Once.......

......I had a good internet friend. We 'met' a couple of years ago, and exchanged the odd pm, email, had a few laughs and invariably fell out. But last Christmas/New Year (2007) we were on relatively sociable terms, and exchanged polite and friendly seasonal greetings. For one reason and another, a few months later, we started emailing each other more regularly. He was funny, with a sharp sense of humour, and he made me laugh. He was thoughtful, and honest. Over the weeks, we grew to trust each other, or at least, I trusted him. He was there for me when I wanted to moan, or confide in someone. He had a sensible pragmatic answer if I was fed up. We played internet scrabble, we competed at Sploofus, and we linked on Facebook. But if I was to look for someone who was the total opposite of me, I would never have been as successful in finding someone as this chance internet encounter. Our lives are - and have been - very different. And so are our views, opinions and values. Maybe that was our downfall. We fell out about Sploofus, we fell out over scrabulous, and I've lost count of the number of times he removed me as a friend from Facebook. Plus blocking me so it looked like he no longer existed on there. Sounds childish. It was, but maybe arguing over the silly stuff was instead of arguing over the important differences. I don't know. I'm surprised we stuck it out so long. He was incredibly patient with my temperamental tantrums, and so easy-going. But I didn't like being told 'You're too focused on the whole thing' about some of my views. Perhaps I felt judged, and criticised. Perhaps there wasn't really any common ground at all. Maybe a few laughs wasn't enough. I didn't mind the fact that I wrote more than him (I write lots anyway), but eventually I got sick of him not answering my questions. Or not telling me anything about himself. It began to feel too one-sided. Maybe the downturn started a couple of months ago. I realised I no longer wanted to share anything with him. I could no longer write what I thought to him. My fingers froze over the keyboard and I started erasing countless draft emails. I still don't know what had changed it for me. Was it when he refused to play internet scrab with me any more? Haha! Or just an accumulation of disgreements? We stuck it out for another couple of months, although we hardly wrote much in retrospect. So a new year, and and a new start. I'll miss him. I doubt he'll miss me. He'll shrug his shoulders in a macho sort of way and clear off shooting or geocaching or something. Friends huh??