Falling In Love With An Image for 9 years
By Tom P Blake Finding Love After 50
A woman we’ll call Jane is a little embarrassed. She shared her story but added, "Don't use my name, location, or email address." After reading this, you’ll understand why she wants to be anonymous.
Jane said, "I fell in love with a man online. He said all of the right words. Made me feel beautiful and loved. We could talk on the phone for hours.”
Jane said that whenever they would schedule a date to meet face-to-face, he would break the date. It happened many times, but still, she kept hoping they'd get together. “I mailed him cards on and off,” she said.
"You'd think I'd give up each time, but he'd come back crying that he loved me and we were meant to be together. So I believed him and gave him another chance." He told Jane he bought a house for them to share.
Jane emailed me in early January, saying, “I gave myself to the end of the year for him to come through, but he never did.
"I miss him. Or so I think I do, or maybe I miss the idea of thinking I was in love. I hoped I'd found Mr. Right. That he could fall in love with someone like me. I'm a plain Jane and he was a gorgeous man."
And here's where the story gets bizarre, sad actually.
I asked her for how long she’d been communicating with him, expecting to hear a few months at most. Not many women would tolerate false promises for longer than that.
Jane has been emailing her Mr. Right for nine years. That’s correct, for nine years.
Within time, I fell for him. Maybe it was just me needing to help him since he seemed so troubled.”
She said a year ago, she wrote to the address he had given her, but addressed the letter to his aunt, with whom he said he’d been living. “I wrote my phone number in my letter asking her to call me. Well, she did and told me there was no one who lived there by his name.”
Jane explained the conversation with the aunt. “I told her everything he had told me about her and her family. She freaked out because I knew so much. Turns out her daughter knew him and was feeding him all the information about her family. He would tell me about it as if it was his own family. He’s a foster child, or so he says, and has no family. He created a loving family by using the family of a friend.”
Eventually, he admitted to Jane that he’d been living with his girlfriend for two years. Jane lived 50 miles away from him. “I never went to his place of residence although I did drive there a few times. I’d call ahead letting him know I’d be there. Out of respect, I never got out of the car.”
Out of respect? He played a game with her for nine years and she didn’t knock on his door? Obviously, she has little self-respect. And my gosh, meeting him would have given her closure.
Jane said she misses him, but knows she must move forward.
For nine years, this woman was in love with an image. She never saw him, only photos that might or might not have been pictures of him.
It amazes me to think that someone could waste nine years, and prime years at that, loving an image.
If you meet someone on the Internet who you think has promise, insist on meeting in person before investing much of your precious time. Like a month or two.