Leaping Off the High Dive

I'm afraid.

I'm exhilarated.

I'm frightened.

I'm excited.

I'm going to open myself. I don't know if this is the right thing to do. I only know I must do it.

After all, what kind of life is it if you cannot takes risks?

No life at all.

I want a life.

I want people in my life.

I have to learn to let them in.

Especially when they are patiently persistent.

Wish me luck.

And, please, be there if I need to be picked up off the floor.

Again.

Cyber Enemies

Well, I guess I should have seen it coming.

I have made my very first cyber enemy. I've been a bit shocked about it, I must say. Because, up until now, I have had nothing but good experiences with the people I have met online. Even when we disagree vehemently about something (well, usually politics or religion), most of my cyber-acquaintances are reasonable people who can deal with differences among friends.

I have finally found one who can't. Well, I can't really say she was ever my friend because she never deigned to talk to me in the three or so years I've been hanging around online. I wasn't really a part of her circle, she wasn't around much, and our interests didn't often intersect. So that was fine with me.

Until recently. And, of course, it would have to be the Super Bowl that did it. Apparently, according to this person, Pittsburgh people are obnoxious. And she hates the Steelers. And it was obvious to her that the refs cheated, the Steelers cheated, and the Bengals, Colts, Broncos, and, most especially, the Seahawks were robbed. And besides, Pittsburgh and the people there suck. Even though she's never been here. Or met me. Or, apparently, anyone else from Pittsburgh.

And then I committed the cardinal sin of praising the people of my fair city when they made me especially proud. Again, I had to hear about how I, the Steelers, and the entire Pittsburgh metropolitan area are all obnoxious and should really just shut the hell up.

And then, in a perfect example of how the most innocuous thing can set some unstable people off, I actually ventured an opinion about pizza. To anyone who knows me, the opinion I stated would have come off as one of my smartass remarks that, though it is stated in no uncertain terms, should be taken as mock authoritative. But, since this person has never taken an interest in me or what I am about, it actually generated one of the most hostile replies I have ever received online. AND ALL OVER A FUCKING PIZZA POST?????????

So, being the reasonable person that I am, I decided to PM her. In the hope that we could get to know each other and perhaps find a way to get along. Here's what I said in a PM I called "Get a grip":

"Look. You don't know me and I don't know you. So maybe we have begun on a bad note and I'll try to let you know a little about me so you can decide whether I'm the bitch you seem to think I am and vice versa. I'm often sarcastic and I love satire. I have a great capacity for friendship and no one who really knows me thinks I am a know-it-all. Do I think I'm an expert? On some things. Mainly having to do with my profession, my academic background, my interests like football and cooking, and my friends and family. Otherwise, I'm perfectly willing to admit that I don't know what I'm talking about. But that doesn't mean that I won't weigh in if I want to. No one has ever accused me of being shy or caring if people don't like what I have to say. You need to stop taking everything I say so seriously. Except when people insult my football team and imply insult to my city, I am joking most of the time. And I think the people who know me know when I am using a bit of hyperbole. You might want to spend some time getting to know me well enough to know when that is. Or you might not. Either way, I'm fine with that. But if you choose not to, at least do me the favor of getting off my back. I don't care to get into the pissing match you seem to want and I'd just like to avoid the conflict here if that is possible. I really do hope you'll take this message in the spirit in which it is offered. "

Not necessarily the friendliest note I've ever written, but not hostile, either. I really thought it seemed reasonable and offered the other person a way to either get to know me or just leave me alone. And I also firmly believe that it is best to take your major differences off the boards and settle them privately through email or PMs. It just seems the right thing to do so as not to drag the whole board into your disputes. So I eagerly awaited a response, hoping to turn that one enemy into a friend.

This morning, I got my reply.

"To be perfectly honest, your humor, or satire, or sarcasm, or whatever you call it, often just doesn't translate. If you don't want people to think you're being obnoxious, rude, paranoid, defensive, aggressive, absolutist, annoying, condescending, and elitist, than you may want to work on your delivery. You present your opinions as absolute fact, while insulting everyone who doesn't share YOUR opinion. It's not sarcasm, it's obnoxious. If it was a "joke" then you wouldn't come back so aggressively and defenisvely to defend those opinions. If it were so funny, then you wouldn't read personal attacks into every comment made about YOUR team, or YOUR city. If you choose to boast about YOUR team and YOUR city in your every post, than you should be prepared to get differing opinions in response. If you don't care what people think of what you say, then by all means, continue to insult people with your "humor". Just don't be so surprised when you get called on it. I'm not "on your back". I will continue to call out bullshit when I see it, from you or anyone else. If that bothers you, you might want to cut back on some of the bullshit. From now on, I'll just look at your posts as the big joke you say they are. I really do hope you'll take this message in the spirit in which it is offered. Yeah, I got your message loud and clear. From "get a grip" to calling me a bitch, to telling me that I shouldn't take what you say seriously. The "spirit" is clearly understood. In the future, if you've got a problem with what I say on the boards, respond to it on the boards, and we'll just let the board members decide who needs to 'get a grip.'"

