Perhaps one, perhaps many

I originally wrote this a few weeks ago, while the situation was still ongoing.  At the time, I appeared to find a positive resolution to it, so my conclusion was fairly positive.  But it got worse, until I finally found myself in a position where I had to ask a guest to leave my flat.  Looking back on it, I can see that I got a lot more stressed by the situation than I was actually aware of at the time.  So much so, that it's only now that I'm able to update the posting.

I'm a member of a site called Couchsurfing and I get a lot out of that.  It keeps me from spending too much time on my own, because it helps me to socialise.  People from different cultures come to visit, I show them round the city and welcome them into my home.

The concept of Couchsurfing is simple.  People travel the world and they crash on other peoples' couches when they arrive.  You can host travellers, or just meet them for a coffee and show them around.  The idea is a combination of cheap travel, combined with a sort of cultural exchange.  It's a great thing, and I've had some amazing guests.  Really cool people that I would welcome back in a heartbeat.  And some that have returned for repeated visits.

Sometimes, though, it sort of goes a bit wrong.  Back in March, someone (I'll call him R) sent me a request and asked to stay.  He said he would arrive on the 12th and leave on the 15th.  He seemed pretty cool, and so I accepted his invitation.

On the 12th, I waited for him all day and he didn't turn up.  I checked his profile and realised he'd logged in since I sent him the email to accept him, so I got a bit irritated - I had waited for him, put myself out and he didn't even have the decency to acknowledge my acceptance.  I sent him a short email at around 8PM on the 12th.

I wrote this...

Since you didn't include an arrival time on your request, I didn't know when to expect you. So I've been at home all day, waiting for you and watching for an update about your schedule.

I assume you've changed your mind or made alternative arrangements?

I checked a couple of times on the 13th to find out whether he'd responded to that, but there was nothing.  He hadn't logged on though, so I couldn't figure out whether he was being rude or not.  Well, I already felt that not acknowledging my previous message the last time he'd logged on had been rude, but I wasn't sure about this.  I didn't know what kind of stuff was going on, and he might have a very reasonable explanation for not answering.  All this meant that he might turn up at any time on the 13th, so I felt obligated to wait at home for him on that day, too.

I had also accepted a small group of people.  The girl (I'll call her C) had told me she was travelling with some friends, so I was expecting three male guests and one female guest.  I told them that things would be a little cramped on the first night, but that they were all welcome to come along, regardless.  After all, it would only be the first night - and then R would be heading off for somewhere new.  Their original plans had been to arrive on the 14th and leave at some point before the 31st.  I said I could probably host them until the 27th, but that would be the absolute limit of their stay.  Later, C told me that one of the men had dropped out, but it was still going to be her, her husband and a friend of hers.

Then on the 13th, unexpectedly, I got a 'phone call from them late in the evening.  They had already arrived, they had just got into the city and they were wondering if I could host them from that night.  Now, I'm better than a lot of autistic people at coping with unexpected changes to plans, but I'm still not great at it.  Waiting at home all day for someone who doesn't turn up creates a sense of heightened anticipation and I don't handle it even remotely well when the wait turns out to be unnecessary.  So I was still coping with R's second day of absence.  At that point, I decided I'd had enough with him and I told them all - over the 'phone - that they were welcome to come along.  I found myself talking to a male who was communicating very hesitantly with broken English - which made for a slow, stumbling conversation.  At one point, I heard him ask C (in English) if she wanted to talk to me, but she said "no".

To complicate matters, they had lost the directions I had given them though, and it took a bit of co-ordinating and text messaging and a couple of 'phone conversations to let them know where I was staying, and I have to confess that tried my patience a lot.  In fact, by the third 'phone conversation, I know that it was pretty clear from my voice that I was getting irritated by the end and I felt bad about that.

Then, there was a further surprise.  I only had one guest - not three.  It was just one of the men staying with me.  The same man I'd been talking to and guiding on the 'phone.  The girl (I'll call her C) had gone elsewhere with her husband, so now it was just him and me.  She had apparently made alternative arrangements because I had been expecting R to be around.  This was the point where I really started to struggle with things.

