Guess I'm here. (P.S. What's wrong with me?)

[Strasse]

This is the tale of two 'pals, both written with no concrete expectations, but both written with at least the possibility of "something more" in mind.

A was the unit-mate of a friend of mine (they were in CIW together). We started writing after 'hanging out' at visiting together. It felt natural. The first time we met we were chatting like we'd known each other forever. (She was there with her mom, and we were all four at a table outside.) We got to writing a daily letter back and forth. When she transferred up to VSPW there was a lapse until I got onto her visiting, but that was it -- every weekend my schedule would permit I'd spend a day or so with her. (My friend at CIW was in Forever Free and is now home, hopefully for good!) I picked A up the day she paroled (well, I was in the back seat, I'd hired a car) and we drank and dined and went down to San Diego and had dinner with her family (she paroled to her mom's). And that was the last I heard from her. I have her numbers, she has mine. It's been 2 weeks. I'm tempted to call, even if it's just to leave voicemail, 'cause now I'm wondering just what the hell happened. Her family (seemed to) love me, we got along great, we had all sorts of 'hanging out' plans made, letters full of things she was looking forward to, that I was all set to make happen. And then poof, with not a word as to why.

B is the less likely of the stories to have a happy ending, frankly. Found while bored at work and idly flipping through prison-related sites, she was a listing on PamperedPrisoner.com. Probably a mistake from the beginning. Not all parts of her story quite added up. http://prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159930 But underneath that was (what I thought) a redeemable beautiful intelligent person. Every one of her letters was an insightful joy, a hand-scrawled epiphany-in-progress, an incisive rebuke of all that CCWF tried to press down upon her. As our correspondence continued, letters on both sides became more frequent, longer. "Your friend" was replaced with "love." Visits got added into the mix. (My motorcycle can find its way to and from Chowchilla without my intervention at this point.) Letters started "missing me," me her, yearning for time together. My schedule has gotten busier, and our visits were almost never scheduled -- not a problem, no one else visits her, she told me, and I believe her still.

We were together for a visit on the 23rd, a surprise visit. I told her then there was a ~95% chance I'd be up on the 30th. The last letter I got from her was dated the 25th, and ends with "I hope you make it up this weekend, I need something to look forward to!" I did make it up. When we hugged at the beginning, she greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. We discussed the holidays; she was crestfallen I wouldn't be around Thanksgiving or Christmas themselves (I'll be back east with family). Even moreso that I didn't think I'd be able to get up until the 18th. But then she brightened, a little -- "well, I guess it's not so bad, it's only three weeks." I told her that I might be able to make it up sooner, but I couldn't commit and didn't want to get her hopes up. We didn't, at the time, have realtime communication, just letters, and by the time I knew one way or another I wouldn't be able to let her know...

When we left (early; she'd gotten the ducat to pick up the box I'd sent at 2pm, so she/we left around 1:30), she was repeating something I'd already heard and didn't need her to repeat (justifying the early departure; I didn't care, I understood). I pressed my finger to her lips to quiet her and then, impulsively, perhaps prematurely, I kissed her. She did not recoil. Physically. Beyond that I have no idea, though I'm starting to be able to guess...

Still no mail since the 25th, though I was told, on the 30th, I should expect much - a dozen pieces or so.

I start to get a little worried, why I'm not sure, just gut uneasiness. We'd discussed setting up PCO on the 30th visit, so I did that this past week (was waiting on a client's payment before I could fund the account, what with rent due on the 1st etc).

With an unexpected 3 day weekend (we get Veteran's Day off?!), I headed up there early this morning. Something told me it would be an enlightening trip, but one with a degree of finality. I took the motorcycle to keep costs low. When swapping songs onto/off of my iPod, for some reason I threw on Tool's Intolerance, and N'Sync's Bye Bye Bye. (Don't judge me on my musical tastes. ) The signs flip-flopped. The ride up was mercilessly uneventful, despite getting tossed around (literally) by high winds on the grapevine. No tickets (unlike the last time; damned airplane patrols! ) Clear sunny weather in the valley. Gorgeous sunrise.