So she'd rather make a private matter between the two of us something that we should inflict on everyone else on the boards.

Well, okay. I'm fine with that. Starting right here.

Bitch. I didn't actually say it before. Now I am. And I will a lot from here on in.

A Knight in Shining Armor?

It's been a while since I've been here. Good to be back.

Things have been going along swimmingly. New Year's Eve was a success. The dress, the shoes...it all worked as well as could be hoped. I met a new man and re-connected with an old one. One didn't work out (why, oh, why is it so difficult for some men to just be honest?). One is scarily working out well. Re-connection, apparently, can be a very good thing.

The old one I reconnected with on NYEve goes back a long way. I must have been about 19 or 20 and was dating a guy I thought was a real hotshot. And so did he. It was my birthday and we had gone to dinner and then out for a drink. We met up with a friend of his named Clay. Drinks flew, date got obnoxious and started yelling at me for talking to Clay, and finally stomped out, leaving me sitting there in the bar, fifteen miles from home on a snowy November night.

On my birthday.

Clay, gentleman that he was even then, gallantly finished the date as if nothing had ever happened and that I had really gone out with him all along. Needless to say, I was bowled over by his chivalry and promptly got a crush on him. We went out a few times. We even took a trip to Indianapolis to go to the NHRA Nationals (God, we look young in those photos!). But it turned more into a friendship than a romance. I was so very young and he was only 5 years older and quite the player in those days. It kind of fizzled into a good friendship and we were both fine with that.

As the years went by, we stayed on friendly terms even though we rarely saw each other. We vaguely and intermittently kept up with each other's lives. I moved in with XDBF, he moved in with a girlfriend. We'd have a beer or a hug when we ran into each other and that was that.

Fast forward from 1978 to New Year's Eve 2005.

As I sat at my sister's bar waiting for the NYEve festivities to begin (and for the guy she was trying to set me up with to arrive), I felt someone grab me from behind and kiss my neck. Surprised, I looked up and it was Clay. He sat down next to me and we began to catch up on the last twenty-five years. By the next time I looked up, two hours had gone by. Midnight was fast approaching and my sister was on the war path. Seems she had planned to set both of us up that night; me with a financial consultant and Clay with one of her bartenders. So we split up to our respective "dates" for a New Year's kiss at midnight, but vowed to keep in touch.

We met up at my sister's bar again the next week for the Steeler's wild card game against Cincinnati. And again for the Indianapolis game. And one more time for the Denver game. By that time it was obvious that a real date was a necessity.

We had that last weekend. Saturday night to be exact. I made dinner at his house. He met me at the door with a gigantic bouquet of flowers and two bottles of shiraz. We drank wine, talked, and cooked (well, he chopped and I cooked). We ate, drank some more wine, and talked some more. He got out the chocolate-dipped strawberries and champagne he had gotten for dessert and we talked some more. We started on a third bottle of shiraz and talked some more. And then we quit talking.

I woke up the next morning with him whispering in my ear that I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in the morning. And then we quit talking again.

When we finally rose at 8, he made me coffee and then took me to breakfast. The January weather in Pittsburgh this year has been just stunningly beautiful and so we decided to go back to sit on his deck and drink some bloody Marys. And talk. We talked about everything. Religion, politics, stock car racing (!!!!!), football, local news, mutual friends, our families, the loss of my parents and his father, history, philosophy, and, finally,...

us.

I'm afraid of this man. I've always had an attraction to him. And though he is much older now, I am even more attracted to him. And apparently, he is even more attracted to me. He is pursuing me like I've never been pursued. Flowers, phone calls to say good morning, phone calls to say good night. And wanting me to tell him where I think this relationship is going. He is seeming to be so wide open in his emotions with me that I almost think it's a miracle.

This is not the Clay of 1978.

But then, neither am I the Geggy of 1978. I've been badly hurt and it wasn't that long ago when I was in the depths of despair. I'm much older and much more cynical than that child of the 70s. And I am wary. I'm wary of him because I think he very much wants to be in a relationship with someone like me. I'm wary of me because I think this is too soon for this to be anything other than a rebound relationship for me. And, if I'm going to have a rebound, I don't want it to be with him.

I think I've settled on what is right for me in this situation. My Big is still in the picture. In fact, he will be arriving on Friday evening to spend the weekend here in the 'Burgh, preparing to watch the Super Bowl with me and our friends. Clay will be out of town until Sunday, but has been quite insistent on spending time with me on Sunday since he will be leaving town again the next day for two weeks.

I will spend my time and my pent up sexual energy on Big Friday night. I will have a talk with him on Saturday about where I think I want my life to go. Because it's Big and he knows me and the limitations of our relationship so well, I'm sure he'll understand. He'll happily take the mantle of my rebound relationship. And he'll still be my friend when it all comes down to it.

And then I can take Clay's call, as he has indicated he will do, Sunday and happily meet him for the game. And I'll even bet that Big buys him a drink.

Oh, and by the way? It will be 24-17 Steelers.