I realized in someone's thread that I had a really cool idea for a twist to toss his direction--but it would require me to know something about him, and I couldn't ask him outright without giving away the twist. It occurred to me, too, that I have wanted to know things about players in the past, and not been able to determine them easily. Thus I am starting a new set of sticky threads specifically to get personal details from people.
No you do not have to participate, but doing so will enhance the ability of your referee to run your game. And no, you do not have to answer all of the questions nor all of the threads to participate. I recognize that people do want a certain amount of privacy, and might not be comfortable posting personal details of their lives on the Internet. So post what you want, and leave the rest for guesses.
If you are not playing in a Multiverser game, this thread is not intended for you. If you wish to play, you should start with the threads Yes, You Can Play, But.... and The Character Generation Thread to begin your involvement, then come back to these threads to expand your identity.
This thread is about the might-have-beens of your personal relationships. Who were your friends, and particularly your potential "significant others", over the years, and what happened.
Because this area is so very personal, you are invited to be sketchy.
Questions to consider:
- Are you married? How did you come together?
- Who else did you date seriously? Did you ever think of marrying, or marrying someone else? What happened?
- Who have your close friends been? What became of them?
- How popular were you, when, and why?
I will begin.
--M. J. Young
I met my wife at Luther College, when we were both freshman. We really didn't like each other. She was actively attempting to overcome her dislike by being nice to me, and I interpreted those efforts as pursuing me. I wound up in a relationship with someone else that year in part to put distance between us. But we'll come back to that.
The first love of my life was a second grader--one of my peers, as I was also a second grader. She was frail, an asthmatic petite blond named Christie Newcomb. She was a major distraction to my school efforts. It took me until fourth grade to be able to spend any time with her, and then we hung out together quite a bit. She, however, became enamored with the Beatles (I liked them, but couldn't even tell them apart in photos), and I, envious of her affections, claimed that the Rolling Stones were better (something I never really believed, but I had just seen them on the Ed Sullivan Show and perceived them as the up-and-coming next thing). That didn't quite end our relationship--for an extended time in fifth grade boys would put me up to trying to catch her and kiss her at the back door after school, and she playfully evaded, but we never got back together. By sixth grade I do not know where she was, but I have always missed her and wondered what became of her.
This was in part because after sixth grade we moved. I was very pleased that we moved. I had a very few "friends", including Ricky Laitila (never was sure how to spell his name, but we were playmates before kindergarten) and Phil Parrizeau (yea, apparently my friends had tough names) and "Bittle" Curry, but none of them were willing to appear to be my friends if anyone else was around. I figured a move would give me a fresh start with new friends--but it didn't work that way. I had no more friends after the move than I did before. I was athletically inept, and that seemed to be the only thing that mattered to my peers. I knew I was musically talented, but had failed to impress people with that yet. My mother always told me I was very intelligent, but she also told me I was handsome, so I knew she was lying.
I did meet John J. "Jay" Fedigan, from whom I learned much about "writing songs", as opposed to "composing music". That had a tremendous impact on my life, but after two years we drifted apart completely and rarely had any interaction with each other.
I had a crush on one of my sister's friends, almost four years my junior but only three years behind me in school, when I was in eighth grade. I never told her--never had the courage, and wasn't at all sure how a girl that young would react to an older boy taking a romantic interest in her. I wondered what became of Jennifer Lee Nash, too, in later years.
I had a couple of brief girlfriend relationships in middle school that are dim memories. One was with Lisa Ahlers, who lived across the street from me and came over every day one summer talking about all the couples she knew. I figured she was hinting, and asked if she wanted to be my girlfriend, and she said she guessed so. We spent the summer together, and she promptly denied it when school resumed in the fall. Then there was a girl who was almost a groupie--Artie Robbins and I were playing together mostly at parties that summer after eighth grade, doing songs we'd written, and Dory became the girl who sat on my lap and snuggled up with me. She was sweet, and I have no idea why we drifted apart, but she was a year younger, which put us in different schools in the fall when I became a freshman.
Artie became a good friend and musical companion until my senior year of high school, when I wrapped up the precision rock band BLT Down and transitioned it to become The Last Psalm, and he, being Jewish, couldn't really play in a Christian band. We still kept touch for a couple years; he became a chef, last I heard.
