The Unknown Anniversary

It's a sad story... but not unusual. Woman meets man, woman never hears from man again. The only twist in this tale is that the woman really did believe the man, every nice, kind and sweet thing he said.

A mystery can be fun to read in a book, keeping you guessing, trying to outsmart the writer. But, in reality a mystery just haunts you forever. It's been a year so far. I can't see it not going on forever, bugging me, making me wonder and doubt everything and every man.

His name was John. I think it really was his real name. He made me fall in love with him. Even though we never met face to face. I'd outgrown a silly Internet infatuation. The curse of the desperate and the lonely. I was past all that. So, it took me a few months to really believe him.

He wrote real letters to me. Not just those awful, ignorant, careless letters most men string together. John wrote in sentences and paragraphs, just like a real human being. He wasn't perfect and he accepted that I wasn't either.

We got to know each other over the months, emailing as life threw a lot at both of us in our individual lives. Yet, even when I suggested I was a curse cause things had gone so badly for him since we began talking, he told me that was untrue and he felt just as strongly that we were good for each other. He intended to meet me and I intended to meet him. Life just kept getting in the way.

I moved, yet again. He was sued by a client and had a lot to deal with, on top of searching for a new job. I was setting up my own business and he told me he was proud of me when even my family could not say something that wasn't backhanded encouragement.

John had a cancer scare and I didn't hear from him for a couple of months. Meanwhile I was job hunting myself at the new address. The business plans were faltering. I wondered how he was doing.

Then I had an email from him. Things were picking up. He had a new computer and was going to send me a very long and detailed email as soon as he set it up.

That was June, last year. I never heard from him again.

It bugs me. I can't stop wondering. Was I a sucker? Did he get hit by a bus? Did he change his mind when some skinnier woman let him get a good screw?

Did any of it even matter?

Why can't I just forget. I've forgotten so many other men over all the years of my so called social life.

I think I can't squish that last tiny bud of hope that says I will hear from him again. Sometime, some day... maybe. The sad thing is that I still want to.

Posted by A. Nonymous. Cause it sure wasn't me. I'm not that sappy and silly.