The new guy (I'll call him D) was polite, but by then I was struggling a bit to be friendly.  I wasn't rude, exactly, but I was finding it to be a bit of an effort to socialise.  OK... yeah... maybe that's rude.  Anyway, I let him in, made some coffee, showed him where his room was, explained the situation about R, let him have a towel, let him use the shower - all that stuff.  But I was definitely a bit withdrawn.

Withdrawal is like a sort of automatic response to stressful situations, I think.  I sort of "hide" behind a prop.  When I was younger, if I couldn't physically retreat to a different room, it would have been a book or a magazine.  Anything that would discourage people from engaging me in conversation.  These days, it's a laptop or my Mac.  And that prop carries a bit more legitimacy, because I have to write business emails and respond to queries about hen nights, anyway.

Anyway, at one point, D proudly produced a loaf of bread.  I think it was sourdough bread, which I'm fond of anyway, but I can't remember.  He said we could use it to make sandwiches with.  I thought that was pretty cool, but I was still struggling a bit to be sociable.  Later, he went to bed and I stayed up late watching films on my laptop.  But first, I wrote a final message to R.  

Your request stated that you were arriving on the 12th and leaving on the 15th. It's now the 14th, and there has been no sign of you and no update to your request. I know you've been online since I accepted your request, so it seems reasonable for me to expect some sort of response.

I realise that you haven't been online in the last 34 hours, so unless you're getting updates from your 'phone or something like that, then you probably haven't read the message I sent you last night, when I tried to get some clarification about your plans. But that doesn't change the fact that I've now spent two days waiting for some sort of update or contact. And it doesn't change the fact that I've had to tell other guests that there might be limited space - which has meant that they, too, have changed plans unnecessarily.This just seems rude to me. So I'm going to revoke your invitation.

Later, I noticed that he had been online since then, but he didn't respond to that message, either.  And now, five weeks later, I think it's safe to assume that he's not going to.

(A brief sidenote, to elaborate on another reason I wasn't happy to have R as a guest by that point:-

A couple of weeks earlier, I accepted a young couple as guests.  They were from Taiwan and the request was sent by the girl.  She seemed very nice and wanted to stay for one night.  They arrived in the evening, whispered to each other a lot (as if I could understand them anyway), had a shower each and went to bed early.  She spoke some English, but it seemed that he didn't.  I made a couple of attempts at conversation with her, but it amounted to little more than telling her about the bus routes and timetables and how best to get into town in the morning and offer a couple of suggestions for places to visit.  The following morning, they left.  I was under the impression that they were coming back that afternoon, but late in the evening - when their flight was getting to be due - I checked their room and discovered that all their bags were gone.  So when they had left that morning, that had been it.  They'd had a free place to stay and then gone on their way.  No cultural exchange.  Nothing at all.  For that reason, I am not comfortable with hosting anyone for one night.  Even if the guests are friendly and want to get to know me better, there's too little opportunity to do that.  And if they're not, then there's too much opportunity to abuse the hospitality.  And so, if R was leaving on the 15th, then he simply wasn't welcome to wait until the 14th before turning up.)

The following morning, D and I got up.  He produced his bread again, like it was some amazing gift, then asked what I had to make sandwiches with.  Now, another problem I have, is trying to decide whether something is a bit cheeky or not.  I'm never sure whether I'm overreacting a bit.  To me, this seemed to be cheeky, but I let it go.  I told him to help himself to whatever was in the fridge.  He made sandwiches for himself, then went out to see the town... and probably to meet C and her husband somewhere, as well.  I had some correspondence to take care of.  And I was annoyed at that sandwich thing, so I found myself  struggling with the situation all over again.  In absolutely no time at all, it seemed like the tiniest little thing was enough to piss me off and set me right back to square one, in the tolerance stakes.

