True Confessions?

It happened just now, in a game on ClubPogo.com, in chat. Someone said “Good luck” to the room. After a while, I replied, “Thanks, you too.” She asked me for a private chat. Why not? I thought naively. Here’s why not: She wanted my help to get over the pain of losing a relationship which ended five months ago.

We’ve discussed this before, you and I. Maybe I do hear more than my share of confessions, but in this case there were Extenuating Circumstances--- well, okay, I was online, and I was being polite.

It’s everywhere, but more apparent on the Internet. The huddled cyber-masses feel comfortable baring their souls to total strangers, who seem to provide genuine solace and comfort. Of course, the succor goes to a mind neurotic enough to seek it randomly.

This particular young woman, in the span of a few minutes, gave me her email and wanted to continue the dialogue after I left the game. Do I believe she was as she presented herself? Does it matter? To quote her, “idk.” Nor do I care. I refused gently and fled to write this.

Two days ago it was the graphic details of a urinary tract infection (with radiating abdominal pain and antibiotic resistance) suffered by a real life stranger, told to me outside a health food store while I waited for a friend. No Internet involved. This was live, folks. I even know the name of her doctor, another brain cell lost for all eternity.

For all that, I do believe there is a moral imperative to help when we can. The magic trick is to know when it is possible to help and when it’s just fomenting the misery and neurosis. Helping is good; fomenting is useless and ultimately unpleasant.

Today, until my game ended, I offered a few standard platitudes and clichés. These fell as the purest Evian into a desert. Which, spelled backward, is “naïve”.