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It's 2:11am. I have a Call of Cthulhu game to run in 10 hours and I still have a little bit of work to do on some maps in the morning before the group gets here. I SHOULD be in bed, but, well, instead, I'm here. 
I like sharing this story 'cuz it obviously has a happy ending (if you can call it an ending, it hasn't really ended at all.)
I realize as I'm typing this that this story is very long, and that you may wonder how and why I go into some of the tangents I do, but they all play a part in the overall story in the end.
The key players:
Me!
S - my husband
J - a former female friend of ours
My husband and I met about 12 years ago, when I was 13 and he was 15. Contrary to what some people might think upon hearing this, we were not high school crushes or sweethearts. In fact, we didn't even know each other -- in real life -- until after we'd both graduated HS. That's right, we met online. More specifically, we met in a video game chat room. A Megaman chat room, in fact.
At first we didn't know each other very well. But we had a mutual friend, J, who we were both close to, and over the course of several years we started getting closer ourselves. Sometime around my senior year of high school (I think -- all dates here are approximate as it's been a long time so I don't remember everything clearly) I admitted to S that I had a crush on him. He told me he wasn't interested in a long distance relationship. Okay, that's cool. I totally understand that, as I'd already been in one fairly serious long distance relationship and knew how hard they could be.
This little conversation did not hinder our friendship at all. In fact, that Christmas, we arranged to meet for the first time, with him flying up to see me over winter break. It was a great visit. Nothing more was said of any crushes, we just got to know each other a little better and had a great time playing video games, watching anime, and basically geeking out.
A few years after that, S picked up Final Fantasy 11, an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Like WoW.) I hadn't been interested in this title up till this point, but the more he told me about it, the better it sounded, especially since he was just starting out and we could play together. So I got it as well, and we spent that Christmas break playing a lot of FF11 together. Unfortunately, once he went back to school, his dorm's network wouldn't let him use the port he needed to to play the game, so that put that little activity on hold for the time being. We did, however, agree to spend some of his spring break catching up on lost time.
Cut back to J, for she is important to this story too. J had a lot of trouble finding her place in life. After she graduated high school, she had big expectations from her parents to do well in college. However, she had a breakdown her first semester away from home and moved back with her parents. She was supposed to either go to the local community college in her hometown, or get a job, but she did neither. Instead, she slacked off for quite a while (at least a year? Maybe more) and claimed she didn't know what to do. Finally an aunt of her's offered to let her move in and get a change of pace. J did move in with her and went back to school, this time for graphic design, and completed a 2 year associates degree, doing very well in her class.
Back to S. A little note about S. He had a humongous crush on J. As they live closer physically than I did to either of them (they're both in the southern states, while I was in northern Wisconsin) they saw each other at least a couple of times a year. However, J did not return S's feelings of affection. In fact, by this point, she had flat out told him she was not interested in any kind of relationship at all, period, paragraph. S was fine with that, as he felt she was one of his closest friends, and was happy their friendship.
However, J is a rather jealous person. When she found out we both had FF11 and were playing together, she got upset that we weren't spending as much time with her. When she found out about our spring break plans, she about hit the roof. Going so far, in fact, as to make plans with S herself to go visit him.
I immediately suspected foul play. I knew J well enough by this point to know she could be manipulative and cunning, and I thought that she might be going to see S purely to spite me and ruin our own plans of spending time together. S assured me that although we would not be able to play as often as we had originally planned, he would still be able to spend time with me.
He didn't. In fact, for the entire week of spring break, I didn't hear a word from either of them. Neither of them were in our normal chat rooms and neither of them bothered to email me, even to say, "Hey, sorry we haven't been in touch, we've been really busy."
Yes, I know. It's an online game. Big deal. But it was a big deal to me, because, being further away from both of them, I didn't have as much chance to interact with them as they did. So when J showed up online the last night before spring break ended and said, "Hey! How have you been? We had a great time together this week!" I lost it.
I sent both of them a nasty email. Not my best moment, but by that point J had figured out I was pissed, claimed ignorance as to why, and demanded an explanation, so I gave her (and S) one, loud and clear.
J, for her part, never apologized for hurting my feelings, which is really all I wanted. In fact, she got extremely defensive, called me a lot of very nasty names, and told me I was no friend of her's for accusing her of what I did. Which, in my mind, just further confirmed that what I accused her of was accurate. S didn't reply to the email, but I got in touch with him sometime later and we started talking again, and he more recently (after we started dating) admitted that he'd felt bad about the whole situation all these years, said he didn't blame me for being angry, and apologized for hurting my feelings.
A couple of years went by at this point where I wasn't really in touch with either of them. I refused to speak to J unless she apologized, which she was adamantly not doing, and I knew that S was close to her and didn't feel comfortable talking to him lest he say things about me to her behind my back. However, I did find out more or less what happened to them in this lost time.
