His name is Jan. (I know… it’s a girl’s name… his full name is also the same as a wife-beating actor, and believe me, that’s not the only thing I would like to hold against him). Jan and I have the oddest of relationships. We met once, by chance, at a party in the middle of nowhere. We barely spoke at all, but somehow we exchanged e-mail addresses and added each other to msn. As creepy as it was, I felt like I really wanted to talk to him, so I did. Well innocent instant messaging quickly sprung into a full on online love affair.
We told each other everything. The secrets I am telling you here, dear reader, are less involved than the ones I shared with him. Some days when I was down even lower the proverbial “dumps” I would hope to whatever supreme being was in existence that he would be online so he could bring me back to social consciousness.
But sometimes he wanted to call me, or meet up with me in a distant city. I never wanted to. Why, do you ask, dear reader? Probably because I contain estrogen. What was “Jan” but a different colour font in my message window? He had no voice, no face, no breathe. Was he anything more than a flattering auto-response programmed to tell me whatever will make me feel good? Was his immensely dysfunctional lifestyle nothing but a computerized ploy to make me feel like I was saving someone? I actually talked him out of killing himself, I spoke to him to stop his quivering after having a gun to his head and begging for sweet relief, I talked him through rehab, and through family fights. I talked to him through welfare all the way into a steady job and new house and car. I talked him through the pain he experienced when his girlfriend made the decision to abort his child. Was he just a project to me? Was I just an anonymous voice to him? It all seemed that way until he admitted to me how much he needed me. The most powerful words I ever heard from a person were in bright blue Tahoma font on a white screen with a puppy background. He told me that he wouldn’t be alive today if he didn’t have me. Well, dear reader, I don’t know if you have ever experienced that kind of a feeling, but I promise you it moves you in ways you never thought possible.
So to him, I was much more than a type font. I tried so hard to convince myself that I felt the same about him, but something about the layer of my computer screen was comforting and shielding. But to be honest, dear reader, I was borderline in love. He was all I thought about, and all I tried my hardest not to talk about. I would eat my dinner faster so I could run upstairs and make sure I didn’t miss a message from him, and I would specifically think at moments “I can’t wait to tell Jan about this.” We would talk each other to sleep alternating telling bedtime stories to each other, most of them ending in “and then he met this girl online and they fell madly in love.” So at this point, you ask, why didn’t I do it? Why didn’t I go meet him when he came to visit Toronto? He told me he was coming, and believe me, I wanted to see him. But I have to explain. I am a suburban girl with the most “normal” family life. He was the definition of “bad” and “wrong” in the most superficial sense, but deepdown he was the most kind hearted person in the world. I could never explain him to anyone, especially myself. So when he came to Toronto I convinced myself that I had to be in St. Catherines the same weekend and fled off leaving him with a disappointing text message. I felt so terrible, but at the same time, so relieved. And that feeling of relief just lead to deeper guilt which I can barely recover from to this day.
So after the weekend, we had a conversation where he told me about his trip to the city. He had a great time… in fact… he met a girl…. his new girlfriend. I was heartbroken, but we had both had dates and partners as we spoke, as we knew that our relationship didn’t go much farther than our keyboards. But then months passed where we didn’t speak. This happened often when because his job required him to move every few months and sometimes he stayed in hotels with no internet and I would miss him on his internet cafe ventures. So after a few months he surprised me with a real phone call. I barely recognized his voice, but once he said “It’s me, Jan,” I had a full body chill such as I imagine Julia Robert’s tries to portray in all over her crappy movies. I could barely contain my excitement and flat out admitted how happy I was to be speaking to him. That’s when he told me he had to ask me the most important question he ever has. I knew it was big because he had asked me about many life-shattering things in the past. I was nervous, excited, scared, and images and thoughts passed through my mind at a rapid speed. But it all came to an earth shattering halt when he finally asked his question… “How should I propose to my girlfriend?”
It was like a scene in a movie when the protagonist is seemingly standing still while the entire background spins in rapid circles as the character’s face becomes drenched with sweat. I took a breathe deeper than the Atlantic and said “Wow…. let me think about this one.” I told him I would think about it, and then I pretended to want to hear about their developing love life while in my head I was repeatedly uttering “THAT SHOULD BE ME! I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE HE MET IN TORONTO. THIS SHOULD BE ME!”
So, dear reader, our relationship was a whirlwind wild ride that has been reduced to nothing but these few words formatted into a lame poem:
You have been almost everywhere
But you have never been here
And it might be my fault
In fact I think it is
My shyness held me back
And now you have found yourself
Somebody else
And now I am giving you
All of your advice
When I really don’t want this
New girl to be your wife
But I think that I am just being selfish
I don’t want to marry you
But I love what the two of us share
And I don’t want that to change
Not a single bit
I love you so much
And everything we have
And I know I want more
But if you married, and you are settled down
Where does that leave me?
Can you still have an inappropriate friendship
Where you are completely open
With someone the same gender as your spouse?
And I don’t think that I should be the one
To break up a marriage
This girl might be perfect
And I know you are not perfect
I think I am the only one who knows that you aren’t perfect
And that’s why I am upset
I want to keep knowing everything, and keep telling you everything
I just want to be who I am… and for that never to change
You have been everywhere but here
And I think if you had, things would be different
I just want to see you
But I don’t even trust you
Could you be my friend?
I think you would go farther
And I know all about you
Even about her
So I don’t want to see you
Unless I know it’s different
But it will not be different
Because you have been everywhere but here
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