(I have no idea if that last sentence makes sense.)

The main problem was that I had expected to have a flat full of people.  I was promised music and fun and interesting personalities, but all I got was a single other person and I was finding it increasingly difficult to even talk to him.  The thing is that if there's more than one person around, I can step back more easily and in more socially acceptable ways, because they interact with each other and I can respond to that interaction when appropriate.  If it's just a one-to-one situation with a stranger then it becomes much, much harder for me.

C was the person who initially approached me for hospitality, so she was definitely the person I expected to see - and my interaction so far, had been with her.  The circumstances, the rules, the guests, the atmosphere, the ambience and whole, general situation - nothing was what it was supposed to be.  And I really didn't know how to handle it.

One night, I cooked something up for D and I - a sort of vegetarian pasta dish, because I knew he didn't eat meat - but he was out late.  That was cool, because he had the spare keys and I didn't expect him to observe any kind of a curfew.  So I ate some, then set the rest in the fridge.  The following morning, I took it out of the fridge, poured it into two containers and froze it.  D saw this and bounded across the room to see what it was I putting into the freezer.  He literally peeled the lid off one of the containers, so he could take a closer look.  This seemed to me like a strange breach of etiquette, but again, I didn't know if I was overreacting, so I let it go.

On the 15th, there was a disturbance from outside my flat.  Out in the stair, someone was banging on my neighbour's door and demanding to be let in - for more than an hour.  I confronted him three times, but each time he got more and more aggressive, to the point where he was actually inviting me outside to "take a walk" and "discuss" the situation.  Now, I'm not a complete pussy.  If someone attacks me, I'll defend myself pretty fairly well.  But I'm not going to actually accept an invitation to a fight if I don't have to.  So I closed the door and called the police instead.  They arrived quickly, but by the time they got here - in a perfect example of bad timing - the arsehole had gone.

At one point (before I called the police) there was a fresh wave of banging and shouting from out in the hall, as this stranger made a renewed attempt to demand entry.  Without warning, D stood up and walked out into the hall.  By the time I realised what his intentions were, he had opened the front door and started his own conversation with this guy.  I was incredulous and actually sat and listened to the exchange without doing anything.  This seemed like a serious liberty to me - making a decision like that in my home and acting on it without making sure I was cool with it first.  And if he had asked, I would have definitely said I wasn't cool with it.  I was genuinely astonished.  And yet again, I couldn't tell if this was something I should genuinely be outraged at - or if I was simply overreacting.

On the Friday morning of that week - the 16th - I asked D if C had told him I had Asperger's Syndrome.  Then I told him that one of the problems with the syndrome was that people who had it didn't always handle changes very well.  I explained that I handled them better than most people, but that there had been a lot of changes in the past couple of days and that by the time he had arrived, I had been struggling with them.  I said I had expected more people than just him.  And I pointed out that the guest I had received was not the guests I had been promised.  I did my best to phrase this politely diplomatically, but I felt it was important to voice my frustration.

That evening, when he came home, he said he had two surprises.  He had brought beer and he had brought C home with him.  These surprises were presented to me like I should be ridiculously grateful, but they were clearly just concessions to the fact that I wasn't happy with the situation.  C had graced me with her presence.  For a while, things did seem livelier and at one point I went out for more beer.  D pointed out that he had brought beer with him, but four small bottles really weren't going to be enough to last the evening, so I wanted to get some more.  He seemed a bit offended by this, but seriously - two beers each is just enough to give you a taste and leave you wanting more.  This might be the same sort of philosophy that most alcoholics use, but just about every one of my friends will back me up on it.  Which probably means I only hang out with alcoholics.

At that point I was getting hungry as well, but apart from the frozen pasta dishes, some bread and some cheese, I didn't have any food in the flat.  So I offered to make up some sandwiches.  C and D both turned those down, so I made up a couple for myself.  Then, D asked if the pasta dishes were still in the freezer.  Yes.  He asked if he could have one.  Yes.  So he got up, reheated the pasta and shared it with C.  Yet again, I was astonished.  I ate my cheese sandwiches, while those two tucked into the pasta.

