Once upon a few months ago, I was being perfectly normal and wanting to keep tabs on a lesbian I have a crush on that wasn't going to be working with me any longer, so I made a MySpace page. I added her as my only other friend than Tom and that was that, I continued to ignore the phenomenon that is awful music and louder graphics. Then, out of the blue someone personal messages me about whether I am me or some other me; I am the meest me there ever was, so I said yeah, it's me. (You can read that part back there at the link.)

I mentioned in that column that I would give the details if they were entertaining or sad, so here I am to do just that, you can be the judge of whether you are entertained or not. I got an answer back that we should talk on the phone, so I put it off a bit and then answered with my phone number. Eventually we got it together and I sat by the phone one Monday evening. I talked to Frazzle for about three hours, we talked about the jobs we'd had, the DWIs we had each collected, drugs, and people.

It was surreal, especially at first, hearing a voice I had once heard almost daily for about eight years straight for the first time in more than fifteen. It didn't take long before it was kind of normal, and then almost common as if it happened all the time. He had kept in touch with Frack, and had invited him to OtherState to stay with him when Frack was breaking up with his girlfriend and wanting to get as far from AnotherState as he could. Frack surprised him and
couch-surfed for a while and a just a decade and a few more personal (drugs) events later; they live across town from each other. I even got invited to Frazzle's 40th Birthday Bash in July. I don't know if I will be able to manage the trip cross country or the time off; but I will pop in the next time I visit my sister on the left coast.

Better still, through this reunion I have gotten back in touch with two of Frazzle's sisters, the one I dated and the one I always wished I had. I had messed around with his sister Anita for a bit 20 years ago, but I never 'sealed the deal' as it were. Eventually I became somewhat well known as the one guy that didn't, but in my defense she didn't become a come-sponge until at least a year after we were together. His sister Lisa I always had a bit of a thing for, but she's older than me by a few months and in teenaged-girl-years dating me would be like dating an infant. Later on I had my chance slip through my fingers at an Iron Maiden concert when she drunkenly abandoned my drunken gropings for some dufus Frazzle vaguely remembered from high school. She eventually married and had children with this dude, before divorcing him and discovering her taste for the clam.

(I have just begun taunting her about this in email conversations, as soon as she told me about the marriage and children. I was gentlemanly enough to tell her that if it weren't for him she might never have found her way on the path of Sappho, and that wouldn't have been fair to the little girl-lover in her heart. Y'know, 'cause, not bragging or anything, but I rock the house, and I definitely would have brought my "A game" that night to make her regret not doing it any sooner. And so she could tell her sister about it. Oh, since you weren't expecting it, I'll mention she has already asked if I mind that she wants to send a message to my hot lesbian friend.)

Seriously though, I feel like I missed out on a lot with my self-imposed exile. I had just simply had enough of the drama and drugs and I got out of Dodge without keeping any of the last minute scrawled addresses and phone numbers. It was something I felt I had to do, but getting back in touch makes it rather clear that I didn't have to be so extreme about it. I can't change any of it, but I will certainly never lose touch with anyone I really care about again. It's not that complicated to send a card on someone's birthday, or XMAS, or whatever; just so you are in contact, know where to reach one another. Then when you realize that you have something to say you don't have to sit and look through classmate stalker sites trying to find them.

Since this is an advice column, that is my advice, stay in touch. You don't have to see people all the time, talk to them all the time, even communicate at all, just touch base often enough so that you can when it becomes important.

Richard lives in a pineapple under the sea

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