Seeing the Real "You" At Last

My friend C, who is blunt and to-the-point, told me to get over it.  'You DID NOT KNOW HIM', she said.

I was baffled.  How could i not know him?  We'd been together a year, known each other longer, and, as far as i knew, there were no secrets between us.  He knew me because i'd laid myself wide open: 

"This is me; this is who i am, these are my flaws.   It's not the best, but it's all i have".  

Anyone who knows me, knows me. Rightly or wrongly,  if i feel i want to say something, then i come right out and say it because i act and speak according to the moment i'm in, and the feelings and impulses that move me.  I've done and said many things that i'm ashamed of, and i'm not proud of very much.  As i've said, it's not the best, and i'm working on it.

In short, i know that he knew me.  I know we're not the same, none of us are, but how could i not have known him, too?

The denouement came when he revealed a side of himself that i didn't much care for.  Several sides, in fact.  People told me things that frankly bewildered me.  It was all so puzzling and strange.  The person i thought i knew would never have behaved in such a way.  He wasn't capable of it, i thought.  He didn't have it in him.  So i made excuse after excuse whilst trying to understand, unravel it.  I even tried to blame it on some secret IRL trouble or confusion; some deep mental -- not-to-say moral -- breakdown.  Obviously, the real "him" was hiding off in the shadows somewhere and would reappear after things calmed down. But that was okay.  I was patient; I would wait.

*laughs*

It's not the first foolish notion i've had in my virtual life and doubtless it won't be the last.  The situation got quite nasty and things were said, and that was the end of it.  The final end, if that makes sense. 

People describe break-ups as messy but this was the very guts and entrails spread out in the dirt for all to see.  I did the only sensible thing i could do:  I stopped believing.  The painful truth is that there was no "real him" waiting to slip back into what passes for his personality; There never was. He is a stranger.

My friend C was right.  I simply did not know him.   Worth keeping in mind when you fall for someone you meet on the Internets.