The beauty of this site is that you can let your freak flag fly. And the concept of the noble loner has always fascinated me. So I had fun updating the meme to the 21st Century. I am still not sure what category this belongs in. It has a lot of the elements of Romance. But I am really exploring how the brave new world of cyberspace impacts conventional man-woman relationships. So I stuck with loving wives I hope you enjoy it.
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Maybe I'm lazy, or "deep and damaged". Or maybe I'm just a flaming nerd. But for as long as I can remember my sole aim has been to keep as far away as possible from the human race.
I work at home. My co-worker and best friend is canine. He might slobber and he's smelly. But he doesn't play ego games, or back- stab. And he is always unconditionally there for me.
My world was perfect until SHE appeared in the Garden. The god who loves messing with me didn't even need a rib. The fucker just dropped her in via the internet. I called her Biff.
Biff and I lived together in cyberspace. I came to worship the beauty and perfection of her mind, and the deep humanity of her soul. We were two virtual entities with one beating heart.
And then one day Biff just evaporated into the aether, ripping my heart out as she went.
Three years later she reappeared in real-space. And because karma is a genuinely heartless bitch, she was gorgeous.
Of course she was! No dangling a flat chested nerd-girl with glasses and a painfully sincere smile in front of this poor sucker. That would have made it far too easy. What I got was a totally unapproachable demi-goddess.
Did I mention that the fates laugh their asses off at me?
And to add ever so much more agony to the cosmic joke, Biff was ALSO happily married to the only male semi-friend I have ever had.
To be honest, I think I was actually the dude's work assignment, not a friend. My Kung-Fu is most excellent. So, I am a valuable asset to anybody who employs me. But what I call "normal", is what most people would call "bizarre". He seemed to be in charge of riding herd on me.
His name was Julian. Her name was Hannah. They were a golden couple. Julian was an impossibly handsome and self-assured alpha-male. Hannah was the hottest thing ever minted in the heavenly factory that makes stunning women.
She was so beautiful that she even had Julian's number. He could get any woman he wanted. But he was insanely jealous and possessive of his wife. I didn't blame him since she was a one in a million trophy.
The problem was that the poor fucker had no clue as to what he had actually married. He saw hot, check! Beautiful, check! Socially accomplished, check! Loving, check!
What he didn't see was Hannah's rare and exceptional intelligence.
Fate likes to cast me in the role of stooge. So the day I met Hannah I discovered that she was also my Biff.
How else could the merciless sons-of-a-bitches up there get their kicks?
I knew everything about Hannah because we had been sublimely joined in cyberspace. So I had a much better idea about what made her tick.
For a couple of months I played Cyrano de Bergerac to Julian's Christiane. I really tried my best. My love for Biff was a love that I knew would never happen. Honestly!! I knew that. So what was the point in my NOT helping them?
Then, Julian insisted that I talk to Hannah about a dark presence that he sensed had come between him and his wife. That entity, with no lack of celestial irony, turned out to be me.
So I did what I always do when things get intense, I ran home and locked the door.
I woke up the next day praying that I would never see either of them again. Seriously! I hoped that she would just let me get back to my simple nerd existence.
Of course the god who likes to watch me twist in the wind couldn't let THAT happen.
The email came in off the darkweb while I was having my morning bowl of Captain Crunch. It was anonymized. It said, "We have to talk - love -Biff."
I dropped the bowl. I would rather have encountered a thoroughly pissed off Rattlesnake in my in-box. I walked around the thing for a couple of hours, looking at it like it actually had rattles. Finally I took a deep breath and sat down to compose my reply.
I said, "What's the point Biff? What are we going to learn if we talk?
"I know that conventional rules don't apply to virtual relationships. But do you seriously believe that you could sit Julian down, explain our situation and NOT have the guy go all psycho jealous husband on you? Because I don't!"
She must have been sitting next to her computer. The reply came back immediately,
"He doesn't own me and what we have doesn't threaten him in any aspect of our married life. This is not an ethical issue because you and I are not falling in love over the internet. We have already gone as far down THAT road as two people can possibly go.
"Can you deny that you love me with all of your soul? Because I love you with mine."
I shot back, "REALLY???!! You have to ask THAT? You know that you are the other half of me. I don't think you can even describe it as love, except as we love ourselves.
"That's why this doesn't seem right. IF we correspond like we did before I don't think that your husband would see that as anything but a betrayal on your part."