Pulling off on Road 20, things looked ominous. Fog, where a mile south on the 99 there was none. One of the reasons for the PCO account was so she could call me to let me know they were on fog lockdown and visiting would be cancelled. Hmm. Burned down the side roads at triple digits, arrived at CCWF to find a full parking lot. Good sign.

I've never been there on a Saturay before. Got in at my usual time (8:45am or so) and instead of being slip #25 or 32, I was 98. Hmm. An hour later, thawed and hair restored to normalcy, my number's up. I'd brought $32 this trip, for some reason (I'd stopped at Ralph's the night before to replenish toiletries, and had gotten enough cash back, in singles, so that the loose $1s I already had would be increased to $32.) I bought a single photo ducat; if I arrived without one she'd be disappointed; if I spent more than $2 on non-refundable, non-transferrable, unused ducats...

The process is different somehow. Instead of being matter-of-fact, just business, the C/O is talking to me about my motorcyce. Her boyfriend rides, wants her to learn, could I recommend a good starter bike? (The "naked" Suzuki SV650, if anyone else has the same question.) Friendly, personable. Unusual. Is this perhaps a good sign?

Through the metal detector and in the visiting room. I've been here so many times, many of the C/O faces are familiar. They recognize me and greet me warmly. Everything's proceeding normally. We're on B side today, A side is already full. (I've always been on A side and it's never filled up. Sundays are different.) The food guy has a whole smorgasbord laid out -- Lori will be pleased, the limited selection on Sundays, while head-and-shoulders above chow hall fare, was getting monotonous...

I grab a soda from the machine, "my" usual, a Mountain Dew. I know Lori's usual, a root beer, but I don't buy one then. Even though I'm this far, I still have a bad feeling. Why waste $.75?

I wait for 45 minutes, not unprecedented for a surprise visit, especially when I don't get to the VR until 10:15; Lori will be on the main yard, playing racquetball or walking the big track. But she likes it, she tells me, when I visit after she's already on the main yard; they page her throughout the facility, and on those days, everyone knows Lori was important enough to someone On the Outside that they'd trek in to visit her. The VR C/O, an amiable guy everyone, even the inmates, likes, makes eye contact. He calls over to her unit, comes over to my table, holding my visitor's slip. I dread the news. "She's out on the main yard, we're still trying to find her, they're paging her. We haven't forgotten about you." Relief. Still par for the course.

Another 10 minutes pass. Suddenly, two heretofore unseen COs are standing at my table, a man and a woman. I don't know them. "The inmate is refusing the visit. We don't know why, you'll have to wait until she contacts you to find out. Maybe she has a package, maybe she has something going on on the yard." No worries, things happen, thanks for letting me know. I gather up my stuff (three photos, no larger than 5x7, not polaroid; one solid plastic comb, no pointed ends; one ID, one key, one photo ducat, $30 in singles) and head out. "No visit today?" The guard in the lobby asks, incredulously. He's always there, he's seen us together so many times. I shake my head and shrug my shoulders, it's all I can do right then. "I'll find out what happened," he assures me, emptily perhaps, uselessly for sure.

I process back out and hop on the motorcycle, and begin the longest, most bewildered 250 mile ride I've ever been on... As soon as I got back I sent her a postcard, a picture of a freeway intersection, caption "California Freeways," with a blurb on the back about how many miles the Golden State has of ugly flat grey linear concrete. I feel sorry for the card; it's ugly, too, no one in their right mind would ever send that card as a memento of a trip or as a demonstration of a thing of beauty. "Rush hour's here, wish you were beautiful." I send a card because I don't have much to say, just questions to ask... "What just happened? Why?" I know a card will get through the mailroom faster, no possibility of contraband, less to scan for words like 'escape.' I include the PCO phone number. I'm dying to know. Bad news is still news, confirmation, closure. Maybe there's nothing to it; maybe it's a certain part of a cycle and visiting would be uncomfortable. Maybe I'm clutching at last glimpses of straws and already know the truth.

