Part 3: The story of K
So I’m on this dating site looking for the proverbial unicorn, the elusive HBB (Google it if you don’t know what that means). A while ago I noticed an interesting person but she was not very close to my age, didn’t live in Asheville, and was neither polyamorous nor bisexual. I moved on. Apparently that wasn’t good enough for her so she contacted me saying she was impressed with the balance I had found and who I had become, smothering me with ego strokes. What I found was an amazing women engineering student. The more we spoke the more she reminded me of myself somewhere around the time of the end of chapter one of this story. For some reason remembering my past and how I got past these struggles was very satisfying and helped put my current world in perspective. Hearing about her struggles again, which sounded so familiar, felt good, because I knew I had been though the same things and came out pretty good. In fact she sounded to be in a better place with better odds than I. I tried to show her this but I know only the rear view mirror of time will allow one to see that. So I also felt I had something to offer her, wishing someone had been there in a similar place for me then. But hearing my old self in her over and over was some sort of soothing closure to the memories of days when I was not as happy as I am today. And so though this I wanted to get to know her better.
Time went on and we hacked some sort of odd friendship from this. I became more and more impressed with the person she was and wanted to somehow contribute to her life. Since she was but an Internet persona, and I was somewhat uncomfortable with the fact that I met her on a dating site yet and that was not where we seemed to be heading. How could I remove the “dating” part from the platonic friendship part? It is hard to remove that reality from the picture. I played a few games in that I mostly talked to her via Skype and never tried to actually speak to her voice in any way. I guess on some level I was hoping to keep emotionally disconnected else I might have to confront that she is probably also someone I could fall for. In my mind I longed for a replacement for V and so in my mind that is who I wanted her to become and who I pictured her becoming. I didn’t allow for any other realities least I have to confront something I was not ready for.
After several months of chatting it became pretty obvious that we can and should meet in real life. So a bit after New Years K came to spend the weekend with us. Well, as you can imagine, I set my self up for things not matching the picture I had created in my mind. Of course K was not V for so many reasons. K is her own unique individual and self and more importantly the big difference between when I met K and V was that V was at the same place in life as me, and together we explored life and moved forward together. K was the person I was at age 20, not the person I am at today at age 40. I can admire and appreciate the person I was at 20, but I am no longer there. What I set up was a way over intense weekend between the three of us (K, myself and my partner) where I probably grilled her with way to many questions and dove way to deep into her personal life. I leaned what an amazing person she was on so many levels and realized how set she is to grow into the most amazing and capable women. The kind my friends would have drooled over to be with when I was younger (and now for that matter as well). But intensity births connection and the surprise of the weekend for me was that I fell for her. Whether I feel for the person she is, the person I see her becoming, the person I wanted her to be, or the person I once was in some sort of twisted Narcissistic way I don’t know yet. I was looking for a V replacement, I got something else. It was all I allowed my mind to envision; yet I had to process something else. That I guess, we will have to sort out ourselves later. Perhaps what it was best able to help me process is my love and sadness at the loss of V, and to put some sort of closer on that again. Perhaps I need to drive out to where V lives and try again, or perhaps I need to just let that be a part of my old life and move on. At any rate I’m looking forward to a new friendship with K and anyone else that comes my way as I continue on this journey of life.
It’s been really great getting to know you K and I look forward to a long friendship and more interpersonal growth that you bring.
Hawker
P.S. The day I posted part II I heard that V lost one more thing, her freedom. She is 1 ½ months into about a 7 ½ month sentence. This will most likely mean she will also loose her house this time. Perhaps though this she can finally get the help she needs. I sure do miss her.