I had a girlfriend at summer camp, Sue Wallace, whom I saw several summers in a row and liked very much. At some point I started writing to her about a longer term relationship, and she started being very "rational" about it, asking my opinion on things like zero population growth and birth control--pretty wild, considering she was two years my junior and I was not yet out of high school. That sort of fizzled after that.
The first not summer girlfriend I had wasn't until my junior year of high school, when a freshman took a particular interest in me and her friends brokered the introductions. I went out with her because it was socially better to have a girlfriend than not, but we never got to know each other, to the point that I don't remember her name at all--although it might have been Sue, but then, that makes a lot of Susans in my history.
When I was a high school senior, Deanna was the freshman who was interested in me, and I hung out with her for a while. By then, though, I was very committed to a solidly Christian life, and kept inviting her to come to the local Christian coffeehouse (a very youth-oriented experience). She made excuses for a long time, until finally she outright told me no, she was not interested. I walked away, saying that without that connection we had nothing in common.
Interestingly, she showed up the next weekend, and was there for many weekends after that; but we never got back together--she started dating someone else she met there. I played the field for the rest of my high school career, but was, for the first time in my life, actually popular with the girls--at least, with the freshman girls.
Jeff Zurheide is another important friend. I met him at camp, but he lived half an hour away and when he started driving in our senior year he joined The Last Psalm as lead guitar and vocalist. He also went to Luther (and to Gordon, but completely independent decisions from mine), and played with me in several bands over that time; but he became more and more opposed to me running or fronting for any band, for reasons that are much to complicated to explain here.
Then we get to college. I mentioned that I met my wife there, but also that in trying to distance myself from her I wound up dating someone else. That would be Sue Adams. Fact is, I need not have done this, because none of the girls thought much of me there--they thought I was conceited, and particularly that I thought I knew more about music and performance than anyone else there. Then my band, The Last Psalm which had been playing in various spots around Bergen County, was invited to open at a "Coffeehouse Night", a sort of conference for youth-oriented outreach ministries of that sort throughout the area. Sue was among those who had thought I thought I knew so much about music, who then thought maybe I wasn't conceited to think that after all. We impressed, and it made a big difference to my social standing--and got me a girlfriend.
I almost married Sue; we were "pre-engaged" at one point, and I spent part of the summer at her house. Then that fall a series of events hit us hard, and over the coming months I discovered that she had been lying to me about something (she had lied early in the relationship and couldn't figure out how to undo it). In an odd twist, it came down to the fact that she lied to me about the contents of a drink she served me and attempted to persuade me by asking, "Would I lie to you?" The answer turned out to be yes, and we never repaired the relationship.
During that time, Janet more than once said to herself that if she had a boyfriend as nice as me, she would treat him better than Sue did. She got her chance. Janet was known to be the girl who hung out of her window talking to boys after curfew (the girls had a curfew, the boys did not), and I was at first still working that security job I mentioned in the other thread and getting back after curfew, so I spent many hours just talking with her. Those talks expanded to long walks involving talking--once walking so far we discovered that Hackensack across the river had a submarine one could tour, and took the tour before returning home. She was officially pursuing my drummer, John, and I teased her that our relationship would not be serious because she was in love with John Mastick and I had to play the field, but by the time graduation had passed and we were together that summer, we became engaged.
There have been a number of people I "might have married" since then, but in the words of Gilbert and Sullivan, "He will be faithful to his sooth, 'til they are wed, and even after." There were a couple of sweet girls at Gordon College whom I got to know as friends, some very attractive, but I was committed. It also helped that I was not particularly good at reading the feelings of girls. I recall that there was one girl who took over as secretary at the radio station who was sweet and pretty and always very kind to me, but she was married and I was married and although I liked her I never thought anything more about it than that. I found out some years later that her cousin-in-law was horrified to learn that she had a terrible crush on me, but I never suspected that.
I can count the really close friends I have had over the years on my fingers, and most of those relationships have been fraught with disaster and angst, but those are details I'd rather not discuss. The one exception is probably David Oldham, who was my brother's peer and close friend but connected with me and worked as a tech and ultimately vocalist in The Last Psalm and then returned a decade later to play bass in TerraNova, and ultimately became a pastor of a church. He married one of my earliest Last Psalm vocalists. I've lost touch with him only in the past couple years, following a computer crash that took out all my e-mail addresses, but he is the one person I trust most.