So here's my overriding question, in this my moment of disappointment and self doubt... (And if you've read this far I commend you!)

I'm young, successful, educated; I think I'm intelligent, ambitious, well-connected, well-positioned, well-liked. I have a good strong circle of real friends who will always be there for me, and vice versa. I think and am told that I'm personable and attractive (especially now that I've lost my "law school 30" ). Pictures available through PM, by request (I'dd love honest feedback; you can't judge it objectively when you look at yourself, and your friends aren't going to say, "well, you're actually kinda ugly." )

I just can't seem to, well, meet women. (I should throw in here that I'm also, in what may amount to a kiss of death, a 'nice guy.' You know what they / we don't get...) Can I solicit female strangers' advice / feedback / etc.?

Okay, done venting, sorry!

(Though if this situation is as final as it 'feels,' I'm glad it was this weekend, and not next, when I'll learn if I passed or failed the Bar; it would have either tainted the moment, or perhaps been the straw that broke the proverbial camelback...)

[whiskeylullabye]

I've read all of your posts regarding this woman and I must say that I'm sorry you are going through this. I really hope that you get answers from her soon. While I don't know what she may be going through or what else maybe she was freaked out by the kiss, maybe she thinks you're looking for something more that she can't commit too. Honestly, hun, I don't know.

I think that you are a great guy and that you deserve much more, I hope you find what you are looking for, and I hope you get some answers.

[Strasse]

Originally Posted by whiskeylullabye

I've read all of your posts regarding this woman

My gods ... A masochist!

Seriously, though, thanks.

maybe she was freaked out by the kiss, maybe she thinks you're looking for something more that she can't commit too.

Maybe. *She* was the one who brought up her building desire to be a 'wife and mother,' she started using the term 'dating' (and signing her letters 'love') and later the term 'boyfriend.' I signed my letters with a scrawl of my initials until maybe last week, when I started adopting a tiny, tiny drawn heart, "her" transition (it went from "Your friend" to "little heart your friend" to "little heart" to "love"). I didn't/don't think it was totally out of line, and definitely something that could (in my mind) have been addressed easily with a sentence in a letter, or even body language at a visit.

What's getting me is, the letters stopped, too, days *before* that visit-with-a-kiss. They went from daily to nothing at the flip of a switch, and nothing happened in the meantime. My letters to her were general-interest stuff, nothing accusatory or demanding; articles from the LA Times and The New Republic and National Review I thought she'd like, Bloomberg analysis on "Scalito," etc. And I'm pretty sure mail is flowing at at least some pace; on the same day I got her last letter (dated the 25th), I also received a letter from one of her unitmates[*] dated the 31st; both were post-marked November 1st. The letter of the 25th began with "I am always glad to hear from you and therefore hope that work continues to bore you!" (I'd written asking if I was writing too much. ) It ended with "I sure hope you make it this weekend, I need something to look fordward to! I am so tired!"

And then, silence. Nothing.

I know noone but her knows what's behind this; no need to speculate. I can run through the endless possibilities... I'm accepting at this point that whatever might have been there (or, as a reality check in another thread points out, whatever might have been made to appear to me as if it was there) has reached its end. Accepting that, barring evidence to the contrary, as true, my Big Question remains... What makes me so broken?

[*] An indigent lifer working on her appeal, Lori connected the dots between us and I've helped her with some basic legal research and Shepardization with current caselaw... Purely para-professional.

[whiskeylullabye]

LOL, I haven't responded to many of them because I never really know what to say! But I care about the people here on PTO and you are one of them!!

[twsbabygirl]

Hi there...curious here....is this the same pal u wrote about lying to you?

[Strasse]

Originally Posted by twsbabygirl

Hi there...curious here....is this the same pal u wrote about lying to you?

1 and the same. Today I was going to ask why she had a circa-1999 CDC number, when she claims to have received only probation for her '99 conviction (she began her current bid in '03).

