| November, 19, 2003 Sometimes IM makes me sad -Wondering if any other guys have this burden... Did you ever know that girl? Were you ever friends, maybe even close friends with that girl back in high school? She was cute, no doubt, but she wasn’t all like the “click” and popular girls with a new boyfriend every month. The guys were too immature back then to hold out for her so they just passed her by, but the locker room talk was the same about her. Maybe she was just too young or maybe naive, but she didn’t seem to buy into all that hoopla. I knew a girl like that. She was very pretty. I met her at the church I used to go to. She was younger than me but we got along so well. We had much in common. No doubt I was physically attracted to her and that I wanted to get to know her better. But she was still young and lived pretty far away from me, so we had few chances to casually hang out and cultivate our friendship. I won’t be ignorant and say I didn’t know how she felt about me. I knew she liked me. I mean it may have been that “teenage girl high school” fair-weather like, but I think she was genuinely interested. The problem with these younger girls though is that they’re not experienced (by no means a bad thing) in sharing their feelings. Basically the guy is expected to run the show I guess, even in a friendship “but I like you more than a friend” sort of way. And unfortunately, MTV has told them how a guy should act around them, so when a chap like me (a hopeless, damned chap nonetheless) comes around they get really confused why I’m not trying to get under their shirt during the second date. Anyways...I knew this girl as a “Sunday” friend mostly though (which in retrospect hurt me because I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt concerning what she did the rest of the week. I have a weakness to only see the good sides of pretty girls) and it’s possible that her high school life was fairly different from her “Sunday show up with a smile everything’s ok” life. I’m not saying she really turned out to be some F-PAB, but the seeds were being sown I guess. And like I mentioned before, it’s nearly impossible for a the pretty girls to circumvent the inevitable onslaught of not only a horde of PABs, but the demanding quota’s of an American Pie/MTV induced youth culture. So our friendship continued as I went off to college. She was a junior in high school during my sophomore year in college. We didn’t talk too much during my absence, but when I’d come back to visit, the “let’s catch up” conversations were very fulfilling. This was when the IM craze was beginning to blossom and of course when our monikers were exchanged; our cyber friendship got a boost in the arm. We became very close my spring semester that year in college via AOL Instant Messenger. She was there to cyber-comfort me when my days were going bad, and believe you me; I had many many tough days in college. My spring semester sophomore year was also the first time in my life I began to feel insecure about my singleness. Previous to that time, I was completely oblivious to the negative emotional effects of being alone. I had everything I needed before then, video games, a fast PC, soccer (though my failures....err...underachievements contributed to my depressions), and it never crossed my mind before that ever that I was “missing something”. But college finally got to me by the latter half of that spring semester. Everyone had found someone, maybe more (some fellow students had the immature audacity to get married while still in school!), by now in their college experience. Heck, I knew a guy that claimed to have slept with 9 different girls in first semester at college. But all you see at college are couples, or people that are going to be a couple soon, or people that wished they were in a couple relationships. There was no one, I mean no one, who was content in being single even if it didn’t show it on the outside (still looking). Ok, enough drama. But yes, the insecurity of being alone started getting to me for the first time and though I handled it well and kept it at bay most of the time, it still crept in (All those bikini clad girls in the warm spring months out tanning in the quad didn’t help either). Anyways, back to this girl... When I came back that summer, I definitely felt closer to her and maybe wanted to pursue the friendship more. We hung out a couple times in groups and talked every Sunday after church and we IM’ed consistently also. A couple weeks into the summer, I decided to ask her out on a date; nothing spectacular, just dinner and movie. I just wanted to spend time with her in a more intimate setting so I could get to know more about who she was. I wasn’t, still ain’t, much of a “dater”, so this would be a significant thing in my life. I asked her informally if she wanted to do something like that and she happily said yes. So it was settled, we go out for dinner and a movie sometime. Well I think that’s when things started to change, for the worse, and it was never the same... Unfortunately, her dad apparently wasn’t too keen on the idea of her going out with a sophomore in college. Yeah he knew who I was, knew my family, but he didn’t really know me so I guess he was a little apprehensive about us being alone...? Well she told me it’d prolly be ok if we did like a group date thing. I wasn’t much into “group” dates because nobody is real and the conversations have no depth during one of those. It’s all just filler talk. When I go on a date, and most likely surprisingly to the girl (actually not, because I’d never go on a date with a girl I wasn’t already friends with so she’d already know what kind of guy I was), I want to delve into this person’s life in a non-threatening sort of way. Basically I just want to find out who they are inside. Yeah it’s only one date, but you’d be surprised how much you can pick up from someone by spending even just a couple hours with them alone. So the date was stuck in limbo while I scurried to find a couple to go with us. But then I began thinking that’d prolly be awkward and I really didn’t want to do a double date thing. I was kind of stuck between really wanting to go out with this girl and the awkwardness that I was now faced (obviously her dad didn’t trust me with her I assumed, and that made me feel weird). Remember folks, I wasn’t, still ain’t, that experienced in the arts of women, so it was almost just as virginal (pun intended) an experience for me. I sort of panicked and made up an excuse not to go out the weekend we had planned. I figured it would work out somehow later. We had at least 2 months left in the summer. Well I regret now not having remedied the situation better. I left things as they were and I gather the girl took my now lackadaisical approach to going out on a “date” as a sign I didn’t like her. We still talked, but not as much. She was always “busy” with something. (Another experience with another girl happened to me later that summer/fall which I will not get into now. Gee, I feel like I’m writing a diary). So