I suppose you could call this a continuation of the previous entry, A Life in the Day of Flood, as it is the same day. And the same life, for that matter. Colder now. Supposed to get to 15 degrees tonight. For South Carolina, that's arctic. After uploading the previous entry, I went web surfing and came across a cool site, BaddGrrl's Domain. (Feel free to browse there after you finish with me. Oh, and be sure to drop her a line explaining in great detail how you found her site, including the URL to my site.) And I read her rants, which were about the relationship between men and women.

After reading that, I braved the cold and went for a short walk down the railroad tracks in hopes of catching the train as it came back. (Which I did, I am happy to say, before I froze my ass off. Barely.) The first thing I did when I got my footing on the tracks was to look up at the sky. It is a clear night and there were a lot of stars in the sky. And a constellation or two. I'm guessing it was a Dipper, though I don't know enough astronomy to tell you which one.

And, of course, my mind began wandering. As I have told you before, looking at the stars grounds me in some way I still don't fully understand. But I do my best thinking while walking the railroad tracks. So a combonation of the two and I'm trouble! Soon, I was thinking of the last rant I wrote, which was my first one in some time. It felt good to write it even as I realize that my ranting is not as good when I write it as opposed to what I call my electronic diary. That is, the micro-cassette recorder I keep with me most times. But I'm getting there, I hope.

I was reminded of something I said in one of my first rants, a wish that I would be with a certain someone on New Years Eve. I realized that since I mentioned her in four of my previous five rants, I should fill you in on more of the details. To do so, however, is tantamount to breaking a confidence, I feel. But since it appears that this relationship is now over, I guess I can do it, though not with a clear conscience. But here goes...

First of all, I spent New Years Eve alone, watching Hootie and the Blowfish on VH1. Nothing against Hootie, a band that I like a bit, but I could think of other ways to I would have liked to have spent that night. And, in fact, I have thought of them all.

We met on-line. What's more is that we were both from the same, crummy South Carolina town. We chatted through ICQ for a while. At first, it was basically the on-line messages. Later, we moved on to actual chatting. Then, we decided to meet in person. We did this at the place she then worked since I needed some L&C pictures developed and she worked in the One Hour Photo Shop of a local retail store.

Soon, we were meeting outside her work. She even walked up the railroad tracks with me, a most definite plus. Things seemed to be moving toward a romantic relationship. I have gone out just a few times since my divorce. So, not only did I have to battle my shyness, I also had to go to war with other feelings associated with being a divorcee. I never really realized how tough the dating world would be after my marriage.

To add further restraints to this budding relationship was the fact that her own bad relationship was closer in her past than my divorce was to me. So we had a talk. We would take it slow. This was fine by me. I mean, I'm someone who knew my wife a total of four months before we stood in front of a judge. So if this girl wanted to take it slow, I had no problems with that.

Well, that's not really true.

One problem I had was that I found myself not allowing myself to even think about how much she meant to me. I don't know why I did this. It wasn't the typical male commitment problem. I would have had no problem committing to her for a long time. But I could not even begin to allow myself to think how much she meant to me.

And then she went more than a week without calling me, or returning my e-mails. I figured it was the time of the year, the holidays and all that. Plus, she had quit her job processing photographs and had begun working third shift at a textile mill in town. Additionally, I was aware that there were some family matters. A brother was coming into town for the first time since August, not to mention an illness to her grandfather.

So we began talking again. And she told me there was another reason for her absence. She had started to care for me deeply, she said, and got scared. She said there were many times she wanted to call or come by, but she wouldn't allow herself too. She mentioned when we met on-line that she was looking mainly for friendship, nothing more. But then things started happening. I was glad we had this talk. I told her I liked her a lot too. I took this conversation as a sign that things would begin moving again. I was wrong.

We had this conversation on the Sunday she began her third shift job. We made plans to go out the next Saturday and head down to Columbia. I was just shy of ecstatic. Except that I would still not allow myself to think about exactly what she meant to me. Long story short... We didn't go out. She called just as I was getting ready to tell me her grandfather had been rushed to the hospital. Obviously, I was disappointed. But I also understood.

After that, we drifted apart. Again, I used the same reasons listed above as why we could not get together. After a while, I quit e-mailing her, quit leaving ICQ messages for her. But deep down, I only wanted to be with her. I'm not sure if I quit trying to get in touch with her because I gave up on the possibility of us or if I was trying to get her to get in touch with me. Perhaps a male version of playing hard to get. Whatever the reason, it was not a conscious one.

Until last Sunday, when I sent one of those on-line greeting cards to her, a "Thinking Of You" card. But I could not help but to include a smart-ass comment in there. (It is my true nature, after all.) Something like this: "Just wanted to drop you a line to let you know I miss you even though the opposite is apparently not true." I originally had obviously in place of apparently, but ultimately took that word out. The next day, I got an e-mail from her. In this one, she said much of the same stuff she had told me before, adding now that she had (and this is an exact quote, mind you) "fallen hard for me." But she did not want to hurt me or to get hurt, though I'm guessing not in that exact order. So she had avoided me, and had done a damn good job at it, I might add.

Again, I thought that was a sign. Or rather, a hurdle. And I thought we were getting over that hurdle. To put it simply, I then viewed that e-mail as an explanation as to why she had been avoiding me in the past. Over the course of this past week as e-mails went unreplied to and phone calls have gone unreturned, I came to realize it was an explanation as to why she would not see me again.

There is a lot I am leaving out. I'm trying to give you an over view of this, a rather long footnote to the first few of these rants. So you may not have all of the evidence if you are trying to come up with an opinion on what really may have happened.

Which brings me to my next part of this rant. There are two people in my chat room who have continually given me good advice on this subject. And I do have a problem with asking people their opinions about my life, or confiding in them at the least. I'm not sure why I do this, but I find it has increased since I got on-line a year ago.

The worst advice, if you can call it that, I got was from a real life friend, my writing partner on "Jules." He asked if there was a possibility that she had told me this as a "nice way to let me down." (His words.) First of all, that would not be a nice way to let anyone down. In fact, it would be the meanest way possible short of murdering them. (Also, if you're going to let someone down, the best way to do that is to make up some reason to be mad at them, then talk bad about them behind their back. Everyone knows that.)

Another friend, someone I met on-line literally days after first getting connected, said she had "serious psychological issues." She then said I must have "had it bad for the girl." As if it were some sort of sickness, something that needed to be treated or something. Maybe there is some kind of anti-depressant I can take to cure my affliction.

First of all, she does not have serious psychological issues. As anyone who knows me can attest, I'm the one with the serious psychological issues. And since when does being hesitant to get involved with someone hint at any psychological issue? Sheesh! Secondly, I had not thought that maybe she had been leading me on until my friend brought it up. And there was a few minutes late one night when I considered the possibility. Maybe it's my ego, but I still don't believe it was that. Then again, that may hint at some serious psychological issue I need to deal with.
 
 

Joseph C. Hinson
 
 

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