My Story - Part 2

Jason and I went to the same high school.  He was a Senior and I was a Sophomore.  He lived just down the street from me.  His best friend, Aaron, was also one of my best friends.  Aaron was over my house pretty frequently.  Sometimes Jason would come with him.  There were rumors that Jason liked me, but since I didn't have many suitors lining up to date me, I didn't believe the rumors.  Jason graduated and moved to another county.  I didn't see him for about 6 or 8 months.

One day he stopped by my house to say, "Hi."  We started hanging out on the weekends, but we weren't officially dating.

Jason would usually call me a couple of days before the weekend to see if I had plans with our friends.  It was right before my 17th Birthday and he called and asked if I had plans for the weekend. I said I wasn't sure, but my Birthday was coming up the next week so if I celebrated my Birthday, it was going to be that weekend.

His response was, "I know what you are doing.  You are going out with me."  That was the beginning of a five-year tumultuous relationship.  We would be together for a few months, then we would break up for a couple of months.  Then we would get back together again.  Even when we were broken up, we were still friends and we would sometimes hang out.  If we started hanging out regularly, we would end up in a relationship again.

Jason was my first love, first kiss, first everything.  We even talked about marriage and children sometimes.  Some of my friends swore that Jason and I would be married some day.  However, it wasn't meant to be.

I had one other semi-serious internet relationship before I met my husband.  I met a guy in a chatroom on AOL (back in the very early days of internet, you know, when you had to use dial-up and AOL was one of the very few providers available).  He was a nice guy named Tommy.  He lived in Boston.  The relationship didn't work out because he was a little bit too much of a "Momma's Boy" and wasn't really ready to settle down.

It was May, 1997.  I had given up on guys and hadn't been on the internet in weeks.  I was really bored and didn't have any plans one night, so I signed on to AOL.  I really liked to go to a chatroom and just observe the conversations.  Most of the time I didn't participate in the conversations because if I did, there would always be some horndog messaging me about having cybersex with him.

On this particular night, I did get a message from one of the guys in the chatroom even though I wasn't participating.  However, the message contained a simple, "Hello.  How are you?"  No mention of cybersex (yet), so although I was hesitant, I replied, "Hello.  I'm fine.  How are you?"

The conversation continued in a very polite manner.  We exchanged pleasantries and talked about where we lived, our names, ages, occupations, etc.  His name was Cameron.  He was 31, divorced, worked as a technician, and lived in Tucson, Arizona.  I was 21, single, a college student, I worked as a receptionist, and lived in Louisville, Kentucky.  We became friends very quickly.

We started talking online every evening.  About a month later, we officially started "dating."  We talked on the phone every day, we exchanged photos and cards (via snail mail), and we talked online every evening.  About a month into our relationship, my ex-boyfriend from Boston called me.  I started feeling nostalgic about my relationship.  Tommy was declaring his love for me and asking me to come back to him.  My relationship with Cameron was still pretty new and I wasn't sure how I really felt about him, so I broke up with him and went back to Tommy.  Cameron and I still talked on the internet every night.  However, the guy who had just swore up and down that he loved me, didn't call me all week and on only sent me 3 short emails.

One night I signed online to talk to Cameron and see if Tommy was online.  Tommy wasn't online (as usual), but neither was Cameron.  This was very unusual.  I stopped waiting for Tommy and started waiting for Cameron.  I waited for hours for Cameron to sign on.  He didn't sign on that night.  It was that night that I realized I was letting go of a great guy for a jackass that couldn't even be bothered to call his girlfriend.

I sent Tommy an email and told him it was over.  I called Cameron and begged for forgiveness.  Lucky for me, he forgave my idiocy.