C stayed that night, then disappeared again the following Saturday morning.  For the weekend, it was just D and myself in the flat and things were getting strained again.  Mainly because of yet another detail that seemed trivial, but felt rude.  We had started watching a film together, and suddenly he reached into a bag that was by his side, brought something out and started tucking in.  Every time I had cooked or eaten, I had offered to share it with him if he'd been around.  I thought it only natural that he would at least offer to return the courtesy.

On Sunday afternoon, I went to my parents' place.  When I got back on Sunday evening, D asked if I was hungry.  I was really surprised at this enquiry and admitted that I did feel a bit hungry.

"It is too late, I think, to do any cooking," he said.  And that seemed to conclude that line of conversation.  But that pissed me off, so I set about backing him into a corner.

"The pizza shop is still open," I said.  Translation - go out and get us a fucking pizza.  He stood up reluctantly, and got his jacket.

"But you do not want anything?" he asked.

"Actually, I could really go for a pizza," I said.

When he came back, he had the cheapest option on the menu.  A small cheese and tomato pizza.  But I ate it, anyway.  For some reason, it felt like some sort of moral victory.

On the 19th - the Monday - I had an appointment to keep, so I got up early and headed out the door.  Just before I left, D told me that C was coming round that afternoon to collect some things.  Once again, he was looking annoyed at me, but this time I couldn't figure out why.  It only became clear later.  I attended my appointment, then when things were wrapped up, I realised I'd had a couple of missed calls.  I checked my 'phone and realised C had been trying to get in touch.  Then, when I went home I found her waiting for me in the stair.  She was there to collect her things and then move on to a different city, because "Edinburgh made her uncomfortable".  I wasn't sure how to interpret that.

It took me a little while to figure out the miscommunication - and the reason for D being annoyed at me.  I had been told that C was coming round, so I had been expected to wait for her.  And he had felt that I had been obstructive when I went for my appointment.  I had assumed that since I wasn't going to be around, then he'd wait for her instead.  But he had simply carried on with his own plans and gone out sight seeing.  Which meant C had turned up to an empty flat and had waited in the stair for me to come home.

Before she left, I asked her what D's plans were.  By then, he had stayed for nearly a week and had contributed a grand total of two beers, some bread (which I never tasted) and a pizza.  She told me I would have to ask him.  I decided that it was time to raise the whole issue of the misleading couch request, but she countered that by saying that I had accepted "perhaps one person, perhaps many".  I felt like I was politely raising a subject that had been a real bone of contention lately, but I could see that she was getting angry at me and - to be honest - I wondered if there had been a subtlety in her email that I hadn't picked up on.  One that meant that her "perhaps one, perhaps many" statement was accurate.  So once she left, I checked the email again, but it didn't read that way to me, no matter how loosely I tried to interpret it.  And there was no getting round the fact that I'd been promised lively conversation, music and some lessons in vegetarian cookery.

I'd had enough.  That evening, I told D that he could stay that night and one more night, but then he was really going to have to find somewhere else to stay.  I figured a full day was enough time for him to make alternative arrangements.

The following morning, at around 9AM, he knocked on my bedroom door.  His bags were packed and he told me he was catching a train in an hour.

I can't begin to describe my surprise and relief.

Social anxieties

I have absolutely no doubt that there is one aspect of AS that stands out above everything else as being tough to deal with.

I mean... there are good points and bad points to the condition. But this one point actually eclipses everything else. It damages existing relationships and prevents new ones from forming in the first place. It can be almost intolerable when it's at its worst excesses. And it never stops being a nagging doubt, even when it's at its mildest.

I am high functioning. This means that I come across as "normal" most of the time, although people generally perceive me to be "a bit weird". Some people see the creativity and the flexibility in the weirdness and they like it, while others just become wary and back off. Either way - because I'm clearly functioning well and because I'm clearly intelligent, they don't make allowances for the fact that there's a condition that makes regular things to be a bit challenging. And it's social interaction that I find to be MOST challenging.

