Also nasty business when three people love each other, but not in reciprocal ways. Example: Guy A lusts after Girl B, who lies awake at night fantasizing about Guy C, who in turn wishes that Guy A would notice him.
A menage a trois seems to be a ludicrous way to resolve this, as quasi-suggested in Chasing Amy, but no more so than any other alternative resolutions to this decidedly squeamish situation.

1.

Sometimes, I am jealous of your computer.
She is sleek and trim. Fast is desirable.

Processing never means talking
feelings into corners or rebounding

anger like wrestler choreography
pretends to feel what it is not.

2.

Sometimes, I love your computer.
Me and Cthuga get it on

with some Ohio Players. Or the Gimp.
My hand between my legs. My finger

makes nonsense on the soft flat touch pad.
Chaotic shudders of scribbled pixels.

My index finger sweats the touch pad slick
and my middle finger glistens.

How alike we are, this machine and I.

3.

Thanks, for the new mouse, by the way
the sensuous jolt of the touch pad

all day my finger circling and tapping
tapping and stroking makes me remember

too many women.

4.

Sometimes, the cursor reminds me of your tongue
flashing ecstasy on my clitoris. Relentless melody
going nowhere until I jiggle the mouse.


--Svaha (Her Divine Serenity)

This shouldn't be hapenning to me. I'm only sixteen. I'm not even normally attractive to girls. I find it difficult to get girls. Sure, I'm reasonably intelligent and can hold a good conversation, but I'm not instantaneously charismatic. You have to spend time to get to know me. (/me sighs and realises that a little more explanation is probably needed)

We used to live in Hong Kong. Great place, nice people. For the first year and a half I hated it. I didn't know anyone and I found it hard to fit into my new school. I found it hard just to shake off the dust of the move and make friends. Sure, I had a few, but they were the losers and the down-and-outs who needed someone new to start on, someone who wouldn't be prejudiced against them yet. Slowly, I got my shit together. I was doing well in lessons, and, although I'm not by any definition of the word athletic, I played a bit of sport and got to know some of the more normal people in my year. I settled down a bit and started to enjoy my life.

I was still only twelve, an age when many boys think girls are evil and can give us nasty diseases just by touch (cooties). But then, in my third year, I sat next to this girl who was just so unlike everyone else. Yes it's a cliche, but it's true. She was head and shoulders above the rest of the class in just about every subject, but mainly because she was very diligent and hard working. I was safely up at the very top, but foolishly thought that I could match her, and without working hard. In fact, that's still my approach now: do well, for the least effort. We started having intellectual sparring matches, and really quite sharp debates. But one term we put on a class production of one act of Macbeth (she as Lady Macbeth, I as the eponymous hero (antihero?) himself), and I realised just how wonderful she was. She wasn't just smart, she was beautiful and poised and elegant. We used to meet up to practise our lines and I got to know her better.

Let me get one thing straight right now: I am a wuss. I am no good at asking girls out. Not even extremely attractive girls with whom I have spent a vast amount of time flirting and paving my way. I just kind of clam up. About a week before the end of term she gave me a letter at the end of school one day, which I read on the bus on the way home. I was leaving the school at the end of the term to move back to England, and she basically asked me out. So we dated once, and shared a few tearful phonecalls (If only I'd said, we have so little time left...) I have lived in England for three years now, and we write to each other all the time. Gradually, our letters got more 'friendly' and less 'boyfriend-girlfriend-ly'. We agreed that there hadn't ever been that much to start with, and we should both move on. We specifically said that we wouldn't mind if we hooked up with other people.

Jump forward two and a half years from my departure: we're taking a holiday in Bali over Christmas, and my parents decide to take a two day detour through Hong Kong. We meet up. The fire is still burning, and neither of us had strayed. We agreed that it would be like just before. We have continued to write.

Jump forward about four months, and my sister's friend's elder sister (who is my age) is round at our house asking to borrow some CDs, as they've just got a CD copier. She is tall, has beautiful dark hair, and quite clever, in a quiet, reserved way. We know each other reasonably well, so whilst our sisters chat downstairs, we flop on my sofa and get to talking. It transpires that we have quite a bit in common. Most of all, we both fence. She mentions in passing that she wants to see the film 'Chocolat'. The stage is set for my w/u in 'The rudest way anyone ever hit on you. Jump forward a week: we are dating.

We have been out a lot, and really get on amazingly, and Felicity is everything I could ever want in a girl. But I'm still writing to Shan Yee. And guess what? She's coming to England in Summer. She wants to meet up. The letters are getting steadily steamier. I still like her, but I'm not sure whether I still like her like that...

I am confused. I need to tell everyone the truth. But I can't. I can't hurt Shan Yee like that. Maybe that's a sign that I do still love her. I don't know. I am an indecisive, over-cautious teenaged fool, for certain, but I don't want to hurt either if these girls. So far I have done the easiest thing to do: nothing. But it's all going to come to a head in Summer, and if anyone has any advice (apart from "book a holiday now, and be out of the country for two months" - thanks to Tom), I would appreciate it.

Update: The thing with Felicity went nowhere. I should have known. It was only really through loneliness that it happened in the first place. I am now so very together with Shan Yee and so very, very in love. I hope, if she ever reads this, she can forgive me for ever doubting that I loved her.

Update update: Shan Yee dumped me without giving anything like a reason. Despite having asked that we try to stay friends, she is also refusing to talk to me or answer e-mails. Thus I deduce that she is acting like a slighted four year-old.

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