--M. J. Young
I am in the "might as well be married" category. Everyone calls Melinda my wife. We're not married because it would make our finances a mess, more or less. We met at my old job at the library. She didn't have cable yet and came in to get DVDs. She liked the movies I recommended and how we chatted about them, so she kept coming back on my nights. We started going out for coffee, and when the people at Starbucks grew too annoying, she invited me to her place for some movies, and we've been us more or less ever since.
I'm not really comfortable disclosing this part of my past in a public forum. Suffice it to say, I had one serious girlfriend before Melinda, but would never have married her, because she turned out to be batsh*t crazy. I was seriously in love once before, with someone who to this day does not feel the same. She is the one the "outgoing, flirty" girl in port reminded me of. I would have been hers in a heartbeat had she ever but said the word.
Edit: There is one other personal incident that could have changed my life (or maybe not) had it gone differently. When I was a senior in high school, I was asked out by a girl who was in the eighth grade. I turned her down, based on nothing else but her age and what the law had to say about that sort of thing. She was a sweet person and I did actually like her, but I was too afraid and turned her down. It's been one of my greatest regrets ever since.
As for close friends, I really have none. I've had superficial friendships, but I do not consider any of my friends to be close. The closest thing I have would have been Pete. Pete thinks he's my close friend. The fact is he was a friend of a friend in high school. My tolerance for him is born from his unexplainable loyalty to me. I do nothing to deserve his devotion. Now that he is married, he has something else to do, and pesters me less often. My patience for him wanes the more his wife influences him.
I have other friends, I suppose. My high school D&D buddies, mostly: Mark, John, Ilya, Chris, and Pete HDP. Pete HDP is the one of my friends I trust the most, the only person I would without hesitation trust my life and soul to. Even him I keep at arm's length, mostly because I am a paranoid, untrusting, cowardly person and though I loathe loneliness, I only feel safe when I am alone.
I have never been popular. In grade school I was the poor kid in class, and no one ever for a second let me forget it. It helped nothing that I was the fat kid, too. Consequently, I was set up to be a bitter, isolated, untrusting, vindictive person right from then. high school did nothing to disabuse me of those notions, and college, though better, could not put the pieces together again for me.
It is perhaps an oddity of my life that I have always been excessively and effortlessly popular online. My blogs gain small but immediate followings, I am a moderator on at least one message board, and so on. I have also had several online romances in my brief and ever-so-pathetic history.
It is perhaps another oddity of my life that religious people seem to like me. I was well liked when I was involved with the United Methodist Church. People even said I should have been a minister. It never came to pass.
Edit: When I was working at the church, there was a girl named Sonya, who clung to me like a big brother. She was nine at the time, and I loved her as if she were my own sister. I protected her, looked out for her. When I moved home, I had to leave her behind. It's been seven years and still not a day goes by that I don't miss her, wish I could have my little sister back, wonder how she's doing, but nobody knows where she is now and I haven't been able to find her.
My best friend in elementary school was named Paul. We were close, and actually tried to become blood brothers. We couldn't bring ourselves to cut though, so it never came out. I moved in the 4th grade, and lost contact with him, only to get it back through the intervention of a teacher that knew him. In the 6th grade, I moved back to that neighborhood when my mom got divorced. Paul decided he wanted nothing to do with me then, and began to show it by becoming one of the worst bullies I have ever known in my life. Strange how that works out, huh?
In the 7th grade, I met a guy named Moze. He claimed to be the great grandson of Moe Howard of The Three Stooges. In the 8th grade, he also decided he wanted nothing to do with me, and proved it by becoming a bully. (Why do my friends keep doing that shit to me???????????)
In 9th grade, I met Jimmy. We met at church, and were the two outcasts in the youth group. Naturally we became really close friends. He's only a few points above legally retarded, and stuck to me like barnacles on the bottom of a ship. Although he's a year and a half older (but still in the same grade) it was clear that I was the leader of the two. For some reason, whenever we walked anywhere, he was always on my left and a half step behind me. I haven't talked to him in a while, after a falling out over a lady that I introduced him to. He threw away a 10 year friendship with me over a marijuana dealer twice his age that wanted nothing to do with him.
