The Rogue Not Taken

“Are you there?”

The metaphysics of this question could well define the Internet age. I gaped at his message on my parents’ ancient computer monitor while my mother nattered on nearby, oblivious to the seismic event reordering me just feet away. Terse, insistent, somewhat possessive, his emails had frustrated me in how they communicated only what was necessary, not an iota more. I could write an encyclopedia and not say as much as this three-word sentence. He hadn’t been in touch in years. It was the day before my wedding.

“Impeccable timing,” I’d told him. He wished me well, as if I were a colleague or distant relative, and he retreated back into the void, once again as far away as his screen name suggested. It’s worth noting those occasions when the universe shows its sense of humor, even if it’s at your expense, which is usually the case. Do we ever notice when the universe is especially beneficent?

I dated one man in college. We would’ve made the perfect couple — had we lived in the 1950s. Later I wondered if our Catholic backgrounds let him presume an understanding about what our relationship was designed to be. I was a plain, good-natured Midwesterner. Perhaps he chose me expressly because he wouldn’t want to touch me and thus avoid proceeding straight to his eternal torment. Whatever his reasoning, this reluctance bordering on repulsion proved to be an ur-experience for me, much like others’ trials of being fat as a child. By the time I was in my 30s, having had minimal success in the dating wars, it was time to look elsewhere.

I was an early adopter of Internet access. Though I’m hardly a visionary, I knew this brave new world held great promise, and equally great peril: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I was quickly spending a disproportionate amount of my free time online, enduring lengthy dial-ups on my 2400 baud modem, anticipating, craving, the cheery AOL concierge’s voice: “You’ve got mail.” No Hollywood rom-rom treatment could ever do justice to the visceral impact of those words. Time had no meaning when I was online, and I hardly noticed the excess charges piling up on my credit card as I routinely overstayed my contractual commitment, trolling in chat rooms.

The night we “met,” friends had come over to idle away a dark winter night with televised college hoops. Perhaps the Catholic in me felt the need to confess: I sat my (female) friend down to watch the feeding frenzy when I logged on, the consequence of having inadvertently chosen an evocative screen name. We howled our way through the come-ons, including one that included an early incarnation of gif. When the poor resolution of an enormous member eventually materialized, the sender was perplexed to learn that we found it lacking.

The sheer volume of messages that night might well have prevented seeing the initial overture from the Laconic One, but it was quick work in that lowest common denominator environment to determine who got game. Soon we were exchanging bon mots, trying to one-up each other. My friends left, and as the night got later, I violated the terms and conditions of secure Internet protocol. I sent him my number.

Hearing his voice that first time dropped my heart into my gut: he could have pursued a lucrative voiceover career playing sozzled, chain-smoking serial killers and their ilk. He was a writer. Of course he was. By the end of the call, my every sense was thrumming with pleasure. Soon I was talking with him several times a day, sometimes sexually, more often as a check-in on his quotidian activities or to discuss pages from the novel he was writing. He wrote well. Mix tapes were made and exchanged, a form of seduction to which I had no resistance. Seeing his handwriting on the song list was a jolt: he has a hand! He can write!

The intensity of his attention was unlike anything I’d ever experienced in a romantic relationship. He answered my questions but never reciprocated, which I later came to understand was the way he compartmentalized me. I compartmentalized him in no way whatsoever. I’ve never abused any controlled substances, but I’m sure his effect on me was equivalent to being continually high for months. My appetite, and twenty-five pounds, dematerialized.

Spring came. Sap rising, all that. I wanted to meet. A friend’s wedding in Rhode Island that summer provided an excuse for being in his general area, and so I made the plan. I’d meet him in a hotel in the Back Bay area of Boston, at a certain time on a certain day. I wasn’t concerned that he wouldn’t show; my other online dating experiences had taught me that the lure of a female who might be up for sex was too much for most men to overcome. In fact, of the many I met (I lost count after 30), only one ever said I wasn’t his type. No, my concern was that he wouldn’t find me attractive. That was the outcome I dreaded.

The day in question arrived. I chose an outfit that was casual; you can’t seem to be trying too hard, even if you’ve come hundreds of miles for what might only amount to a quickie. I took the elevator down to the lobby, wondering if I looked as foolish as I felt. Who does this? Hookers…except they’re compensated for their time.

I recognized him immediately: he was sitting in a wing chair, a paper spread across his lap. He looked exactly as he’d described himself. We shook hands and repaired to the hotel bar. It was hard to look at each other. We were more relaxed when we spoke without making eye contact, replicating the experience of having a familiar voice in your ear without the overwhelming disconnect of that voice emanating from a person you don’t know. I have no recollection what we spoke of.

He excused himself after less than an hour, saying he’d be back in the morning. He told me to order room service: “Make sure to have coffee.” He might have kissed me on the cheek, but I was already dissociating from what had transpired: he was declining all that was implicit in our meeting.

The truth does not set you free. He found me repulsive, and he would not be back.

Rejection this absolute stripped me of pretense. I needed to undo what had just been done, or I might find myself sobbing uncontrollably in a public place. I took myself out of the hotel and forced eye contact with men I passed on the street. Even that speck of aggression made me feel out of control, as if I were daring each one to have his way with me. One man smiled in response to my look as he held open a car door for his female companion. Another gave me the once-over in an approving manner. Another, with whom I locked eyes as we approached each other on the sidewalk, stared directly at me with such intensity that I felt a frisson of fear, realizing that my experiment had just succeeded all too well, and now I was afraid of what I had wrought. I returned to the hotel, my eyes focused on the concrete beneath my feet.

In the morning, I didn’t order breakfast. The skeptic had reassumed control: damned if I was going to let my fantasy stick me with a bill laden with taxes and fees plus the proof of my idiocy untouched on a silver platter. I told myself it was better this way, that there would now be a clean break, no further fantasy, and best of all, no regrets.

But his knock at the door brought me up short. I had started my journey back to reason and respectability, but here he was again. He seemed surprised that I hadn’t ordered breakfast. Without it, there was no agenda to direct us. He unfolded the morning paper and proceeded to absorb himself in it while I sat on the edge of the bed, our knees almost touching. Someone else, someone with more confidence and less reserve, would have gotten his attention. But I was not about to throw myself at him. I wanted to be wanted. Despite having read every word he’d ever sent me, and between the lines, I couldn’t read him.

In minutes, we were out of the room and on the street, on the hunt for coffee. Again, I have no idea what was said, where we went, or how soon we parted. I flew home wondering how this relationship, or whatever it was, would progress. It seemed unlikely that I’d hear from him. Yet again, I was wrong. We maintained contact for some time, but I was no longer smitten, and he was all too aware of it. Soon the calls dwindled, then stopped. We never saw each other again.

These days, I feel no rancor towards him. Now that search engines are so improved, a few bylines pop up when I go looking for him. Recently I sent an email to an address listed at the bottom of an article he’d written and waited. It didn’t bounce back.

He answered about a week later, still terse, still elliptical in addressing my direct questions. His son had recently graduated from college. His street address was still the same.

Using Google Earth, I plugged in the address and in seconds, after plummeting through the atmosphere via satellite, I found myself staring at his front door, as close as if I were standing on the sidewalk across the street. If I were there in person, looking up at the ivy spread across the doorway, the untrimmed hedge and the overgrown yard, if I stood there for hours, in all weather, and waited for him to come out or come home, this much is certain: he would not know me, and I would not be invited in.