S graduated college with a four year BS in computer science and moved to San Antonio.
J, as I had mentioned, had gotten a degree in graphic design. Unfortunately, she didn't do anything else with it. After graduating, she promptly did not get a job and her aunt eventually kicked her out, and she moved back in with her parents. There, she got a job with a local newspaper doing page layout and editing, but very quickly found out that she hated doing graphic design for a living and resolved to go back to college. Again.
However, she had no money, and she didn't want to continue with the paper. So S offered to let her move in with him (he had (well, has, we're still living in it now) a 2 bedroom apartment) and get a job by him. San Antonio had lots of job opportunities. So, J did that.
It was around this time that I started talking to S again, and, shortly after that, J. She still didn't apologize to me, but we were at least civil to each other. It had been more than 2 years since the FF11 incident at this point, so I figured let bygones be bygones.
Over the course of the next few months, I found out from S that things with him and J were not all roses and cream. For starters, she didn't have a job, and whatever little money she had gotten from her job at the paper, she had spent paying off student loans (which she hadn't finished paying off when her money ran out, so her parents had to pick up the slack.) She also wasn't helping around the apartment, at all. Dishes would pile up so high that S would have to move or wash some of them just to get to the sink for a glass of water. Worst of all -- in his mind, at the time -- was the fact that she had developed an interest in a guy she recently met online.
This guy -- we'll call him T -- was a lot like J. He didn't have a job, and he was currently living with his "girlfriend" and was mooching off of her. I say "girlfriend" in quotes, because they couldn't stand each other, and from what I heard directly from J, it was a wonder that she hadn't kicked T out. J claimed that the girlfriend was abusive (verbally, at least) and that T felt trapped in her house because he had no where else to go; his parents wouldn't take him in and he had no money to move out on his own.
So what does J do? She sets it up for T to move in with her parents.
Let me say that again.
She sets a complete stranger, who has no money and no work history, to move in with her parents, whom she's not living with.
Keep in mind, at this point, that I am getting multiple versions of the same stories, because I hear them from both J and S. It's interesting to hear housemates' versions of the same story, and how wildly they can differ.
So, J sets off with her mother halfway across the country to pick T up and move him back to her mother's house. At this point, J had openly admitted to me that she was involved with T, and considered him her boyfriend, and vice versa. S had also told me that he had SUSPECTED this much of T and J, but when asked about it, J denied the fact. So J is hiding her relationship from S, and has asked me to keep her secret as well. Great.
A month went by in which S did not hear from J while she was traipsing back and forth across the country. When she finally did return, she sat right back down at her computer to chat with T and wouldn't move. Finally S confronted her about it again, and finally she admitted that, yes, she was in a relationship with T.
S was hurt. Part of me thinks it's silly, but part of me understands, too; he had wanted to try a relationship with her for years, and had been told that she wasn't interested in any relationship. He had hoped that if she ever did reconsider, that she'd reconsider him, too; but she didn't. And for that, and for lying to him, he was hurt. Add on the fact that it was about this point I found out she wasn't pulling her weight -- or any weight -- in the apartment duties, and I asked S what the HELL he was doing letting her mooch off of him, and he realized that he was only doing it because he liked her -- well, S was less than pleased.
So he laid it on her, and he laid it on her hard. Mostly about chores and responsibilities around the apartment, and how she had to start contributing.
J didn't like this one bit. She felt like he was attacking her and trying to get revenge on her because she had rejected him for another guy. So she refused to do any of what he told her to do.
So he kicked her out. Eventually. It took a couple of months and a lot of my trying to be the good friend caught in the middle. Mostly, S was scared of being alone. He had gotten used to another person being in the apartment, and didn't want to come home alone anymore.
In fact, he admitted to me before we got married that the thing he liked most about me living with him is that I'm always there to greet him as soon as he walks in the door in the evenings after work.
Anyway, back to the story. Through all of this, S had expressed his interest in seeing me again. We had not met since our initial meeting, which had been some 5 years prior to all of this. I was very hesitant at this point, for I felt like he might simply associate me with J and that I'd end up some kind of rebound for him. After J moved out and he again expressed his interest in me visiting him, I confessed these fears to him.
He understood completely, and explained that he didn't think I should feel like a rebound. Why? Because...well, he'd had these feelings for me all along. Turns out, all those years ago, when I told him I had a crush on him, he had a crush on me too. He told me he didn't want a relationship because that's what J told him to say. He had talked to her about his feelings for me before saying anything to me personally, and she had told him, in no uncertain terms, that it was a horrible idea and that things wouldn't work out between us so he should just forget about it. So he did. For the time being.
She had him wrapped around her finger this entire time.
Anyway, after a long discussion, we decided we'd been interested in each other this whole time and that we should meet and see what happens.
