Name: Scarlet Hicks
Alias: Yes
Type: ESTP
Born: 1981
Base of Operations: Jersey Village
Occupation: Unknown
Superpower: Aggressiveness
Loss Vulnerability: Inconsistency
Short Version: Significant other (2002)
Long Version:
I met Scarlet in a chat room. She messaged me to compliment something or another I was doing (probably dressing down idiots with delusions of Being a Unique Individual, but I can't be sure). When she messaged me on AIM, I saw that she had a Cory Morrow quote on her profile. Naturally the subject of Texas country music came up. To test me, I suppose, she asked me to place some lyrics. It was a pretty easily Bleu Edmondson song. Feeling a bit cocky, not only named the song, artist and CD, but added "I have the CD. I have it signed."

That was the ultimate selling point for her. I was a bit harder to sell, though. She wasn't yet 21, which presented a problem for my social schedule. The fact that I saw it as a problem was a red flag that something else wasn't right (most likely simple incompatibility).

In any event, we met at a pool hall the next night. She was an award-winning pool player, but she let me win two out of three. Though uncertain, I laid on my goofy charm. We had a date the following week. Things went well enough that I loaned her my Bleu Edmondson CD and we were officially an item.

A couple weeks later I gave her one of the best gifts I've ever come up with: I bought her a copy of the Bleu CD and had it signed "Wish you were here, Bleu!"

It didn't take a month before things started getting odd. She started cancelling-and-rescheduling with unsettling frequency. I reasoned that it was understandable considering that she worked a couple of jobs and was attending college. I'd been there. But it eventually reached the point where she was going to need to make me a higher priority of we'd essentially have a long-distance relationship from ten miles away (and less than one mile from my job).

Then there was her family. I wasn't particularly interested in meeting her family (we weren't that far along), but the degree to which she kept me away from them was an oddity. When I ran in to her and her sister by chance, it seemed that she was in a hurry to get elsewhere. She said she was in a hurry and I bought it, or I would have if it weren't for the other pieces to the keep-RAW-away-from-her-family puzzle.

"You know," I told my friend Polly, "I'm beginning to wonder if she is seeing someone else." I figured I was being paranoid and didn't think anything of it again. After all, if she loaned my first Bleu CD to her father - and it was signed to me - then at some point my existence was acknowledged...

Not long later I ran into her sister again. When I asked how Scarlet was doing, she said, "They're thinking about moving out to be a little closer to us."

That made no sense.

She got a phone call on her cell and our conversation ended.

That night I saw that she was online. I messaged her to follow up.

RAW: So where is she thinking about moving?
Sis: They're talking about moving off Jester.
There's that "they" again.
RAW: Interesting
Though, theoretically, it can't be closer to her parents' place SINCE SHE LIVES WITH THEM!!
RAW: Well, at least it would be closer to one of her jobs.
At least, that's the assumption...
Sis: Yeah, but Larry is against it.
Larry? I know of no... Larry. I know her father's name, her brother's name, and most of her closest friend's names... SO WHO THE HELL IS LARRY!?!?!

Then, in the most infuriating moment of DSL connection ineptitude in recent memory, I got knocked offline.

I was off for about an hour.

She wasn't online when I got back.

But I already knew who Larry was. A quick tour of DMV records suggested that he fit the profile. At her address was not anyone with her surname, but a man named Larry Coburn. Twenty-six years old - she joked that I, four years her senior, was almost too young for her. Owner of the car she drives.

Our last conversation went like this:
"Hello?"
"Hey, it's Scarlet."
"Hey Scarlet, just who I was hoping to talk to."
"I don't think we should see each other anymore."
"I agree."
"Bye."
"Bye."

Shortly thereafter, I realized that I would have to buy another copy of that Bleu Edmondson CD since she had both of mine.

After telling him the story, Bleu signed it "Better luck next time!"