The summer of my 16th year on Spaceship Earth, I met Dorothy. I was 16, she was 32. She was suicidal over a very bad divorce, and I became her one ray of hope in life. I asked her once if she thought I saved her life, and she said "I know you did" Nothing could have possibly come out of it, but it was still interesting.
In the 11th grade, I met Wendy. She was a Senior. She was (and still is) the classic school nerd. Glasses the size of glass Coke bottle bottoms, weighs about 85 pounds, braces, the works. I started calling her Gwendolyn, mostly because I didn't like the name Wendy. She fell in love with me, and actively pursued me, to the point that I had to threaten to have her suspended for sexual harassment if she didn't stop. Finally I relented. I wasn't Mr. Popular either (never have been) and Wendy was a fun girl to hang out with. In retrospect, she is one of the best things that ever happened in my life.
In the 12th grade, I met Judy and Amy (both Juniors who were supposed to be Seniors, and both older than me.) Amy was the sweet, hopeless romantic, and Judy was a gorgeous fireball. Neither of them had ever had a boyfriend before. I dated both of them at the same time, although I much preferred Judy. EDIT: Judy was the Hungarian girlfriend that I referenced in another thread. She was known as "Funny Accent Girl" around school. Also, her last name looked like it could be pronounced "Fruity" so she was "Judy Fruity" Probably why she never had a boyfriend before me, as she was easily the sexiest woman I ever dated. I called her "My sweet Hungarian devil" That pretty much summed up her personality. Sweet with a real mean streak.
When I was 20, I met Christina, as described in the Jobs thread. I was so close to marrying her.
A few other girlfriends, although none I really would have considered marrying.
I drove over 2,200 miles to Los Angeles from Ohio to meet Nikki. We had been talking online for years. I would have married her, but her parents would never have allowed it. (She is the Mexican girlfriend I referenced in some other thread somewhere here) We still talk sometimes, but it's clear that nothing will come of it.
At the moment, I am girlfriendless, although I did get back together with Amy for a brief stint. (If it were up to her, we would be married and have 5 kids by now) We still talk on occasion.
I am, at the moment, pursuing Genny. (She's 28, and claims she has never been kissed before. Please pray that I can help her change that)
I don't have hardly any real-life friends who are not related to me in some fashion, and believe it or not, consider MJ to be one of my closest and most trusted friends.
The only real life friend that I have who is not related to me in some fashion would be Mike. I met him when I was 16, he was 25. He was a much needed port in a storm of two sisters and a mom at home. I consider him to be My Other Older Brother.
EDIT: One of the best friends I've ever had in my life was a cook at DelMatto's. His name was Mike Jones. (I feel comfortable giving his last name, as there's thousands of that name) He was in his 40s, and married to a woman who already had 3 kids. He worked very hard to support them. I pitied him because he worked so hard just to stay broke. After a while, I realized that he wasn't a man to be pitied, but a man to be admired. He could have walked out of that marriage. The kids weren't his, he had no legal ties to them. He could have walked away. However, he stayed because he loved his family so much. He was the example that all men need to follow when they take their marriage vows. I haven't seen him in years. I hope I get to tell him this one day.
Yes, I'm married though my "verser" isn't, since I started playing when Matt and I were only dating. We met in college, through mutual friends and hobbies. We were both in the SCA group, for one thing. He was two years behind me in school, and when he came along, my two best friends were Matt (yeah, another one) and Lara (who used to post here). Matt ended up as part of that circle his freshman year. The four of us went to SCA events, ate most meals together, and played a lot of computer games. I have fond memories of spending Saturday nights in the computer lab playing Age of Empires with the three of them.
As far as what got us together, well, several things. By my senior year, Lara and the other Matt started dating, leaving Matt and me more time to get to know each other. I developed a huge crush on him because he was sweet and kind--a genuinely good person. Like when I totalled my car and he took me to get my stuff out of it, and was very comforting as I was freaking out about it.
