Sometimes it's ok to say Oh Shit!!!

You know there are sometimes when it's absolutely appropriate. These were borrowed from the site on the pics.

Smut ?? Maybe

This was a relatively good week, minor parental mishaps notwithstanding. One of my best friends S from college was in town for work and drove down with his wife and two babies. It was the first time that we all got to see the new baby who was just born last month. She's adorable btw. By now I hope that you're hoping that this has absolutely zero to do with the Smut in the title *giggle*. It most definitely does not.

BUT the question at large came to me during this visit. We're a bunch of exciting young peeps. Whenever I get together with my college buddies, we go out for nights of wild binge drinking with strippers and the occasional hooker. NOT. Ok, just about all of my friends have kids and most of them under the age of 4 so it's usually more like sit around talk about the old times and what's going on these days and watch the kids play. Come on, you know you'd rather do that than see strippers anyday ~grin~.

So by now, you're probably wondering if this post has anything to do with smut at all? Ok, here is the smut question and see if you've read this far I probably tricked you. The title was Smut Question Maybe hehe, not maybe smutty post..gotcha MM. One of S's favorite pasttimes is downloading porn or copying porn and I imagine that's a standard for us guys. What can we say, we love porn. Now all the wives have known us since we were in college and knew we loved porn back then and I'm guessing they dont think that we just all of sudden lost total interest in porn when they met or got married or whatever. So why do you think it is, that we guys tend to hide our porn from our wives? So S brought down about 200 movies (not all porn, porn was 1% or less) and we spent the evenings talking about the kids, watching the kids and copying "movies". We were all very secretive when copying the porn like it was a national secret and we'd be hung for treason if caught. I didn't think much of it till I was dropping off a few copies I made last night in J's mailbox so he could pick them up on his way home. I called S because he was also on the way to J's house and told him to make sure he picked them up in case he got there first so J's wife wouldn't go check the mail and find a bag-o-porn instead. We cracked some jokes about it being a federal offense to open someone elses mail and so on and as I was driving back home, this post came to me.

As I said, I dont think it's a secret to any of the wives that we guys like porn and we probably have some and share with each other. So why do we men tend to be so secretive when it comes to hiding our porn collection from our wives. Since there are more women than men that blog and read blogs, I'm curious to hear what the women think.

The Trouble with Penises

I just love having to use the bathroom as soon as I get up in the morning. You walk to the bathroom, line up your sights on the bowl and ahhhhhhhhhhhhh release. Only you dont hear any tinkling of the stream hitting the water. Nooooo instead you look down to see that while the barrel is aimed directly at the target the bullets are headed at a nearly 90 degree angle toward the wall or the floor or worse yet your feet. Well crap, now you have to readjust the gun to some odd angle so you're not pointing it at yourself and you have to get something to wipe up the puddle on the floor.

Women have it easy.

That time again

No No No, not THAT time again, just time for an update.

Thankfully today will be a slow day at the office as most of our customers are off for the King Holiday. Interesting thing about my work experience. I've never worked at a company that took the King Holiday off. I'm not sure what to make of that. I dont suppose it's a big deal cause we do get Presidents Day off and there are a lot of companies that I'm sure dont take that holiday.

It just makes me wonder a little about Holidays and not the Christmas' or Fourth of July's or Memorial Days, you know the ones everyone gets off every year. It makes me wonder about the other holidays that some get off and others dont. Now the government gets every holiday known to man but I just wonder what the thought process is on how a company decides who's birthday or what milestone holiday is worth giving it's employees.

Just something to chew on today.

Ch. 4 Major Malfunctions times two

Well when she left off, we'd decided to give this whole relationship thing we'd both been trying to avoid a try. In just the last year I'd been in one serious relationship, one that I wish would have been a lot more serious, a long distance relationship that I thought might be the one and a relationship that I thought was just "friends with benefits" but was thought differently by the other party. Suffice it to say, I wasn't really trying to have a relationship with anyone but we had this chemistry that couldn't be denied.

I've always long held that I put more stock in friendships than relationships because they last longer. That's not to say I hoped to never find love but whereas so many of my friends believed that the attraction had to be instant I always thought friends first was better. In the past it'd always landed me in the the "Just Friends" boat with women that I was interested in for the first almost 28 years of my life. Still, my friends had always been my life and everything to me so while I may have been a bit lonely at times, I never felt alone.

