It's wrong, but I felt good about this news...

Kristin, I hope, will appreciate the poetic justice in this tale.

A few years ago I was involved in what can now be called an ill-advised relationship.

(How's that for an opener???)

I had been on the online dating/meeting scene since the end of my long-term relationship and I'd say that I could be fairly classified as "active". Depending on your perspective, I could also have been called "opportunistic", "slut-puppy", "player" and, DW's personal smile-maker, "man-whore".

The short version of all that is that I got lucky. A lot. And, yes, there were times when I wasn't necessarily "exclusive". I won't get into some kind of substantiation for my actions, because out of context it won't make sense. Was it the right thing to do? Probably not, but it does take two to tango, and I can safely say that I met my fair share of opportunists of the opposite sex so my actions were hardly an anomaly.

So now you have the background, I'll get back to that relationship I mentioned.

But, Mossy....why would you consider a relationship 'ill-advised'? I hear all of you ask.

Well...

1. She wasn't, um, quite through with the marriage she was in.
2. Oh...and did I mention that she lived about 800 miles away?
3. Oh yeah...um, she was also the chat administrator for the dating site I was on at the time.

(How's that for a nice trifecta?)

Anyway, she and I became quite an item, albeit a relatively secret one. We did manage to spend a fair amount of time together with some of her trips and in spite of the obvious danger signs, I really thought there was something there.

However, I successfully managed to sabotage the relationship (Yes, I got caught.)

That was a trigger for a really awful period in my life. I managed to lose my job of 4 yrs about 2 weeks after that whole sorry episode and public falling out and chat room lynching (and lemme tell ya, some of the rumours that flew were really, really juicy. Way better than the real thing.) I did my best not to lose her, but she eventually decided to walk, and I can't really say that I blame her, although there's a strangeness about a married woman dumping her lover of 8 months because of infidelity. Needless to say, we're not in touch anymore.

I'd heard a few tidbits about her afterwards, but I really wanted to forget about all that and just move on and learn from my errors in judgement.

Tonight, however, DW was on MSN with an old friend of hers from her own chatting days. This woman, oddly enough, was the one who brought her onto that same dating site. (Yes, DW knows the whole sordid tale and loves me anyway.) That same friend was asking me about coming to a "GT" (get-together) because Jewell (former blogger and also former member of the same site) was coming back from Australia for a visit. We were relatively non-committal but DW's friend mentioned, with a laugh, "Oh, Mossy doesn't have to worry about seeing ****, she won't be there."

The Readers' digest version of all this was that after the breakup with me, she wound up dumping her husband and moved to southwest Ontario, chasing some guy she'd met online. Probably from the same site, if I know her. When she left her husband and moved, this guy apparently wouldn't give her the time of day. She chased and chased for the better part of a year before giving up. When last heard from, she had apparently moved back to her family home in the prairies. There was some talk that she'd tried to go back to her ex, but our source seemed to think that didn't take.

I know its wrong and I'm probably really shallow and self-centred for feeling that way, but I got some perverse pleasure from the news that she's dealing with a little "nemesis"-type suffering, while I've managed to turn things around, personally and professionally. She could have chosen to ignore the pot-stirrers, and the rumour mongers and say that whatever happened was between us and was nobody else's business, but she chose not to, and I was tried and convicted in the kangaroo court of public opinion and she let other people make her relationship decisions for her. Again, I wouldn't expect anyone to condone my actions (I certainly don't), but she made her choice and I made mine. From what I heard afterwards, I would have wound up cast aside once she got away from her ex, so I can't really feel bad for her current fate.

Me? Shallow? Yeah, sometimes. Welcome to the dark underside of the Stone.