Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site boulder.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!teddy!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!hao!cires!boulder!jon From: jon@boulder.UUCP (Jon Corbet) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: What now? (Depressed ramblings) Message-ID: <263@boulder.UUCP> Date: Wed, 9-Jan-85 22:27:01 EST Article-I.D.: boulder.263 Posted: Wed Jan 9 22:27:01 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 13-Jan-85 07:53:13 EST Organization: National Center for Atmospheric Research Lines: 90 [Please don't eat this line] I would like to tell a story. Several years ago, I met a woman by the name of Becky. She was in my first programming class at CU. There came a time when we had a large assignment due, I had it mostly done but was out of "money" (This was a CDC 6400, doing Pascal on punched cards. Never again!). She had plenty of money, but had not even begun to think about the assignment. Thus was a promising partnership started. Over the next three years, we became close friends, and took several classes together. We survived William Waite's assembly class, (on the CDC 6400, but with a 300 baud DECwriter terminal this time -- we thought we were lucky), and even had a good time doing it. About that time my schizophrenic SO went completely nuts (the ending of that relationship included police intervention). Becky helped me through the resulting trauma. When my lease ran out a little later, and she had a room available in her house, I moved in as her roommate. Over the next three years we build a friendship that made all of my previous relationships look like one night stands. We came to love each other very much, even though we continued to sleep separately. We spent our vacations together, we played games, saw movies, and essentially did everything together. We began to live very much as if we were married, except that we never slept together, which was funny because we had been known to do that occasionally before living together. Our social lives contracted to include very little except each other. Our closeness came out in many ways. Christmas presents arrived addressed to "Jon and Becky." We accumulated at least $1000 worth of common property. We decided that we would go into business together, and form an independant company. We moved into an isolated house way the hell up in the mountains. A while back, Becky came to the (quite justified) opinion that she needed a new job. She searched in Boulder for a long time, with no luck. My opinion of my own employer went down a notch as NCAR ran her around for months, said they wanted her, then promoted a student assistant into the position instead. Eventually, she applied to jobs out of state. A company called "Eaton- Kenway" offered her a job, and $10K more than her current salary. She accepted. Unfortunately, EK is located in Salt Lake City, Utah. So, in a flash, she brought an end to the closest relationship that either of us has ever had, and moved to Salt Lake. Now...the month before she left was very strange. We started sleeping together. She finally met my mother. We both came to realize what we were loosing. Lots of tears were shed by both of us. Toward the end, I came to realize that I really wanted her to share the rest of my life, that I did not want her to leave me alone. So I brought this up. I suggested that maybe after a year or so, we could bring our lives back together (we both agreed that separation for a while would be good for us.) But this time, it would be as lifetime partners, instead of roommates and friends. Maybe we could still make our business work too. I was more than willing to move to SLC, since she could not really quit this nice new job after one year. She said no. She tells me that she loves me, that she still wants to start a business, but that we should both find somebody else. She told me lots of things, like "I don't want to commit myself to sleeping with one person" and other sayings that women have always told me when they mean that they are not interested. Damn it, I don't understand. We can bring each other so much joy when we want to, and that was true even up to the very end, when she left me at the SLC airport. Even after we had the above discussion, we had a lot of fun before I left. We lived together for years without even having one big fight. We have so many dreams of what we want to do in the future. Yet, she does not want me to be a big part of her future. So here I am. My best friend is gone, and I have nobody to talk to. My self esteem is crushed; I can't see any woman being interested in me now, if Becky isn't after all the love and good times we shared. I have no social life left to speak of. I break down in tears at my desk when I am supposed to be getting work done. I am seriously wondering why I should even continue to try to make something out of life, now that the most valuable part of it has left. I really do not know what to do. So here I am babbling out my situation to hundreds of strangers, and a few semi-strangers (hi, Greg!). I don't know what sort of response I expect, if any. I just need to talk and there is nobody to talk to. For those of you who haven't gotten fed up and hit the 'q' or 'j' key, thanks for listening. -- jon