So... that's where this element comes in... this bit that eclipses everything else. I don't know what constitutes normal behaviour a lot of the time. If I'm with a bunch of friends, I don't know if I'm overstaying my welcome, so I tend to leave the group early to avoid making that mistake. And then, to avoid being too much of a pest, I don't get in touch with them until I'm invited to rejoin the group or attend some other social event. And they don't know I have these doubts, so they might believe the invitation is implicit, so it never comes. It's been suggested that I let them know of my concerns, but that doesn't work either - because then I'm soliciting an invitation and that's even worse. After all, then I start worrying that I've only been invited because I made it uncomfortable and difficult for them to exclude me.

This can actually be socially crippling.

So I tend to put forward a strong persona. One that I can hide behind. It's not a lie - it's an extension of my genuine personality and although details may be exaggerated, there's nothing made up. It's more like the sensitivities and the subtleties are played down a bit. I think this is so that I can convince myself that any rejection - whether perceived or otherwise - isn't really that important and doesn't really matter all that much.

I try not to let people get too close. I try not to let them get past my defences. I try to keep them at arm's length. And then, occasionally, someone does get close and I love it. I let them in, wholeheartedly and without reservation. I become enamoured and fascinated and want to spend as much time as possible with that person. I want to find out everything and exchange all my fantasies and discover all the common ground and share our plans and find out if it's possible to bring those plans together.

And then, inevitably, the self-doubt creeps in. Am I being a pest? Am I getting too much in the person's face? Should I back off a bit and let that person have some space? Am I just being too full-on? Am I imposing myself too much and just getting to be a little bit creepy?

The recurring issue - and the one I have most trouble with - is striking a balance between being too full-on (and therefore generally wearing people down) or too distant (and therefore alienating them). This can translate to all sorts of comparisons. It's like being needy versus being aloof. Or, when hanging around at a friend's house, it's like outstaying my welcome versus leaving too early when there's still plenty fun to be had. Spotting the differences and identifying the moderate approach can be very difficult.

I see my nephew having similar problems. Not because he's AS, but because he's a teenager - but the comparison is there. I have to point out to him when he's taking a joke too far, for example. Just because something starts out funny, doesn't mean it's still funny ten minutes later. And I always hope that people are prepared to let me know when I've gone too far with something, too.

Everything's going to be fine. I know that. I'm aware that I have AS and that has a tendency to bring on repetitive thinking patterns - which can lead on to obsessive thinking patterns - which can lead on to a tendency to absolutely scrutinise things and become paranoid as a result. I just need to get self-doubts under control and keep some confidence in what I have. I live with the condition. It doesn't have to rule me.

How not to be a stalker

I don't want to go giving out actual names this time, because there are privacy issues, but I'll use initial letters of names instead.

I met E online in the late '90s and she became a very good friend. We really seemed to care for each other a lot. We had long 'phone calls some nights, although these were rare because neither of us could afford the bills.

She got pregnant in (she said) a one-night-stand. I tried to be supportive throughout the pregnancy, because she said she was on her own and she really seemed to rely on what little moral support could be provided by a 'phone line and an internet connection. She would sometimes call me up in the middle of the night - this being a pre-arranged message. If the 'phone rang and then rung off, I would go to the internet and talk to her. It was a message like that, that let me talk to her on the night her dad died.

I started to work on raising some money to get a plane ticket to fly out there, because I really wanted to be there in time for the birth and to meet my friend for the first time. I had just about managed to raise the cash and was just a day away from booking the flight, when I got an email from her. It was bitter and angry. It listed all my faults - every last one of them - and threw in a few extra just to make sure all the ground had been covered. I was actually pretty shocked. In fact, I reacted with a typical AS manner and sort of shut down a bit. I sat in the middle of my room for a few hours while it got darker and darker and didn't move for a long, long time.

