Tucker #16: What's Going ON!?

Sidenote, this is absolutely my go-to karaoke song. Why? Because you can essentially shout the entire song, and everyone knows all the words so they scream it right along with you. Everybody wins! Don't believe me? Try it sometimes. See you at Stella's on Sunday night.


It's quite troublesome when work and life try to get in the way of more important things, like blogging about girls pretending to be dudes. Rude, life...rude. Regardless, I'm back, and it feels so good to be behind the computer for something that's not required of me by a boss, a professor, or anyone else who thinks they own my life...except you guys, who kind of do own my life, but it's completely consentual so it's okay, right?




Warning:
We have reached the part of the story that is, more or less, my inner monologue. From here on out, it's less fact, more questions. It's confusion, struggle, and emotion. It doesn't make sense, and I'll probably end up being the bad guy before it's over...don't say I didn't warn you.





Last time we chatted, I was conflicted. I had reached the end of my journey with Hannah/Tucker, so to speak, but was still unsure of how I was supposed to proceed with my weird little conundrum. Part of me wanted to wash my hands of the situation entirely, freeing myself of the inexplicable grip this person, real or make believe, had on my heart and my life. I was ready to walk away, and never think about Hannah, or Tucker, ever again. Despite that urge, however, I couldn't shake the feeling that I wanted to know more. I investigated further, probed into the corners of Hannah's mind that convinced her this was the best option, and was left feeling awkwardly sympathetic for her apparent emotional retardation.




After I hung up with Hannah that day, I knew Blake was my only option for taking any sort of action - whatever that action might be. What I hoped to accomplish, I'm still not entirely sure, but I knew I was taking a shot in the dark without his help, and his connections to her family. At this point, William seemed to have stepped away from the situation completely - he knew the truth, and for him, that was enough. He didn't care to pursue it any further, and I didn't blame him. As far as he was concerned, it was finished, and I didn't want to pull him back into something he'd already long forgotten about. Blake's involvement was more on the level of mine, in the sense that we'd both been tangled up in this beyond just the use of a name. My emotions, and my heart got involved, which is certainly the reason I felt like I was owed some sort of "justice", whatever that meant. Blake's involvement was more than just stealing a picture or two - it was an impersonation of an entire life, for years. The more he tried to wrap his head around the situation, the more upset he got - there were girls all over the country that, for all practical purposes, had been in love with him. It wasn't simply a name, like in William's case - Hannah had carefully copied not only Blake's physical attributes, but duplicated his lifestyle, and his personality, when carrying on the relationships she had formed. He was my ally now. He was, perhaps, the only other person who really understood how big of an issue this truly was. He wasn't going to walk away, and I knew he was on my side.






Up until now, my conversations with Blake had been pretty minimal. They were strictly business - I informed him of the details, rehashed the story over and over, and tried to explain the interactions between Hannah and myself as best I could, to help him understand the situation completely. I knew he was engaged, and quickly eliminated any sort of fairy tale hope that perhaps we would come full circle, and ride off into the sunset together once we bonded over the ridiculousness of our story. From the very beginning, I made sure to be "professional", if you can call it that, any time I spoke to Blake, to make sure he never felt strange about talking to me, and to avoid creating any sort of awkwardness between us.






Speaking of awkwardness, can we talk about this for a second? When I first contacted Blake on Facebook, I didn't stop to think how incredibly strange it was going to be to have to reiterate all the details of this story to him. I didn't think about how strange it would be to describe to him, how I fell in love with...well...him. I didn't think about how UNBELIEVABLY AWKWARD it was going to be to tell a relative stranger that there was an internet clone of him, and he was my dream man. Awkward does not even begin to describe this - particularly when aforementioned stranger is engaged to another woman. For those of you in relationships -- imagine for a moment that you are Blake. Imagine a person you have NEVER heard of in your life confesses that he or she has been falling in love with you for the last two months. Um...what? One hundred points to Gryffindor/ Blake for even hearing me out in the first place, let alone ever speaking to me again. I can't even imagine how ridiculous I sounded, let alone how creepy and odd the whole situation must have been for him. Sweet Jesus.