I confided this to Lara and Matt M. Matt M., in his usual subtle-as-a-firebreathing-dragon fashion had the following conversation with Matt: "Do you like her?" "Well....yeah." "You should ask her out." "Um....okay." A while later, I had gotten some bookshelves from my parents that I was about to put together, and he asked if I needed help. Typical of him, but also, I found later, a good excuse to come talk to me so he could actually ask me out. Which he did, eventually, after a lot of embarrassed laughter from both of us. Two people as shy as we are getting together is something of a miracle.
I don't know if he ever would have said anything if Matt M. hadn't made the suggestion, so a divergent world in which we never dated is definitely a possibility. I might eventually have gotten up the nerve to ask him out, but I don't know. I know he thought that I, a senior, wouldn't be interested in a sophomore.
Other people I've dated seriously, not so much. My freshman year, I had a relationship that lasted all of a month, with a guy named Tom. I was heartbroken when he ended it, but later realized that we weren't anything even resembling right for each other and would've driven each other totally crazy had we stayed together. We also didn't have tons in common.
Oh, and one absolute disaster of a blind date, where they guy was telling me about nasty pranks he'd played, like physically barricading his RA into his room (more than shoving something in front of the door--I think it involved concrete or something like that) and putting a plastic bag full of sugar in his boss's bag when he helped him pack for a trip. So, you apparently framed someone for drug use, because you didn't like him, and you think this is funny? Yeah, that's the kind of thing that'll impress your date. The date itself was nice, and he asked me out again. When he asked why I said "no," I pulled out the tired "let's just be friends" line, because the honest answer was that I thought he was a jerk, and there's just no nice way to say that.
Close friends: In high school, there was Sarah and DJ (DJ standing for Dan something). I lost touch with DJ because his family moved away, to New York I think. Sarah and I just kind of drifted apart.
I was a member of a sorority in college, so I had lots of friends there, though not all close. The closest were probably Emily, Kirsten, and Lara, all of whom I'm still in contact with. They were in my wedding, along with LeeAnn. LeeAnn wasn't a sorority sister but was a good friend, and is someone I still see occasionally. Matt and I are also friends with her husband Wayne.
Ways my life could've been different...well, if I'd gotten into Grove City, I might have gone there and not met my husband or most of my close friends. There was also a time when I wanted to be a lawyer, so I could have gone to law school. In different circumstances, I might also have stayed in teaching instead of getting burned out after a couple years.
Heck, a slighlty different "me" might've gone the overachiever route, retaken the SATs to break 1500 and go for a perfect verbal score, and gone to Harvard or Cornell or something. I did look at Ivy League schools, but having gone to such a tiny high school in the middle of nowhere, they seemed like they'd be overwhelming for me. When I was a high school senior, I was also trying to throttle back a little on my perfectionist tendencies, so I decided not to go to a super-competitive school. But, I was third in a class of ninety-one, with an SAT score better than the valedictorian (who went to Harvard), so maybe I could have done those things.
My parents went through a rough patch for a while when I was in elementary school, so my life could've taken all sorts of different directions if they'd split up.
I hadn't filled this one in yet because of the pain of (back then) recent relational problems. But I can freely speak about it now.
I am not married. There has been one time that I thought about it, but more as a far of option. We weren't even officially a couple, but we liked each other, and we knew it from each other.
I met Tanja in Ukraine. She was one of the people from the Holland teams over there. (there was only one Belgian team going with the Dutch missions organization) The Belgian team was positioned in Uhzgorod, while she and another dutch girl (Hendriekje) where stationed in Swaliava. (a 55 km difference) When we came to Ukraine, we where still with other teams, filling up two minivans. From Holland to Ukraine is a two day drive. When we went to the Ukraine we weren't in the same minivan. During our stay our teams occasionally met for transport. We had the van and if there was a meeting, we picked them up. At that time we were talking. I didn't notice anything special about her at the time. Yet on the way back to Holland, there was something that made me switch minivan. I think someone who wanted to sit in the van with air-co and me making room for her.
And in those two days of talking we got to know each other quite well. I got to know her as someone who takes God seriously. And I'm a sucker for that. We thought thesame about most stuff, and I was intrigued. I remember actually thinking "Maybe, maybe she's the one I'm supposed to fall in love with.". Later on we kept e-mailing and I immediately suspected her also having feelings for me. So we met, and kept meeting. Every two weeks. One time in Holland, the other time in Belgium.