Later, I got very concerned about her and the baby, so I tried calling her. A man answered, told me not to call her again and hung up on me. A fresh shock. I tried to email her because I was very concerned about the identity of this man. It was him who answered my email and he essentially gave me the very same message to back off. And now, suddenly, the only two avenues of communication between my friend and I were closed to me - they'd been infiltrated by this strange man. Who was he?

I fretted about this for days and couldn't settle down. Eventually, I resorted to subterfuge and stalker tactics. I got a female friend to call her. This friend pretended to be another friend to the both E and I - one who was deaf and clearly couldn't make a 'phone call. She got the man, spoke to him for a couple of minutes and then told me she could hear E and a baby in the background. So... OK... I accepted I was going to get no more contact and no more information. Unless E responded to the fact that it was clearly me who was behind the call.

Which she duly did. For the first time in a fortnight, I got an email from E. It was very angry. She told me she wasn't stupid and she knew it was me who had been behind the 'phone call. She asked how I could have hoped to get away with such a stupid trick. She said I should never have gone snooping for information on her in such a devious way and she told me she felt violated by my actions. And she told me that if I had just been patient, she would have got in touch with me when she was ready.

Since I had read the email as soon as it had been sent, I wrote back right away. I said I hadn't expected to get away with what I had done. The use of our friend's name had been a sort of message to her. I told her about the man's messages to me. I explained how this meant that I had no other way of getting in touch with her. And I told her how this meant that I had no guarantee - given her last message to me - that I was ever going to hear from her again. I explained that I had become concerned for her safety. And I said that I would never have done this if I had not cared for so much for my friend.

Yeah, I know - classic stalker justification. I'm cringing even as I write it.

Anyway, she sort of softened after that. She identified the man as S - an ex-boyfriend who had returned to help her out. He had apparently been over-protective. (Actually, I had heard about him before - he had also been abusive.) We started talking again. However, it just wasn't the same any more. There was animosity and bitterness now, where there had once been comfort and closeness. And the animosity wasn't coming from her - it was coming from me. It took me a while to recognise it for what it was, but eventually I realised I just didn't trust her any more. I felt like she'd gutted me and I knew that if she'd done it once, then she might well do it again. Also... even worse... I felt that her actions hadn't been those of a proper friend and now there was resentment there as well.

(When I attended some classes on AS last year, we were told that people on the spectrum often have rigid definitions of what constitutes a friend. Break the code and that person can never be a friend again. For some people, the rules are more rigid than others, but it always seems to be there. Now, I didn't know I had Asperger's when I knew E, so I wasn't aware of any of this. But when I learned all that stuff, it was her that I was thinking about and I knew that our friendship hit the profile that was being described in this class.)

There were clues that I just wasn't picking up on at the time. At one point, E and I seemed to be getting on again and were having a 'phone conversation, but she got disconnected. I tried calling her back, but S answered. He told me that if I ever called his house again "at this time of night", then he was going to send some leg breakers to my house. He knew where I lived and he had friends in Ireland who would be only too happy to help out. I liked this man even less than ever, but kept calm. I said "OK", I waited until he had finished talking and then when he was satisfied he had delivered his message, we hung up. In hindsight, I suspect that S hadn't known I was still talking to E and had returned home in the middle of our conversation. She had hung up, I had called back and he had answered; under the impression that I had just spontaneously called up.

Round about this time, my little sister was dealing with some stuff. Bad stuff. She came out of the closet to me, then to the rest of the family. That was cool. But then she started talking about other stuff and then she had a suicide attempt. Now, it's unusual for me to feel the need to look for any support, but perhaps I was feeling a bit off-balance in general at this point, because I tried to talk about it during one memorable conversation with E. She told me I was depressing her and asked me to change the subject. This was so breathtakingly heartless that I was astonished. I no longer recognised this person.