That was about 2 years ago. We met again, for the second time, in February 2008.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
I like sharing this story 'cuz it obviously has a happy ending (if you can call it an ending, it hasn't really ended at all.)I realize as I'm typing this that this story is very long, and that you may wonder how and why I go into some of the tangents I do, but they all play a part in the overall story in the end.
The key players:
Me!
S - my husband
J - a former female friend of ours
My husband and I met about 12 years ago, when I was 13 and he was 15. Contrary to what some people might think upon hearing this, we were not high school crushes or sweethearts. In fact, we didn't even know each other -- in real life -- until after we'd both graduated HS. That's right, we met online. More specifically, we met in a video game chat room. A Megaman chat room, in fact.
At first we didn't know each other very well. But we had a mutual friend, J, who we were both close to, and over the course of several years we started getting closer ourselves. Sometime around my senior year of high school (I think -- all dates here are approximate as it's been a long time so I don't remember everything clearly) I admitted to S that I had a crush on him. He told me he wasn't interested in a long distance relationship. Okay, that's cool. I totally understand that, as I'd already been in one fairly serious long distance relationship and knew how hard they could be.
This little conversation did not hinder our friendship at all. In fact, that Christmas, we arranged to meet for the first time, with him flying up to see me over winter break. It was a great visit. Nothing more was said of any crushes, we just got to know each other a little better and had a great time playing video games, watching anime, and basically geeking out.
A few years after that, S picked up Final Fantasy 11, an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Like WoW.) I hadn't been interested in this title up till this point, but the more he told me about it, the better it sounded, especially since he was just starting out and we could play together. So I got it as well, and we spent that Christmas break playing a lot of FF11 together. Unfortunately, once he went back to school, his dorm's network wouldn't let him use the port he needed to to play the game, so that put that little activity on hold for the time being. We did, however, agree to spend some of his spring break catching up on lost time.
Cut back to J, for she is important to this story too. J had a lot of trouble finding her place in life. After she graduated high school, she had big expectations from her parents to do well in college. However, she had a breakdown her first semester away from home and moved back with her parents. She was supposed to either go to the local community college in her hometown, or get a job, but she did neither. Instead, she slacked off for quite a while (at least a year? Maybe more) and claimed she didn't know what to do. Finally an aunt of her's offered to let her move in and get a change of pace. J did move in with her and went back to school, this time for graphic design, and completed a 2 year associates degree, doing very well in her class.
Back to S. A little note about S. He had a humongous crush on J. As they live closer physically than I did to either of them (they're both in the southern states, while I was in northern Wisconsin) they saw each other at least a couple of times a year. However, J did not return S's feelings of affection. In fact, by this point, she had flat out told him she was not interested in any kind of relationship at all, period, paragraph. S was fine with that, as he felt she was one of his closest friends, and was happy their friendship.
However, J is a rather jealous person. When she found out we both had FF11 and were playing together, she got upset that we weren't spending as much time with her. When she found out about our spring break plans, she about hit the roof. Going so far, in fact, as to make plans with S herself to go visit him.
I immediately suspected foul play. I knew J well enough by this point to know she could be manipulative and cunning, and I thought that she might be going to see S purely to spite me and ruin our own plans of spending time together. S assured me that although we would not be able to play as often as we had originally planned, he would still be able to spend time with me.
He didn't. In fact, for the entire week of spring break, I didn't hear a word from either of them. Neither of them were in our normal chat rooms and neither of them bothered to email me, even to say, "Hey, sorry we haven't been in touch, we've been really busy."
Yes, I know. It's an online game. Big deal. But it was a big deal to me, because, being further away from both of them, I didn't have as much chance to interact with them as they did. So when J showed up online the last night before spring break ended and said, "Hey! How have you been? We had a great time together this week!" I lost it.
I sent both of them a nasty email. Not my best moment, but by that point J had figured out I was pissed, claimed ignorance as to why, and demanded an explanation, so I gave her (and S) one, loud and clear.
J, for her part, never apologized for hurting my feelings, which is really all I wanted. In fact, she got extremely defensive, called me a lot of very nasty names, and told me I was no friend of her's for accusing her of what I did. Which, in my mind, just further confirmed that what I accused her of was accurate. S didn't reply to the email, but I got in touch with him sometime later and we started talking again, and he more recently (after we started dating) admitted that he'd felt bad about the whole situation all these years, said he didn't blame me for being angry, and apologized for hurting my feelings.
A couple of years went by at this point where I wasn't really in touch with either of them. I refused to speak to J unless she apologized, which she was adamantly not doing, and I knew that S was close to her and didn't feel comfortable talking to him lest he say things about me to her behind my back. However, I did find out more or less what happened to them in this lost time.
S graduated college with a four year BS in computer science and moved to San Antonio.