Name: Pierce Kavan [Kah-vaun]
Alias: Yes
AKA: Kav
Type: ISTP/ESTP
Born: 1978
Base of Operations: Rosenberg, TX
Occupation: IT
Superpower: Wit
Loss Vulnerability: Cynicism
Short Version: Friend (1996- ), Anna's Boyfriend (2001- )
Long Version: Pierce and I started talking on ACME when a good friend stopped logging on. This is important because Pierce filled that precise role: romantically frustrated jaded idealist. I had Sarah Goddess, he had his own. He grew out of that phase long before I did, but we somehow found things to talk about anyway. When he graduated high school, he moved to Austin and started bumming around out there for a while. His brother was logging on to ACME frequently by that point and their online personas were eerily similar.

At some point Pierce moved back and we started talking again, mostly on-line. He did extend to me an invite to his wedding and it was there that we first actually met in person. Shortly after Keith's death, his marriage was on the rocks and he, Anna, and I began hanging out with increasingly frequency. With Keith gone and Brian having left for Austin, he became our lifeline to the outside world. This was all exacerbated by the fact that he was going to need a roommate to afford an apartment and this was about the time that Anna was looking to move out of her house.

It was also about the time things started falling apart between Anna and I. I wonder to this day if part of me wasn't so supportive of the two of them moving in together for some ignoble reasons in addition to the more obvious ones. It was pretty apparent, though, that Pierce was still pretty hung up on his unsalvageable marriage. When Anna and I came to the end of the line, Pierce was one of the two people that she sent to try to talk me out of leaving. He didn't talk me out of it, but he managed to get me to realize and say things about Anna that I hadn't before and by that measure he was very successful. After the talk with Pierce that night, I saw Anna and we officially parted ways.

To the surprise of no one but Pierce and Anna, they got together less than two weeks later. Though the dynamic between us had changed, the three of us still hung out during a transition period. We all thought it was odd how we didn't feel awkward about it. As planned before they even got together, Pierce and Anna moved in together six months later.

Pierce's job with a law firm was very similar to mine with UFC, so when I got that job we became each other's tech support. Pierce and Anna also came to a number of Phil Pritchett shows. Whenever my friendship with Anna was on the rocks for one reason or another, I'd mosey on over to there place only to end up avoiding whatever the issue was and talking to Pierce most of the time.

Pierce and Anna broke up in August 2004.

Name: Linus Stromberg
Alias: Yes
Type: INTJ/INFJ
Born: 1979
Base of Operations: Jackson, WY
Occupation: Something to do with rocks
Superpower: Intelligence
Loss Vulnerability: Frustratable
Short Version: Friend (1995- ), Best friend's best friend (1988- )
Long Version: Linus started going to our elementary school is about the second grade. I didn't know a whole lot about him at the time except that I remember thinking that he had a really cool name.

Linus became a figure in my life through Jay. I was out to lunch when Jay and Linus became friends, so I don't remember when exactly that was. Usually when I heard his name it was a bad thing along the lines of "Sorry I can't hang out today, Alex, but Linus and I are going to go _______." While I didn't dislike him, he was inconvenient when it came to monopolizing Jay's time.

In a sense, Jay and I were really quite lucky to befriend Linus. With his wit and good looks, Linus could easily have been among the most popular in school. Luckily for us, when such dye was cast Linus had a veritable beard of acne and a plethora of nerdy interests that kept him around the likes of Jay and I. We were even more fortunate by his exceedingly strong sense of self to where he completely removed himself from the social games kids play with one another. He was an unusually well-adjusted kid.

Linus and I became friends in our own right in 1994, when he introduced me to ACME. Since we were both regulars, we started talking quite frequently. He was my first unpaid tech support as all of this happened the first time I'd started using a computer other than an Apple IIe and he was a bona fide computer nerd. When Jay and I found ourselves competing for the same girl, Linus admirably tried to mediate. When he became interested in the dating world himself, that just opened up considerably more avenues of conversation. Once we became comfortable around each other, it became a lot easier for the three of us to start doing things instead of Jay and I and Jay and he doing things seperately.