Blake and I began talking more frequently as the days progressed. What actually only spanned about 24 hours, from the time I spoke to Blake initially, talked to Hannah on the phone, and talked to Blake a second time, felt like an eternity. I expected to never hear from him again, once we'd discussed the situation to death and he knew every last detail. I anticipated a random Facebook message or e-mail down the road, perhaps, asking for clarification or proof of something or another, should he ever decide to take any sort of action against Hannah - but I never expected to have much of a relationship with this poor soul I'd just dropped a bomb on.







When we had spoken a few days before, I'd told Blake about the blog. Mind you, I'm only writing this about two weeks behind now - the conversations I'm describing here are incredibly recent, and still unfolding. Case NOT closed, people...not closed. Anyway, I was apprehensive about disclosing the details of the Tucker Diaries to the man whose face was behind it all. I was terrified he would be irate that I was parading the story of his life around on the internet, even if it was only written to explain the details to some friends of mine. However, in the midst of my desperate attempts to convince Blake I wasn't bluffing about the story, I admitted I was writing here, and invited him to take a look to catch up on some of the details of the story. Bless his heart, he'd already found the blog -- little bastard is as good with Google as I am, apparently. He wasn't upset, found the Diaries highly entertaining, and became an avid fan right away.







When I heard from Blake again, after my conversation with Hannah, it was in the form of a text message early on Monday morning. His text was to inform me that I could expect a surge of blog readers coming from the Northwest Georgia area, thanks to his friends he'd eagerly spilled the beans to about our saga. I laughed as I read it, so relieved that he was taking this as I had -- shocked and appalled, but simultaneously so entertained by the whole thing that he forgot about the embarassment factor, and went straight for the entertainment value. Not only did he not care that I was sharing our story, but he wanted to spread the word, and soon I was getting Facebook friend requests from Georgia and watching my Southeast United States viewership skyrocket.







We joked back and forth throughout the day, still in a bit of a haze over the whole thing, and taking turns marveling at just how absurd the whole story was. I wrote the next Tucker post, and sent it to him for approval before I published it, feeling like we were now a team and he deserved a sign-off on the story we now shared. Of course, he loved it, and praised my writing, thrilled with the hilarity of our little journey. Before I knew it, I was crawling into bed, saying goodnight, and realizing I'd spent the entire day glued to my phone, engrossed in conversation with this man. While I laid in bed that night, I gave thought to what was unfolding for the first time that day. Was it strange that Blake and I had so quickly formed such a close bond? I shrugged off the thought, reminding myself that whether we liked it or not, we were forever bound by this incredible story, and it wasn't unusual for us to feel a strong connection because of it. Just like ABC likes to trick people into falling in "love" by sending Bachelor contestants on high-energy first dates like skydiving and ziplining, it made sense that Blake and I formed an instant relationship because of the extreme and unusual circumstances we found ourselves in together. Our insta-friendship was far from out of the ordinary, and instead of overthinking and overanalyzing that day's conversations, like I have a bad habit of doing, I smiled at the new friend I'd made, and drifted off to sleep.








The next day began just like the last. Morning hellos, lunch time phone chat, texting back and forth throughout the day. I couldn't stop talking to Blake, even when I tried....which I actually didn't, let's be real. There was something about this man that magnetized me, and I couldn't look away from my phone long enough to accomplish a damn thing, because I knew there'd be a message waiting for me. Not only was this stranger-turned-friend my partner in crime in the Hannah drama, he was this intriguing new being - someone I couldn't get enough of day in and day out. I expected the attraction to fizzle - the novelty to wear off, the honeymoon stage to be over, etcetera. I figured the allure of the new and exciting would wane, we'd slowly quit talking, and we would eventually both put Tucker to rest and go about our merry way. I don't often admit that I'm wrong, but in this case, I was.








The closet psychiatrist in me has an easy explanation for connection between Blake and I. Blake is the personification of the "idea" of Tucker. He is the person that my ficticious love was based on, so naturally I was drawn to to the real-life version just as intensely, and perhaps even moreso, than the version I'd initially gotten to know. Here, right in front of me, was the person I thought I'd fallen for -- why wouldn't I be unable to pull myself away? What I couldn't figure out, was how the feeling was mutual. Why couldn't Blake leave this alone either? Why was this incredible bond SO quickly formed, and so determined to grow? Neither of us could put down the phone. Neither of us could step away from the other. We were both so incredibly fascinated by the other, desperate to know everything about the stranger we were talking to.








