You Can Learn A Lot From The Past

Case-in-point, the "Where Are They Now"s.

Eight years ago I met this girl whose mean trick totally backfired on her. She created a fake profile at some long-gone dating site just to mess with people. Well, to make a long story short, she falls in love with me and then has to come clean, saying she'll tell everyone how wonderful I am if I'll love her despite that pretty much being the worst I've ever been lied to in my life before or since.

I told her to beat it and she got all pissy saying I wouldn't love her for what was on the inside. That crutch of a line again... nothing good ever comes after that card's been played. Usually, it's a land-whale playing the card and playing the victim. This was one of those times, much to my dismay. I'll be honest, I was allowing this relationship to spark at long distance thinking I was getting involved with a cute, punky black-haired living-ball-of-energy chix0r who was an inch taller than me, aspired to work in a technical field, needed an escape from Pocatello, Idaho, was turning 18 in a few months and smiled all the time. And she liked me. Schweet! Even better, she was a Linkin Park fan without being all depressed and shit, unlike, for example, the mejority of Nirvana fans I've met.

What I got was not as advertised in any way. She was 16, four inches shorter, dark blonde hair, obviously never smiled, merely "liked computers" as opposed to being a code-poetess with a knack for databases, 180 pounds, and created the profile with malicious intent from the get-go. And all of that topped off with a voice deeper than mine. Wow, what a catch, right?

My heart was broken. It was bad enough she came clean in a letter in the mail, but to get a phone call not a minute after my mom handed me the letter and have to get a taste of the shit about to hit the fan made me want to cry out of frustration, anger and just plain having my heart broken. I remember it like it was minutes ago. She introduces herself and I hear the deep voice. Trying to be nice, I say "Wow, you _sound_ six feet tall." in my cheerful tone and not even regretting it the moment I realized what had happened, only moments before my heart broke and all my plans came to a shitty halt.

Well, to make a long story short, in the aftermath I got an attention-whoring mass-email some time later with her saying how she almost killed herself and feels like nobody likes her and all the usual garbage. As much as I have always held women in high esteem (sugar and spice, you know), my first thought was "try harder next time". It's really hard to make someone as happy-go-lucky as I was back then come to view someone as little more than the water and carbon from which the overwhelming majority of their living body is made--but she managed to do exactly that.

Well, some time later, as I'm working on the computer I was using during that whole thing, up pops an AOL IM window with her at the other end. I play nice because I'm really tired. Didn't last long. She sends me a JPEG and I'm detecting some pride in how she's chatting. I'm thinking it's one of those "I look good now" things, having had such an experience a year before.

Well, while the girl I crossed paths with had lost at least fifty pounds and looked freaking cute as hell, this was not the case with the liar. She was frowning, yet again, and had maybe lost a couple of pound recently after putting on another thirty since the photo she gave me when the cat was let out of the bag was taken.

She asks me if I think she looks better. I respond, "No, if anything you look worse. Would it kill you to smile?" And of course she blames me for making her feel bad. Insensitive as hell on my part, maybe, no, fuck that, yes, very and I'm glad. Old wounds don't like to be picked open, much less so with a rusty fishhook. It didn't help that my job (not the one I had when I met her. I got screwed out of that when being twisted became terrorism post 9-11) was turning me into an alcoholic at the time. I got plastered as hell that night.

It's always best to face down your issues in order to learn from them. I've been ready for years to post-process that whole debacle and see what is to be gained from it, just never really found myself that bored until I was stuck with two weeks of recovery from surgery and having my memory jogged by testing my old IM accounts and such told me it was a good time. And she had a unique enough name to make a Google search sound promising.

While I harbor resentment and ill-will toward her because I'm sure I'm not the only one she's treated like this, I'm not going to reveal her name here to save headaches. She'll know who she is and I doubt she'll ever read this. I'm not writing it for her.

