(AKA: Final Fantasy 2004).
This was all wrong.
The rumble of the train seemed to underline my every thought as it made its way deeper and deeper into an area completely unfamiliar to me, carrying me into the unknown with the steely efficiency of something that both plays a hugely important part and commands no role on the events about to unfold, offering me no chance to either think that through or turn back and return to my very own, special version of normalcy, a boring existence that had all the excitement of switching brands of ketchup while eating cut-price bread straight from the bag. All I could really do was try to take it all in as the morning sun kept casting lights and shadows across the carriage I was sharing with dozens of other people, all lost in their own little worlds and completely unbothered by the fact that I was looking pale as vampire (and was flinching just like one as light filtered through the magnifying glass that someone had decided to repurpose as windows on that ride). Not even the truly awesome sights (like a huge office complex painted on rainbow colors and having all the seriousness of an amusement park) could really distract from the problem at-hand: I was going to meet up a friend from another province for the first time, after having chatted the night away for years and expecting (and understanding) that the only physical space we could ever share was our own country.
I definitely wasn't ready to destroy the mental image I had of this friend, something that had been carefully curated from words on a screen, the occasional voice note and some purposefully outdated pictures (nor for her to destroy the one she had of me), and I wasn't even sure of why had I even agreed to this meet-up. Part of me wanted to believe that I only played along because it was such an outlandish proposition, something that had been thrown so casually as to carry no reality to it... it couldn't have! She lived more than 300 kilometers away from my home, and we were both fourteen-years-old. There was no way she would make the trip just to see me. No way.
This was (quite literally) the gateway into another word, one simpler and much more livable than our own. And all you really needed to do to enter was knowing the password...
And it was true: she wasn't going to make the trip just to see me... but she still made it. Because, you see, my friend was an pro-level fencer and her team was going to a qualifier a few kilometers away from my home. It was a perfect chance for us to finally leave the anonymity of the keyboard behind and instead take this little friendship into a world far beyond the screens.
Turning her down seemed like the scummiest thing on the planet, but the fact remains that I had been praying really hard for something to get in the way and cancel the entire thing... I'm both amused and embarrassed to say that I even kept checking the weather forecast just to see if there would be anything powerful or destructive enough around the date of this gathering to give me an excuse to bail. But, alas, there was nothing but sunny skies above our heads.
There was really no solid reason for me to want to avoid this meeting, but something deep within me was terrified of whatever was gonna happen next.
Part of the problem was that I had already grown used to having a "barrier" between us as we spoke late into the night, grinding our keyboards into dust and erasing their keys from the maniacal ritual consisting on pressing dozens upon dozens of inputs per minute, killing every dead second with horrendously bad jokes and some of the most criminally witless takes ever known to man. There was a certain comfort of knowing that these conversations were real, but couldn't be derailed by the fact that the voices coming out of mouths weren't properly ours; couldn't be destroyed by our random volume levels as we tried to speak or be completely annihilated by the full-blown revolution happening deep within ourselves. Online we weren't two highly-hormonal teenagers that had a lot in common and enjoyed each other's company to the point of wanting to tackle ourselves to the ground before the idea could even be properly processed. No, instead we were two nerds who were on extremely friendly terms and who enjoyed talking about their latest exploits on Abandomware, or stuff like Crash Bandicoot, or being on the receiving end of each other's endless, pointless video game or movie rants, with a particular emphasis on her almost encyclopedic knowledge of Final Fantasy VII, dropping names and events left and right despite knowing full-well that I didn't understand a single thing she was saying. But witnessing her sheer excitement and passion was honestly great, even if somewhat awkward to listen to, like an off-key lullaby or the song of a dying nightingale.
Your reputations precede you... Too bad I have no idea who any of you are.
I was so lost in worry and thought that I almost missed my stop entirely, having to hurry up to the doors as they were about to close, reaching for a nearby seat to steady my wobbly legs (which felt like rubber) as the train lurched forward and prepared to continue on its way, completely uncaring of my own feelings on the matter as I escaped its burning interior and gave my first steps into the fresh air radiating from the city of Nuñez.