We grew more and more together, made walks enjoying nature and each other. One time I confronted her with my feelings for her and she affirmed my suspicion of her feelings for me. But I held back for a bit longer, just being friends or more then friends at first. She respected that, but she wanted more. I could feel it, sense it and read it from how she spoke about those things.
This was all new for me, so I wanted to move slow. I never had someone really love me back before. I was very cautious about it. Yet I knew she wanted to move on, so at one time I was going to officially ask her. I made a song on my Ukulele especially for the occasion. I would ask her to be my girl on new year's day, when I would be at her place for the week. Only, I never got to sing it. New year's day, in the morning, just when I woke up, she told me she didn't want this to go on. I never saw it coming. I went home that day, and haven't been there since. She just felt that it was wrong. She felt it very strongly. How can you argue with that, right? I told her to think it over for the coming month and that we would see then. It didn't help. She was even more assured by then that it was not to be.
So I let go. That's the only time when I was at the stage where you can even only consider marriage. And it didn't end like I would've wanted it.
Never dated anyone else. Almost one time though. I must have been 15 back then. I liked her, she liked me (at least, that's what she wrote on that paper she gave me), but we didn't know each other. So I told her that I would first like to get to know her as just friends. She didn't understand that. So two weeks later she had another guy. I'm glad I didn't fall for it. But as you can see, I've never been very good with the ladies. I met Tanja only a year ago. I was 24. My first thing only even closely resembling a relationship was that. 24. :)
Friends. In middle school. I never really had much friends, but those I had were close friends. From kindergarten through third year of high school I was always in the same class as Dries. He was a good friend. My best friend, as I called him back then. We weren't popular. He was a bit clumsy and had a slight case of buck-teeth. He wasn't dressed in the cool clothes. While I, at that time, wanted to have the cool clothes.
We biked to school together. I'd call him at his house.
They had two houses. Of which the gardens touched each other. They had broken the wall between it away and the other house was the house where I went to pick him up. That's where the bikes where. We had a code for ringing the doorbell at the front house, so he knew he had to go to the back house where I would already be waiting. He lived across of the school we went before. And the kids waiting at the gate saw that I passed there every morning, rang the doorbell thrice and drove back away, so they would sometimes do that, resulting in confusion, frustration and, at times, tears.
Another good friend I made in Church (and high-school) was Johan. I've never had a more faithful friend. When my father forbade me to go to church, he kept praying for me ... for two years! We both like to think. We both like to draw. The drawing is what started our friendship. He saw me drawing a lot, and I saw him drawing a lot. We would share techniques, books about drawing. We'd sit together and draw stuff. Later on we'd do bible-study together. I'd come over to his house and we'd sing worship songs, read from the bible and pray for each other. I'd have my djembe with me, and he's have his trumpet.
Once again we couldn't be more different outwardly. He was dressed very nondescript, boring even, conservative. I was very extravagant, punt, rock and roll. Yet inside we resembled each other. He went on to get a masters at pure Mathematics and is going for a Ph.D in theoretical programming now. (or something like that). He lives in Leuven. Which is the main reason that contact broke after high school. His university was located there, and he moved there.
There are a lot more people who influenced my life drastically. But I'm tired of typing about it now. So ... To be continued!
I am intrigued by your comment about your father forbidding you to attend church. I don't know whether I will be able to do much with that, but if there's more on that it might help.
--M. J. Young
Well, when my mother and father first divorced my mother was take to church by a friend. Me, my brother (Joachim) and my sister (Kathleen) also went. People prayed for our family, they got back together. I found out that God cares, and that He is personal with us. I started developing the relationship with Christ. We all became 'believers' at that moment. Yet my father couldn't stay faithful (that is a personal choice of will, something God gave us the ability to make), but he blamed the church for that.
More specifically he blamed our Elder for that (Sjaak) because he (also senior pastor) has great influence in our church. My mother was at the time spending so much time with God, reading the bible, praying, ... that she forgot/neglected household work. And that was his reason to cheat on her ... and claiming that the church was thus responsible for it, he did not want me to go there. He considered it a sect and Sjaak our Guru. We were too radical according to him. I've got lots of theories as to what drove him to do what he did, but I cannot look into his hart.
oh, I guess you probably already know? But let's answer anyway.
