Johnny and Susie

Johnny and Susie grew up in the same neighborhood and knew each other for as long as they could remember, their parents were good friends. When they were little they often played together but as they became teens they began to have different friends. When Susie was in high school she became very upset when she didn’t have a date for the Junior Prom. Naturally Susie’s mother made a phone call to Johnny’s mother, and well... Johnny reluctantly agreed to take Susie to the Prom.

To make a long story short it turned out to be their first of what would be many dates. Over time they became closer and closer and got to know one another’s dreams. It was right before the Senior Prom when their baser instincts took over and they had sex for the very first time. Shortly after graduation they became engaged and the following June they lived happily ever after. Well, maybe not completely happy. They both had curiosities that they had tried to bring up to one another, you know… fantasies. Without ever realizing it they had each deflated the others temporary openness by saying something completely deflating like “That’s too weird…” or “I can’t understand anyone who would want to do that…”. So fantasies remain only that, just fantasies.

After many years of marriage and parenting, sometimes wonderful times and some not so wonderful times, Susie and Johnny finally grew apart and decided that divorce would the best thing.

It wasn’t long before loneliness began to take it’s toll on Susie and she refused to do any more of those horrid dates with the friend of a friend of someone that used to work with what’s her name. Susie decided to try online dating since it had worked so well for her friend. Well, there were some nice dates and there were some not so nice dates but at least she was getting out. Then, one night while on the internet ‘IMing with a friend, her friend happened to mention that she was surprised how much information there was available n the internet about kinky things.

It wasn’t long at all before Susie began to explore some of the websites that happened to deal with those lifelong fantasies that had been in the back of her thoughts for as long as she could remember. Susie explored and was surprised to find that she wasn’t alone, there were a ga-zillion people out there who had the same fantasies that she did. She began to join some message boards and it wasn’t long before she had a new list of friends that she IM’d with and she began to imagine that she might be able to meet a man who shared her fantasy.

It wasn’t long at all before Susie managed to meet someone online who seemed just perfect. In no time at all they were telling each other their most intimate secrets and imagining their fantasies were being fulfilled with each other. Of course it wasn’t perfectly easy, he was 200 miles away. It wasn’t long before they were spending hours on the phone with each other almost every night and what seemed all weekend long. They both decided that they just had to meet.

It was going to be a safe meeting, they assured each other that it had to be. They would meet in a public place that would be safe, they would have “safe calls”, they wanted each other to know that it would be right. Naturally, nerves were on edge when they first met but within minutes all inhibition was gone and they felt completely comfortable with each other. Shortly they were headed back to his hotel room and the rest is history.

It’s hard to say that what happened with Susie isn’t natural, in fact it probably comes more naturally than the long traditional meeting and courtship that she had with her X husband Johnny, they only followed their basic biological instincts. What is out of the ordinary, is that internet dating has established a new society where time honored standards for meeting potential partners just don’t apply. In fact not only don’t those traditional standards or “date etiquette” apply, they fit a timeline that is opposite of what actually happens online. Even with basic vanilla online dating, dislikes and inhibitions are some of the first things that are eliminated from the equation, unfortunately so are cautions.

Often what we plan and say we will only do and practice just don’t happen with real life encounters. It would appear that often everything from practicing safe sex to having safe calls from a friend are ignored and thrown out the window along with our inhibitions. Extraordinarily dangerous on so many levels, such actions that throw care to the wind can have devastating physical and emotional consequences.