And we're both midnight wanderers, content to meander about in the dark in cities, beaches, forests.

As time went on I waited for my damnable flu to subside so that I could actually meet this person. Yet my phlegmatic nature remained, and I was still somewhat under the weather when I was struck one morning with an abrupt message.

"I just don't have the endurance for meeting strangers. I've enjoyed our chats, but this just isn't for me. Sorry to have wasted your time."

Struck for a moment, I immediately started writing a reply. "I understand, but let's compromise. Let's get coffee and some kind of pastry, twenty minutes tops, and then if you're interested let me know." After revising it a couple times, I realized that there was no reply button. The profile had been deleted.

And so now I'm standing in this in-between realm, a limbo between the heaven and hell buckets. The conversations were enjoyable, and without a real beginning there can't be a real end, so on the whole I certainly came out ahead. But I do find myself wondering what could have been.

And so I write, hoping that she'll get her Salon fix one day and find this message and decide to give the ocean another chance. She knows where I can be collect-called. With luck she'll find this. With even more luck, I'll write another of these letters with better tidings.

Now to move on, and hope that I discover that I actually live in a Hugh Grant film rather than a Woody Allen movie.

--Ai, Seattle

HEAVEN: One slight detour

My first Craig's List personals experience taught me two things -- most men were saturation bombers, replying to every ad. "We should do something," spoken enthusiastically at the end of a date, meant you would never meet again.

Never again, said I.

I started planning to move out of state, but then thought up a good ad and posted it for the hell of it. The next day I had all the same tired retreads ("I'm cute," "My penis is long and thick," "I think we might be meant for each other").

The day after that, I got C.'s e-mail.

I read it twice, then stood to pace, my cheeks warm and my head light. Not only had he read what I'd written, he'd understood it, responded in kind. I knew -- without a doubt, without being able to say why -- I knew this man would change my life. If I had the courage to meet him, I would not be leaving. Was it worth it?

C. and I were nuts about each other after a few dates. Too afraid to ask him to move away with me, I chose to move closer to him, but I would need a roommate.

Enter S., a recent émigré, here on a work visa. After meeting through a mutual friend, we decided neither of us seemed likely to go psychotic after signing a lease. The first night in our shared apartment, S. went through my CDs, convinced he could know me by my musical tastes. We learned about each other by playing our favorite music in the dark for each other. There was the Candlebox song that reminded me of being 17; the song from a "Star Trek" episode that reminded him of the wonder of possibility; "Samba Pa Ti," which I wanted played at my funeral; the Dixie Chicks, his personal favorite. (I didn't know about the Mariah Carey CD until much too late.) Our conversations in the dark lasted for hours.

I was right that C. would change my life: In the end, he was not the man for me, but lovely enough for me to pack up and move in with a stranger on the chance that it would bring me love. And it did. If I had never written back, I wouldn't have chosen to share an apartment with this Australian. Coincidence is a favorite topic of S., who wonders where he would be if he hadn't gotten that visa and moved in with strange American woman. And I was right that meeting C. would mean I wouldn't leave California:

S. has a year or two to go before he can leave his job, so if I want to be with him I have to stay until then, when S. says he'll follow me anywhere. I'm thinking Seattle. Or Sydney.

-- Jennifer, San Mateo, CA

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