J, as I had mentioned, had gotten a degree in graphic design. Unfortunately, she didn't do anything else with it. After graduating, she promptly did not get a job and her aunt eventually kicked her out, and she moved back in with her parents. There, she got a job with a local newspaper doing page layout and editing, but very quickly found out that she hated doing graphic design for a living and resolved to go back to college. Again.
However, she had no money, and she didn't want to continue with the paper. So S offered to let her move in with him (he had (well, has, we're still living in it now) a 2 bedroom apartment) and get a job by him. San Antonio had lots of job opportunities. So, J did that.
It was around this time that I started talking to S again, and, shortly after that, J. She still didn't apologize to me, but we were at least civil to each other. It had been more than 2 years since the FF11 incident at this point, so I figured let bygones be bygones.
Over the course of the next few months, I found out from S that things with him and J were not all roses and cream. For starters, she didn't have a job, and whatever little money she had gotten from her job at the paper, she had spent paying off student loans (which she hadn't finished paying off when her money ran out, so her parents had to pick up the slack.) She also wasn't helping around the apartment, at all. Dishes would pile up so high that S would have to move or wash some of them just to get to the sink for a glass of water. Worst of all -- in his mind, at the time -- was the fact that she had developed an interest in a guy she recently met online.
This guy -- we'll call him T -- was a lot like J. He didn't have a job, and he was currently living with his "girlfriend" and was mooching off of her. I say "girlfriend" in quotes, because they couldn't stand each other, and from what I heard directly from J, it was a wonder that she hadn't kicked T out. J claimed that the girlfriend was abusive (verbally, at least) and that T felt trapped in her house because he had no where else to go; his parents wouldn't take him in and he had no money to move out on his own.
So what does J do? She sets it up for T to move in with her parents.
Let me say that again.
She sets a complete stranger, who has no money and no work history, to move in with her parents, whom she's not living with.
Keep in mind, at this point, that I am getting multiple versions of the same stories, because I hear them from both J and S. It's interesting to hear housemates' versions of the same story, and how wildly they can differ.
So, J sets off with her mother halfway across the country to pick T up and move him back to her mother's house. At this point, J had openly admitted to me that she was involved with T, and considered him her boyfriend, and vice versa. S had also told me that he had SUSPECTED this much of T and J, but when asked about it, J denied the fact. So J is hiding her relationship from S, and has asked me to keep her secret as well. Great.
A month went by in which S did not hear from J while she was traipsing back and forth across the country. When she finally did return, she sat right back down at her computer to chat with T and wouldn't move. Finally S confronted her about it again, and finally she admitted that, yes, she was in a relationship with T.
S was hurt. Part of me thinks it's silly, but part of me understands, too; he had wanted to try a relationship with her for years, and had been told that she wasn't interested in any relationship. He had hoped that if she ever did reconsider, that she'd reconsider him, too; but she didn't. And for that, and for lying to him, he was hurt. Add on the fact that it was about this point I found out she wasn't pulling her weight -- or any weight -- in the apartment duties, and I asked S what the HELL he was doing letting her mooch off of him, and he realized that he was only doing it because he liked her -- well, S was less than pleased.
So he laid it on her, and he laid it on her hard. Mostly about chores and responsibilities around the apartment, and how she had to start contributing.
J didn't like this one bit. She felt like he was attacking her and trying to get revenge on her because she had rejected him for another guy. So she refused to do any of what he told her to do.
So he kicked her out. Eventually. It took a couple of months and a lot of my trying to be the good friend caught in the middle. Mostly, S was scared of being alone. He had gotten used to another person being in the apartment, and didn't want to come home alone anymore.
In fact, he admitted to me before we got married that the thing he liked most about me living with him is that I'm always there to greet him as soon as he walks in the door in the evenings after work.
Anyway, back to the story. Through all of this, S had expressed his interest in seeing me again. We had not met since our initial meeting, which had been some 5 years prior to all of this. I was very hesitant at this point, for I felt like he might simply associate me with J and that I'd end up some kind of rebound for him. After J moved out and he again expressed his interest in me visiting him, I confessed these fears to him.
He understood completely, and explained that he didn't think I should feel like a rebound. Why? Because...well, he'd had these feelings for me all along. Turns out, all those years ago, when I told him I had a crush on him, he had a crush on me too. He told me he didn't want a relationship because that's what J told him to say. He had talked to her about his feelings for me before saying anything to me personally, and she had told him, in no uncertain terms, that it was a horrible idea and that things wouldn't work out between us so he should just forget about it. So he did. For the time being.
She had him wrapped around her finger this entire time.
Anyway, after a long discussion, we decided we'd been interested in each other this whole time and that we should meet and see what happens.
That was about 2 years ago. We met again, for the second time, in February 2008.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
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