Double Bottom

I recently had a falling out with a friend I have known for close to two and a half years. Since communication between us did not come easily, I suppose misunderstanding was perhaps unavoidable. I tend to run hot, my friend was a stoic, and so it seems the attempt to come to an emotional temperature that was neither boiling nor freezing seemed a continuous challenge. So, things fell apart. The whole experience made me feel like my emotions were a double bottomed drawer and no one told me there was more than one level to deal with. Of course I should explain that this was a friend of a friend I met on- line. I know, it sounds ridiculous to even care, but I did. There was a certain intellectual intrigue and an artistic one, that somehow reminded me of the artistic and intellectual connections I was exposed to when growing up. I missed that, and this friend somehow made me think I could bridge the gap between the past and the future. But people are complicated, including myself it turns out, and it made what I thought would be a smooth and at times even exhilarating connection one that was often strained and confusing. The surprising thing is that I have a hard time with the emotional fall out, no matter how rational I try to summarize the experience. Why do I care? This is someone who knows and knew a number of people I knew in college, but someone I have never met in person, so good riddance, right? But that is not how it feels. I feel a genuine sense of loss, of sadness, of frustration. Perhaps that is an indication that we are mostly spiritual beings, and that the connections we make with people are ultimately a matter of both mind and heart. The whole thing feels science- fiction, like our bodies are just packages and what really matters and trips us up are not our bodies but all the inner trappings that package contains : our personality, our temperament, our genetics, our conditioning, our fears, our successes, our failures, our dreams and talents. I feel like I let my friend down, and like I let myself down because I could not figure out how to make this modern connection work smoothly. Perhaps the key is to stay detached, something I am not very good at. At any rate, I had the composure to admit my misgivings to my friend, and maybe his silence in return was all he could muster. I decided not to judge him on that, and just accept that human relationships are always difficult, virtual or not, and maybe the more virtual they are, the more frustrating, because you are never really sure where one level of the double layer in the experience ends and the other one starts.
It is like playing hide and go seek in the dark. You will inevitably bump into obstacles, whether you want to or not. There is no denying that I feel very conflicted about the almost comical hurt I feel about not having been able to make this relationship that was mostly fictional, evolve to a zone of camaraderie, common ground and growth. I notice as I am writing this, that some of the tension dissipates and I even find myself smile. Thank God I was never a mail order bride. I can barely figure out how to be a good mail order friend.