The Net Connection Part 2 (Or, how I learned to stop worrying and get laid online)

This is way harder than I expected .. 

Bringing this blog up-to-date on things I mean, not, you know getting laid online because that .. well, let's face it, with Skype around, that part is kinda easy .. and fun. 

But, he did have to work for it. 

Having been single for quite a long, long LONG time (yes, I am talking years here), and having a rather problematic relationship with cameras and re-presentation (subject for a whole different and far more academic blog - so let's leave that for now) .. it took weeks before I would even show my face ..but of course, I eventually did .. and then I showed a whole lot more. 

I loved our cyber sessions .. I don't care what anyone says .. cybersex is fun ... and it can be damn personal if you are building a personal relationship with somebody. 

Which brings me to the first issue in this journey of getting to know a man who is poly by nature - he isn't comfortable with the word 'relationship'. 

Hhmmmmm .... 

Okay ... as a communications scholar, I can completely buy the premise that some words/terms mean different things to different people .. and I can be happy with that. 

As a woman .. I am thinking WTF???

And .. aren't you IN a relationship? Soooo .. WTF??

So, we are about 5-6 weeks in, things are hot and heavy (if not, as yet wet and wild .. Skype can only take one so far right?) ... and he has started to make these 'comments' and I have no idea how to process or make sense of any of it. 

On the one hand, he seems completely into me; we talk, for hours, every single day (well, almost every day), we email, we share intimate stuff, we joke, we tell each other how wonderful we think the other is .. it's all warm and really, really fuzzy .. so, again .. WTF?

You KNOW when someone is into you right? I mean, you just 'know' and I was pretty damn sure that he was into me .. in fact, he told me how wonderful I was all the time .. So, I decided to let the academic in me win the struggle and accept that it was simply an issue with te 'word' relationship rather than an issue with .. well, relationships themselves. 

Crisis avoided .. in the short term. 

Needless to say, this didn't last long .. the struggle for meaning grew the more we repressed and ignored it .. he claimed that he was into 'friendships' and that being a friend was more important than having a relationship .. and I, well, I admit, I struggled with this .. A lot.

Since meeting him, I have joined a relationship forum - run by women, for women, it is a place where women go to give each other advice about the men in their lives or, to vent about said men. I vented. A lot. 

The lovely ladies there have a saying to watch what a man does, not what he says. And this is great advice for the most part - but I managed to twist this logic so that while I was being told "I don't believe in relationships" (what he said), what I was taking on board was "I am really into you and you may just be the woman that changes me" (What he did .. or rather, how I interpreted what he did). Yeah .. I know .. kinda effed up huh??