[unfinished: subject to correction from meticulous email backup and chat logs]
btw that this document lies aroudn unlinked, unprohibited and unchaste
is not entirely accidental
The title is porbably inaccurate, no one would have said that - I just imagine it, and after almost five years I believe I am to be granted a tad of poetic license regarding some phrase or even occasional feelings of no further impact. So I imagine the German translation uttered by someone witnessing the group one floor below trying to install linux on an Apple Power Macintosh 4400. Honestly I am not sure why they called the admin, which I was at the time; I think they wanted more Memory or a second disc, but then again I am pretty sure this onl happened a few days later. The most likely reason was that they wanted an IP address, which I granted them (in fact, I think I let them grab one by DHCP and then fixed the address to that computer). My IRC log was certainly not bothered by such circumstantial material at the time (even today all sorts of jabber makes it there, but the few bits of important stuff seem to happen in between, in pubs, in a park or on the subway) - all I remember is that I was sufficienty intrigued by the group (particularly the woman) to visit them. I was instantaneously attracted to her, and it could have been what prompted me to stay the evening and assist with installing Debian GNU/Linux for ppc (and show off my remote-boot GNU/Linux installation I had conceived as an alternative to the NT clients and which no one would ever use). I found out her eMail address (not hard, there was a sticker on one of the desks listing the lot) and fired off a more or less meaningless mail about xpdf - as it turned out, the first in a series of almost 6000 mails (3000 in each direction) and a long-lasting friendship and relationship ...
what remains to say? a tidbit from the irclog says it was a genuinely hot day (and a hot night, too - not in that sense, though, until much, much later ...)
[here a few words about New Year's Eve would be in order, which was always a blast with respect to my nearest and dearest]
[enter bliss for me, boredom for the significant other]
[Four and a half years later]The longest Monday of my Life (Mon Nov 21 2005)
After getting up early to add RAM to the Server we jointly administrated (iirc 7:00 since that early in the morning I don't have any desire for breakfast, except perhaps some vending machine coffee) I went to the University of Technology small crowded Student representative server room where the machine was, changed memory for the good and went on to Inorganic Chemistry 3 to hear more about cristalline structures of the salts various metals would form.
The next station was a pedagogic seminar lasting the whole day (aprox. 10 to 5) and which left me somewhat exhausted, if not from sheer mental stress then at least from having to stay together with the same people for so long with only 3/4 of an hour lunch break.
After returning to the server of the early morning, I confirmed that with more RAM, indeed, it would swap less and appear almost stable. More Tests lasted until 10 pm (no idea why it would take that long, but server administration seems inclined to that sort of thing ...). Via IRC we agreed on hunger and a place to eat, Culinarium Cooking, where we had frequently ben to in the previous years. I wondered whether her brother would come as occasionally he did, but we had two's company. After an enjoyable vegan soup (hopefully no chicken broth) for me and a soup pointedly ordered (even upon inquiry from my side) without that omission I suggested grabbing a beer in our favourite pub, at which she appeared quite delighted, since often enough I would prefer home (or what I called home at the time, which more often than not would end up to be her flat).
We chatted idly for a short while, then silence settled; this would not shock me, but I knew she was susceptible to overstretched conversational pauses, so not without real curiosity I inquired about her work, which in the weeks before (as I understand in a way it still, or again, does) revolved around printer queues and ordering large quantities of laser printers from a more or less reputable manufacturer, all alike, slightly aged models to be compatible with all but the oldest operating systems and drivers.
She flashed at me and told me I need not forcefully find themes to idly chat about, that she had to tell me something important.
I could think of a few matters important enough for such a portentuous opening and indeed I always had: marriage, an occupation in a country far, far away, the desire to build a homestead or even marry with children: I was redy for anything, I would probably have said yes to any question she could pose me. In my deepest self I knew it would be nothing that sophisticated, nothing to be euphorical about, nothing that would concern our togetherness, future, common interests or work. I had dreaded the moment for almost four years, I had imagined the response: "I always knew this would happen some day". In this instance, it seems I added a notion that the past few months had removed us from each other or something to the effect.
It remained a short evening, for the first time in years I went home, to my own unmade bed, using public transport. As mentioned in a !blog entry I concluded the day by making an ass of myself when I explained I would not bother with post-offices and banks on Sunday, followed by an excuse about my perception of time, the pointless opening of an account at love.at, one of the local dating services and lots of wondering about everything I had probably done wrong in the years before.
We agreed to meet the following Friday after some debate on whether we should meet earlier or later. We compromised on 11 pm in a pub where we had often sat during the "courtship" months as I can't help think about this time. It was probably unwise to meet that short after (though in retrospect, it might not have been such a bad idea in some ways) and in a place that heavily laden with sweet memories. I made my position clearer in that I had expected a separation for maybe the first two years and that in the two years since, happyness and contentedness had settled in. It was no joke, I had really smiled almost the entire year, happy to be together with such a talented, intelligent, loving person, and I would gladly take many hours of separation every day, knowing that in the evening we would meet again to mangle limbs, not necessarily with the intention of a sexual encounter. But what to me had seemed to become close togetherness, for her was mere boredom, dissatisfaction, irritation and - in a sexual sense - disgust or at least the opposite of attraction. Basically, she made me understand the decision was final, there would be no continuation whatsoever except (hopefully) a friendship to last. After a mere two drinks we left for our separated respective homes, me hardly being able to hold back my tears. I think on that evening I was quite rude, inquiring on some sexual extravagances we had embarked upon in the previous year and other things I had not been able to put my finger on.
I payed my fee to the dating agency, played along with their games (and with a somewhat less rudely rejecting atmosphere with the other dating agency) of males sending scores of mails to females and getting little to no mails in return (though I was probably lucky - as of yet, I have communicated with five, though 3 only lasted one to three mails (and one phonecall) and one ist still pending ... plus one chat contact active mostly between 2 am and 4 am, quite my time, but strictly platonic, mostly depressed, highly fascinating and quite unreachable despite living just a few blocks away in the real world).
In January, we attempted to arrange a meeting; we had agreed on a day, or at least I thought we had; in the end, once again I spent a lonely evening staring into the monitor. A week later we did indeed meet in front of one of the pubs where already during our relationship we had occasionally noticed that the place didn't open on sundays, and it didn't open on Jan 22 2006 either. It was freezing cold, and we immediately retired into one of the pubs we would usually have avoided at all cost (some will argue that WUK is nice. I'm glad they like it). Conversation trickled, passing the stuff I had brought her, getting complaints shw didn't know what to do with it, and eventually she told me, as relaxed as she could, that she had engaged in a relationship again. For me, it was as if a bomb had dropped. After ten minutes of sipping my dealcoholized beer I was once again addressable, in between at least I manages to congratulate and inquire on the identity of the lucky stud (not exactly in those words, not meaning them either, come to think of it) and the starting time of the happy-couple-ness, which proved to have been within a week of our separation.
I managed to compose myself sufficiently for another alcohol-free concoction of hops and malt derivatives, and after some more or less meaningless gabbing we once again took separated public transport lines.
Pondering my alternatives, the only viable option seems to become a workaholic, which I hate to be. I guess I could enjoy being a novelist, but only in theory, as I sorely lack the slightest trace of ingenuity, wit or fantasy.