When it came time for choosing college, Jay quickly chose Baylor, I chose Houston, and Linus went back and forth between the University of Texas and Ohio Tech, a well-regarded private school focused on the maths and sciences. As his girlfriend was headed to Austin I felt comfortable that he would do the same (since it was a finalist anyway), but once again he let that level-headed brain of his do his thinking for him and headed off to Ohio.

Though he was busy at OTU, we stayed in contact and he came back down during breaks when we'd have 24 or 36 hour movie marathons (I believe they had a 48-hour marathon, too, though I didn't partake). When Linus graduated he went out to Jackson, Wyoming on some federal government project. After doing a tour there, came back to Houston for a stint and I got to introduce him to the likes of Phil Pritchett and Bleu Edmondson. After a short time of being a car salesman and auto website programer, he headed back up to Wyoming and his lady friend Lucy later followed.

Name: Rosalinda Olafsdotter Polansky
Alias: Yes
AKA: Rosa, Rose
Type: ESFP
Born: 1981
Base of Operations: Idaho
Occupation: Unemployed
Superpower: Killer smile
Loss Vulnerability: None, formerly luck with men
Short Version: Friend (2001- ), former romantic interest (2001-02)
Long Version:
I first met Rosalinda Olafsdotter at the University of Houston. She was actually my first smoking buddy. When I first picked up the habit I would generally go to the balcony at Oberholzer because it provided a good place that I could sit down out of the sunlight and people-watch. Rosalinda and a couple of others would generally hang out there and talk. I joined their group pretty quickly, but the only real friend that I made was Rosalinda. Our friendship was bolstered by mutual attraction and interest.

I was on the rebound from Audrey Round One at the time, which meant that I both needed to be in a relationship and needed not to be in a relationship. Rosalinda was a bit round around the waste, but she had a wonderful smile and I actually fit the major three criteria she had for a man: tall, blond, Christian. As for her, well she had the great smile that she used often, was very nice, and knew the lyrics to Bare Naked Ladies's Tonight Is The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel. What more could anyone possibly ask for?

It didn't take long before we were talking for hours on end outside and watching tons of movies together inside. It's difficult to say exactly what happened next. Actually, it's not. Nothing happened next. It's difficult to say why nothing happened. Well no, it's not: I freaked out. Not very long after that I orchestrated a "drifting apart" and started dating Angel instead before ultimately ending up in Audrey Round Two.

Rosalinda and I stayed casually in contact over the next year. Several months after Audrey Round Two came to an end she and I started hanging out again. I'd thought she was attractive before, but she'd dropped the excess poundage and picked up a hairstyle that made her absolutely gorgeous. I was working at UFC at the time and living off campus while she'd run out of college money and was working. We were good at finding time for one another, though. We had a lot of help from her meddling friend Lori who was bound and determined to get us together because she knew that we knew that we were both interested in one another and not getting into a relationship seemed downright silly.

But that's exactly what happened. I muddled in uncertainty and doubt. She was remarkably patient with me, though she wisely wasn't going to wait for me to stop freaking out. Before long, she got involved with another fellow. I was both disappointed and breathing a sigh of relief. Mostly I was disappointed because I simply couldn't figure out what was holding me back. It just seemed that at every opportune moment to bring it up, a voice in the back of my head would tell me that it wasn't in the cards. It would have been awfully nice if that voice had told me why, but it didn't.

Her relationship with the other fellow didn't last long. Rosalinda Round Three was cut short by an abrupt announcement: she was moving. To Idaho. If I didn't ask "Why the hell would anyone move to Idaho," I meant to. I was pretty disappointed because it was obvious at that point that I had frittered away any chance that I had with this girl that was absolutely, positively, perfect on paper. She held a going away party that was an incredibly long one because I spent whatever moments I wasn't talking to her kicking myself for letting such a wonderful and attractive person slip away.

