The fantasy game

It's kind of lousy, right? Being the person who exists solely as a part of a fantasy? I should know, I've spent an awful lot of time being that person. Also known as "dirty little secret", "don't worry, I'll tell her when the time is right", "I just need to figure out how to make it all work so no one gets hurt", or variations on that same theme.

The end result always seems to be the same. Maybe it's just that men only want me if they can sneak around to have me. And it seems that it doesn't need to involve sex, always. Any degree of hidden or sneaky seems to do it for them. I just don't get it.

What is so awful about being seen talking to me? You'll sit and chat with me while your girlfriend's at work, at the store, getting her hair or her nails done, whatever. That's all fine and dandy. Hell, even while she's asleep. That's great. The *second* she's around? You vanish into the mist, so as to not be 'caught' being in communication with me. Even if all we were doing was talking. It doesn't make any damn sense.

You call from your car, as you drive from place to place, chatting away, but as soon as you get where you're going? Uh-oh, can't keep talking once you're *home*! Oh noes! Because then someone would realize that I exist, and that would wreck the game, and your little secret would be out. Even though I'm not entirely sure what that secret entails, since I'm the one listening to the conversation, and let me tell you: hearing all about your pets, and your kids, and what's going on with work isn't exactly the stuff of cloak and dagger intrigue, nor is it the stuff that really good erotic literature is made of.

But even if it was? What are you doing that you're so ashamed of that you need to keep it hidden? If it's that bad, perhaps you shouldn't be having any contact with me at all, either that, or simply cough it up, and admit that you're my friend, and at the same time admit *that I'm yours*. Because it's rather tedious from my end, being told I'm supposed to sit over there on a shelf, to be picked up when it's handy for you to want to play, and ignored the rest of the time.

That's not really friendship. Or anything else.