2/7/2001:

The angst begins.

Welcome to the Valentine's Day special. Starting today, ending a week from today and including a bonus strip on Monday. So four strips of delicious ironical takes on a breakup conversation.

So after my Tech Girl expose last week, you must be wondering, what's the story on this girl? Well, about this time last year, I had gone on a couple of dates with this girl. Nickname, nickname... hm. Let's just call her Quad Girl. Because she lived in a quad last year. K, that works. So, Quad Girl lived in the same dorm as a bunch of my friends. Actually, Rick lived on her floor. I'd seen her a bunch of times but circumstances made it tough for me to meet her. But my chance came in January.

She came to see Titanic Players improv show (in which we Titanic Players kicked butt) and afterward, I was in her dorm around 3:00 in the morning in the hall, talking to my friend Mark, who also lived in that dorm. She came by and congratulated us on our show and I slid on the ground to her feet saying, "I see you everywhere. Hi, I'm Kip."

We hit it off pretty well. And that night when I got home, I was pretty high from having such a good conversation with Quad Girl so I logged on to that web based dating service I referenced in "Net Morality". And there was a message there. The service said that she lived within 10 miles and the message said that she'd sent me an elaborate message but her computer or the net had eaten it so here she was trying it again. So I replied my standard, "I'm doing this for research on the code end, not looking for girls." But then I checked her profile, username GoodRiddance, and her picture was hot so I sent more stuff about how I liked to read, take walks, etc. etc. All that honesty stuff I talked about in "Net Morality".

The next night, Saturday, I tried to see Quad Girl again but our paths didn't cross. I felt that fate just wasn't on my side. Instead, I went to see Pippin.

And on Sunday, there was a message on the dating service. From GoodRiddance. Who told me that in reality she looked like nothing like that picture (actually, it was a picture of Jewel put up as a joke. But a hot picture of Jewel, not one of those where her teeth are all messed up. Anyway.) In reality, GoodRiddance had brown hair and... "the sort of face you see everywhere." Yes, Quad Girl and the dating service beauty were one and the same. And I felt the fickle hand of fate on my shoulder. I felt like something was pointing the way for me and that I'd finally found the girl with whom I would have a wonderfully mature and stable relationship.

But for those of you who were surprised at the endings of Titanic and the Perfect Storm, you should know that it didn't work out.

More on Saturday.

-Kip