I was nine years old so it wasn't legal for me to be married yet.
I was far more interested in world domination than I was in dating at that age.
and for the last couple of questions, at the time I didn't have any close friends -- really I didn't have any friends. Robert before that but he wanted to be popular, and that meant not being friends with me; I wasn't ever really popular, probably because I was smarter than the rest of them and weird to boot.
Robert before that but he wanted to be popular, and that meant not being friends with me; I wasn't ever really popular, probably because I was smarter than the rest of them and weird to boot.
You just described my childhood Kyler.
That Robert was up the street at the corner of the block and had two brothers and a sister? Or is this a different Robert? (Maybe that's not Robert, but he's the one who came to mind.)
--M. J. Young
that one yeah
Hmm after grade school, I got sent to a catholic high school, so I don't have many friends, and I got rid of all my fair weather friends, I don't think that part of me would ever change.
As for careers, I had considered Architect, and went to college for Business/Finance.
Friends after college:
Dave Perry: Met him in college, was a fun guy to be around, would adapt his personality to whoever he hung out with, so he would spend a few months being my clone, and then others. Blonde, Blue Eyes, 6 feet tall, started getting influenced by the bad members of the vampire larp I used to run in, haven't seen or talked to him since 2004 after he fell into a bad crowd.
Brian Egandorf: Met him at the Vampire Larp, we are friends to this day. Black Hair, Curly, Balding, Brown Eyes, 5'10" good guy, has money issues always, but a loyal friend. He ended up getting me a job at Panasonic, which started or restarted my IT Career.
Todd Miele: Met him at the Vampire Larp, was one of the GM's popular guy everyone liked him, he has some back problems. When his mother retired, kept him from going out, Brian and I think she killed him for his money (he got ran over three times by the same car and same guy). Good guy miss him. Brown Hair, about a decade older than me, 5'5 or so.
In terms of woman, other than random girls who I would forget about I could, and the 4 or 5 I would have nothing to do with again. There is one that I date casually and if things would have been different probably would have gotten more serious.
Latishia Coleman, Caucasion, 5'3" Red Hair, Green Eyes, average built a year behind me in school, went to a sister school of my catholic high school. We are still kinda seeing each other today, been a decade of on and off.
I think that's in in terms of info.
In terms of popularity, I had/have the ability to turn on the charm when needed, but I rarely did because I didn't like what I looked like. The better I look, the better I feel, and less I give a damn about what people think. So I am normally a lone wolf or would choose not to care, ymmv.
Divergent paths. I have no doubt in my mind that there is a divergent version of me who is, at this time, writing a book called (Doing Therapy). He's about to become rich and famous. Sadly this is not me. (Writer's block, that's why I haven't replied to Mike's game very often lately) I also have no doubt that there is another divergent version of me, who is, at this very moment, taking out a patent on a new kind of smoking pipe, and he's about to become a millionaire. Sadly, this is not me either. Those are divergent paths my life could be taking at this stage of my existence.
(Doing Therapy)
Well, you could start writing the book.
I'm not sure whether a new kind of smoking pipe would actually make you a millionaire in a climate in which smoking is being discouraged, even if your design truly was innovative.
As to writer's block, my solution is to keep several different projects running simultaneously, and switch to a different one when I'm stymied on one. The "different" aspect is important, because different kinds of writing use different kinds of thinking. If I'm so blocked I can't write anything, I usually eat and sleep.
--M. J. Young
I'm not sure whether a new kind of smoking pipe would actually make you a millionaire in a climate in which smoking is being discouraged, even if your design truly was innovative.
That depends on what the pipe was designed to smoke......
Then the parallel self who is becoming a millionaire selling that pipe is in a parallel universe where the buying and selling of such things is legal.
I know that in the State of New Jersey, a pipe not designed for tobacco would be considered drug paraphernalia, the possession of which is a drug possession crime. The sale of a pipe intended for such a purpose would probably be a felony.
--M. J. Young
Actually I could get away with it here. Tobacco isn't the only thing that's legal to smoke. Technically, it's designed for smoking catnip.
(Doing Therapy)