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February 6, 2012
True Stories: The Twitter Affair
Infidelity in only 140 characters.
by Cari Wade Gervin
I met him through my coworkers. He was friends with one in particular, but they all knew him. Though I'd only been in town a few months, I was learning quickly that the city was like that — everyone knew everyone. I'd thought this city would be bigger than that; it felt almost like the small town I had just left, and I was having a hard time staying positive. But he seemed positive. And funny. I wanted to get to know him.
You can go from being complete strangers to close friends with a fellow Twitter user in a matter of weeks.
No long after that first conversation, I noticed that he was following me on Twitter. I followed him back. Soon his wife was also following me. "How cute," I thought to myself. "They're one of those annoying couples who have matching Twitter handles. Why can't I find someone to be that cheesy with?" I had known he was married, of course. His Twitter bio included the phrase, "husband guy." I decided to befriend them both — to become a part of this artsy, clever couple's inner circle. Maybe they'd have an artsy, clever single friend.
Over the next few weeks, I discovered via Twitter that he was that rarest of rare things — a person as much of a smartass as I. My feed quickly became a steady stream of our banter. We hated the same smug bands and the same annoying hippies playing music on the square. We loved coffee and rock and roll and Girl Scout cookies. I made fun of his love for Led Zeppelin. He joked about my love for Steely Dan. That's the thing about Twitter, at least when you're a person who tweets a lot — you can go from being complete strangers to close friends with a fellow user in a matter of weeks. Or at least, you feel that close — even if, in real life, you've hardly met.
It turned out he was in a band with a friend of mine. I went to see them play one night, shortly after tweeting about buying boxes of those same cookies. "I want some," he tweeted.
"What kind?" I replied.
I showed up with a box of Do-si-dos, having given zero thought to the fact that I was taking cookies to someone else's husband. He grinned delightedly as I handed him the sheath of peanut butter and sugar. "Thanks," he said. I smiled back and felt just the beginning of something tingle.
We ended up sitting and talking to each other most of the night, eating cookies and discussing bands. "Is your wife here?" I asked.
"No, she's at home asleep," he said bitterly. "She sleeps most of the weekend." From the look on his face, he seemed unhappy, but I didn't ask more. When I got home later, I found he had sent me a Direct Message on Twitter.
"I really enjoyed talking tonight. Thanks for hanging out," he wrote. I replied that I had fun and was off to get some sleep. He immediately replied, "Good luck with that. I'm still so wired I think I'm levitating." I knew what he meant. I felt it too. I wasn't just high on Girl Scout cookies. It was him.
He e-mailed me some music the next day, power pop from the 1970s. A day later, I sent him some music in return, Brazilian New Wave and country-soul. The day after that, he sent me an instant message. "Okay, I'm impressed," he typed. "There's a ton of stuff here that I don't have in my embarrassingly large iTunes library. You've made yourself cooler, and me far less cool, in one fell swoop."
That was at nine-thirty p.m. At two a.m., we were still talking about bands. "Let's do this again sometime," he typed.
"Maybe?" I wrote back. "You are married. And I can't help but think that you should maybe be spending time with your wife instead of discussing bands with me."
"There is that," he replied.
The next day I e-mailed him. "I don't think I'm being naive in saying there was subtext, last night. And Saturday."
"It's a crush. I'll admit it. It is what it is," he wrote back.
Thirty-four more e-mails followed — that day. "It would definitely be a bad idea to actually meet and discuss this, right?" I wrote. I had never done this before. I had never felt this before.
Tags
Infidelity
Twitter
Commentarium (81 Comments)
Been there and done that. He isn't married, but has a girlfriend. I feel guilty for her, I know she loves him very much. But so do I and he loves me back. The thing is, we have never ever had sex, nor have we even kissed, everything has been done through very intense DM's. Ok, one time we said our I love yous face to face. I know it has to stop but I haven't been able to click unfollow.
Hate to break it to you, but that guy doesn't love you? Why wouldn't he leave his girlfriend if he did? He's not even married, he wouldn't even have to fill out any paperwork! Maybe it'll help you click unfollow if you allow yourself to realize that he's just a sleaze who gets a kick out of having a fake girlfriend in addition to his real one.
