A Wake up Call

  Have you ever been in love, not the kind of puppy love that leaves as quickly as it seemingly enters a person's mind, but the kind of love that, to someone that has never experienced it, does not exist? I have, and it was the most electrifing experience of my life.

  The way we met was, as after much thought I have come to realize, to most people a taboo. What "normal" person starts a relationship with someone they've never even seen? But despite that fact after a while our emotional bond was greater than that of a couple married for over twenty years. We shared our deepest thoughts, feelings, fears, and even secrets. We wanted to know everything about the other and eventually we did. We'd spend hours on the phone daily as we talked every time we got a chance.

  Eventually we were finishing each other's sentences. We even shared the same opinions on most everything even though we were hundreds of miles apart. I'm not saying things were perfect, we fought, argued. Every healthy couple does, but it was almost like without one of us the other didn't exist.

  What could have gone so wrong as to seperate two people so very much in love? I have to admit that it would be me. One of the hardest parts about online dating is knowing whether you are getting to know the person behind the pictures. Is the person behind the mask who you think it is, or is it someone who, for one reason or another has created a mock idenity?

  In order to completely understand I'm going to tell you my story from beginning to end. It started around the beginning of February 2006. One of my sisters who had been having some relationship problems confided in me that her boyfriend may have been cheating. We decided that the only way to really find out would be to see for ourselves. A couple of days later we conjoured up what at the time seemed to be a seamless plan.

  That very day we created a fake web page and added some friends, a school, and even a few pictures. In order to really bring this girl to life, though, and to push out any doubts to my sister's boyfriend that she was a fake, I started talking with the people we were adding. By the time we added my sister's boyfriend I had stumbled over and made quite a few friends. One of them, as you may have already guessed was the man I spoke of in the beginning, the one I fell in love with, the one I still love. And soon after we had confirmed my sister's worries I had some of my own. How could I just stop talking to these new, amazing friends I had made, especially him. At a time when I was least expecting it, or even wanting it, I was falling in love and I didn't want it to stop.

From a very young age I had been raised as a Jehovah's Witness, and as such I could not date until I was ready for marriage even though everyone else was doing so. I wasn't aloud to make friends with anyone outside my own religion, and the only time I had for myself would be spent studying for the next Witness Meeting or preaching from door to door to people that really didn't want ot hear what I had to say, and they showed it too. I'd be yelled at, cursed at, threatened, and even made fun of. Over a number of years these things can have a serious impact on a person's self-esteem and well being. I was quiet, shy, and distant.

I only followed the strict rules set upon me because I was made to believe that I was supposed to, for if I didn't I would die a horrible death at what they call "armagedden". I was pretty much raised by my grandmother, she's the one that introduced me to the Jehovah's Witness Organization.My father was there, but he wasn't the kind of father any child would ask for.He'd go in his room for days, sometimes weeks, emerging for food or the occational bathroom break. When he was around all he did, and still does today, was complain. He also told my sisters and I that our mother didn't love us or want to see us, and since he was our father we believed him. Adding on to the terrible thought that our own mother didn't love us he'd monitor her calls, telling her that we either weren't home or that we really didn't want ot talk to her. It wasn't till later on I found out the truth and I haven't been able to look at my father the same since.

  That brings us to the person who, after raising six children of her own, saw that without our mother around, our father couldn't raise us, and took my two sister's and I under her wings, we were introduced to the Witness Organization, and my life began to change forever.

  The point I was trying to make is that growing up in such a sheltered life is not easy. It's like a rubberband being stretched. All rubberbands have their limit, they all, after being stretched enough break, and when they do it is fast, powerful, and if a person happens to get in the way, it does hurt. This is pretty much what happened to me. When my grandmother died the band that had always remained so loose began to stretch. As I found out the lies of my father and began to get to know my mother it continued stretching. The fake persona I began to portray was just the icing on the cake, he was the person in the path of that finally stretched to the limit rubberband. I finally bagan to say what I wanted, and didn't have to worry about the people I already knew judging me because, how could they? I was somebody else.

  I made up a couple of lies in the beginning such as my name, age, car I drove, and rather than two sister's there was only one, but with the personalities, friends, and relationships of both my real life sisters combined. Everything else I did and said was the truth, from the fact that my favorite color is green to the many secrets I told. I remember the first time we ever got to have a serious conversation, we were so excited, asking question's, anwsering the other's questions, and every question he asked got an honest, heart-felt anwser. I wanted him to know the real me. But I was soon to find out that one lie leads to another, then another, until you're so entagled in your own web of lies that the only way to make things better is to tell the truth.

  There are things I look back on and wish I would have done differently. I could have found him on the fake site, but began talking to him as myself, the real me, though by the time I did it would have been too late. He already liked the "fake" me and was interested in nobody else. I was trapped and had no intentions of trying to escape. The feeling of liking someone and knowing they like you back is an amazing feeling. I was on top of the world and it was obvious to everyone around me. I took a stand, left the religion and everyone involved in it forever, and I moved in with my mother. I didn't tell him, I didn't want him to know anything about that part of my life, I didn't want to talk about it. All I really wanted to do was to block it out forever. Obviously looking back though, I'm glad I've finally realized that it was the whole reason for my actions.

  After a while it began to be painfully hard not touching or even seeing the person I was in love with, not only for me, but for him as well, so I began to think of ways in which to tell him the truth. The only problem was that every time I came up with an idea, something, most of the time fear of losing him, crept in and delayed the inevitable even longer. Each day got harder and harder until finally everything just burst out. The reaction I got was the one I had been afraid of, he was shocked.

  That dreadful day I lost the first person I had fallen so madly in love with forever. I tried to explain myself, leaving long heart-felt messeges both on his voicemail and online, but he was so hurt that he wouldn't listen to my desperate pleas. He just put it in his mind that he'd never again be able to trust me, and that he'd just have to move on. As for me, I've tried moving on, "meeting new people", but to no avail. Every thought, action, every picture, scent, and sunset reminds me of this one amazing man.

  To a degree I'm not the girl he fell in love with. I may not be as blonde, pretty, or even as skinny. In all the ways that really do matter, though, I am. I'm still the smart, funny, dorky, easy to get along with, and even though he may not see it, honest girl he did. I used to think that maybe, one day, he might be able to look past the lies to the truth, but as each time I call he sounds more and more distant as if speaking to a mere stranger, the hope that I'm still trying to cling to deminishes, until finally, if not resipricated, it will disappear.

  I guess that's the reason I decided to share my story. Because I don't want anyone to go through what either he or I did ever again. It's just way too painful. But even though it hurts there is still, and always will be, not one day that goes by that I regret what I did because if I hadn't I might still be the girl I was before, living a life I hated, and most importantly I wouldn't have found love, no matter how short lived.