Liege

I met him playing a game - for the sake of brevity, assume any entries mentioning Facebook start the same. The game was loosely based on building a kingdom, attracting active players to your realm, and seizing inactive vassals from other players.  Players form along liege lines, and can join alliances for help in war.   Yes - medieval castle building and war theory - it's hot, trust me. Anyway, it's a game I started to play to distract myself from my crappy marriage.  I had fun learning how to attack and seize vassals, and flirt my way out of serious consequence. 

How did we even meet?  I'll skip the boring details and simply say we started as allies in a war game.  Eventually, my flirty nature and witty prose brought me to the attention of the alliance leader.  We'll just call him Liege.   He came on strong - it was flattering - and fun to feel sexy and attractive again.  I resisted for awhile, feeling like it was flattery, and how could you REALLY know someone just from a stupid online game?    Anyway, that was early March of 2009 - when *I* knew my marriage was over, but hadn't told anyone else.

[Side note: Everything else in this blog starts from what comes next - and yes, I really am amazed at how stupid and gullible I was.]

Relevant facts: Liege was married but separated when we met.  He had a son from a prior relationship, and 2 young daughters.  He lived in England.

Later in March... I had my birthday.  Within the context of the game, that essentially meant a virtual party at my castle.  Liege spent most of the day flirting with me, suggestively in public - explicitly in private.   I didn't discourage him - it was the only sex I'd have on my birthday - and I knew it.   (What *IS* it about birthdays that makes me think I need to get laid?)

Things got hotter, and more involved. We'd send each other private messages throughout the day - either in email chats or through the discussion board set up for our alliance.  How things were going in our craptacular marriages, what we'd be making for dinner or having for lunch,  how we'd fuck each other if we were ever in the same building. Eventually, we switched from just IMs to voice chat with Skype.   Phone sex followed. 
By mid-April, I was considering a trip to England to meet him, and by late April, I'd purchased a ticket.

Then May came around.... I had 2 intense weeks at work, my daughter got very ill, I was planning a garage sale to get rid of crap I wouldn't need after I divorced - and Liege and I didn't have a lot of time to talk.  In the moments we could steal - I was too distracted to notice he sounded different - and he was too much of a chicken-shit to tell me his wife had moved back into their house.

Fast forward to the end of May.... I got a call from his wife while at work - telling me that they were back together, and I should leave Liege alone.  I sent a message to Liege telling letting him know about the call.   He confirmed it.  I was crushed.   The next day, I got called into HR because his wife had reported me as sending sexually explicit messages over university networks.  I resigned. Partly to avoid the investigation, and partly because it freaked me the hell out that she could find me so easily.

I wish I could say that I didn't ever talk to him again.  But I stayed in contact with him for another 3 weeks - trying to figure out what the hell he'd been thinking, and trying to convince myself it was love, not lust, or infatuation, or a need to be wanted and desired.  I eventually got over that - unfriended him, deleted all of the messages, and blocked all contact.

What did I learn?

• Everyone is stupid when they have basic needs that aren't being met.  I am no exception.
• Phone sex can be really fun.
• If you have an online affair - your real name should have no part in any communication.
• Don't work for a place that will publish direct phone information about you online.
• FB can mean Face Book... but it can also mean Fuck Buddy.