It's been a little over a year since Jenn and I got together. Which was about a year after Mary left me. As odd as it may be to some, I met both of them in a MMORPG. No not that one, but this one. Laugh if you will, but its true.
Mary and I had been talking since the break up, and more so nowadays, but I digress. The whole time, she had mentioned her new boyfriends name as Tom, which was also the name of a guys name that she use to hang out with in game. It had always been in the back of my mind as a strangely odd coincidence, but a coincidence all the same. After all, he didn't live in NY state, and she had been telling me this was a guy she met at work. We were talking early this morning, and she was about to leave to go to work, to pick up her boyfriend, mentioning him by name. Now, I had always had a nagging feeling that the Tom's were indeed one in the same, but had never confronted her about it. This morning though, I popped that question, as she had mentioned that he played FFXI as well, and was even on the same server, but never mentioned his character name. So I asked her, "Wasn't Silverbanes' name Tom too?". "Yes." she said. Out it came, she admitted to lying to me about meeting him at work, to avoid drama in game. I had known him in game, more as an aquaintance as she so pointedly described, but I still knew him the all the same, and more so then just recognizing his character name. We had interacted in game for a while. I played that game for years.
I felt like a complete idiot. Sure I had an idea the whole time that they were one in the same, but I accepted her lies that it was indeed not the same Tom. I should have known better. At the time we started talking on the phone, she was lying to another guy in game when he would call, not letting him know that she was talking to me on the phone. Again, to avoid that nasty in game drama. Well, it did work. But only by prolonging my time in that game. If I would have known I would have quit the game right then and there. And there comes the funny twist. I met Jenn in game about a year after Mary broke up with me.
I didn't come to that realization, Mary did. She mentioned it, and she is right. If she would have told me that Silverbane was the same Tom she was with, I would have quit, and never had met Jenn, nor gone out to see her for an entire month earlier this year. I have always been a stout believer in telling the truth, no matter the outcome. But in this case, it really makes me wonder, would I have rather have had her tell me the truth, or lie to me as she did?
Funny how this game we call life works out sometimes...