If you can read anger in an email message, her reply was smoking, "I am a little disappointed in you. The damage is done. Our situation won't change. That is the reality. Are you going to be able to forget what we had together if we stop talking again?"
Women! The practical sex.
I fired back, "Seriously?? Seriously??!! I have nobody in my life but you. Your statue is sitting all by itself in the little shrine that I built in my heart. It will leave that place when that organ stops beating!!"
She came back with, "And I have not lost an iota of the connection that I feel with you. We still share a passionate love outside the bounds of holy matrimony. Even if it all took place in virtual space and before I met Julian.
"You know the part about forsaking all others? If my husband knew how much I loved you he would bury me in the back yard.
"The appropriate question is, how could he be hurt, except in his monstrous ego?
"Are you planning on fucking me? That would fit the definition of cheating, not chatting with me about the concept of intelligent design."
I sent back a smiley face and added, "You are so far beyond me in real-space that the concept of fucking you is as unimaginable as string theory.
"Julian thinks so much of my chances that he spent all last night trying to get you helplessly drunk so that I could take you off alone into a dark corner.
"Would he leave his totally wasted wife in that hands of any of his stud friends? I think not!! "
She said somewhat wistfully, "All you would have to do is ask you know. My body aches for you.
"Remember, the impossibility of having you was the reason why I ended it.
"Nonetheless, the question remains, who would be hurt if we got the band back together. And more importantly why would that be wrong?
"What would be the safe ethical boundaries if we do? I imagine that all discussions about Julian and my sex life are out."
She had no idea how much I DIDN'T want to hear about her sexuality. Unfortunately I had witnessed it and even thinking about how hot she is still sends me into a jealous frenzy.
She finished with, "What else would have to happen to fit within your moral frame?"
The woman was a genius. Of course I already knew that. The minute I started arguing with her I had stepped onto her slippery slope. Now I was rocketing down it like I was on a bobsled.
I knew in my practical mind that ninety-nine point nine percent of our discussions could be carried out in the Library without offending anybody's sensibilities.
Julian should not be morally outrage over two people of the same intellectual caliber engaging in the kind of rational debate that Biff and I normally undertook.
In that respect then, Julian was treading on her and my right to simple human interaction by not understanding what we were doing.
On the other hand their married connection was supposed to be special, something so deep that only a husband and wife would share. And that wasn't the case here.
The only special connection in this triangle was between Biff and me, not Hannah and Julian. That was a fact. And it had been a fact well before the two of them met.
The crux of the problem was that Biff and I would share a little secret that Julian wasn't in on. And secrets are the first nail in the coffin of every marriage.
The Bible doesn't have a chapter that covers virtual morality. Nevertheless it was still a dilemma. No husband would like to find out that their wife was deeply in love with another man, even if that man was virtual.
I was dead certain that, Hannah would never leave Julian, or even treat him differently, based on our relationship in cyberspace. So all of the conventional reasons for calling this adultery were out the window.
There was no reason to make a hasty decision. So I decided to kick the can down the road. I had not corresponded with Biff in over three years. Maybe something would be different? Time and additional familiarity would tell the tale.
The fact was, spending hours debating The Community of Man just didn't feel like cheating. All we would have to do was tread lightly around matters of sex and their relationship. The morality of that was ambiguous but not absolutely wrong.
It was just that I knew good old affable Julian. He really believed that women were put on this earth for the simple purpose of pleasing him. Combined with his understandable instinct to go ballistic if Hannah was anything but totally focused on him, the niceties of boundaries wouldn't mean a lick to him.
Therefore, his feelings would have to be factored into any decisions that we made going forward. Hannah would be a problem since she was very dismissive of Julian. It was like she was dealing with a rambunctious 12 year old. That attitude might make her walk onto thin ice for both of us.
Whatever Biff's attitude about him, I still felt like I had to ask Julian whether it was okay.
I was not going to reveal the depth of things. But since all that we intended to do was chat, I figured that I should make Julian aware of what we planned to do. That would fulfill my obligations under the "guy rule".
I had dropped off a project and we were having our usual debrief over a pitcher at Clyde's in Tysons.
I said, "I have a favor to ask."
I had his attention. He asked ME favors, not the other way around.
I said, "Hannah and I have a lot of things in common and I want to chat with her."
He was unmoved. He said, "What's chatting?"
Great! I'm talking to a guy who thinks that the only function of the internet is to transmit porn and cute kittens.
I said, "It's where two people get together on a website and talk back and forth like they are having a conversation.