Or perhaps the perfect alternate title woulda been "A Ghost from the Past." A very, very long time ago, not that many years after I created HivSpice, I became good friends with a guy whom I will aptly title "Buddy." Buddy because he was the type of friend whom you could talk to about anything under the sun and he'd be there to listen, to comfort and sometimes even cause you to break out in bouts of roaring laughter. He was a great guy all around but like the rest of us he was always looking for a better existence, a better life, a perfect niche in life where he would be totally and undeniably happy and content with life in general. Like a lot of folks out there, Buddy had won some major battles against a coupla personal demons of his - drugs and alcochol. When I knew him it was the year he was celebrating 8 years of sobriety on both of those counts - I was so extremely damn proud of him. Everybody who knew him was so damn proud of him.
One day he ran into someone online, a guy who would end up being his life partner, or so it was assumed all those years ago. The guy appeared to be a nice, geunine person, very goodlooking at that, a real hottie if you will, yet there was something about him that just didnt sit well with both myself and a few of Buddy's other close friends. There was something about this guy that just wasn't quite right. A few of us, myself included, shared our concerns about this with Buddy but as is the case in such life scenarioes, this was one of those times when it didnt matter who said what, it was one of those things that Buddy would have to find out for himself in order to believe it. He was very hesitant about uprooting his entire life in the part of the country where he lived and going to be with the guy, but even so, he did indeed make the move and less than a year after that happened, we all heard less and less from him. In fact, the last time I was in actual contact with him I asked him "Are you okay? Is everything going okay, Buddy?" He responded that it was but the tone in his voice was actually somewhat unnerving. So many times in the English language we use the word "distraught" over and over again, sometimes even too much, but that day, that conversation, that moment, is probaly the first time in my entire life that I actually expeirenced what that word truly meant because that is exactly how Buddy sounded, utterly and completely "distraught." As if there was something he wanted to say, that he wanted to tell me, yet for some unknown reason at the moment, he in some inextricable way could not say a word to me about it.
After that conversation, it was as if he fell off the face of the earth. Oh hey, that's not always sucha bad thing - when you find that special someone in your life why on earth wouldnt you spend the majority of your time totally focused on that person and the goings-on in that particular universe? Naturally if a person is even the most average of internet junkies, it's a well-known and perfectly acceptable fact of life that a person is gonna spend less time on the internet as usual. Be that as it could be, I always hadda bit of a feeling that it was something more with Buddy's situation though I could never actually put my finger on it. Soon after I came to miss him even more than I already had. Then one day I and the others stopped hearing from him all together and try as we all did to keep in touch with him, we just never heard back from him anymore. Whether online or even in real life, people can and do enter into our lives outta the blue and sometimes they slowly exit that way as well, nothing you can do about it, you just hope the best for them and march onward with your own life.
Then a coupla nights ago something that I never thought in a million years would happen to me online did indeed happen, though I didnt come to the full, actual realization of it till a few hours ago. I kept seeing a picture of this one guy online and every time I viewed it I said to myself "Hey, he's very good-looking, I sure wouldnt mind spending some time him someday!" and then thought nothing of it. Then it hit me this morning. I didnt find his picture so appealing because he's so physically attractive, I found it so appealing because I indeed knew who that person was in the photo. No, not Buddy, but the guy he pulled up stakes for and moved to be with. Let me tell you, I almost wet me-self when I realized who I was looking at. But here's the real kicker of it all....
The photo of this man is the same identical photo that I saw all those years ago! Now that unto itself should not be as much of a shocker as it is due to the fact that there are tons of people out there who post decades-old photos of themselves online and say "See, this is me, this is what I look like now." Yeah, and I'm secretly composer Hoagy Carmichael in disguise. Uh-huh. Hey, I'm not here to judge the guy or anyone else for that matter who does such things; but, I do have some questions about all of this: if this guy is using the very same photo that I saw more than 12 years ago, then what indeed does he really look like to begin with? I mean, was the photo I saw of him back in 1998, which is indeed without a shadow of a doubt the same exact photo that I have viewed several times this past week, the real him to begin with or not? Moreso, why is there no mention of Buddy anywhere on his internet profile? What exactly did happen betweem him and Buddy? Granted, the answers to that last question are, yes indeed, none of my damn business; but, I think it's extremely odd that he and Buddy were suppose to be a match made in Heaven all those years ago yet it's as if he never existed. Or could it be that this man has created this particular internet profile unbeknownst to everyone else in his life?
I suppose that at this juncture of the mystery and amidst all my heart-felt speculations, some people would most likely throw their hands up in the air and say to themeselves "Well this is just totally ridiculous! I'm just gonna go ask the dude what the deal is and find out what really happened to Buddy!" Yes, I suppose I could do that but thanks to the convenience of anonymity here on the internet, there is not one golden rule that states that the guy is required to tell me anything regarding the whereabouts of Buddy. In addition, since there is no mention of Buddy in connection with him anyways, what's to say that whatever he would choose to tell me about Buddy is factual to begin with? It's kind of ironic in a way but I guess it is true what they say - if you wanna lose someone on the internet, whether it be yourself or someone else, apparently it is very possible to accomplish sucha feat.
My next plan of action? Nothing, simply nothing. I suppose the real reason I wrote about any of this in the first place is because the only thing that is the same from all those years ago is, literally, myself. I'm the same exact person I was 12+ years ago except that I like to think I have changed for the better, that I am more mature, more wiser. I guess that's the best any of us can hope for. I mean, I've always wondered to myself from time to time "Will there ever be a direct connection between who I was in the early history of Spice to the current Spice of 2011, or will the two forever remain as a past seperated from the present and the future?" And in a way I think I've answered my own ponderings, my own question - there is always some connection, whether significant or not, between who we were, who we are now and who we may or may not become in the future. Funny, but I never thought I'd consider an absent friend as a direct link between my past and my present. But, I think one of the most important things is that we do our best to make certain we dont lose ourselves and who we really are along the way, whether it's between our past and present, or not. I hope that didnt happen to Buddy and I hope that wherever he may be, I hope and pray that he is safe and doing well.
As for Buddy's guy? Well, I have nothing to gain whatsoever in approaching him now, anymore than what I may or may not have discovered had I approached him years ago, because again, the guy doesnt owe me a thing just as much as I dont have the right to ask anything of him. So, whoever he really is, whatever he has done in the past and whatever he may contemplate doing in the future, I'll just keep my mouth shut, play along whenever I encounter him and when others comment on whatta great guy he is I'll just say "Yep, uh-huh, that's so true, you're so right" and the other various accolades that others give to people whom they think they know. After all, its we blondes, not other people, who are noted for being knieve about the world around us, Yet another thing people think they know. Thank you for reading.
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