I wanted to at least come clean with her about my feelings before she left. I helped her load the van, but I said nothing as she drove off.

We talked online once she got up there. We traded barbs about the virtues of Texas and "Taterland," as I'd grown fond of calling Idaho. We finally both came clean and told each other what we already knew. Not that it mattered, of course, because she was in Idaho. Not long after that she met a boy and things between them took off. I was quite happy for her.

When Idaho suddenly entered into my own plans, she was the first person that I contacted. It turned out that not only was she was living in the state I was moving to, but she was located in the Shelbyville to my Springfield. Her boyfriend-turn-fiance Vaclav became an invaluable resource in my job hunt and a regular chatmate. A fellow computer nerd, we had quite a bit to talk about. On June 5, 2004, I was privileged to witness the marriage of Vaclav and Rosalinda

Name: Jason Paris
Alias: No
AKA: Jay
Type: ENFP
Born: 1979
Base of Operations: Waco, TX
Occupation: College student
Superpower: Music vitruoso
Loss Vulnerability: Procrastination
Short Version: Best friend
Long Version:
Jay doesn't remember, but he and I first met in pre-kindergarten. The only thing I remember is someone saying "Hey! So-and-so is here!" I couldn't remember his name, but he was probably at the apex of his popularity at that point. I don't recall talking to him.

Flash forward to the first grade. He and I had Mrs. Mikelson and almost instanty became really good friends. We had the same second grade teacher as well and by the time that ended, he was competing with Frank to be my best friend. By the time we were in the fourth grade we were doing radio movies together as "AJ Productions." Picture two 11 year olds improvising for 90 minutes and you'll get a pretty clear idea of how good those were. By junior high we were creating movies together and shifted AJP towards doing comedy movies with recurring characters put in different situations (soldiers, ministers, athletes, etc.). They were marginally better, but perhaps only because they were not as excruciatingly long. By the time we hit high school, we were making video movies that were cute and, thankfully, even shorter.

We became even closer in high school as we both circled our lives around ACME. Unfortunately two close as we found ourselves repeatedly competing for the same female-types. Somehow, we survived that and other adolescent conflicts.

We parted ways when the time for college came. I went local to the University of Houston while he went off to Baylor University in Waco. After a year or so, I tried like the dickens to get him to transfer, but it was not to be. We were somewhat distant at first, but once ICQ came around we stayed in contact beyond periodic emails and our friendship was renewed. When we joined with Adam and Brian to form No-Lyfe Productions we started spending even more time together and were reunited creatively.

He remains one of the biggest sacrifices I'm making by leaving Texas, though we've been talking of creative avenues that we can pursue. He's finishing up school at Baylor and will head out to Austin, Florida, or California when he finishes that in May of 2004.

Name: Audrey Elciem
Alias: Yes
AKA: Elciem, Ellie, Juri
Type: INFP
Born: 1978
Base of Operations: Houston, TX
Occupation: Personal secretary
Short Version: Love interest from November 2000 to October 2001.
Long Version:
The first time I saw Audrey was at Akon 1999. I didn't actually meet her, but when I saw her she immediately grabbed my attention. I couldn't tell if she was someone that I knew or someone that I really wanted to know, but I knew she was one or the other. I also met Jessica that weekend and so nothing came of it. I knew that she went to the University of Houston (she was hanging with the UH anime club) and kept an eye out for her whenever I saw a redhead there.

Some time later my relationship with Anna was on the rocks. I was looking to make new friends on a site called College Club and saw a profile that spoke to me. Like me, she only had the "friend" option checked. I figured it was safe and wrote her an email. Looking back, it was insanely personal for someone that I'd just met. That wasn't my style, but it seemed right with her. It took her a couple of days to respond to the first email. We shot back emails back and forth at the rate of four or so a piece per day. It turned out that an acquaintance of mine was her best friend and that she was the girl in the Juri costume at Akon and that we were born an hour apart.

