Duct Tape... Yeah I can fix that!

Man's way of solving almost any problem...

except women.

A great Quote

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." - William Somerset Maugham

I started my 'great American novel' over forty years ago and I wrote less than one chapter. It was called A Man With Clumsy Hands and although it was not autobiographical, the main character was me. At 19 I was a kid in his first year of college who desperately wanted friends, particularly a girlfriend, and wanted to fit in with everyone else.

For reasons that I have never understood, I was sort of popular in an awkward way. I had casual friends, and I got along with my roommate. (We hitchhiked to Newport News together to join the Air Force in December 1968.) Plenty of girls talked to me and bummed cigarettes off me. I finally got it through my head that most of my 'popularity' came from the fact that I always had cigarettes and money in my pockets.

In the year and a half before I dropped out to join the service, I never had a girlfriend. I didn't leave one waiting for me at home either. My unfinished novel was about a sad character who didn't know how to relate to girls, one who had been hurt so often that he would rather be lonely than risk having his heart broken one more time. The conflict involves a girl who, in my imagination, is very interested in him, but she can't get past his defenses. He keeps pushing her away. At the same he is attracted to her, but is afraid that he will ultimately be rejected once again.

Forty years ago, a young inexperienced writer was stuck because he could not imagine a suitable ending to his story. He wanted a happy ending (don't we all), but could not find a way to weave the tale to a conclusion.

Forty years later I am in the same fix. I still don't know how to find that happy ending. I still don't know how to make and keep friends. The friends I have... well I always feel deep down that I still don't fit in, that if I disappear overnight I would not be missed.

Like the character in the book I never wrote, I sit and stare at my clumsy hands. Hands that never made anything worthwhile, never could hold on to anything good. Clumsy, useless hands.

Long Time... No See

I haven't written in quite awhile. Part of the time I was busy and happy and there was no need to write about what was happening. Then a lot of things went downhill fast.

• SL girlfriend and I had a misunderstanding, me jumping to conclusions because a friend said something about her.
• SL girlfriend got sick again.
• SL girlfriend had computer/internet service problems.
• SL friend (the one I thought I was very close to, like BFF) turned against me.

All of a sudden my SL world was crashing all around me. I couldn't be with the girl I wanted to be with. I couldn't turn to the person I trusted the most. Everything I was working towards in my relationships was gone or falling apart.

My SL gf and I are doing ok now. We cleared up our misunderstanding and have created alternative ways of communicating without Second Life. We are friends in real life and I want to keep her as a friend no matter what. She feels the same way. I am still worried about her health and she is fighting to recover.

My former friend... I don't know. I won't go into details. She would not like that. She has a right to her privacy. All I know is that I did something that by all appearances was harmless. I immediately apologized and tried to correct my mistake. I was screamed at and immediately de-friended. My action did not deserve the response I got. I think it was the trigger that set off something else that had been festering inside her for a long while. This former friend now hates me and I can only imagine why.

I still have some friends. One is an author who used to be friends with the same person that de-friended me. At the time I tried real hard to reconcile them. They both are strong, opinionated women and I tried to get them back together. I pushed both of them and they both told me to back off or lose their friendship. I had to admit defeat.

It's awkward in Morris now. The rest of my friends are friends of my ex-friend. Being around them means coming in contact, or at least close proximity, with her. At first I tried going to other sims, but there were few people I know outside of Morris and I wasn't upbeat enough to start conversations and make a new batch of friends.

So I went back to Morris and tried to stay a proper distance away from her while being close enough to my other friends to talk. Then I said "to Hell with this" and got closer to talk to my other friends, the whole time wanting to shout "please be my friend again!" to her.

I know that she feels like I have grieved her badly in some way. She doesn't do things without a reason. I know I have made mistakes in the past. That's why I apologize so often. I make mistakes! I am sorry!

Maybe she never was a friend. A real friend would have understood that.