Fellow Travelers

At the World Horror Con in Portland this weekend, I finally met a woman writer with whom I have been corresponding for like, fourteen years. She had a boyfriend and I had a buddy, and they were the same, which is how we met online, way back when. Shortly thereafter, she and he went their separate ways, and while I hung on for a longer time, I came to sympathize with her position pretty quickly as I found myself  headed toward the same place. Took me longer to get there.

I'm not mentioning names here, in a thinly-disguised attempt to protect the guilty. 

We met up at the con, had lunch, and spent much of it trashing our old ex-friend, who was, when you got right down to it, no two ways about it, a self-centered dick. We continued to be amazed at ourselves, that it took us so long to realize that's who he really was ...

As I have learned more than a couple times, the truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing.

Or, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. 

And the same thing said a little differently: None so blind as those who will not see ...

What I tell you three times must be true.

That projection one does of the characteristics we want  in somebody can be a very thick, self-generated fog. Hey, he's really a nice guy, people don't know him as well as I do, they miss his good points. 

Or, as it sometimes happens, not having a horse in that race to root for, they view it more objectively, and they do see something you have elected to overlook ...

He's really a nice guy? Naw, he's a self-centered dick ...

Anyway, what it does when you finally have the Come to Realize Moment is make you wonder why the hell you didn't see it a long time ago? Makes you feel stupid ...

Ah, well. Water. Bridges. Lots of the former under the latter ...

It was great to finally see her in the flesh. The only disconnect was, that after years of email hither and yon, her voice wasn't quite what I expected. Since I hadn't heard her speak but once, on the telephone, a dozen years and some back, and then only for a few moments, having an expectation of her voice was based entirely on seeing her words in print. You miss the cadence, the tone, the inflection, the funny accents. 

I liked her before, and more so now. 

And our opinion of our ex-boyfriend, ex-buddy? Still a self-centered dick, as far as we are concerned ...