Contact

From time to time the Girl of My Dreams finds me somewhere on the Internet and contacts me. And by “dreams”, I mean the ones I have on the bad nights.

Several years ago I got some emails from somebody going under pseudonym, who knew me and was asking how I was doing and such. I kept trying to find out who it was, and when she finally revealed herself, I simply deleted them and didn’t reply further. A couple weeks later I got an indignant “how dare you” letter decrying the fact that I’m so rude for not wanting to talk to her, as I’m a person she cares about so much. The tone of the email was a brilliant illustration of exactly what was wrong with her back when — no ability to conceive that the problem could be her.

Six months ago or so she found me on a social networking site, (FacesterSpace. Surely you’ve heard of it?), and “friended” me. I accepted. I’m still not sure why.

Part of me wanted to see her. Not “go visit” see, but see a photo of her. And there she was. Married. Two kids. Going on and on about her beautiful adorable babies and her wonderful sexy husband. (In fact she gushes so much I can’t help wondering if she’s trying to convince herself of something.)

Looking at the pictures was strange. She was unfamiliar by virtue of time passed — but familiar by dint of past association. A ghost of the past, still alive out there in the world.

I think another part of what made me want to see her was that it made her less of a phantom. Something that can be grasped can be controlled. If I know that she’s there, then surely I’m not going to bump into her walking around the next corner.

And yet the whole thing makes me uncomfortable. I don’t really want my other friends to see her on my list. I don’t want her popping up and leaving comments on my page as though we’re old chums. Like a dog going back to its own vomit, there’s a compulsion to maintain this link. I want her gone, but I don’t.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the past. Not even necessarily about that time period, but all the people I’ve known, and all the lost opportunities. Friendships that faded, girls I should have dated, jobs I should have taken. My life is filled with the ghosts of things that should have been. I spend so much time in the past that the physical present is a difficult thing to deal with. In my dreams I can fly. In the waking world I can barely get off the couch.

And in the course of our past relationship, especially as it got really bad, I remember wanting it to work even as I knew that it couldn’t possibly. Wishing desperately that all this pain could come to something good. If only she (or I) were somehow different, it could be a good relationship instead of the hideous mess that it was.

And I think that my mind is playing the same trick to this day. I know so clearly what a mess it was, and there is no desire to even see her again — but some corner of my mind keeps clawing at the idea that there’s something worth keeping. Why can’t I just cut it loose? Why can’t she just forget I exist? Why can’t she just cease to exist? Why can’t I?