scared is all. That's why, for the most part, I am the way I am. There's no need to take offense.
Did I ever say how much I wanted to be with you? I don't mean like lovers, I mean like pals in first grade. Of course it scares me to death. It's just like someone here in the US who has a fear of flying, and the person he wants to be with lives in Australia. I want to be with you, but the trip I have to take is not easy for me, and I do not make the passage gracefully. Personally I love flying, but I know you don't, so maybe if you think about a seventeen hour flight to Australia, you'll have some idea what I go through when I say, "Hi."
I thought you'd be glad I endured that trip, since you seemed so thrilled the first time we met. But this time you didn't even say hello. Mmm. I've written a couple e-mails to you, but not sent any. I try to be *too* careful, try to make sure I have an airtight case to justify why I'm writing. I start out saying how I feel, then I start to deconstruct it; 'why do I feel that way?' I ask myself. Then I have to edit out some inconsistencies. 'What am I looking for?' I ask, and then I have to edit out all my selfishness. By that time there's not a whole lot left of my e-mail effort to reach out to you. Finally, the brutal chorus that lives in the back of my mind starts to ask a flurry of accusing questions: "Why don't you try to be friends with one of those past friends you've discarded, instead of this new one?" and "What makes you think you're not going to discard him once the newness wears off?" My shredded little message can't hold up under the scrutiny. I delete it.
bruce Donahue was my favorite friend in first grade. There was something way gentle about him, but burdened, too. His father was dead; the guy must have been younger than I am now. By third grade—third graders don't fall in love, do they?—I followed Bruce everywhere I could, all along his paper route even though I wasn't supposed to stay out past the street lights coming on, or go beyond the stone bridge over Hudson Street. But I did, and I got in trouble. It must be bad I wanted to be with him, I concluded. I must be bad.
It's really kinda the same, now. I want to be with you, and that must make me bad, but I don't know why. I don't want to have sex with you; I don't want to cause even a ripple in the life you have; and I don't even want to ever meet you—although someday, if I were brave enough and circumstances were right (meaning you wanted me to), maybe that would be nice. But for now, I want to be with you here, on the Internet, where it's safe for me, where I can't be out past the street lights coming on, and where I can't go beyond the stone bridge.
So you see, I'm really just scared. Maybe from where you are, something appears wrong with me, or my motivations appear disingenuous (I'm always suspicious of my motivations), and it might help me if I knew what you thought. But you don't need to do anything. That's the beauty of the Internet, and especially the beauty of this journal; I can say important things like this to everybody, but to no one.
...nevermind.
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