I met my current boyfriend on Twitter while I was living with a now ex-boyfriend. The current boyfriend and I totally clicked from the moment we started messaging one another. I felt very,very gulity that I was talking to him and bonding with him while I was living with somebody else. I stopped talking to him because of that for over a year. He knew that I was coming into some money about a year later that would finally enable me to leave the ex so he wrote me a letter telling me he still loved me. I moved away from the ex and am now going to go meet the current boyfriend in person for the first time in less than a week. He lives in Europe so this has always been a long distance type of relationship. I am an example of a person who does actually leave somebody for a love they have met on Twitter.
This sounds like an awesome plan.
Everything you need to know: "He knew that I was coming into some money about a year later ...so he wrote me a letter telling me he still loved me."
He has a really good job so no he isn't after my money.
And how do you know that?
Sorry but this sounds sketchy as hell.
Had the author been born ten years earlier she would have been into cosmos and obscure shoes. Zooey is the new Sarah Jessica Parker.
I hate both of you. I hate your indiscriminate free time. I hate your naïveté. I hate terms like "hashtag and DM." I hate your deceit. Your selfishness. Your cookies. Your music. Your connection. Your assumptions. You're both deplorable.
Mostly, I hate that I read this story 24 hours after discovering my own husband and "manic pixie dreamgirl" coworker ("god! what is your problem! can't a just have a female friend! you are SO PARANOID!") haven't just been swapping indie albums, but bodily fluids. So, salt, meet wound.
That's horrible. All I can say is: karma. Fuck them--their life together will be short and probably suck. Good luck to you.
Fuck your (hopefully soon-to-be-ex) husband and the manipulative bitch he works with. People let themselves fall into these traps, and it's fucking ridiculous.
Things will get better for you, that's about all I can promise. And this is entirely projection and conjecture on my part, but based on your comment I think it'll be sooner rather than later. You seem like you have a good head on your shoulders. Good luck
What idiots. You go and get it girlfriend, whatever that means for you.
I didn't expect replies. Thanks internet strangers.
@The Wife, although it is painful now, congratulations for being done with this sanctimonious, I'm-so-urban-cool wannabee, jackass. YOur life will now open open to incredible possibilities. Peace.
Been there, done that. People suck sometimes. All I can say is hang in there, and good luck. My life is so different now than I ever would have thought--the world opens up in odd but wonderful ways sometimes. I bet yours will too.
You deserve better. Always remember that.
Been in the exact same position and I cannot believe how amazing my life is now versus then. My life only got better and so will yours. As my grandmother used to say "Don't take shit from any man, he's not worth it." Wise woman....
I'm with "The Wife" on this one too. This whole story is the worst cliche I can imagine. And I got news for you--sarcastic guys who are into 70's power pop are quite common. I know because I am one, and I have plenty of friends just like me. #growup
It is hard to feel sympathy over your pain when you spent 9 months destroying a family!
I understand. All of it. More readers than will admit it probably do, too. Particularly this: "I unfollowed his wife and blocked her from following me. I still hadn't met her, but it seemed wrong to know anything about her life at all."
And married men never leave their wives.
I understand, but I still don't sympathize. There's a difference.
And out of curiosity, if you end up seeing this, do you know someone with my name?
The Pixies are rather disappointing live.
Touche'
...says someone who clearly only saw them post-reunion.
this is true. I was 15 when they were originally around and definitely not allowed to drive two hours to the nearest City to see them! I did see Frank Black on his own, though, in Philly like back in '96. And that _was_ a good show.
I saw them in 1990. They looked bored and sounded sluggish that night. The lighting was kinda cool though...
Such a cliche -- I'm a smartass, and by golly, I found out he was one too. Help!!!!
Amen brother! When will people learn that "smartass" is code for "I think I'm superior to everyone, but no one wants to listen to me tell them why".
The entire piece is such a cliche. Just because you're writing about something new (twitter) doesn't mean you're not re-HASHing (see what I did there) every tired expression ever written about infidelity in the history of words and english.
The author has cancer and this isn't her first affair. So maybe she's hurting, but I can't say I feel any sadness for her, just for the lives she intentionally messes with. Gee, I wonder why you can't get a good guy of your own. Hmm, maybe because your character terrifies them.
"The author has cancer and this isn't her first affair." WHAT?
Yeah, that's the truth. The cancer part.
da fuq
Judge not lest ye be judged. I think it's pretty brave what you wrote and I wish you peace & happiness.
