Listen to the Rain

A while ago, I met someone at an anime convention. She ended up becoming part of the anime-going friends I had, and I ran into her a couple times at parties after that until I moved to Japan. In Japan, I followed her Livejournal and I learned that she got much closer to another of those anime-going friends, they started dating, got engaged, made a wedding website, and the wedding was scheduled for just before I was going to move back from America. There was a post on her blog with quotes like:

Even now, three and a half months out, it still doesn't feel real. I just feel so surrounded by planning and things that need to be done that I might implode if I don't keep the functional tasks in perspective. And even if it doesn't feel real until the day of, I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing... Because I'm still so very excited for the reality to strike.

My hair is going to be so boss for this wedding, I'm actually willing to use the word "boss".

And

Every time I think about my conceptual (not yet existing) wedding band, I get really happy. Both about what it symbolizes and about the actual appearance. Totally cool.

and

Did I mention how crazy in love I am, and how everything seems better when we're together, even if we are just warm in bed and reading? We're such an old couple- and yet, we're so outrageously sexy...

And then...nothing. For months, nothing. And I moved back and no one mentioned her, and she wasn't at any of the parties, and then a post went up with quotes like:

It seems everything I have encountered to date is temporary. Happiness, love, misery, all of it. So why wallow in self-pity? Better to continue seeking temporary smiles to cover temporary pain (at least, until permanence exposes itself)

or

I wish I didn't feel the need to explain myself to so many people. Or defend my actions. Or hide behind curtains that I do not realize are almost completely transparent. Maybe it isn't even worth putting them up anymore. I just wish I could be sure enough about anything to stand up to the world and defend it. But nothing I have ever done that for remains intact today, so why take the risk? I put myself here. I did this to me. I am hiding from those that I should trust the most because I fear the repercussions. And I see no reason why I shouldn't, to be honest.

Or

I don't understand why people you know so well or people who claim to know you can just... change. Or rather, the connection changes. More than romance and love, though... just people. Are we merely actors?

Or

The hypocrisy that surrounds me... I can't tell whether it amuses me or digs an uncomfortable home underneath the surface of my skin. But, it doesn't matter, does it? As long as the others get and have what they think they've always wanted, their support beams are forgotten. So be it. It is in my best interest to focus on my own affairs, as I have been trying to do. I have built machines and nurtured chemical bonds, and left them on the side of the road to be discovered by those who dare to call themselves inventors. Surely I am used to this by now.

With comments disabled. She deactivated all her social media and to this day has not reactivate it.

For years, I thought, "What happened?" No one talked about her. Not her apparently ex-fiancé, not her friends, not anyone. I'd do a name-search and see she was apparently some kind of HR manager, and just recently when I checked I found that she bought a house (in her own name, only. No joint ownership). A year after the first post after the silence, she stopped posting and never posted again.

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Well, dear reader, do any of those quotes above say, "I fucked my weed dealer for free weed, my fiancé found out and broke off the wedding, and my friends ostracized me for being a cheating whore"? Because that's what actually happened.

The way people present themselves may have very little to do with who they really are.