That said, one of the main reasons that we took the next step was that we had become best friends and we knew that regardless of what happened between us sexually, romantically or otherwise, we had a great friendship underneath it all and that would always perservere. And considering some of the secrets I told her in the very beginning (stuff I just couldnt' imagine I'd tell someone I'd known for such a short time), I was certain that I'd have to marry her just to make sure she couldn't testify against me. Ok, so maybe not that last part...hehe..but we'd shared a lot and we knew there was something special to be sharing things as intimate (and not always sexually intimate) as we did with each other.

Seems like a lot of buildup huh? You're probably wondering ok, what does this all have to do with anything? Well we started dating but by this time we'd only actually been in each others presence twice though we were still on the phone or computer constantly. I was a master at fucking up a good thing and I was pretty sure this new relationship would be no different. During the time that we really began to start to like each other I was trying to do the dating thing, you know where you date around without necessarily getting serious with one person. I'd never really done that before, probably more because I never thought more than one woman would be interested in me much less at the same time. I was afraid of getting too serious with someone quickly and then realizing that I wanted someone else. That and even with the limited relationship experience I'd had up to that point, I'd always gone straight from Hello to a committed relationship with pretty poor results. Sooooooo i'd just come out of a bad situation where some feelings had gotten hurt and there was a bit of anguish on both sides when we decided to try this open relationship.

I've got a few weaknesses and this one particular person was a huge one. TMI alert we had wild animalistic sex that left me drained for days end TMI. Well things hadn't ended well and Tara knew the whole story and how bad I felt about the way things ended so she was definitely not wanting me to go down that particular road again. Well as I said before, I had a penchant for fucking up a good thing and chance just happened to put me and her together again for a nite. Yes, I screwed up, literally and figuratively and the repurcussions of the shock wave from that incident were felt by all three of us. It wasn't so much that I slept with her but that Tara knew how much pain I put myself thru the first time things went sour and she didnt' want either of us to go through it again. It could have all come to an end right there but our friendship and love prevailed. I guess part of the reason we made it past that first hurdle was because I didn't hide it or really try to hide it. I knew that I was pretty weak in that regard on my way down there and was telling her on the phone on my way, yes we talked on the phone that much. She tried to convince me not to go and I probably should have just mailed what I needed to return but I guess a part of me was trying to fuck up because it's what I do. I'm glad to say that I didn't succeed entirely and all parties eventually ended up happy in their own ways. (not at that time of course but since)

So that was the first of several checks of whether or not we were going to make it. We got more serious after that test and really began to focus more on our relationship with each other and with others. While we didn't and dont have a convential relationship by conservative societies standards we still had ground rules. One of those ground rules was that even little white lies were bad and omission was just as bad as lying. While I try very hard to be the best person I can be and succeed in many ways, I dont always succeed. It was late august and I already knew that we had something extremely special and I wasn't going anywhere. The thoughts of marriage had started to enter my head but I wasn't about to say anything out loud about it. I'd also not said much publicly about us dating as I'd jumped the gun in announcing my romantic adventures online in the past which always made me feel awful if/when things didn't work out. I just couldn't imagine her wanting to be with me, there had to be someone better out there for her so I was quiet publicly while she was not so much.

My silence and some sexual blocks I run into when dealing with people I love started to test our relationship further. I had been more public about some of my previous relationships but they'd all fizzled. We had been freakier to say the least before and those were issues that I was going to have to work on. However because of both of these issues, a lie of omission and then an outright lie threatened everything we'd been building on for nearly 7 months. I'm sure some would like details but it was extremely difficult for everyone and it's one scab that I know we'd both like to leave healed. We'd had our third meeting just after the lie of omission but before it had all come to light. It was a wonderful four day weekend and the most time we'd been able to spend together up to that point.

The Breakup....
Like I said, I wont go into details of what happened but a trust was broken. There isn't much that gets said to either one of us that the other doesn't know or find out. We keep other peoples secrets within reason but we simply dont keep alot from each other. Well, because we shared everything, some things got out that I really didn't want out. I've never been one to concern myself with my own feelings so much as worrying about others. Feelings were hurt, emotions were wrecked and though it was totally my fault that the issue had even come up, I decided we should take a break. Odd thing, I was mad at myself and I was mad at her but before the breakup, I already knew I would ask her to marry me someday. I'd discussed it with a few close friends but I couldn't dissuade her feelings that maybe I just wanted to run. I'm sure she'll tell you herself that when she gets upset or worse mad, you better watch out. There was a lot of anger initially and it looked like the friendship might be more doomed than the relationship.

