Cyber-love Affair
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When Seymour Schreiber sent this submission in to the Broken Hearts Club, I wrote back to congratulate him on his writing skills and on his ability to create fiction. If it was not fiction, I said, well--congratulations on your candor and honesty. He replied that this is not fiction. You may not like what you read below; there is much there that I don't like reading. But you cannot deny that this man is striving to express the truth. He promises a second part. I, for one, can't wait.
--Gretchen
Net Soft Skin Game
By Seymour Schreiber
I have decided to just write what happened, because every time I try to make something up, what really happened would come along and be so much more interesting and complicated and real, that what I made up couldn't even compare.
What happened was this:
I had started writing to women online. I mean on the Internet. I would find them in the single sites, with their likes and dislikes and what they wanted and who they were and sometimes their photos. They would be out there like me, their profiles for anyone to read, without their real names, just a first name and a number, and the town where they lived.
When I first looked, all the answers seemed pretty much the same.
What do you want in a man?
"Honest, can communicate, likes pets, blah blah blah."
What is the most important thing in a mate?
"Makes me laugh, communication, expresses his feelings". . . on and on.
They all wanted the same guy: a late night talk show host, a comedian--but sensitive. I figured you had to show up with a book of jokes in your pocket in case you ran out of material. And after they stopped laughing, they wanted communication. Maybe they were thinking communion. You just knelt down, opened your mouth and there it was: communication. Stick out your tongue and the guy puts this wafer on your tongue and it just melts. Now we're communicating.
Didn't these women realize that couples divorce because they know each other too well? I mean, the best time is before, when you don't know each other so that you can still pretend the other person is who they're not. After that, it's too late. You don't wonder what they're like anymore, what they'll say, how they'll taste.
No, you know exactly what they're going to say. The same boring stuff, the same complaints, the noises that just bore you to tears. Or the fights. You don't even look forward to them anymore since you know exactly how they'll play out, how they'll end.
So I'm browsing, learning the signs. I feel like an Indian scout trying to read the trail. Yeah, I wrote to a few and they wrote back. I mean, who knew what might happen? Anyhow, they were far, far away from me and we were all anonymous. What could go wrong?
I'll tell you what could go wrong. What I found out was that words, the right words, anyway, were a lot stronger than I had imagined. This one profile, she starts out saying, "I don't want any bullshit. . . ." Hey, wait--I read this and think, nice touch. See, everybody's on their best behavior here. They don't want to say anything that makes them look less than real polite ladies. They don't piss like everybody else. But this one, she's not afraid to say "bullshit," exclamation point. I like that. It catches my eye. She catches my eye. She writes for a living. Just the right size for me, my age, blue eyes, bright. Not bad. So I write back:
Well, she does, five times. It seems that I spelled my name wrong in my return e-mail address and her note got sent back to her and she wrote another and that came back to her, too. Finally, she figured out the spelling and sent me all the notes at once.
She tells me that she is ill in bed, so I send her a fantasy rescue where I burst through her door and find her delirious with fever. She thinks this is sweet and funny and we begin a fast and furious communication between us. I tell her about my life, what I am doing, and describe my kids. She talks about herself, her career as a screenwriter, what she thinks about. I tell her about a TV show I have seen:
She writes back and tells me that based on her professional screenwriting experience, she can emphatically state that TV was not real life and that life doesn't have to turn out that way. What can I say? She is fascinating, funny, smart, and right up front. She holds nothing back. I am captivated.
Hey, she writes. I can call you on Friday. I know you want to meet slowly, but think about it.
Friday. Friday.
I do think about it. My heart is pounding. What the hell was going on? Do I really want there to be someone on the other end of the line? I write an interview with myself showing just how nervous I am and send it to her. It ends like this:
I imagine her heart beating like mine. Then I really want to hear her voice. Click here to continue. . .
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