jask

PROFILE

I had a girlfriend in high school until one day senior year shortly after summer vacation she told me by letter (called 'notes', a predecessor of texting) she wasn't.....and in my shaken state by compulsively reading and re-reading it, I decided that, in fact, she might never have been! Oh. Really? What was all that talking, all those phone calls, all that hand-holding, all that TIME together....what was that then?

It's not that I would have even known what to do with a girlfriend (if I had one). It was just a vague notion. It was the sixties, before Woodstock, before the Pill, before the Summer of Love, before the word Relationship. NOW, of course, I can imagine all kinds of impossible postures and two-minute snapshots of girlfriends past and what, by God, I WOULD have done, given a second chance and more self-confidence and sufficient cash, a cool car and a lean and fit body. Yeah. I can imagine alright.

Nonetheless, I suspect we are both grateful for her declaration of non-love that day. How many of us actually marry our high school crushes? (answer not required). I mean, naturally, the things which endear us to one another, all the cute traits, the mutual discovery of the bigger world, the thrill that another actually acknowledges your pathetic existence.....is that enough to sustain a life-long relationship?

Still…. the experience scarred and the rest of my life is spent actually trying to make amends for that afternoon. Validation. Affirmation. Revenge. Scorn. Vision. Dominance. And finally, with luck, Atonement. Apology. Absolution. Is it possible?

…..online, you are who you dream.