However, we continued to talk. Not as much at first because there was still a lot of anger and confusion on both sides but we started out as friends and through it all we knew that we'd always be friends. Slowly the calls, emails and chat sessions picked up steam again but alas we weren't exactly a couple anymore.

I'm sure she'll pick up where I left off tomorrow and get to the 4th meeting and the surprise (well for her anyways)

How we talked and talked and talked...part 1 1/2

So I've been convinced to add another chapter to the saga of how two internet nerds met and found love. We talked, and talked and talked and then talked some more. Shawns birthday last year was pretty traumatizing for everyone. I was in and out of a relationship that was suffering greatly because of my relationship with the kids, their mom and my close friends who'd been my all for so many years. I guess to give some history, I was a late bloomer.

I had zero girlfriends growing up and my first dates and kiss in college at the ripe young age of 22. Maybe TMI, I lost my virginity at the ripe young age of 26 and it wasn'tn something to write home to mom about. I was a very outgoing and energetic person with my friends of which many were girls but I had absolute zero confidence when it came to talking to women that I might have wanted to pursue. My lack of confidence and absolute debilitating fear of rejection meant that unless a woman knocked me over the head and said you're gonna be my boyfriend or we're gonna have sex, it just wasn't happening. Then a strange, yet oddly wonderful thing happened. My best friends 17 year old niece came with his mom to visit us one weekend. Now I'd known her since she was 6 so no gutter-minds please lol. Being a complete geek in high-school and college I knew all about the internet and chat as we'd chatted to people around the world using the old frame-relay chat programs at college. Back when we were chatting in college everything was done on mainframes so it wasn't like we'd go back to our rooms and continue chatting with people online. With that in mind, I never really ventured to see what programs there were for PC's to let people chat with one another after we graduated. This is where the visit comes in. We took her around Atlanta and showed her the sights but all she really wanted to do was play on the computer in these yahoo chat rooms. I'd just recently started talking to people on Yahoo and ICQ which was the biggie back then but I had no idea you could meet and talk to people you didn't know already from somewhere.

Well, up to that point, pretty much the only people I talked to online where my friends from school that were using this program or that but I decided to check out these so-called chat rooms and see who hung aroud there. I met my very first online total stranger friend whom I still talk to today though only two or three times a year. She lives in the UK now but back then she lived in Australia and I'm not even sure how we first started talking but we became quick friends and even phoned from time to time, a very expensive option back then at $1 a minute. The thing was, she was beautiful, I mean beautiful as we'd also traded pictures and for the first time in my life, a beautiful woman thought I was also attractive. I wasn't quite sure how to take it because I'd been all but ignored by girls my whole life and I had other issues that prevented me from even considering trying to talk to them.

This was new though and I started to find it easier to talk to women I found attractive online because even if there was going to be rejection, it wasn't faced to face and I didn't feel like I would have people laughing at me cause no one would know right? Now there was a problem with my new found confidence, wanna guess what it was? Yup, the internet is worldwide and wouldn't you know unlike MM, nearly everytime I met someone that I clicked with or that was attracted to me, they were half the country or half the world away. Well that didn't deter me too much because even though I wasn't likely to ever meet any of them, it was nice to know that women somewhere were attracted to me which meant that maybe one day I'd actually meet someone local or near-local IRL that would be too. It helped a lot with my confidence too which of course shows when you're talking to someone.

TMI part I: well obviously if I wasn't able to talk to women IRL, I wasn't dating or having sex but you know there are other ways to take care of oneself. I guess I'm a little embarrassed mentioning it here but I wasn't embarrassed when I was having my fun and you cant have much safer sex than masturbation...lol. Well that was the beginning and over time some of the groups that I was involved with online spilled over into real-time and to put it mildly, I made up for some of those lost years. Still, unless I'd talked to someone for a long time online and knew exactly where we both were ahead of time I wasn't the type to initiate anything from kissing to well you know. So it could be said that most of my early sexual experiences, I wasn't the agressor. However, online I was more Clark Gable or Dirk Diggler than Steve Urkel or PeeWee Herman so I definitely wouldn't have had as many dates were it not for the wonder of the internet.

Wow, that was a lot of background wasn't it? To bring us back up to date with the cstl/syren story, before the first phone call there was lots of flirting cause I'm a huge online flirt. IRL, not so much unless we've known each other pretty well online. After the first phone call came lots and lots and lots of calls. I just felt completely at ease with Tara from the beginning and began to tell her stuff that I wouldn't/couldn't tell anyone else in the world. That was nearly the title of some of my early emails to her. I most definitely wont post those here but the title was "Things I can only tell Tara" and I knew we would be friends forever after a few emails. Well of course the emails led to chatting and thanks to Jennies antics on Shawn's birthday led to us talking on the phone. And did we ever talk. Funny thing was, we were just good friends and becoming better friends during all that time. She actually was trying to help me with decisions about other relationships that I was in at the time and I tried to help her with the issues with her son and ex.