Well, whatever comes from all of this, dealing with her was great training for being a litigator! (Essential skills include keen recollection and the ability to flag, on the fly, "inconsistencies" - all the better to impeach the opposing side's witness! )

I'm toying with the idea of sending her a single printed page, just the lyrics to Tool's Intolerance:

http://toolshed.down.net/lyrics/undertowmaster.html

[discoball]

hey there,
i know a few single ladies who always wonder where nice single guys such as yourself are. too bad you are on the other coast.

feel free to pm me your pic, if you want my opinion, however you will be getting my married opinion, and i already believe without seeing your pic and reading what you write that your are a good person who is probably attractive to all sorts of women you have yet to meet, and probably not the right one yet.

a long, long, time ago i tried this volunteer thing for singles, and it was a really great thing and there is a chapter or 2 in cali
singlevolunteers.org i believe
if its not the right area for you, maybe you could start your own chapter. i found that if you go to an event that you really like, then it doesnt really matter if you meet anyone, cause you are also doing something fun and helpful at the same time.
feel free to pm if you want.
good luck

[nimuay]

Strasse, unless you're beset by absolutely unbearable body odor, I'm afraid I don't have a real answer, either. We do all go through this, though...the no-communications jitters. And the bad part is that we can't initiate the communication; sending letters into the void is pretty unrewarding. I guess the only thing left is for you to call the chaplain or her counsellor.
Good luck!

[twsbabygirl]

hmmm.....well since i dont know this girl cant really judge her...BUT....i have a friend that lies to every guy she meets just to keep them at arms length...she has a real fear of being hurt and chooses to sabatage the relationship before it even starts...and runs for the hills at the first site of it not working and the guy actually wanting to stick around for awhile...she is now engaged cause she met a man who was to stubborn to give in to her fears and forced her to open up....she is happier now then i have ever seen her

[California Sunshine]

I have no great answer either.It is always hard to figure out just what the h*ll happened in cases like this and even harder still to figure out why good people like us in this forum get our hearts broken and/or have trouble meeting members of the opposite sex (I have serious issues with that as well LOL) Anyways hang in there,maybe you will get an explanation and maybe you won't but either way even though it is very hard not to do so try to believe it isn't you,nothing is wrong with you!

[Strasse]

Almost certainly will send... Still beating myself up...

[Strasse]

I'm not really sure why I started writing inmates... Well, actually, I am -- a friend of mine from college (go 909!) ended up incarcerated. When I started law school, she heard about it through a mutual friend, and contacted me, and ... Anyway.

My own past is far from unblemished. It's downright interesting. (I got all my felonies out of my system before I broke the 'juvenile' barrier, though.) My experience with dating 'normal' people is, they're not interesting, because their backgrounds just ... aren't.

From White Oleander, not directly applicable but apropos:

It would be easy to let them take me home. I could see their house, bright and comfortable, on a street of tract houses but nice, maybe two-story. Pictures of kids on the tables, old swing set in the backyard. The sunny high school, even their church sounded inviting, nobody got frantic there, or worried too much about sin or damnation. I bet they called their minister by his first name.

I could have gone with them, Ann and Bill Greenway of Downey. But with them, I might forget things. All the butterflies might fly away. Pressed wildflowers and Bach in the morning, dark hair on the pillow, pearls. Aida and Leonard Cohen, Mrs. Kromach and picnics in the living room, pate and caviar. In Downey, it wouldn't matter that I knew about Kandinsky and Ypres and the French names for the turns in ballet. I might forget black thread through skin, a .38 bullet crashing through bone, the smelll of new houses and the way my mother looked when they handcuffed her, the odd tenderness with which the burly cop held his hand over her head so she wouldn't hit it getting into the squad car. With Ann and Bill Greenway of Downey, they would dim, fade away. Amsterdam and Eduardo's hotel, tea at the Beverly Wilshire and the way Claire stood trembling when that bum smelled her hair. I would never again look at homeless kids in doorways off Sunset and see my own face staring back.
...
Without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my past was my life. IT wasn't like I didn't know where all this remembering got you, all that hunder for beauty and astonishing cruelty and ever-present loss. But I knew I would never go to Bill with a troubling personal matter, a boy who liked me too much, a teacher who scolded unfairly. I had already seen more of the world, its beauty and misery and sheer surprise, than they could hope or fear to perceive.