Over the course of the next few weeks, I got to know so much about my new Georgian compadre. We talked daily - if it wasn't texting, it was Facebook chat, if it wasn't Facebook, it was HeyTell. If it wasn't HeyTell, it was on the phone, or on GChat, or smoke signals and carrier pigeons. Blake really was everything I expected Tucker to be...and then some. All the aspects of Tucker's personality that Hannah made shine through were exactly as she portrayed them. Blake was kind, he was smart, he was a hard worker and passionate about the things he loved...namely tennis, golf, and True Blood. The part of him that drew me in the most was, of course, his sense of humor. Few people can make me laugh when I'm in the sourest of moods, but this man had an incredible way of cracking my shit up no matter how bitchy I felt. Everything he said made me laugh. Our five minute lunch break phone calls brightened my day, because he'd ring me just to tell me a story of how he cursed out a woman in the parking lot at the grocery store, then promptly apologized when he realized he was a giant douchebag. I couldn't get enough of that hilarious, quirky goofball.








Blake consistently made remarks about how excited he was to make such a great new friend, and that's always how I was dubbed..."friend". Of course, because he isn't single. The man I was talking to day in and day out was engaged. He had a girl, put a ring on it, end of story, game over. So why was I certain there was more to it than that? Was I completely fabricating this connection in my head? Was he really just a super friendly guy who made friends with everyone and I was no exception? Did he really just think I was some super cool chick with a great sense of humor and a penchant for telling stories (duh), so he enjoyed our conversation, and that's as far as it went? Was I SERIOUSLY the only one who thought there had to be a reason why we were talking nonstop, every day, for hours on end, about everything?!








The struggle with my feelings about Blake stressed me out a fair amount, to say the least. I didn't know if I was imagining a connection that wasn't there, just because I wanted it to be. I didn't know if I even cared about HIM, or if I was trying to live out the relationship I'd expected to have with Tucker. I couldn't help but struggle with the "whys" of the entire thing. I'm a fairly realistic person, I like to think. The reality of this situation, is that Blake is not an available man. He lives in Georgia, I live in Michigan. We have two completely separate lives, that happened to intersect by one outlandish tale that just so happened to rope both of us in. We both have lives, jobs, families and friends in our respective locations. We were both carrying about our merry ways when Hannah stepped in and shook things up a bit. I struggled with where to draw the line between chance and happenstance, and that whole idea of fate.








I don't live my life like one big romantic comedy, expecting the handsome stranger is going to bust out of the woodwork at the most inopportune moment to steal me away and live happily ever after. I don't walk around thinking I'm Drew Barrymore and the guy who's way out of my league is going to think my weird lisp is sexy and want to marry me. (Editor's Note: I do not, in fact, have a lisp. Drew does, though.) That doesn't happen in real life. But, neither do stories like mine. Like ours. I've never been a huge proponent of "fate", per se. I believe in God, and believe He has a plan for everyone, 110%, yes. I believe everything does happen for a reason, but I also believe many people, myself included at times, mistake "fate" for coincidence. It's easy to assume that, because something played out in a specific manner, there was some sort of grand reasoning behind it all, and it all centers around me and my own happiness. Things happen for a reason, yes. Is that reason always for everyone's benefit? No sir.








The fact of the matter is, Blake and I are on the same team now. We have a common goal: finding the best way to resolve the Hannah situation. We have a common problem: I may or may not be in love with some form of his identity, or some strange hybrid of Blake and Tucker. We have a common bond: regardless of the outcome, we've found our long lost best friend - the male/female version of each other.









Per usual, I'm faced with a multitude of questions. I don't know what to do - what's right, what's wrong.








Where does fate step in? Does fate even exist?











I know there's a reason for the way our story played out...but what is it?












Why did I meet this person who is, in so many ways, absolutely perfect...when he's unattainable?











Why are we still not on Ellen?










How do I know if I'm supposed to walk away from Blake, or hold onto hope that maybe, just maybe, this is somehow supposed to be?

















What. Now?