Space_Dandy
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2014
Have any of you had a similar experience?
Pre-smartphones, the internet was so much smaller. Less corporate. And just more honest in a lot of ways.
Being a teen in these years, I remember finding a girl in a chatroom, she was my age. Both of us felt like outcasts, both of us had difficult home lives with divorced parents, moving, custody battles, etc. She understood me in ways I felt nobody else ever had. Not just showing polite concern, but having her own thoughts that gave me so much insight. We taught each other so many things, confided our secrets, shared our troubles. Made each other laugh with an accumulation of our own little in-jokes and references.
Logging in and chatting with her for hours on AIM and Yahoo was so exciting to me. I'd think about her all day. I felt so incapable of helping her. I looked for ways I could show her my appreciation. I wrote her poems, stories, drew her pictures, sent cards...
Later we talked on the phone, and my heart skipped a beat at hearing her voice. Just knowing this was the voice behind countless hours spent together, laughing, crying, or just being available for each other... made it beautiful.
We stayed in touch for years. Eventually we gave up on our aspirations of ever having a real relationship... even though discussing our future lives together, our wedding, even our kids, was a favorite topic of ours. But even with that dream put to rest, I cared about her so much as a person. I couldn't not be there for her in some small way.
Then she got with a controlling, redneck, abusive boyfriend in college. They got married. He didn't like her talking to me, so that was the end of that.
I heard from her years later, they ended up getting divorced after he beat her up. She had gotten remarried to a great guy and he gave her that beautiful family she told me she wanted, all those years ago.
I heard a song for the first time tonight, Love & IM in '05. It's lyrics killed me. Tears are streaming down my face, it made me truly remember just how much I loved her, and how agonizing it was to know deep down that we could never be together. I prayed for a miracle so many times.
It's the kind of reckless, overwhelming love that only a teen tasting love for the first time could have. And I had forgotten just how real it was for me.
Pre-smartphones, the internet was so much smaller. Less corporate. And just more honest in a lot of ways.
Being a teen in these years, I remember finding a girl in a chatroom, she was my age. Both of us felt like outcasts, both of us had difficult home lives with divorced parents, moving, custody battles, etc. She understood me in ways I felt nobody else ever had. Not just showing polite concern, but having her own thoughts that gave me so much insight. We taught each other so many things, confided our secrets, shared our troubles. Made each other laugh with an accumulation of our own little in-jokes and references.
Logging in and chatting with her for hours on AIM and Yahoo was so exciting to me. I'd think about her all day. I felt so incapable of helping her. I looked for ways I could show her my appreciation. I wrote her poems, stories, drew her pictures, sent cards...
Later we talked on the phone, and my heart skipped a beat at hearing her voice. Just knowing this was the voice behind countless hours spent together, laughing, crying, or just being available for each other... made it beautiful.
We stayed in touch for years. Eventually we gave up on our aspirations of ever having a real relationship... even though discussing our future lives together, our wedding, even our kids, was a favorite topic of ours. But even with that dream put to rest, I cared about her so much as a person. I couldn't not be there for her in some small way.
Then she got with a controlling, redneck, abusive boyfriend in college. They got married. He didn't like her talking to me, so that was the end of that.
I heard from her years later, they ended up getting divorced after he beat her up. She had gotten remarried to a great guy and he gave her that beautiful family she told me she wanted, all those years ago.
I heard a song for the first time tonight, Love & IM in '05. It's lyrics killed me. Tears are streaming down my face, it made me truly remember just how much I loved her, and how agonizing it was to know deep down that we could never be together. I prayed for a miracle so many times.
It's the kind of reckless, overwhelming love that only a teen tasting love for the first time could have. And I had forgotten just how real it was for me.