I root for the underdog, I'm excited by redemption, I think the kids who step out of their 26,000 square foot homes on the Lake and head a thousand miles east to their family-assured places at Harvard, etc., are about as interesting as the lint I just pulled from my pocket. Milquetoast. "That don't impress me much," when you finish the race in first place, but got to start running the mile 7 minutes before everyone else did.

No, I think I was looking for the girl who shot herself in the foot (as I used to do, so many times), realized too late for the foot, but not the race, that she was holding the gun, set it down, and limped across the finish line anyway, in a personal win more beautiful and compelling, in spite of its lack of objective stature and self-inflicted inauspicious beginning, than the yutz who was put at the front of the line and always just assumed, as did all those who looked at him, that he'd be the one to come in first.

(Making sense?)

But maybe self-lacerating prodigies aren't really my thing...

I just signed up for It's Just Lunch. Maybe I'll meet a tax attorney from O'Melveny, we can buy a home in the Palisades; I'll have my CLK430, she'll have an Audi S6 Avante, I'll pay storage fees for a Boxster I'll get to use only on the occasional weekend, and our kids will be shoe-ins to go to USC for undergrad, Stanford for law, and everything that made my life 'interesting' will slowly fade, replaced with golf at Brentwood on the weekends, football on a 48" plasma in the family room, overpriced drinks at firm happy hours at McCormick & Schmicks... Er, um, nevermind...

[venicespirit]

Perhaps you can have all that, except instead of the Palisades - buy a house in Venice and practice law for the underdogs.

I hope this all works out well for you - Hang in there!

[qwerty]

Originally Posted by Strasse

Maybe I'll meet a tax attorney from O'Melveny, we can buy a home in the Palisades; I'll have my CLK430, she'll have an Audi S6 Avante, I'll pay storage fees for a Boxster I'll get to use only on the occasional weekend, and our kids will be shoe-ins to go to USC for undergrad, Stanford for law, and everything that made my life 'interesting' will slowly fade, replaced with golf at Brentwood on the weekends, football on a 48" plasma in the family room, overpriced drinks at firm happy hours at McCormick & Schmicks... Er, um, nevermind...

STRASSE -- DON'T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, I am really sorry your "friends" are treating you so shabbily. They sound like more than a few of the men I've dated.

Like my friends always tell me, do you give of yourself too easily?

On the other hand, you sounds like you are open and still out there trying... I have had more than one friend who just kept on looking and eventually found a great partner after the previous duds. My brother is one of those!

[smylie]

you remind of me someone that I once knew - he wrote to female inmates... This is like a walk down memory lane. Nice boys always finish last. I made it my goal years ago to go for nice boys and now I can't get enough of them. Hang in there and you will find someone! The one that deserves you will be worth the wait....

[Strasse]

Originally Posted by smylie

Nice boys always finish last.

As long as finishing, period, remains a possibility!

[smylie]

you will finish with someone who is great - don't ever doubt it....

[Strasse]

Originally Posted by smylie

you will finish with someone who is great - don't ever doubt it....

Hey, so, you're in Canada, eh?

/me thinks to himself... Canadian citizenship could be really handy, if this country keeps voting the way it has been...

So, what are you up to tonight?

[Diane93635]

I just want to tell you that I think there's nothing wrong with you...any girl would be lucky to have you in there life.

[smylie]

are you trying to hit on me??? hehehehe I am here on a working holiday visa actually! instant message me if you wanna chat!

[smylie]

or private message or whatever it is called - still getting the hang of all this stuff.

