My experiences weren't identical. It wasn't so much an online game as a writing group (though it occasionally functioned like a text-based MMORPG, and we'd been chatting online for a while before we got involved in the group because of a gallery on my website)... She became, in a sense, my Muse... started me off in a creative direction I'd never considered, and appeared to believe in me when I didn't believe in myself. I happily reciprocated, and it appeared that our communication - my small part in her life - helped her through some particularly strained times.
Every so often, she'd disappear for days at a time, but always bounced back with apologies and assurances that everything was OK.
At times, back then, and much more in retrospect, the whole experience reminded me of Nick Bantock's Griffin & Sabine trilogy. I'm not sure that was ever a good thing.
When the subject of exchanging photos came up - as it inevitably does - she consistently declined, for a variety of reasons, some of which strayed into contradiction. Call me naive, but that never mattered to me - at the very least, it was obvious that the person I was writing to was female even before we spoke on the phone. But I believed in the feelings she claimed to have (which I shared), to the point that it almost wouldn't have mattered.
The way it 'ended' between Piro and Miho (in quotes because it clearly hasn't truly ended for those two) was almost the reverse of the final communication between me and the girl a couple of my friends now refer to as "the bunny boiler" - having agreed to meet (meaning flying almost literally to the other side of the world for me), she backpeddled a week or so before I was due to fly. All the warnings I'd had from friends, and all of the warning signs I'd spotted myself and happily ignored in my strange, romantic delusion basically hit me all at once, like a particularly icy tidal wave. She announced that she'd just started dating someone ("a really great guy"), when I pretty much already knew it had been going on for at least a month because she had been talking about him in a particular way (later confirmed by a mutual online friend). When she wrote that she'd still like to meet me, I replied that, considering the twisted game she'd played on me, I never wanted to hear from her again and that I didn't believe she existed (whether I meant 'as the person she claimed to be' or 'at all', I am no longer sure...).
When I flew out (the damned flight was booked and paid for, so I took the holiday anyway, somewhat determined to do some of the sightseeing we'd discussed), I'm pretty sure she was at the airport when I arrived. I didn't get a good look, as the young woman seemed determined to stay out of my line of sight... but I had the sense of her presence, a remnant of the connection we had built up... and I didn't feel like giving her the satisfaction of a confrontation.
The whole thing nagged at me for many years since, though. Fairly recently (last year sometime?), at the urging of a couple of friends, I looked her up again on the internet. Turns out some of her art has found its way onto a website or two. Then I was most amused to find that she's on Facebook using her real name (not a common one by a long shot, and certainly not in her home country), and even has a photo there. She's certainly similar enough to the young woman I glimpsed at the airport, and seeing her picture set my mind at ease on the whole, silly affair. When a friend offered me the use of her Facebook account to look into "the bunny boiler" in more detail, I was happy to decline...
...Then I started reading about Piro's 'prior relationship' with Miho, and suddenly all kinds of chords are being struck and memories jogged.
Fred Gallagher's writing has been sensitive and insightful, and the current conversation between Piro and Kimiko (to date, strips 1206-1215) - in particular, Piro's clumsy attempts to veil his mixed feelings - echos many such conversations I've had with friends.
Were it not so dreadful, it would almost be comforting that my experience is not as uncommon as I'd thought, if a similar thing has become part of the plot in a renowned webcomic.
Apologies for blathering.
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