Summer of 2007, the cyberspace between Vermont and California

By Ethel Slocombe

My online boyfriend just online-let-me-down-easy. I didn’t even know that was possible.

I recently broke up with my real-life, of-the-flesh boyfriend, an event that ended up dragging itself out over the better part of a year. I was caught in one of those relationships in which both parties are extremely comfortable but not exactly well-suited for one another or - what’s that other thing again? Oh, yes - happy and in love.

After a year and a half of tepid, mind-drenching boredom laced with an unhealthy dose of incompatibility, I wasn’t exactly ready for another relationship - or as I’ve come to lovingly refer to one, a personality murder-suicide pact for the soul.

One day, out of sheer boredom, I got to looking up people from my past. We’ve all done it, usually while goofing off at work - and don’t lie to me on this one; most of us would hang drywall all day if it kept us from doing what we actually, technically, are on the payroll to do. So I started with ex-boyfriends, then moved on to, dare I say, ex-lovers, but eventually, I just plumb ran out of people.

After coming up empty on the guy who lived below me freshman year of college and used to let me borrow his vacuum, I was forced to dig deeper, and I ended up finding this boy I knew from high school. I choose the word boy because he happened to be three grades below me and was somewhat inclined toward the meek and tiny.

As a seventh-grader, he moved into the locker next to mine, replacing the former senior girl who used to habitually obstruct my locker to make out with her various douche bag suitors. I was quite pleased at the prospects of being the one who would demand respect, for once.

It turned out that I didn’t need to demand respect because he was always so soft-spoken and polite. He had a bit of the look of a scared, trapped animal, and I just tried to stay out of his way.

By the time I was a senior and he was a freshman, he started to talk to me more. In fact, he’d become a right little flirt. As goes the rule of thumb with most crushes, proximity is everything (you are there, therefore I like you), and I began to foster a forbidden crush on him.

The reason I remembered him at all was that I had actually seen him for the first time in maybe a decade this past Christmas. Mind you, I was still in my pointless relationship at the time, and my spirit was still impaired enough at that point that I couldn’t quite muster any real desire to make conversation.

I still remember what he looked like, though, standing there by the exit as we left; he was staring at me with those big sweet eyes, and I could tell that he wanted to say something. Part of me really thought that the look meant that he must be jonesin’ for me, but I don’t like to get a big head; as history dictates, I’m usually 100 percent wrong in these situations.

My point is this, and we all get there in our own time: he looked good. Damn good.

I did what any girl of the MySpace generation would do: I hunted him down and wrote him a brief message describing said forbidden crush. To be cute, I tossed in the tantalizing little phrase “online boyfriend” to see if he’d bite. Instantly feeling stupid upon hitting “send,” I was sure that he’d never respond.

But he did. He even went so far as to say he’d had a crush on me in high school, too, and that he’d be my online boyfriend anytime.

This was big, I mean huge. Well, not really, but it was a pleasant diversion and a self-esteem boost. Plus, something about the innocence of communicating with someone who lives 3,000 miles away is just the perfect amount of commitment for someone like me, true to her solemn vow never to date seriously again.

To sum up a drawn-out and pointless (I really need to find another word to describe my love life) three-week “relationship” of virtual proportions, I actually started really digging this guy.

He just so happened to embody every single quality that I would hypothetically look for in an actual, of-the-flesh boyfriend, if one were actually into that sort of thing. We also seemed to have a lot in common, both having gotten caught jumping out of the first-story window of our high-school English classes, for the love of Pete. Seriously, Pete, I love you, but who does that?

My OLBF (online boyfriend), as I had come to affectionately call him, was earthy, adventurous, and forthright, without being pretentious and annoying; sweet, thoughtful, and humble, but not in an “I’ll carry your purse, but, just be forewarned that it might inspire me to get one of my own” kind of way.

I am no romantic; not in any way the sort of girl who has actual informed opinions on why an autumn wedding would suit her more than, say, one during the summertime. The idea of long-term commitment or monogamy in general kind of freaks me out, and I actually have about four major reasons why I find the whole concept of marriage morally reprehensible.

Honestly, all I was hoping for out of the whole OLBF situation was, at best, a Christmastime fling. I know it sounds lame, but I was actually thinking, “Well, if worst comes to worst, at least maybe I can look forward to some no-strings-attached, but not completely gross and random, boy-girl action in the next six months. Give or take.”

To be truthful, I had no expectations whatsoever. But at some point, I became unexpectedly fascinated by this creature, who, for all I knew, was sleeping in a tree house somewhere in Vermont, living off the income of hand-painted dried gourds, which he peddled at local farmer’s markets and swap meets, making just enough loot to keep him in loin cloths and feed himself beef jerky. It’s so rare for me to find someone I am interested in knowing, someone I find attractive to boot. I was captivated.

That is, until two days ago, when the proverbial castle of online dreams came crumbling down to its foundation.

I received the following e-mail (names and scenarios have been changed to protect the pathetic and/or ridiculous):

Dear Ethel,Please forgive me for taking so long to respond to your last message. It really isn’t personal, but the thing is this: I think you’re a really nice, attractive person. In fact, if we were ever got a chance to actually hang out, there’s no doubt in my mind that we’d absolutely hit it off.

But there’s a problem, and that is, I’m starting to feel disconnected from the actual people in my life who I would otherwise see on a daily basis, if not for the fact that I am cooped up indoors working on responses to e-mails all day. So I guess my point is, I’ve just been having second thoughts about this whole thing, what I’m in it for.

I would still like to write to you occasionally, when the mood strikes, perhaps, but I just felt like I should let you know where I’m coming from. I don’t want to disappoint you, because you are a great girl with so much to offer.

Take care,
Leonard

I couldn’t believe that he was dumping me. Was it because I wouldn’t online-consummate?

I may know nothin’ ‘bout romance except, apparently, that in the world of online dating, relationships are the same as they are in the actual physical world: 1) Boys are still boys; they just can’t commit. And 2) breaking up is still just breaking up; it’s frightening how well the whole “it’s not you, it’s me,” and “you’re gonna do just fine without me, kid,” routines translate into the cyberworld.

I suppose that you could say I have learned a lot from this experience. The first thing being that deadpan humor does not “read,” or translate. The second being that it is easy to become jaded by the woes of relationships - you know, all the crap (like breaking up) that makes them so incredibly unworthwhile.

But as easy as writing off the whole situation is, it is just as easy to let yourself “feel that way,” even when it doesn’t make sense - no, especially when it doesn’t make sense.

P.S. Leonard, you should know that I was messaging-around behind your back the whole time. Oh, that, and, um, my computer kinda has this … virus. I’m not saying I got it from you; I’m just saying that maybe you should scan your hard drive, stud.

Ethel Slocombe is a 26-year-old dog lover from upstate New York currently residing in Southern California. She also loves kittens.