Likewise.
There's nothing brave about destroying people's lives for your own selfish ends.
Don't worry - your courtship sounded so banal and trite, it shouldn't be hard to find another to match it.
Alice W, love your comment!
Ha!
Niiice.
Alice W, FTW!
A happy spouse does not have an affair. A one night stand maybe, but not an affair. No one is blameless in this situation. Not the cheater, not "the other" and definately not the spouse who, in most cases, has been holding back sex or affection or who stopped making the spouse (cheater) a priority. In every case I've seen, there was no innocent party.
if the spouse is withholding something or if something is going unfulfilled, YOU TALK ABOUT IT. you don't cheat.
@fjklsa Exactly. It's so easy to whine about how unfulfilled he was, but there's a reason all his wife did was sleep. I'm betting she was pretty unhappy, too.
Nope. Sorry. The spouse is never to blame. If you are angry or disappointed or aggrieved by said spouse then you get therapy or talk it out or fix things or you leave but you don't cheat. Leave then bang boots but cheating puts the blame squarely on the cheater and the object of their desire. Blaming the spouse is just an excuse for bad behavior. Same thing just happened to me. Is there something in the water?
UAP, that is just plain untrue.
You got exactly what you deserved.
a brief twitterpated spasm swept in on a spring wind--
Oy, that makes me want to poke my eyes out. No wonder he dumped you.
I LOVE the brutality of this comment thread. You guys, help me choose which comment to post:
"What, were you going to get twitter-married and have twitter-babies with the man you madly loved but never saw?"
or
"Children shouldn't be allowed to have their own twitter accounts."
or
"Hard to imagine that two people so impressed with each others' iTunes playlists could go so wrong."
Love the first one.
OMG so good, I had to break out the popcorn. SO GOOD
This IS extremely cliche. And it seems the author so eagerly indulged in the all-too-common internet/Hollywood fantasy that there is some perfectly complementary being out there in the world, and when you find them, you will both finally achieve that ideal state known as "happy." He did not leave his wife because, while he briefly also indulged, he knew the author was only a distraction, a "simple prop to occupy his time," and ultimately insignificant to him. I can't judge too harshly, because every human alive is capable of this behavior. At our core we are selfish, hedonistic, and prone to destroy the people/things we claim to love most.
Seems like maybe this isn't the first time CWG has written this particular tale for public consumption.
Same story. Similar small southern city. Just swap out the married guy. This is from 2006.
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2006/jul/13/Gervin-Its-not-like-that-...
Uh, did you read that? It's about NOT having an affair.
LP, cool handle man, you're like Low Pressure, low pressure propane, or liquified natural gas, is that you LNG? So flammable.
i think everyone should go through the wonderful, terrible insanity that is an affair once in their lives. it's a kick in the ass we all need. But for simplicity's sake, try to get it out of your system before either party is married. A lot less messy.
Jesus, a drunk and a whore. And you can't figure out why people don't like you. Well, there is the breath problem. But that can be fixed.
One day, if she is lucky, Ms. Gervin will find someone who actually wants to marry her.
If this man happens to have a woman in his life-- such as a mother, sister or aunt --who looks out for him, she will find this story online.
If the woman is naive, she will tell him to run away.
If the woman is wise, she will tell him to have fun with Ms. Gervin. Then, walk away and never think about Gervin again. She is not a person with whom you grow old or form a lasting commitment.
Wowsers. A whole lotta slammin' goin' on here. Everyone's acting like this essay was a true story. Srsly.
I just wanna say.... Apple product placement?
Nice try, C.M. Clearly the story's illustration required a computer. Yes, Apple's hardware is far better looking than that of their competitor's (thought the PC knockoffs of MacBooks aren't too bad). Did you expect them to put a sticker on the logo like some TV shows do? Have you noticed that in most coffee houses, the computers most used to avoid others with is a Mac? 9 out of 10 in my experience. From now on, you'll be seeing more and more Macs, people are finally starting to wake from the Windoze nightmare.
CWG, this is pathetic. You can't get a date because your aren't nice. To anyone. And the breath thing, that is real. See a doctor. You really should lay off the liquor. Mean drunks aren't fun.
Only a slut would brag about this.