[polar670]

All I can say is if your letters are anything like your posts, perhaps she turned down a visit in hopes of the letter that would follow. I am only teasing, but your writing is amazing. There is something about a prison romance - the intensity, the drama - I don't know. There was a part of me at one time that was excited about the lack of convention of the whole thing. The anticipation of a visit, starting off before dawn, covering a few hundred miles before the sun came up, the victorious feeling of getting a good spot in line - God, there were a million things - the sudden importance of body language and the written word - the insane intensity of the letters - for awhile it was absoutely intoxicating - the people we choose to visit are those project people that we feel like we could be the ones to break through to them - the challenge of finding out who that person really is. I found out that for as much as I loved the rushes that came from every letter, the sight of him walking through that visiting door - the covert touching - it made for a very unsatisfying love life - building something real in prison is hard - it is like trying to have a relationship between two dimensions. I have loved and lost at that game twice - I have no regrets and sometimes I miss it - It was an incredibly exciting time in my life. It sounds like you have a tremendous amount to offer - I wish you every success in finding someone who can reciprocate that.

[discoball]

i think from what i see here you have a great personality, and no problem on the looks, you a very nice looking guy.

a few thoughts from the crazy things ive put myself thru :shake:
now, lots of people shoot themselves, in the foot, like you said, without adding a prison environment to the mix, it adds lots of extra problems. not to say that a relationship isnt possible, and rewarding. just pointing out that it isnt the only way.

i think that for whatever reason, the ladies you dealt with had their own issues and maybe you should let those lie because you cant force that.

i am glad to see you try something new like that lunch thing, maybe it will work or not, but it is at least a learning experience and you will come away with something. the more exposure you have, the more people will have the chance to get to know the nice guy that you are.
its all about self confidence.

[Kissymissy]

Originally Posted by polar670

All I can say is if your letters are anything like your posts, perhaps she turned down a visit in hopes of the letter that would follow. I am only teasing, but your writing is amazing. There is something about a prison romance - the intensity, the drama - I don't know. There was a part of me at one time that was excited about the lack of convention of the whole thing. The anticipation of a visit, starting off before dawn, covering a few hundred miles before the sun came up, the victorious feeling of getting a good spot in line - God, there were a million things - the sudden importance of body language and the written word - the insane intensity of the letters - for awhile it was absoutely intoxicating - the people we choose to visit are those project people that we feel like we could be the ones to break through to them - the challenge of finding out who that person really is. I found out that for as much as I loved the rushes that came from every letter, the sight of him walking through that visiting door - the covert touching - it made for a very unsatisfying love life - building something real in prison is hard - it is like trying to have a relationship between two dimensions. I have loved and lost at that game twice - I have no regrets and sometimes I miss it - It was an incredibly exciting time in my life. It sounds like you have a tremendous amount to offer - I wish you every success in finding someone who can reciprocate that.

You sum the prison relationship up perfectly. It's centered around waiting, anticipation and passion of an unreal kind.

[coolchik4sure]

Originally Posted by Strasse

I root for the underdog, I'm excited by redemption, I think the kids who step out of their 26,000 square foot homes on the Lake and head a thousand miles east to their family-assured places at Harvard, etc., are about as interesting as the lint I just pulled from my pocket. Milquetoast. "That don't impress me much," when you finish the race in first place, but got to start running the mile 7 minutes before everyone else did.

No, I think I was looking for the girl who shot herself in the foot (as I used to do, so many times), realized too late for the foot, but not the race, that she was holding the gun, set it down, and limped across the finish line anyway, in a personal win more beautiful and compelling, in spite of its lack of objective stature and self-inflicted inauspicious beginning, than the yutz who was put at the front of the line and always just assumed, as did all those who looked at him, that he'd be the one to come in first.

Can you find a happy medium? How about someone who has scars from their past that define their struggles, yet do not need rescuing?

It seems your "excitement for redemption" is more about you than the person you are rescuing. No disrespect intended, just an observation.

I hope you get the answers you are seeking re: this relationship, and why she is suddenly reacting in this manner. You sound like a very intelligent guy, and there are numerous females looking for a "nice guy."