Of Axe-Murderers and Other Creepy Folks

Geez, people!

I finally have at least two posts pre-written from over the weekend (and one still lurking in my brain waiting for the proper mental state to voice it), and instead I have been given an incomparable opportunity to respond to the responses to a post that was based on my earlier posts full of pretend assumptions about the supposed character of my internet-fiance Brett, over at the Transformed Non-Conformist. Check out his post, here, to see the firestorm that started my post.

I’ll give you a minute...

…and another one to sort out the above paragraph.

And off we go... 

You know how you build connections to people via their blogs? Like it or not, sometimes you connect to the words from one writer moreso than from another, however much you may appreciate both? Well, Brett started following my blog from the get-go, and we’ve developed a fun friendship, including a proposal, which he ironically suggested on Valentine’s Day (in the comments of my "Your Bloody Valentines Day" post). Touche, darling, touché. After many posts and comments on both our blogs, during which I threw around the phrase “axe-murderer” a few times, he posted his character-defense, linked to above.

Just to fill in some blanks:

While it’s true that I told Brett our engagement is off if I find out he’s an axe-murderer, and it’s also true that I sort of graphically explained exactly what part of meeting an axe-murderer puts me off – the part where I’m scattered across the Midwest in a zillion pieces, of course – I was using “axe-murderer” as an obvious – or so I thought – euphemism for “anyone wishing me ill”. I do not truly expect to find that Brett is an axe-murderer. Especially because any self-respecting axe-murderer would know how to cover up his tracks. Probably I would be scattered across the cornfields and no one would ever know.

I would become an America’s Most Wanted special.

Or Dateline.

Or 48 Hours.

...You get the idea.

The "Other Creepy Folks" Part of this:

Yes, I’m cautious.

I’ve never (that I know of) had an internet stalker before, but I did have the real kind. Well, two, but one of them didn’t make me afraid, just annoyed. But the FEAR thing…There is nothing scarier than thinking you are totally alone and suddenly feeling someone’s hands pressing down on your shoulders and hearing a voice very close to your ear asking in a quietly demanding tone where you were that morning? [Dear heaven above, my heart is pounding just writing about it] Where *he* expected me to be was chapel, at my college campus. I did not go to chapel that day because I was deliberately altering my routine in an effort to avoid him.

[Okay, heart, slow back down to normal...good.]

I’m not a person with many fears. I can be surprised or startled, but causing fear to rise in me is rare (which, ironically, seems to scare my mother). I don’t want it to happen again.

This all sounds very heavy, which I did not intend. The past is the past, and it’s all good now. I’m not seeking sympathy, just explaining my seemingly inexplicable behavior.

So yes, I’m a bit cautious. No, I do not think Brett is out to get me, but the constant vigilance persists from earlier days. It becomes habit.

(I am actually feeling a bit guilty that I’m so guarded when so many of the blogs I love include generous writers who truly share who they are, and one of the semi-composed posts I have waiting includes a bit more detail, just in case anyone is wondering about me.)

Back to the issue at hand:

…Actually, this axe-murderer line seems to have started so long ago, I can’t think how I came up with it.

…I think I was actually initially checking his archives more to see if this “proposing to some random internet-chica on Valentines Day” was just a tradition. Like maybe I had simply won the luck of the draw for 2012. Talk about an idea back-firing. I’m beginning to see him as a witty guy, a devoted father, with a healthy sense of adventure, Christian morals and loving family… !@(*#& Internet. I guess the joke's on me!

In a cruel twist of fate, this whole spiel has exposed the chink in my armor:

After I wrote this out and put it to bed until today, I looked up Brett’s fb page, and was laughing so much I ALMOST commented on a tweet, but thought no, that would provide a link to my fb page, my true identity and everything, and that’s just too much.

So I very cleverly decided to email my comment to him – haha! That way he’d only get my email address, which isn’t so far from my blog I.D. Clever me.

DOH! I did not think that my real name showed when I emailed to a new address. Hoisted on my own petard. (that is too a phrase. Shakespeare, I think. I’m pretty sure it means I was killed by my own sword.)

If all my tight-knit defenses are the Death Star, then I just shot a photon torpedo into my own 2-meter thermal exhaust port. Doggone it.