I don't understand the outrage over him being married, he met and courted his wife on Compuserve, so he's probably been married for 20 years. Where does it say he has comcast, or Gini is not his wife? What he's describing is digital friendships with people in FL, MI, WI, OR and across the pond, which as we in the Cellar know, are very real.

Thanks, Limey, for pointing this out. :thumb:

I know, and as soon as I meet Pete I'm gonna stick my tongue down his throat! Never mind what I'm going to do when I meet insert male dwellar name here

They're just friends!

While I appreciate the spirit of the post, about friendships online being genuine friendships, what rubs me the wrong way he repeatedly describes his friendship with K in romantic terms. It makes him a bit seedy, in my opinion.

Then again, I also stumbled across an earlier post in which he describes having sex with a previous girlfriend for 8 hours because he was drunk and couldn't finish. Overall, not a winner in my book.

Ya gotta cut his some slack, he lives in Cincinnati. ;)

Cleveland, you skimmer, you.

I don't see one thing wrong with this whole arrangement, given what I've read in the essay. What makes is ok is informed consent. All the parties know about the other parties and *they're* all ok with it. Case closed.

As for the validity of efriendships (nice turn of phrase, jim), I repeat myself and echo others here when I say they can be just as real, though different, as friendships consummated in meatspace. We all know people who have different romantic geometries than the common one man one woman monogamous couple. Elspode comes to mind and I can't recall one single reproachful post aimed at him for his choices (one man two women for a period). That kind of arrangement wouldn't work for me, but it seems to work for them. Who am I to judge?

Except it didn't work for them. He and Selene got divorced awhile back. And maybe that's all for the best, I'm not judging. All I said was I'm worried about the original writer's marriage. If he and his wife both consider their marriage a non-permanent thing, or think they're one of the tiny, tiny percentage that can make an open-but-long-term thing work, then that's fine. My own grandmother married her last husband with the vows "until we don't feel like it anymore." Then they stayed together for 30+ years until her death. It can work. It's just rare, and in my experience one partner isn't nearly as cool with it as they say they are, but they don't want to be the prude.

Well, as far as I know, it did work for them, until it didn't. I really like your grandmother's vows, that is some wise, wise thinking right there. For me, I married "until death do us part". Twice. And I'm still here. **All** relationships work until they don't, sometimes the reason they don't is one partner dies. Some survivors continue the relationship past that point (not necrophilia, you know what I mean).

I only know a little about the writer's current marriage, only what was shared in the post. From only that, it sounds ok for them and that's ok with me. In fact, I believe any given relationship is only what it is today. Certainly there's history to be considered but what you've got today is all you've got. Each of us has to get up and do our best as a partner, to hope for the best. All kinds of relationships are temporary, some longer than others. For me, the ones that are the healthiest, the best, are the ones that have each party voluntarily participating with enough information about what's going on that they can make that informed choice. That's key, informed choice; consent. Without that, no shape of relationship should be considered valid.

He's a noodge. He never got any in real life when he was younger but has now found an entire world full of people who never got any either. So now he's deluded that he's a loving love god. It's really that simple. It happens in real life too. Delusions.

The funny thing is, if he's got any kind of analytics running on his blog, he can see that he got a lot of new traffic from the link in this thread, and might be reading these comments right now.

How's that lurker fear working out for you right about now, Jim? ;)

To the contrary, I did some poking around on the web to see what I could see, and wrongly came up with Cincinnati.

Then when I went back and read the linked article again, he mention having several friends around Cleveland he could have dinner with. I thought that was strange to have friends a couple hundred miles away rather than in the same city, so maybe he's more comfortable with online friends. A lot of people are.

But thank you for pointing out my mistake, because it was sending me on a completely erroneous tangent. I am however, still convinced his marriage is solid and his wife understands these online friendships are not getting out of hand. She even gave him permission for a "smooch", and I'm betting he asked.

Eh, I hope it continues to work out for them.

Limey's original point still stands though. You guys are closer to me than most of my real-life friends. I mean, you let me get all snarky in a feel-good thread, not everyone would be so tolerant... :grouphug:

I don't fear the lurker. I resent them. They are a little creepy too.

and if this guy is reading I have only one thing to say to him:




Cock!