TMI part II: Well, I wasn't exactly a doe-eyed innocent anymore as I'd learned that people were more willing to get to know someone online attraction or not than they were IRL, but a lot of times once they got to know you, if there was an attraction, there were no head games. It wasn't necessarily like most people think but I wasn't warming the bench anymore.

After a major breakup, I was just ready to have some fun and not try to worry about relationships and she knew it becuase I told her everything. I was also a bit of a showoff (in the non-traditional sense) and she knew that but that wasn't her thing so we didn't really push that issue. We did however have some pretty interesting conversations on the phone and we found out that when it came to sex, love and relationships, we thought alot alike. One day while on a business trip, we were talking and I mentioned something about being turned on and nekkid. Well, next thing you know, we were each in different states but we were coming together as one so to speak..lol. Well, at least until my phone died and I couldn't call back till the next morning when it finished charging. Looking back, there were other indications that our first meeting might be unlike most peep meets but that phone call pretty much sealed the deal.

Sorry for the extensive background but without it you might not understand how this would have never happened without RTVW and the internet.

Bliss

I've got my three year old sleeping on one side and my either year old on the other. I couldn't be happier right now unless I had my baby and her baby here with us. We're gonna have quite the large family when my ex finally comes around and accepts that we are getting married. I told her (Tara) that she was the only woman I was ever going to propose to and I meant it.

How we met...a true internet love story

What a year 2005 was. I loved Boo's story and I'm thoroughly enjoying Tabithas story so I was talking to T yesterday and asked if she thought we should post ours. She said only if I were to contribute on my blog too so here I am. Depending on how much detail she opts to go into you'll get more than your fair smutblog quotient and learn some things that may shock some and be old news to others. I dont fancy myself as much of a writer so I figure Part 1 should be the easy part.

Easy because for the second time in my life I met someone who was destined to always be a part of my life through email. The first time it was I doing the emailing to a young mother of one whose Yahoo profile (surprise, no dating site, chat room, nada ..I was just touched by her quote) caught my eye. The quote was concering not holding peoples past mistakes against them and always finding the bad in people if that's were you were looking for. Ok after some of the experiences I've had with J concerning the two lovely boys I call my own, I have to wonder about the second part of her statement myself. Nonetheless, we started out as friends and thru thick and thin (and there's been plenty of thick) we've still maintained an odd friendship. For those who might have been following that story, I as of last month been able to see the boys again and spend time with them at will. I dont even want to go any further in the story of me and J other than to say, she's not taking the marriage and other news very well at all but she knows that S & D will always see me as their father figure so she'll have to deal with it eventually.

So on to the new. You're all probably wondering how I met Syren and how we became a couple. I know it's considered very rude to post private PM's publicly on OT but this isn't OT so here it is, the first communique I ever had with her and also to an extent the first time that I became really aware of who she was on the boards.

From syren
Subject HI
Date Fri Feb 18 2005
Message Wanted to say Happy Birthday. And ask who is BEG? Or what is BEG? Do you know that has been bothering me since you posted it? Was hoping someone would come along on the thread and politely explain it, but noone has.
Happy Birthday.

-Syren

Seems simple enough doesn't it? But what made it so very special was that even though I was already blogging at that time, my blog was private and though I also had a Live Journal, i'd only started it a few weeks prior and there wasn't much in it. I had expected to get birthday wishes from a certain other person who still occupied (and still does have a special place) in my heart the day before which was my actually birthday. Well, I was forgotten and while it didn't bother me too much, I was very touched because my birthday thread hadn't been posted on OT yet so I knew she couldn't have known about my birthday from OT. She'd followed a link under a post of mine on OT and read my journal which had a very deep end post about my birthday and a lot of the things in my childhood that helped shape the man I became.

So there it is, the beginning. I'm sure that she'll continue the story on her blog sometime soon.

Hey Tab

First off thanks to Boo for bringing me out of my temporary funk with her stories. I am one of those guys that likes romantic comedies and her story had a little bit of all the things (plus some smut) that make me like romantic comedies so much.

And though I haven't been much in a posting mood in the last few weeks, my buddy Tab is always there checking on me. Even though I've been the one missing I've missed you the mostest.