We limped painfully along a little longer, but then one day she just stopped writing. I wrote more emails, but they were ignored. I left a couple of messages on her answering machine, but they were ignored. Weeks and - I'm not exaggerating - months passed. Nothing. My attempts at contact started to dwindle, but I wasn't able to rest. I felt sick. One night, I did the most monumentally stupid thing.

I got the number of a local police station and asked them to go to her house and see if she was OK. They did and when I called them again a few hours later and got a very cold response. The gist of what I was told... E and S were happy with each other, but I was a malevolent little presence in the background who was not accepting that I had no place there. E had been asked if she wanted to press charges against me, but had declined.

And that was it. Until...

In a postscript to the story, last year - seven years on from then - I thought I would try to mend some bridges and I sent an email to E in the hopes that we could talk again. And, in fact, it actually seemed to be going well for a while. We had a couple of differences of opinion about a couple of issues and she called me a hypocrite at one point. But on the whole, we were polite and civil with each other. She claimed to feel guilty about her previous actions and she told me there had been times when she really had felt like she could have used my emotional support during certain events. I told her I felt bad about being such a stalker, but... to be honest... I felt like I had no other choice. I couldn't never have simply let it all go without knowing if she was safe or not. Sending the police to her home had been a desperate attempt to find out if she was OK.

I started to hope that I might actually get my friend back. We were talking and that was a start. We were ironing out our differences and if I had to compromise and accept that she thought I was a hypocrite, then fine... I could do that. We spoke about the point where I tried to talk about my little sister and she told me that she was in a seriously black mood at that point and had been contemplating suicide, so my own crisis had been ill-timed. I realised that things had been bad for her, but I didn't realise that they were that bad.

(On a side note - people with AS are often said to have no sense of empathy. This is not true. My empathic skills are almost cripplingly high, sometimes, so I have to actually try to disconnect myself from them in order to protect myself. So... a disconnected empathy versus none at all... sounds like pretty much the same thing, I suppose. And I'm not really sure what the difference is. What I don't have, though, is much of a sense of sensitivity. So if I appear to be oblivious to another person's suffering, it's because I often am oblivious. This, however, is not the same as empathy.)

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to learn that she was still married to and living with S.  I remembered something she had told me about him - something that some people would consider to be strong enough grounds to end a relationship, press assault charges and impose a restraining order.  And I reminded her about it.  "Didn't he try to strangle you once?" I asked.  "Yes, but he stopped when I kicked him in the balls," she said.  So that's all right, then.

I've got to point out that on the whole, she seemed well-balanced, intelligent and articulate.  This posting in general - and that last paragraph in particular - make her sound like a very different person.  I saw the occasional moment of spite in her, while we were still friends, but that was fairly rare when things were going well.  When they started to deteriorate, however, they became much more frequent.  But I always remembered the intelligent, funny, clever person that I had become friends with and that was the person I really wanted to talk to again.

We spoke, after a while, about friends. This came about as part of an ongoing conversation running through a few emails about how we were being very polite with each other, but that was about it. And I think this is where I made my big mistake. I gave her my proper definition of "friendship".

As far as I'm concerned, there are people I know that I like. But I don't generally use the word "friend" in reference to them. I'm more comfortable using words like mates, or buddies, or pals. Or if I do use the word friend casually, I'll preface it with another word. As in "internet friends". More relaxed and comfortable terms. If I call someone a friend, however, that's a more serious term. One that's been earned in some vaguely defined way. It's hard to become my friend and easy to stop being one. "Friend" is not a casual word for me - it comes loaded with lots of other assumptions.

I said all this in the spirit of being open, being honest and not being a hypocrite. I told her that there was a time I considered us to be friends. I said we weren't friends any more... not right at this moment. And I said that unless we could progress beyond these occasional emails and actually talk on the 'phone again, or on Skype... unless we could actually laugh together again and be comfortable again... unless all of that, then we weren't going to be friends again in the true sense.

I got an email from her very shortly after that. It was in October of last year and it was just one line that I can quote verbatim from memory. She said "Do not email me again."

And that's the last I heard from her.