Love the ones you’re with.

Hey, they haven’t left you yet. That’s because they’re real friends, and they like you for who you are.

Love like your heart has never been broken :)

That other schmuck… is still a schmuck. I don’t think they’ll ever disappoint on that front. There’s something to be said for consistency.

I’m already finding the schmuck less impressive. Get this… all their material is recycled. There are no news thoughts, which begs the question if any of their recycled material is really their own. At best, they’re not bad at weaving sophisticated words, but after a while I’m pretty sure I’ll see the recycled material even there.

So yes, I’m still obsessing, but it’s getting old fast and will die a natural death. 14 months ago

Delete, delete, delete.

Emails, messages, place in my circle of friends… check.

But it gets better… they have a not-so-secret blog online. In today’s entry they referred to me, no names needed, as someone they “collected” in the last month. With evident regret because their quota of people they needed to amuse themselves was full.

I was sadly under the delusion that I was having an honest conversation with an amazing human being, not someone who thinks they have a free pass to be a wanker.

The trouble is, I always have hope. I see the good in people even when I see the uncharitable. Only time will kill that hope. Or a good old confrontation. But neither of us are the type to bring it to a head, so I guess this is going to take some time :/ 15 months ago

I met this person on an online social networking site two weeks ago. Their cynical sense of humour was what caught my attention, but when we got to talking, I realised how intelligent, self-effacing, lonely, and charismatic they were.

Finding someone who engages and challenges you on so many levels and connects with you so easily is intoxicating to say the least.

But to cut a long and undoubtedly familiar story short, they’ve suddenly withdrawn from conversation not long after we started exchanging emails. And get this… it’s only been three days, and yet it’s driven me to utter distraction. If that’s not obsession, I don’t know what is.

The thing is, I know that they have time to vlog online daily and that they’ve visited the networking site where we met, and yet they don’t have time to share a few words with me. I know, I’m being needy and unreasonable, and I can explain how it got out of hand so fast, but to keep things short, I’m sure that they’ve either played me just to amuse themselves, or that they’ve stepped back to distance themselves from being obsessive themselves.

Either way, I’m left hanging, and it’s a horrible feeling. Not to mention that I’ve been totally unproductive whilst worrying about whether I’ve lost a new friend who inspired me so.

So I sent them a short and lighthearted note to let them know that I’m missing our conversation, but that I’d understand if they didn’t want to continue it. Honesty has been a key ingredient of our conversations, so I did my best to honour that without trying to make them feel badly.

And now it’s time for me to move on. It’ll happen naturally, I know, but I need it to happen FASTER. I’ve said my peace, now I have to leave them behind.

To achieve this, I’m planning to abstain from the networking site for two weeks and to stop thinking about them. I may need to hate them a little in my mind to do this… but I need the clean break and I need it now.

So, MJ… I’ve said my goodbyes. Now I need to honour them. If you do decide to grace me with your attention again, I’m afraid that you’re going to have earn my trust this time. 15 months ago