A Google search turned up her Myspace blog and her entire Myspace page merely a click after that. I'd never forget the name and I'd never forget that soulless face no matter how hard I try. She's of the group of people I half-jokingly refer to as Pumpkins. He face carries the shape and expression characteristics of a typical Jack-O-Lantern, with the lack of a neck being the most garish characteristic.

A look at her blog page showed there was an aftershock to this quake, namely, her age. I did the math when it didn't look right. Uh oh, she was non only not almost 18, she wasn't 16, either. She was barely 15 when we "met" (never did meet face to face).

Her blog went back three years. That's quite a window into a person's soul.

There's poetry on the page. She's not a bad poet, but knowing what extra I do makes bullshit real easy to spot.

Here we have it, dishing about school, growing up, moving out, work, relationships and then the excuses and anger start flying with "let's just be friends" as the catalyst. She alienates her entire target audience in one fell-swoop just because she somehow thinks not being a Size Zero is worse than being a depressed basket-case who probably sucks every ounce of happinesss out of the room upon entry. And no eyes look good without a smile.

"Let's just be friends" means get your shit together and we'll talk. Until then, I'm waiting in the wings. If you follow that with what she did, it's your own damn fault. What gets me is she thinks a boob job is going to fix her problems, but is too self-righteous to consider it. She needs to move that evaluation up a foot or four to her head.

Almost a year later she posts lamenting about some fling with a guy who was drunk and searching for a place to park his Peter Griffin, throwing in that she swings both ways, which, she implies, goes without saying. News to me. Reminds me, fishing seasons starts soon. I'm seeing a pattern. She's banging the guy for half the week, flips out on him, blames it on depression and then wonders why he doesn't show back up. I feel bad for the dude. He didn't know what he was getting into.

And again with more of the excuses about how he doesn't like her because she's intimidating him sexually and isn't a skinny supermodel. I bet his actual words were "fat and scary".

She goes on to complain about how guys can't just like her for who she is. Yeah, I've experienced that first-hand and it's very self-explanatory. She talks about how she must be okay because she's okay enough to bone, overlooking the fact the guy wasn't sober once during their brief relationship. Then she complains about mind games. Oh the irony. Karma's a bitch.

She concludes that entry with an open "screw you" to all men. Well, at least she can still munch rug, but I'm sure the Blood Alcohol Content is really no different.

Things get deeper later. She talks about suicidal thoughts and claims she's never been suicidal. Either she's lying about that or she's lying about this being any different from any other time she's almost killed herself.

Another post and she's talking about loving someone with all her hear and then, in the same run-on sentence, bashes him. "Let's Just Be Friends!" again... maybe he's waiting for her to drop a couple hundred pounds in hopes her hormones won't still be all fucked up afterward?

Another post she's talking about attracting perverts. Hate to break it to her, but when a guy worships the ground you walk on solely because of a biological problem you possess, that's a perversion. The FA type aren't too fringe to have their own CSI episode, but Feeders are and that fetish is basically torture and murder with different packaging.

Another post and she's trying to convince herself she's a great person... just keep telling yourself that.

New years mean new goals and she's got some. I hope it works. I only require seven years bad luck.

Next post she's playing What if games. Those are never a useful way to spend time when they are about the past.

Interesting she keeps mentioning Oregon. That was where I wanted to eventually move to when I thought she was the punky cute girl in the photos she provided. Don't know if I ever mentioned that to her, though. Why would that be a sticking point anyway? Oregon isn't all that special. If you want special, there's Washington.

Moving on, it seems she's doing what I did once, allowing feelings for a member of the opposite sex influence faith. And she's treating this like it's her last chance at love and already planning life out. Oh I feel so bad for this guy.

... and like that she's a Jehovah's Witness. Better yeat, it sounds like they were made for each other.

This sounds like the ending to an absurdist parody story. However, if there's one thing I've learned about JWs, it's that becoming one is merely the beginning. Oh boy howdy is it ever! I think the rest would pretty much write itself, but it's kind of boringand I'm out of monkeys and typewriters. They went Union on me.