a brunette, too -- beautiful in a different way, but still very beautiful (she was one of those models you see posing in the nude for art students) -- and after her a couple of my friends decided to start teasing me about my attraction to dark-haired drama queens, insisting that I find some fun and care-free blonde girl. The one sure thing is that I'll never, ever get involved with anyone else on long distance terms.
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antitype.livejournal.com | last.fm

[Swimmy]

Thread revive go!

I am terrible with women, everyone knows this. But I managed to wrangle myself into a two-month relationship, recently. Now that it's over, uh. I can't stop thinking about her. It's been over a month and I honestly just can't stop.

Well, that's not entirely true.

I had a dream about her last night. It was. . . sexy! Our relationship was sexy. It would not have worked in the long run, I know this, but it was still good times. Good, sexy times, in public in the middle of the night, holy shit.

Since we've broken up, I haven't talked to her, not once, not in any way. I'm sure we'll be friends eventually, but not until I'm dating someone else--not until I have no reason to be jealous of whatever or whoever she's doing. That could be a while! Like I said--terrible with women.

. . .

I have trouble explaining things when I'm drunk. That's ok! You don't need to know all that well anyway. You know who I've been texting a lot recently? Laura. Laura, I fell in love with, a few years ago. I should not have done that, but now we are friends, so it's cool. Except she never returns any of my texts or myspace messages. Here, let me give you a sample, you might laugh or think it's sweet or neither:

[dessgeega]

i'm currently in the midst of a relationship. i guess it's a long-distance relationship. but it's also a very open label-free relationship, so it's really no big deal. i have tickets to fly out and spend a weekend with him in mid-september. i am really looking forward to it. more as it comes, i guess!
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[SuperWes]

[dessgeega]

well, for what it's worth, he's a transguy. so i'm still a pretty big queer.
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[SuperWes]

[seryogin]

[dessgeega]

i just got back from visiting daphaknee in california. we're in a long-distance D/s relationship. she sits at my feet and calls me ma'am, i call her my slut. she has a boyfriend; i'm her domme.

i'd prefer we were closer to each other, but i'm glad just to have her. she's going to come out and visit me in dallas once i've gotten settled.
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[helicopterp]

wait wait wait wait dallas? and i had been looking forward to meeting you!



On my own note: girls are tricky and I vow to figure them out before I'm dead.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[dessgeega]

well you have until january! i will try not to totally leave you hanging next time.
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[seryogin]

Post relationship news, dudes.

I presume mike is still married. As is Shaper (as is Wes and APM and Scratchmonkey). Toups is still a virgin. Dracko may in fact be forcing himself upon an Objectivist (if only for the irony of proving their beliefs valid by screwing them at the same time).
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[helicopterp]

I'm in limbo with a girl who still lives in Georgia. She'll be a teacher (like me) in NYC (reasonably close to me) as of next school year. We spent a lovely evening in New York a couple weeks ago when she was up checking things out. The next day she got freaked out about feeling so close to someone. I will see her in Atlanta around christmastime.

Other than that, I frequently fall on my face, which I can't seem to keep remotely groomed to begin with.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Dracko]

[Intentionally Wrong]

Right around KE3 (the big selectbutton get-together in Kentucky last June), okcupid got really popular on selectbutton. It was daphaknee's fault. I started talking to a girl on there pretty regularly, but I got a phone call from a friend that put all relationship stuff on hold until September.

I met the girl from okcupid on Wednesday. I didn't want to rush things or smother her, but it's only half a week later and already we've had three dates. I guess okcupid works pretty well.

[dessgeega]

i'm pretty sure andrew toups has had some sex by now.
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[ryan]

fact: andrew toups is sex.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Harveyjames]

I've been talking a lot to the girl I was obsessed with in high school but too nerdy to do anything about, through facebook. Try and guess which function of facebook we have manage to turn into into a sexy sexual innuendo which we joke about doing to each other!!! it's the poke function.

She's in Korea until September :(

[Pink Teddy Bear]

Oooooh man I'm still too nerdy to talk to women. It's great!