6-minute dance

"You rezzed quickly," he said after eleven hours. "And you tended to stay on the edge, away from the crowd." He was talking about how Alt #11 caught his eye at Frank's. It would be another four hours after that comment before we finally said goodnight.

At 9pm the previous night, he sent an IM almost as soon as I got settled on a spot at Frank's. I had just IM'd my sister that it was cloudy at Frank's, referring to the many unrezzed avatars there.

His first IM was that he thought my 1st Life tab comment was hilarious. And the conversation started. His avie had a unique face. Something about the face reminded me of my favorite uncle, and it was eerily realistic. I asked him where the skin was from, but he refused to divulge that information unless I danced with him. I agreed. But I warned him that if he didn't give me the information in the first five minutes, I would leave. He figured he'd have at least a 6-minute dance.

The 6-minute dance lasted 15 hours, from 9pm to noon the next day.

He is very sweet and very romantic. He showered me with compliments the entire time, and he is disappointed that I don't seem to be as enamored of him as he is of me. Yet, twice, he himself dared to declare that I love him. Then a few minutes later, he'd display this insecurity and behave as though I had rejected him. It was like talking to two different people!

We were just chatting -- animatedly, if I might add -- then we kissed. Five hours into the dance. And the world changed. I was reeling. It was so intense that I was losing myself. I had to pull away.

Then he called it a "basic light friendship kiss." I was livid. That comment felt like a slap on the face. I accused him of playing with me; he said I was playing with him "on the same premise."

My emotions were pulling me both ways. I wanted to get up and leave. On the other hand, a part of me questioned the intensity of the anger. If there was nothing there, I wouldn't have cared and I would have just left right away. Yet I hesitated. As though he could read my mind, he broke the silence with "... and if we were truly playing, we would both have left hours ago."

At that point, he became my lover. He knows I have two others and he was fine with that.

There was something about that intensity. There is a tremendous force pulling us together, even as we both try to pull away. I try to pull away because I fear losing myself. I think he tries to pull away because he thinks I don't reciprocate.

The whole thing reminds me of another encounter a long time ago. Similar intensity. Similar push-pull.