It also turned out that we both had the "friend" option checked because we were both in relationships. It also also turned out that we were both in relationships we were making preparations to get out of.

When we were both finally single we made plans to go to a party that her step-mother was throwing. At the last minute I cancelled. It didn't matter because we were going to see each other the next day. Except that night an ex-boyfriend named Michael showed up and everything changed. I didn't hear from her for a couple of days. When I did, everything was different. I could read the writing on the wall but she was denying that it was there. I was on winter break from school and the days turned into centuries as I watched the phone never ring and the emailbox remain empty.

Things eventually died out as she decided that she was forever meant to be with Michael. I could see that she was making a tremendous mistake. No only in passing up someone as wonderful as me, but I knew what Michael was going to do. She denied it, but she'd also denied that Michael was going to be her choice. I was right and she was wrong both times. Michael sent her into a whirlwind of emotional turmoil. We later reconciled.

As things had happened with Audrey and Michael, they would also be with Audrey and me. From the outside looking in, I could see what was going to happen. In fact, I actually told people that was most likely what was going to happen again. Audrey again assured me that it wasn't and for a while it looked like she was right. Despite the arguments, horrible yelling and worse silence, things were improving. But there were three sides to her. There was the Audrey that would show up late, the Audrey that couldn't make it but would call, and the Audrey that never called and never showed up. Each seemed to possess her a third of the time. The third Audrey made it impossible for me to enjoy the time with the first one.

Things had grown stagnant (again). When I confronted her about it, she told me that she wasn't going anywhere. It was true enough because there was nowhere for her to go. She and I had made plans to get together on the weekend of 9/14/01, but at the last minute she decided she was going to go visit relatives instead. I made plans for Austin. One day before her scheduled departure, terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Her trip was cancelled. I decided that I wasn't going to cancel my trip to Austin and left anyway.

Michael's predecessor in her life, a boy named Vince, called her while I was gone. For some reason, a terrorist act involving the deaths of thousands made him think of her. They got together that weekend and when I got back from Austin, everything had changed again. This time I just didn't know it. She was seeing both of us and her previously improving attendence record was starting to dip again. When she failed to show up on a date that we'd planned over a month in advance, and when she failed to call, I had finally reached my limit.

She convinced me to give it one last chance. I agreed to, but it was going to be different. Her attendence record improved, but it was already not enough. Maybe I was already starting to figure out what was going on with Vince, but mostly I had raised my expectations higher than she was planning to deliver. Then out of nowhere I started really thinking about the Vince situation. The thought had occured to me that I hadn't even asked her if anything was going on.

So I did and she told me that while nothing had happened, she was trying to figure out what she wanted. That was the last last last last straw. I'd threatened to leave before, but she'd always fought to keep me. She tried to calm things down but I was finally unwavering. We had a showdown in the Target parking lot on the northside. The fight lasted for six hours. It was the longest amount of uninterrupted alone time we'd ever had together.

She and Vince promptly got together afterwards. While Vince was thankfully no Michael, things didn't work out. There were real problems about six months in, but she held it together for another six months. She and I did not see each other much during this period. We touched base again when she and Vince were in their final days. I was going through some issues of my own at the time. Shortly before or after that, she ended up getting together with Ed, a friend of mine and her best friend since high school. They've been together since.

Name: Jessica Youngblood
Alias: Yes
AKA: "Private Mitchell"
Type: ISFP
Born: 1983
Base of Operations: Uknown
Occupation: United States Armed Services
Superpower: Self-directed
Loss Vulnerability: Older and otherwise unavailable men

Jessica comes from about as unfortunate a family background as one can imagine. Her parents divorced at a young age and she ended up splitting time between her alcoholic father and mentally unstable money. As such, she primarily raised herself and so grew up about as quickly as kid can.

