I've had an email pen pal kind of correspondence with someone I met on one of those online dating sites years ago.  It was a site called "love.org" that I joined just for laughs and I don't make it a habit of doing any online dating because all the times I've attempted to meet people that way usually end up with nothing or with me attracting some weird old guys I don't want to meet. 

But Paul was cool.  

Paul was from Ireland (a place I've always wanted to visit) and he shared lots of info with me about the place of his birth. He kept me in stitches with silly little jokes and pictures he'd send every now and then.  He asked me for my phone number last summer which I was happy to give but couldn't give until I got new phone service, which didn't happen until I moved into my new apartment in November.  Since that time I've gotten not as many emails as I usually got from him which led me to believe he was just busy and it was no big deal.  There were times I would've liked to meet him but there just wasn't the opportunity available to me to travel.  Yet, I must confess there are times when I put off meeting people I only know online because I'm just dead nervous meeting new people in general and, when you've only known folks online, there's the anxiety of wondering if you'll meet their expectations about yourself, if you know what I mean! 

In any case, Paul finally got around to calling me a couple of nights ago but, sadly, I wasn't home to recieve his call.  I had just been thinking that he had forgot.  I checked his blog on MySpace and read that he is back in the states and has hooked up with his pals in Chicago.  I just tried checking his blog again to see what's up with him, but now it's been disabled!  For the most part it made me realize, even though I keep him as an online contact, that I really don't know all that much about him and feel kinda silly for worrying about giving him my phone number when he hasn't called me until months after I sent him my number.  In any case, his birthday is tomorrow and I do wish him a great time.  He might be in a relationship for all I know and sometimes guys are a little frightened to keep corresponding with other women while they're dating one exclusively.  I sent him an email to let him know I received his message but the delivery did not go through which now leads me to believe he has cut me off from his contact list.  Seems strange after four years of communication to be disconnected.  Makes me believe that, at any time, all these words we exchange with one another over the wires can end and we all just go on with our lives as if we have just been talking to ourselves all this time.

Is that what blogging and pen pals are for?  A way to communicate to others as we would ourselves?  What are we on here for?  I like making friends online, it's a way for me to stretch my imagination and hang out with people I wouldn't normally meet on the street because I'm stuck in a boring little town in the middle of snowy Wisconsin.  As I write here to all of you, I realize how much I want to travel and really visit with each and everyone I meet.  Imagine what we'd talk about over a cup of coffee...

In any case, I realize I'm a little more sensitive to losing even the most seemingly small correspondent after I lost my best friend, Andrew.  I still talk about him as if I could call him up tomorrow and sometimes I think I need to wear a rubber band on my wrist to snap myself back into reality.  It is a really bizarre thing to lose a friend after they get married.  Andrew wasn't the only guy friend I've lost over a wedding.  I still think it was stupid of him to treat me so badly, but then again, I kinda exploded at him for getting married so suddenly.  I guess I've always wanted to be in a friend's wedding if I couldn't have my own, you know?  When he was engaged to his ex, Bonnie, I bugged him constantly about what role I'd play in his wedding ceremony.  When he told me he was just going to ask me to give a speech during the reception, I felt degraded.  I realize now it was really because I wasn't as important to him as some guy he went to college with, that I wasn't the Best Friend I really wanted to be, that I wasn't even like family or anything and, at any moment, the friendship would end.

Friendships are fragile things, because we have no control over someone else's feelings or circumstances.  We never know what relationship, really, will stand the test of time and, when it's too late, when people move or get married or forget your email address, it's like we were just talking to strangers who will later become immortal acquaintences in our dreams.  Sometimes that's how I talk to people I miss; I talk to them in my dreams before I go to bed late at night, I whisper things that I hope will somehow reach their soul.

And what do I say?  "I love you and you will never be forgotten; even if you forget about me."