Walking Shoes

A couple more calls followed… more chatting… more emails and then came SKYPE… an invention that has made this world an even smaller place to live. (I mean that in the most wonderful way)

“Do you have Skype?”, he asked during one of our chats.

I didn’t have Skype. I had tried it once before but never had anyone to talk to… so I had forgotten all about it. After a few hiccups on my end, I was quickly up and running. I plugged in my headset/mic and moments later, I was speaking to him in STEREO!!! He was right there… in the room… with me!

It was like watching a DVD in surround sound for the very first time… only I was one of the lead characters and he… well… he was co-star/supporting role/narrator all rolled into one magnificent and imaginary person! Oh he was real, all right. More real to me than I think anyone else could have suspected. Even he could never have guessed how real he was to me. This Mafioso/Profile – turned ‘neighbor’  – turned ‘Interest’ – turned virtual friend – had become a real, live person. Not just someone with all the regular stuff: a name, a mother and father, a sister, a job… but someone with reactions and responses, a “tone of voice” and sense of humor. He was a person now existing in my life.

Our interactions spanned across many pieces of the ‘Net. Addresses were exchanged and Google Earth was employed. He took me on a guided tour of the area he called home… and I took him on a walk down memory lane… and told him why the vehicles and garage found at my Google Earth address were no longer. Messaging and email was used as our main source of communication. Skype was saved for those moments when I could actually “speak”… (any parent out there knows exactly what I’m talking about… so I digress)

I didn’t realize how truly present he had become until I noticed a change… a change in me!!! There were times when some small, insignificant thing would occur during my day and I could hear his exact response to it… almost immediately… in my head! Like an involuntary reflex or ‘knee jerk’, if you will. Even now, as I’m writing this for all to see, I cannot swear to you that it wasn’t, what you might consider, a little “coo-coo”; however, I can tell you it is as bona fide now as it was then. So, judge all you like… I’m not the one still reading the ramblings of a nut job… YOU ARE! Hehehe… Now where was I??? Oh yes… Imagination… 

My artistic and extra sensory abilities, my exposure to and love of romantic media, my dire need to be rescued and his seemingly supernatural abilities to supply intellectual, liberating and amorous stimuli was a combination of Universally Quixotic proportions. To sum all that into one word… I would have to say, it was EPIC! The reason I am sharing it with you, my friends, is because it is a story that deserves to be told.

Our time difference of eight hours was beginning to wear a little thin on us, though neither one of us cared to admit it. It had been months of messaging and Skyping… and we had learned the ins of one another so well that it just became logical to meet. If we were two people who had met per my previous “Bus Scenario”, we would have already been a “couple” by normal dating standards. However, this was not the case. We definitely knew the “in’s” but not so much the “out’s”.

Sure, I had seen his pictures… he had seen mine. I would even take pictures WHILE I was talking to him… then send them or post them… just to make me seem more… tangible! Sometimes it worked. Sometimes I wanted to rip out my hair. My imagination could only take me so far and there were days when just talking to him made me feel even MORE alone than if he wasn’t there at all. So after much consideration… (45 minutes) Hannah and I walked to Target where I purchased the “Next Level” in our relationship… My WEBCAM!!!