We first met on the second day of the Akon convention at the Hyatt hotel in the DFW airport. She wasn't very much an Anime fan, but her friend had brought her along and she would use any excuse she could to get out of the house. I first met her while we were waiting in a rather long line. She struck up the conversation, but I was pretty happy to have someone - anyone - to talk to. The fact that she was a seemingly nice 6' redhead didn't hurt, but since I was in a serious relationship, it didn't help all that much.

She seemed pleasant enough, so when I was looking around for someone else and saw her in the corner of my eye, I decided to go talk to her instead. I ended up having to fend off a would be suitor, which I felt kind of bad about since I wasn't looking for anything but someone to talk to and he was obviously looking for a bit more.

I'd consciously avoided mentioning two things to her. First, I was afraid to bring up my age because I figured that she was older than myself and didn't want to give her the impression that I was this little fanboy hitting on her. I was older than a large number of the people there, but I figured she was twenty-four and girls can get very condescending very quickly when dealing with guys younger than themselves. Eventually she came out and asked and I told her: I'm twenty-one.

When she told me she was fifteen, my mouth dropped to the floor. Of course, once she told me I could start to see what I had missed before. I thought she just had kind of a young-looking face, but it was actually the real deal. It also should have served as a warning sign that she thought I was twenty-eight. I asked her why she, being fifteen, would be talking to a twenty-eight year old without being the least bit creeped out and she said that she's used to old guys hitting on her. I actually made a point to say "You think I'm hitting on you?" to which she replied "of course not."

I don't think either of us knew if the other was being sarcastic, or, for that matter, if we were being sarcastic ourselves. We ended up talking quite a bit and hung out together for the rest of the trip. Before we left, she took my picture and we exchanged contact information.

Over the next several months our correspondences became much more intimate. She was, it turned out, quite interested in me and I used about every excuse I had to get out of the relationship. Two excuses, the age difference and distance, were really quite valid - not all of them were so. The longer I went without telling her about Anna, the more embarassed I felt about not having told her. It was a conscious decision at first, but I had certainly intended to tell her prior to that point except that I hadn't, therefore I couldn't, and so on.

The next year our conversations became increasingly intimate until finally the subject of us came up again. It was less than a month after I'd made the decision that I was going to propose to Anna. The initial euphoria of the intended engagement had worn off and I started feeling an overwhelming sense of dread. In other words, her timing was perfect. We abstractly discussed the possibility of a rendezvous under the cover of flirtation and unseriousness.

Then she told me she was serious.

Before I could even wrap my hands around the situation, I recieved an anonymous letter. There was no signiture, no return address, and most strangely, no postmark. It contained xeroxes of the statutes regarding illegal sexual activity with minors with applicable portions highlighted. Until I'd gotten that letter, I'd actually forgotten the whole age issue.

In any case, I called off everything the next time I talked to Jessica. To be honest, I was relieved. It was increasingly weighing in my conscience and had already been looking for a way out. The sense of dread regarding my impending engagement had also severely intensified and I felt the need to figure things out there without letting a would-be successor in the wings cloud my judgment.

She respected my decision and agreed to cease correspondence. The only request she would not comply with was getting rid of my letters.

For unrelated reasons, the next convention was an unmitigated disaster that ended up costing me seven hundred dollars, severely damaging a close friendship, and leaving the shadow of Houston looming two-hundred and fifty miles over me. I tried to make new friends that trip but had no real success. I eventually tried to salvage the weekend by reconnecting with Jessica just to get to talk to her. I did and it resulted in a kiss that was the beginning of the very long end of my relationship with Anna.

A month afterwards when she asked me to leave Anna. I refused and explained that what happened would not happen again. My mission at that point was to figure out what was wrong with my relationship with Anna and correct it. It was undeniable that there were problems, but I was going to fix them.

I never did. We broke up three months later.

