Page 11 of Dance with Me on New Year's Eve

CastGamer55:Would you design it?

SawyerRox4:Uh, what? ME?

CastGamer55:Yes.

SawyerRox4:Well, I don’t know the first thing about developing a game.

CastGamer55:You could learn.

SawyerRox4:I suppose … maybe. Why don’t you design a game like that? It is your idea. And a great one.

CastGamer55:I’d like to.

SawyerRox4:Oh, do you mean

I stopped typing but didn’t press Send. Was he hoping I would design a board game with him? Seriously? That couldn’t be right. He couldn’t mean that. Could he? But before I could finish my message, he sent another.

CastGamer55:I was thinking we could work together.

CastGamer55:If you’re not interested, that’s fine.

SawyerRox4:No, yeah, I might be. I just need a moment. It’s just a surprise, that’s all.

CastGamer55:Have you heard of Game Acres?

SawyerRox4:No, is that a gamer site?

CastGamer55:It’s a community of game designers. Game Acres sounds like Game Makers, right?

SawyerRox4:Oh, neat. You’re part of the community?

CastGamer55:I just joined fairly recently.

SawyerRox4:That sounds interesting

CastGamer55:It’s open to all experience levels, even complete novices.

SawyerRox4:It sounds great

CastGamer55:So you’ll join?

My breath caught in my throat. He was asking me to create a game with him and join this game developer group? We knew virtually nothing about each other than our opinions about the show.

And yet, as my heart raced, I realized it was excitement, not fear. Not nerves. Well, maybe some nerves.

I wanted to say yes.

I could admit life had become stale lately. I’d known deep down for a while that I needed something new, something to stimulate my mind and my creativity … maybe even friendship. Butthis…

This could be both. I could connect with another personanddo something intellectually stimulating.

Would it be ludicrous to say yes? He wasn’t asking to meet up in person. I didn’t even know where on earth he lived. It was just a different form of online interaction, channeled into something more creative. More fun. More … everything.

I had every reason to say yes.

CastGamer55:You still there?

But also every reason to say no. Because I wasn’t a person who just tried new things and chased excitement. Just the opposite, in fact. Sure, maybe I was kind of a different person on the internet … not in a deceitful way, but without the extreme shyness, I could be myself more. But I wasn’tsodifferent that I’d easily jump into something big and different with a near stranger.

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