Anytime I read a post that has to do with infidelity, everyone is always so eager to jump on the judgmental bandwagon. "cheating is wrong, period", "you're a slut", "blah, blah, blah"...I just wanted to point out that everyone's situation is different, and you cannot address individual topics with such generalizations. Yes, she put her thoughts out there for public consumption, and public comments, but people are so quick to just say "You're wrong!!!!", judge someone, and quickly move on. You can't say that spouses are never in the wrong. You can't say that anyone that falls in love with someone else when they are married is horrible. Life is messy and marriage is not easy. Just "talking" to your spouse when you are having problems is not necessarily so easy. I am in a marriage in which I am not happy, and he is "content." I have feelings for someone else, but I have not cheated on my husband. When I try to talk to him, he is adamant that he is not going to "let me go," yet he is not going to make the changes that I have asked of him, such as getting a real job, helping around the house, growing some balls, etc. I have been trying to "talk it out," and he is just being stubborn and not having it. So, for now, I'm stuck. Just wanted to point out that everyone has a different situation from everyone else. Which should be obvious, really...
No, it makes them a slut. You are a slut enabler.
Not his job to "let you go." Take responsibility for yourself (something that cheaters don't do).
Guilty conscious Carrie?
Whoops, guilty conscience. You still have no friends.
Judging by this article (the tone and content, and the fact that it exists), the author seems like a pretentious nitwit. If she believes that TWITTER, of all things, can generate the kind of amour fou that might theoretically come close to excusing trashing someone else's marriage and then feeling sorry for yourself - and not, say, the idiot's wife - then she probably lacks the emotional capacity to even experience love.
And in case it wasn't obvious, I'm pretty much on the wife's side here. Sure, I can think of circumstances where one partner behaves so badly that an affair is an understandable response. Cheating is never a good thing to do, but there are plenty of worse things that I can think of. I don't think sleeping in on weekends qualifies, though.
So your concern is that Twitter is not a medium that can generate emotions?
How is it any less effective for getting to know someone than on-line dating and getting to know someone via e-mails and profiles? Aren't the chances at least better of finding someone with similar interests and philosophies than at the local bar?
And that is ignoring your implication that another method besides Twitter COULD generate the kind of amour (etc etc)...
OMG. Just saw Gervin's Twitter. The picture is priceless. It is either a shocked expression or she is getting ready to go down on some poor guy.
Maybe she's surprised that she's not being viewed as the jilted heroine she seems to fancy herself, but rather as the manipulative tramp that she is. Or yeah, maybe she's got the trap set, just waiting for the next sucker to come along. Hope for his sake that he reads this pathetic little gem of a diary entry first.
Nobody trusts you Carrie. You turned on us. Not cool.
da fuq!
This comment thread is so much more entertaining than the actual article. @The Wife: go forth and DTMFA.
I can't imagine anyone in town ever inviting cwg into their homes again for any reason. If the silver isn't glued down, will she steal it? If the baby cries, does that means he's unhappy enough that she should try to kidnap him? If another guest thoughtlessly leaves the keys in her car out on the street, will she drive it away? People who look for excuses to justify breaking, ruining, damaging or thieving what doesn't belong to them are not the kind of party guests who continue to get invitations. Good thing this woman enjoys hanging out with much younger hipsters in local bands because actual adults of her age or older are never going to go anywhere near her again if they can help it.
If you have a hip 20 something male friend in the Couch who hangs out with this walking VD factory, get that boy a pack of sturdy condoms. She likes em young and dumb.
The author went out of her way to tweet about this article, opening a wound on the wife that has had more than her share of incredibly horrific heartbreaks in the past couple of years. All of KVille was abuzz. I'm starting to think Cari puts herself into these situations for the attention.
I tried to stay away from the this article for the pain that it caused, but I was told the comments were priceless. It may be based on a real situation, but the facts have been horribly distorted. If you read previous articles from this writer you can see how desperate and pathetic her search for a man has been. I truly feel sorry for her. She has become the joke of town. I think she thought this was gonna garner attention in a positive light, instead the entire city is trashing her. Everyone wants her gone. She has no respect for the city or the community. This was a blip on our journey, one that finally delivered the help that was needed. So in one regard I'm thankful. History is too much to just hang up. True relationships survive and true love really can conquer all~ even pathetic lying desperate garbage.
I see romance, no love ... sorry girl, maybe next time you'll see things clearer from the beggining, blesses