Dear Amy: I met an online acquaintance several months ago. After eventually meeting, I soon realized that I didn’t love her the way I thought I did.
During our relationship, she would want to talk on the phone upward of six times a day because of her history of seeing guys who betrayed her trust.
It eventually started to be a chore talking to her. After about two months, I got out of the relationship.
Now she belittles me in her blog among our mutual friends and continually chats online with my friends, spinning the truth about what happened. She says I cheated on her, which never happened. She has harassed me with expletive-filled phone messages and has turned my friends against me. I haven’t said anything bad about her on my blog.
Should I return fire and explain to my friends what really happened, or should I continue to do nothing and keep a golden disposition? – Living My Life
Dear Living: Don’t become someone else’s “material.” Don’t be tempted to retaliate online – this could be the kind of attention she thrives on. You should save recordings of messages and blog entries in case you choose to go to the police or stand before Judge Judy.
The mark of a true friend is one who will believe the best about you, despite whatever unsubstantiated malicious rumors are floating in the ether. To your friends, you should say (not post on your blog): “This person’s feelings got hurt, and she seems to have gone off the deep end. I hope it’s temporary and she can move on. Every single thing she says is untrue.” And do I need to give you a lecture about online crushes that develop into relationships with complete strangers who turn into psycho-bloggers? I hope not.
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Dear Amy: I’m responding to the letters in your column about those documents we leave behind after we die.
On a bumpy airline trip to Mexico a few years ago, I had the horrible feeling that if something happened to us our young married daughters would have to go through all of our possessions! Thirty-five years earlier, my husband and I had a romantic, long-distance courtship filled with daily love letters! He had saved all that I wrote to him, and I had saved all that he wrote to me.
Upon returning home, I started to go through these letters. They were just too precious for me to savor all by myself. I left out a card here or there for my husband to find. It sparked a lot of fun in our relationship.
A few months later, we went on a secluded vacation, just the two of us with our boxes of letters. We had such fun going through them. We took the ones we didn’t want our kids to see and burned them in a grand bonfire. We saved the general love letters for them to have a glimpse of us when we are gone. So, you see, we got double enjoyment out of our early love! – Madly in Love for 36 Years
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