Friday, 06/07/2002 Entry: "Trouble in the Pirate Cove (cyberme pt 5)"

• A dense chick with ADD who kept missing directions

• A Primadona stage mother with two kids driven to greatness

• A high strung bitch whose role model was Martha Stewart. She blamed the entire Jewish faith because her father was orthodox. She was ashamed of her heritage and didn't tell her kids they were technically Jewish.

• A 16 year old writer and poet

• A friend whom I knew offline and introduced the Internet to (more on him later. I know I keep saying that)

• An acquaintance from the whole following around thing who became a good friend online and off. Let's call her Seven, since that's her alias online lately.

There were others, but this is the core group for this story.

We had that aforementioned position of being the token clean team among hundreds of hipocrites. As the captain I took it upon myself to be the spokesperson and got a lot of flak for anything I said. Except that my team was anything but passive, and I did speak for us all and not just how I felt. Bitch thanked me on several occasions for sticking my neck out for them.

But it wasn't idyllic on the inside all the time either. Bitch was a problem from day one, and I kicked her out in our second week. Unfortunately, I took her back. She was very demanding, but unrealistically so.

Primadona was ok until she disagreed with something or someone. Then she was a monster. And she was a bad loser. If she lost, she deigned to join us in any post-match morale chats, and it wasn't much better if someone else won the game for the team instead of her. Talk about bad sportsmanship!

These two in particular were real good at undoing all the health I was able to recoup after what I went through a couple of years earlier with nutcase (we're in 1999 now, with the team starting in Dec 1998).

We did fairly well until - well, it seemed to be when I tried to invite someone from a team that was changing its league status. She seemed to be on our wavelength, and we worked side by side on addressing a number of ethical issues we ran into (TA's notorious for condoning unethical practices, such as players belonging to multiple teams). She seemed okay at the time.

Well let's call this newcomer Nutcase (not to be confused with "Nutty," although you'll see similarities soon enough). Nutcase I revealed my identity early on, because she had a boyfriend who showed signs of jealousy (ok she was a 3x divorcee - twice with the same man - and she was having an affair with a rich married man, who'd rendezvous her in different parts of the country as he sent her tickets). I think she's the first female who felt I was deceiving her.

Uh oh. Why would that be a problem? Did she have plans on dumping the four-timer (Acrophobia was a regular hen harem) for me? That hadn't occurred to me at the time.

Anyway, I made the mistake of inviting her. She respected our position and she was a good acroer; her skill was being wasted on the other team, which was going to break from the league anyway and limit their play to a couple of snob teams.

Primadona spit acid. She didn't like the newcomer. I figure more it was because I was adding someone who would be of equal competence and god forbid win us a few match games. Up until that point, after Primadona came myself in the number of wins. Bitch wasn't far behind in sentiment. I pulled them aside and encouraged them to welcome her into our group.

Meanwhile, problems in the nursery. An online friend of our token teen went on the assault from out of nowehere. I don't even remember why. I only know he pushed some buttons, I pushed back, and he edited up some of the Emails in selective context to send to the teen, who resigned. He didn't resign by Emailing me btw, he resigned by Emailing everyone but the team captain (Not even discussing things with me. Well, you can pick your friends, but not their noses. Uh, that didn't sound as relevant as it did in my head...).

Primadona started up. I had posted a pic of Austin Powers in a bikini on our team message board, and she went ballistic. It was harmless. Add to that our waiting patiently for a rival team to arrive late for a match around that same time, and she ran off in a bitchfit. Hormones are such a bane sometimes, aren't they?

Somewhere about this time, Nutcase cornered me on the phone one morning and for three hours tried to explain to me that she had a crush on me (remember: no illusions as to my identity; I lead no one on), and that a relationship didn't require sex. This position of hers was because I stated plainly that I was heterosexual. That and I didn't know her from Adam. I already had a crash and burn wouldbe relationship with some penpal guy in San Diego ten years earlier. Nothing with no one sight unseen. And after Nutty, nothing was going to "just happen" online ever again. So she seemed certain that she would be able to change my mind and with it my lifestyle.

Teen started Emailing the team with "don't tell the captain" letters. I don't give a shit what he sends to his friends. But since he sent them to my entire team, nonfriends to him and all, it was a blatant affront. Add to that Primadona's activities. I emailed the remaining faithful complement of matters. My offline friend, a constant companion online and someone whom I had met offline a few times - and hoped more often if the SOB hadn't relocated to the west coast for his job - shot back the only nasty letter I had ever received from him in my life, and disappeared forever. Someone was definitely mega-pussywhipped.

What a fucking shame and a waste of my life. I would have quit Acrophobia in a second if I had known this would happen. But I hadn't. With his move to the west coast, I saw less and less of him online, and he even became an honorary member of the team, no longer able to join the weekly matches. I'm wondering to this day whether Nutcase or Primadona told him I was some lesbian? Why? Glad you asked...

...Because when I did not stand down from my position that I was NOT going to pursue a relationship with another woman, Nutcase would yell at me on ICQ: "You chase women!" which I guess meant "I'm chasing you and I hate you for not falling for my charms" *cringe* She agreed to come to visit to NYC as a point to make that a real relationship could never be established online, and boy did she waver on those terms! Her excuse was she couldn't bear to be rejected, even though she was never in the running for what SHE wanted (her and her non-physical relationship hype). Anyway, she said point blank that she would object to watching Errol Flynn movies or anything from my swashbuckling collection with me because she "couldn't look at another man." I thought: "Forget THAT." And one morning, she attempted to insult me by sending me the URL of arty but erotic photos of Brendan Frasier. I had no idea he was so buff. They were gorgeous pics. She had to be nuts to think that would bother me. I knew by then she was nuts.

Anyway, we lost more with those few gone from our ranks. But I didn't mind losing. It was a nice change of pace, and I got to relax on the rules with less people's kids in evidence during games. And you know that Austin Powers incident...!

I think the nuttiest thing she did was express jealousy when me and Seven had planned a week in New England whalewatching and schoonering. Nutcase grumbled we would be sharing a room together etc etc etc. Whoah! Here I was with someone I befriended online a year earlier, a woman who had recently celebrated her silver wedding anniversary and the birth of her second grandchild. And this WACKO had some twisted scenario going. So you could imagine my relief when she said she had to go off on her own because she needed space. Oh yes I respect that uh huh THANK YOU!!!!!!!

But things weren't over yet.