I remember doubling over in both dizziness and relief as my eyes landed on the name plaque above the platform, indicating that I had, indeed, stepped out of the train at the right place. That super small thing gave me some much-needed confidence, but the moment was short-lived... for not even five minutes after landing in there and walking to the gigantic stadium that was housing the competition my friend was going to perform at (which doubled as a beacon that towered above every other building and allowed me to follow it no matter where I was or from which angle I was facing it) my cellphone rang and I got a call from my friend saying that her team had already arrived and were about ready to start fencing, asking me where I was. I tried to play it cool, eyes desperately darting around and latching on to any --supposed-- landmark I could think of to give credence to my claim... which was actually very hard to do when combined with the unmaskable echo that came with talking on an enclosed space with running pipes rattling and leaking on the side: I was, indeed, answering her phone call from a public bathroom somewhere right in-between our two locations. If I hadn't made it that far already, I would have taken that as my cue to leave, catching the return train and forgetting the whole thing.
Finding the place of the competition was easy.
Finding her... was not.
Basically my first date...
I'll admit that by arriving a little late, I made everything extremely harder for myself, as the equipment required to partake on fencing left pretty much no visible features that could help me identify my friend from afar and it resulted on me standing in a room half-full of "clones", all sporting the same outfit and moving at around the same pace, as if purposefully trying to antagonize me. It was like marching right in the middle of a mannequin factory. Furthermore, my friend had recently dyed her hair, removing her natural, firey red and turning it into a dull brown that was now sitting hidden on a bun just behind her mask. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought that she was setting up some kind of epic scene that felt ripped straight right out of one of those stupid movies that we loved to destroy.
And, turns out, I didn't know better.
She had actually planned to call my phone while in full gear and then have me turn around as she approached me from behind, a grinning "predator" toying with her "prey" as I was to lower my guard, smile back, and embrace her right then and there, smiling like an idiot starring on the cheesiest Hallmark movie imaginable. But... me being late and not quite understanding how trains work had foiled her plans. She was still in full equipment, but having already completed her warm-up exercises, so she was sweaty to the point of avoiding any hugs for both of our sakes, panting like a chain-smoker that had just seen Jason Voorhees inquiring about chainsaws (but in a strange lady-like, proper manner).
So... instead of that carefully-planned moment that would have been an epic tale worth telling and retelling for generations, I found her eating an energy bar in exactly the same way Bugs Bunny eats carrots when he wants to feel smug, one hand still around the grip of her sword (which she immediately corrected me on calling that) and with her coach standing awkwardly a few feet behind, clearly not amused by the sight of having his star pupil losing time with some rando whilst in the middle of a qualifier.
We chatted for a bit between matches, but it was clear that this was not going to go the way either of us wanted. Most of her time was --rightfully- spent with her coach, whilst the very few conversations we could manage to get going revolved around the same old, tired topics we had already discussed to death online. It was as if we were afraid of leaving that safe zone, despite having each other's backs and having earned our mutual trust and confidence through years of burning our eyes away by contrasting the eternal white windows of MSN Messenger with our otherwise darkened rooms, classic teenager dens. At least we had some fun trying in vain to keep our voices from cracking (mine was terrible at this) or blushing at the most annoying of times. It was everything I had both feared it to and wanted it to be.
I sympathize with Neo here. I, too, had about enough of that dumb dingo XD
I'd love to tell you that this was awesome, that we hugged so hard as to break our bones, or even that we finally released all those pent-up feelings with a firey kiss... but the reality was somewhat duller: the competition wasn't even half-way done by the time I had to leave (you could only ignore your phone for so long before it starts to threaten, particularly after telling your folks that you were gonna meet up with an internet friend, which, in their minds, was nothing short of a serial killer), and her coach wasn't even pretending to care about our little chats anymore. The last thing we did was cash-in on that hug (and I do appreciate the wide arc of her body, so physical contact between us was minimal) and smile awkwardly as I made my way out of the stadium, the sounds of cheering and battling echoing behind me.
The train ride back home was eerily quiet, and it allowed me to reflect on the whole thing much more deeply now that I was no longer weighed down by the extremely heavy load of anticipation and anxiety. I even replayed some of the things I said, in my mind, kicking myself hard for the awkwardness that ensued and because of my clearly poor understanding of how my lame-o jokes would translate when removed from the sterile, personal digital space of an MSN Messenger chat window and thrown in the middle of a room packed full of other people, all somehow within earshot of my piss-poor attempts at comedy (but, bless her heart, she actually laughed).
I have met several other online friends IRL in the time since, but for some reason this awkward, somewhat disappointing, disastrous first experience is the one that always sticks with me. Maybe it is because it was the first one, or maybe because the wheels fell off so easily as to render the whole thing into an almost parody of itself. Whatever the case, I'll remember it until my dying breath.
And hey! The fact that we are still in touch after managing to turn this fairy tale into something akin to Discworld has to count for something... right?
Thanks for reading!
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