Two years later, Jessica was living in Arkansas with her grandmother as her mom dropped her off for a summer trip and never came back. She hadn't money for college. I was still trying to make the unworkable work with Elciem without any success. There was a point when I considered inviting Jessica to come to Houston. That stone would have killed two birds. It would make what had happened before okay and it would give me an out with Elciem, whom I'd already tried to leave two times before.

She won a scholarship to the University of Arkansas and our sins were left unrectified.

Name: Anna McLoed
Alias: Yes
AKA: "Tanni"
Type: ISFJ / ISTJ
Born: 1978
Base of Operations: Webster, TX
Occupation: Techical Support
Superpower: Trustworthy
Loss Vulnerability: Stubborn
Short Version: Serious relationship from 1996-2000.

Long Version:
We met at the Starlight 16 theater in Pasadena, TX, where we both worked. We were scheduled together for my first couple of shifts there and got along pretty well, as far as I could tell. She's a very quiet person until you get to know her. It was thanks to a short conversation during this short period that I began looking at the University of Houston as a possible choice for college on her recommendation. I took a pretty immediate liking to her and when Starlight fired me for losing fictional money, I talked to Millie, a mutual friend, to try to get her schedule to meet her after work and ask her out. Unfortunately, she had a boyfriend at the time.

A few months later, Millie told me that Anna was asking about me and passed along her phone number. I called her and saw First Kid on our first date. She wore a pink shirt, blue jeans, and tan hiking shoes and we talked outside the theater for about three hours before finally parting ways. We went on a second date and a third. I fell in love with her at about the two month period. It took me about five minutes to sputter out the words because after being hurt by Ora, I'd lost sight of what they meant.

There were a few bumps in the road, but the relationship on the whole was very positive for both of us. For my part, she provided a sense of stability that my life was sorely lacking. She was my first serious relationship and therefore gave me a lot of experience on what makes relationships work. For her part, she'd come off a pretty nasty relationship and I helped her bring down the emotional walls that she built.

In early 2000, I began preparations to propose. I asked for her parents' permission and it was granted. I also started quietly saving up for a wedding ring. There was an initial period of euphoria that started turning sour after about a month. I started withdrawing from my friends as I started getting a nagging feeling that the impending engagement might be a mistake. Though I refused to acknowledge it, a series of events that summer and fall made the relationship impossible.

I had failed to properly deal with the heartbreak of my former love when she entered my life and the problems, which I'd been suppressing, started surfacing sporadically. There was a part of me that was desperately unhappy.

I was still pretty confident that I would get things worked out until August when everything began to unravel. During the preparation process, I'd made certain decisions as to what our relationship would require to become a successful marriage and that lead me to start considering law school. The pressures of law school admissions combined with full-time employment eventually lead to exhaustion that caused a serious car accident that made me rethink my priorities. Suddenly, in addition to the emotional discomfort, I started getting the sense that we were incompatible in other ways.

In the end, however, it was the emotional issues that pulled the relationship asunder. It was only after I began to peel at the ways that we were compatible on a practical level did I realize that there was something missing beyond that. I loved her dearly, but I'd kept certain parts of me bottled up and for some reason, she wasn't able to touch the emotional nerve to bring me back. To this day, I don't know whether it was an inherent emotional incompatibility between us or that she was simply in the wrong position at the wrong time to be able to do so.

In early December of 2000, I finally shared my concerns with her. Within a two week period, she discovered my previous intentions to propose, was informed that much of the stress I'd been experiencing over the previous couple of months was related to our relationship, and was emancipated from the relationship. The relationship ended on December 17, though we decided to wait until the New Year to announce it. Word got out and it lead to the most uncomfortable Christmas Party I've ever spent with her family that year.

Within a month or so, she became involved with Pierce, a mutual friend who was in the middle of a prolonged divorce. Anna and Pierce dated for roughly three-and-a-half years before they parted ways. She is presently single and living in Webster.