A Response.

Much to my surprise, I received the following response to a past post:

" hey I just realised today that this is you, and I looked at your blog and I was so impressed by your writing and then I noticed you had an entry with my name as the title, it had been removed but the comments by other people had not, after reading them I figure you must have entered some pretty terrible stuff about me. I wasn't going to make contact with you as no one has ever said as horrible and hurtful things to me as you did in your text messages but I think publishing this kind of stuff is going a bit to far, you really insulted me, I have never uttered a bad word about you, anyway if you where wondering why I ceased contact with you, now you know, you are a wonderful person inside but unfortunately you have a fork shaped tongue and talent for making me feel small. I still think of you alot and I really hope you are doing well. Take care and I hope in the future you will seek the cause of the stain before airing the laundry publicly. "

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This is my response:

Dear D____,

While my blog spreads out pieces of my private life in the public domain, to all who read it -save a handful of souls with whom I dare entrust my innermost thoughts and feelings - these posts are as good as the random scribblings of the Everyman (or woman, as in my case). Rest assured that there is no possibility that the post you refer to, an insignificant mote on the worldwide web, is identifiable with your person. I would be hard-pressed to believe that the few who have read it can even recall its content, which was hardly as scathing as you imagined it to be. I had even gone so far as to first run your name through search engines to ensure that it occurred frequently enough and in relation to countless other individuals, so that yet another mention on my blog would raise no alarm.

No, I have not been wondering why you ceased contact with me.

I never even began to worry about what you might have been saying about me. The violent contrasts of your words against your behaviour was all the damage I could humanly tolerate. I concede that had I been more rational, I would have realised that much of it could have been avoided if I had attributed the pattern of incidents to benign peculiarities in your personality rather than any malicious intent on your side.

But drawing straight lines of logic in my interactions with you was too challenging, too often. Mostly because you were many persons:

• First and foremost, you were the person you wanted your audience to see.
• Second, you were the person you perceived your audience to see.
• Third, you were the person you wanted yourself to be.
• Fourth, you were the person you only allowed the ones you cared about to see.
• And then there was you.

I often felt that even you were confused by the different characters in your play.

Did you know that a snake's forked tongue allows it to smell its environment better? It helps them decide if there is a need to fight or flee, especially when too many vibrations in the snake's environment make it difficult to discern sources of danger.

Who spilt the sauce that caused the stain? Was someone holding the bottle when another pushed carelessly by? Who wore the shirt? Who made the sauce? Who handed the bottle to the other and who tried to scrub away at the stain, hoping for it to disappear but only causing it to spread? Who stood by the side, watching without extending a hand to help? Why the fuck were these two people eating at the same table in the first place?

They don't even like the same food!

Whodathunkit!

So perhaps I've misrepresented the men of S________ in the past. There are among them individuals who are above and beyond what is average by any standards, and some of them are in fact remarkably ... erm ... eligible.

And such is the case with a particular colleague of mine. I first met him about five years ago, while we were both studying in L_____. At that point I was dating someone else, but a friend did comment that my future colleague was rather Hot and that it would be amusing if we were to end up dating each other back in S________. It was at the time a little glimmer of hope that returning to S________ wouldn't be akin to entering a world absolutely void of Worthy Men.

The "Man" part of my brain was preoccupied with someone else in the first 1.5 years that I returned, and the thought of taking a dip in unexplored waters never crossed my mind. [Ok, that's a lie. But it's more dramatic this way.] But now that this part of my brain has been cleansed, my attention has been rather taken by this colleague.

He would be, in every respect, a Perfect Boyfriend. He's got everything a girl would want from one. Aside from being a really nice guy, he's intelligent, funny, open-minded and genuinely confident in a very charming, understated way. He possesses the rare qualities of having an expansive view of the world and a magnanimous approach to people. On top of that, he has the highly attractive physical characteristics of a lean, muscular, well-proportioned body, a great tan, fine cheekbones and an excellent jaw. He smells kinda nice too.

I've had to work pretty closely with him and it now seems that we may have, well, started to flirt with each other. As I have mentioned before, I am largely unschooled in the art of flirting in a work environment. However, although I appreciate that he would be considered good-looking, I am just not physically attracted to him. I do wish I were because it really is the only thing holding me back from giving it a proper go.

Sigh. Perhaps Bazza is right. Maybe over time I will become physically attracted to him.

In the meantime, I have someone with whom there is mutual appreciation (though not of the physical kind), who responds to all my e-mails and text messages, and who treats me with the chivalry of a true gentleman. And honestly that's a million light years more than what I've had in my recent past.

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That post took really long to write up because I've been checking out '80s and early '90s rock videos on YouTube. The Meatloaf ones are among the best, second only to my beloved Axl Rose. And Jon Bon Jovi (of course not forgetting the smokin' hot Tico Torres). So I guess that makes it third. Oh My God I am ADDICTED. Did you know that Meatloaf did a cover of Celine Dion's "It's all Coming Back to me Now"? I actually love it!

[It's so easy to admit embarrassing things like that when you're hiding behind a pseudonym...]