The following is from a post I contributed to an Integral Naked thread called Dating Services/Websites. No one responded to my post - probably too heavy for 'em. (The suicide angle often has that effect on people, I've noticed - it's understandable.) Anyway, this is a brief description of my online relationship with Kalindi, and some insights I've gleaned from it.
I did meet someone online in 1999, and had a very intense online relationship for two years. We also talked on the phone and sent each other gifts and letters etc. But it ended badly - she didn't feel ready to meet me f2f, because of psychological issues she was trying to work through, and then she killed herself after her therapist became psychologically abusive to her. It was an amazing relationship while it lasted and transformative for me (as was her death, in a different way). Kalindi was brilliant and creative and lived quite close to Boulder; by now I'm sure she would have been into Integral if she had lived, and probably an important part of the local scene. I did go to Loveland, Colorado to help scatter her ashes, a very surreal and difficult experience - that was also the only time I've been to Boulder, a city she loved. Someday I want to go back there under happier circumstances.
If there is a moral to this story, I guess it would be: if you have a long-distance relationship with someone you meet online, do not wait too long to meet face to face! Trust me on this one.
It is amazing how intense an online relationship can be; I sense that from Corey's post, and that was certainly true of my experience. (Also I recall a couple having a very public online relationship here in the early days of the forum.) Because of the radical incompleteness of my own online relationship, I am fascinated by that transition between online and face to face. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. I suspect that even if it works out, there is usually a difficult transition period: suddenly you are faced with all the stuff that is present in a conventional relationship from the beginning, but which has been absent from the online relationship. The abstract nature of the online relationship allows quite a bit of latitude for projection, that is unavoidable. So when you are suddenly faced with the "full-bandwidth" presence of your lover, in a way it's like getting to know them a second time. Because of this factor I think it is important not to wait too long to meet f2f - within a few months sounds like a good period of time to me.
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6 comments:
Immediately after posting this, I checked the thread, and now there are responses to my post. So I guess it wasn't too heavy for Them Heavy People [sic] on Integral Naked.
a.
Hi Adastra.
I was thinking while I read your words, - what a gift you must have been to this sensitive and vulnarable woman. I hear she is still deeply connected to your heart. This must surely create a beautifull passway for other friends - and maybe the woman you WILL share a deep relationship with - also psysically!!
I wish you all the best. love, anne
Thanks, Anne. I know a few Anne's - which one are you? You could email me if you prefer to stay Anne-onymous on the thread: hugh_manatee at telus dot net.
Kalindi is still with me, I think about her many times every day. She did consider me a gift, I know - in her suicide note to me, for example, she emphasized how much happiness I gave her over the two years we knew each other. Her friend Dave in Loveland told me that she always referred to me as her beloved and glowed when she talked about me. Still, sometimes I feel I failed her by not being able to help her to live. I know intellectually that you can't save another person in that way, ultimately it is their decision. I also know that I did everything I could do at the time to help her; and that she would have done it earlier if not for me - she once said, "Thank you for literally saving my life."
I don't feel her presence all the time, it only seems that way sometimes. I also feel that she connects me to death, to the ground of being, in a way. And I feel that her life and her death is a sort of existential koan for me - I don't know that I will ever see the bottom of it, it just gets deeper.
"This must surely create a beautifull passway for other friends - and maybe the woman you WILL share a deep relationship with - also psysically!!"
Yes, I feel that I go deeper with people (including myself) now and if/when I form another romantic relationship with someone it will be deeper because of my time with Kalindi and also the effect her death had on me.
Thanks for sharing, Anne.
love
arthur
Hi again, Adastra.
Sometimes we just cannot find the key to "what to do" - or not do!
The complexity in human behavior is surely great, as it seemes with your friend as well. In the end, she could not cope with herself and she told you how greatfull she was to have you in her life at all.
Adastra.
As I read what you write, I sense such an honest way of dealing with this loss of your friend.
Yes- it´s somewhat absurd that such a loss will bring what we have felt we lost! You lost love, in a sense - and now you are gaining it!!
To let go.....it just takes time.
To embrace the fact that she is gone...it must take time.
To let the dissolving happen...also calls for love and selfcare. Seeing and sensing what one needs. Being with friends and sharing your grief. I really, really hope you do.
Who am I?...:))
I am a woman -57 years- whom also is in the Integral Naked forum.
I am myself in a changing proces, as I just have had two major operations due to cancer! I am in the proces of healing but I am very, very, fatigue....NO - I am not dying at this time...more than we all are all the time! The prognosis is very, very, good and I am most likely all well now. Still- I am also since a while back on a quite shaky ride. Interesting...yes..inspiring..yes...horrible..painfull....etc. yes.
We come.....
and go.
much love,
Anne
Thanks again, Anne. I will look for you on the forum (although not knowing your screen name will make it slightly more challenging to do so, lol.)
I am glad to hear that your prognosis is good. :)
arthur
here goes...
"morning dharma"....is my name in he forum and I have currently not much to say there. I thrive in the brilliance of many posts, the searching of understanding what is.
I certainly learn a lot and foremost it is inspirational to my understanding and experience of things. Sometimes reading the dialouges in the forum change me.
Adastra. I love the two new posts you have written. About the female and male balance, I myself have been pretty busy working with....practising....intergrating,....in the longing for completeness without projections.
It´s a very longgoing proces -to me- and doesn´t seem to reach an end, but merely changed horizons, so to speak.
Much love,
Anne
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