the relationship began to fade. I went back off to college and she entered her senior year in high school. I don’t remember talking much after that. At the same time, the hierarchy in my church (non-denominational) was turning into a mess and I was like “I don’t need this hypocritical pride crap". So I personally left that church (left a lot of very close friends and family, but when my spirit is urged, and irked, I can’t violate its pull. A whole other story altogether also) and I didn’t ever talk to that girl again at church (not sure if her family still goes there). I think we IM’ed once or twice over the next year. It was on nice terms, but the distance in the friendship was painfully apparent. I also noticed her demeanor changed. You might wonder how I could tell this without seeing and talking to her much, but you’d be surprised what you can tell about a person from their away messages and profiles on IM. It seemed she was getting more caught up in the whole “party” scene and I also assumed PABs. It was hard for me to see such a sweet, seemingly innocent girl begin to change. Soon contact wasn’t there at all, we had completely faded away. But I have a problem with girls; I can’t seem to lose them from my mind. So I’d always wonder how this girl was doing. I knew she was going off to college and found out somehow where she went. I needed to get over thinking about her so I had to take her off my IM list because I couldn’t resist checking her away messages and the such. The problem with checking someone's away messages and profile is it kept making me think about her (you had no idea IM was so emotionally dynamic did you?). So I eventually did take her off and for the most part lost interest in thinking about her a lot. But she never completely left my consciousness and every now and then I reminisce at what might have been. Well it’s been about 3 years since I’ve known anything about this girl. The other day for some reason she came into my thoughts. Not surprisingly, I remembered her IM screen name like I just IM’ed her yesterday. I plugged it in, but she wasn’t there. I was beginning to think she didn’t use that IM name anymore, or that she just didn’t do the instant messaging thing at all anymore. To a feeling of a weird long since past happiness, she signed on. Of course I knew I wouldn’t message her, but I would check her profile. Maybe see what’s going on in her life and maybe she’d even have a link to a website where I could even maybe see a picture of her now. No links, but what I read cast such a burden on my soul it made me want to cry. What used to be such a beautiful, fun loving, kind hearted, pure girl in my eyes had apparently turned into a destitute, vulgar, college-brainwashed sorority girl. Maybe the words and comments were jokes, but I could read into the stuff written and you don’t write stuff like that unless you’ve changed, but it was very painfully obvious that she had bought into the lies that life was about guys, beer, parties, and “sisters” (of whom were not real sisters at all to her. just bought friends that she could share her insecurities with and not feel so bad about them). I seriously wanted to cry. Then a feeling of great regret came over me. Why hadn’t I done a better job maintaining our friendship? What if I had worked harder to make that date work so many years ago? Maybe then, even if we didn’t continue a romantic relationship per se, maybe then I could’ve influenced her in a positive way, encouraging her in her walk with Christ, helping guide and comfort her through the tough and lonely times. Maybe she wouldn’t have turned out like this if I had done more...maybe she wouldn’t have gone through the torrid relationships that have just left her broken and undone most likely. Maybe she would’ve realized that life isn’t partying and beer and sorority life and spring break. Maybe she would’ve avoided all the vulgarity and dirt she most assuredly come in contact with if I had done more. Maybe I could’ve saved her from that I thought.... It put me in a very downcast and sullen mood... My soul was burdened... Yeah I’ve gotten over this girl a long time ago (we never actually got “romantic”, but because my close friendships with girls are few and far between, they leave a mark that cannot be easily undone) but the feelings of sadness still remain. Such a wonderfully beautiful girl both inside and out had turned into what I fear most. Yes, I know it’s not my fault and that she made all those decisions on her own, but I just wondered how things might have been if I made more of an effort to keep the friendship going and close, even if the romance never bloomed like I had selfishly hoped in my immaturity. But this has happened to me and girls on more than one occasion. But this one hurt more because she knew who Christ was, and she turned her back on him. Maybe I was naive, entirely possible considering my obliviousness to attractive girls’ inner faults, and she never really knew Christ. Maybe she only knew about him and never made him her life like I had assumed. Maybe she’d say to me, “Keith you don’t know me!” Well I’m starting to realize that that’s true, I don’t know her, and I never really did know the real her. A part of me fears she’d read this somehow. But no evidence has suggested she’s ever seen my website and the chances of good ol’ “voltron88x” being on her IM buddy list are slim to none, and slim left town yesterday. In fact, I even wonder if she’d even remember anything about our friendship. But in some case she does, I’d like to tell her that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for neglecting our friendship and running when things got a little awkward. I was just an immature scared 20 year old. I’m sure my words have hurt, but my intention isn’t to judge or to defame (no one I know now has any idea who I’m talking about anyways). I only wanted to express the burden I’ve had for you, because I’ve always cared even though we never got really close. How is it possible that I wrote so much about a girl I didn’t even really know too well? I don’t know. But I have this burden for certain girls I’ve come in contact over the years. I don’t want to see them get hurt and I don’t want to see them get lost. I don’t want them to have to deal with future breakups and divorces. I don’t want them to have to deal with relational and spiritual insecurities. I guess I need to realize I can’t change anyone. No doubt this will pass. It always does. But I don’t think I’ll ever forget about this girl and what might have been. It always seems to be this way for me. I meet a girl that seems to have all the right pieces except one. I’ve begun to accept that it’s not God’s way of torturing me, but God’s way of using me. Maybe she’ll find my website on Google one day and maybe she’ll read this. And maybe one day she’ll remember the One that gave everything he had for her, and maybe she’ll fall into his arms of love... ...or maybe i’m just over-emotionally overreacting. your litigation is with my personality then, not me. |