Robert Burns first used this phrase in his Tale of Two Dogs (Twa Dogs).
" His locked, letter'd braw (fine) brass collar, Show'd him the gentleman and scholar"
The expression has been used regularly ever since.
Chat sessions with CMR soon began to run well into the night, and there were several nights shortly after our first encounter that I found myself leaving the office to catch a quick shower and a change of clothes as the first employees arrived the next morning. We found that after all had left for the evening, there were less interruptions and we could converse with abandon, while still managing to get our own work done.
He was working on a project that was coming to fruition after 7 years, I was pulling together data for my annual report. Mine was relatively mindless data capture, but I sense his must have been much more critical. Nonetheless, he possessed a broad range of skills that were very apparent in our chats. He was a multi-tasker, finding little difficulty in reviewing a report, while posting on ILW and chatting with me at the same time. He was extremely resourceful, often provoked to search for the derivation of an expression I'd used, and C & P the results of his "google" into the conversation with a matter of moments. Neither of us could understand how the time would pass so quickly, and both had difficulty in actually deciding that it was time to log off.
At the end of the second week in January CMR expressed how strange it was that he was so drawn to me and finding it difficult to resist contact. He pasted a link to the song below, stating that some of the lyrics were appropriate to our situation.
You are an obsession
I cannot sleep, I am your possession
Unopened at your feet
There's no balance, No equality
Be still I will not accept defeat
I will have you, Yes, I will have you
I will find a way and I will have you
Like a butterfly, A wild butterly
I will collect you and capture you
You are an obsession, You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be, To make you sleep with me
You are an obsession, You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be, To make you sleep with me
I feed you , I drink you
My day and my night
I need you I need you
By sun or candlelight
You protest, You want to leave
Stay Oh, there's no alternative
Your face appears again, I see the beauty there
But I see danger, Stranger beware
A circumstance, In your naked dreams
Your affection is not what it seems
You are an obsession , You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be , To make you sleep with me
You are an obsession , You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be , To make you sleep with me
My fantasy has turned to madness
And all my goodness, Has turned to badness
My need to possess you, Has consumed my soul
My life is trembling, I have no control
I will have you, Yes, I will have you
I will find a way and I will have you
Like a butterfly, A wild butterly
I will collect you and capture you
Obsession ~ Animotion
I'd be less than honest if I were to deny that I didn't feel the same. The conversations were intoxicating. When he commented on the song being particularly appropriate to our circumstances, I chuckled. One line in the song, "There's no balance, No equality'", was very germane to some of the posts I'd been making on ILW. I dismissed the rest
We had shared a lot of personal information, yet even at this point I was not sure CMR was his real name. Not that it really mattered, but he'd used the expression "That's what I go by" when I queried it. Having already spent nearly 200 hundred hours in online chat, and realising that we were quickly becoming close, I wanted to be sure that if we were ever to lose contact online, I'd be able to make contact by some other means. CMR had my address and phone number, along with a lot of other information, but I didn't have his. I asked for his number so that we could speak outside the virtual environment, for obvious reasons, but also because I was keen to hear his voice. One can tell a lot about another person through intonation, pitch and timbre. He didn't outwardly refuse to offer it, but he asked for me to be patient; he'd been very deeply betrayed before and was very cautious and guarded. He'd need a little more time.
Naturally, I could empathise. I had recently experienced the same and was not sure myself how I could have overlooked so many signals that DF was betraying my trust. I had often asked myself, wasn't my natural antenna functioning properly? But after much introspection I had come to the conclusion that it wasn't that I was oblivious to the signs, but that my attention had been purposefully lured astray by use of a decoy. And, possibly, maybe I didn't act upon signals that I perceived because of some subliminal reproach that I could even conscion such evil thoughts of my own husband.
With CMR, my interest to develop a strong friendship at a comfortable pace for him made it easy for me to suggest that he take his time in sharing more with me. We had time. I was going through a nasty divorce. Time was on our side and he was respectful of the emotionally charged situation I was in and I was deeply saddened to hear that he, too, had suffered in the past. He was the consummate gentleman and agreed to ease my concern by chatting on voice until he gained enough courage to share means for direct contact.
After much struggle to connect the speakers and microphone to my computer (I'm computer challenged) the voice chat feature was ready to launch and within moments I was delighted to hear his voice fill the small room. It was clear, resonant, crisp and bold, like that of a radio announcer.
... a voice I would never forget.
" His locked, letter'd braw (fine) brass collar, Show'd him the gentleman and scholar"
The expression has been used regularly ever since.
Chat sessions with CMR soon began to run well into the night, and there were several nights shortly after our first encounter that I found myself leaving the office to catch a quick shower and a change of clothes as the first employees arrived the next morning. We found that after all had left for the evening, there were less interruptions and we could converse with abandon, while still managing to get our own work done.
He was working on a project that was coming to fruition after 7 years, I was pulling together data for my annual report. Mine was relatively mindless data capture, but I sense his must have been much more critical. Nonetheless, he possessed a broad range of skills that were very apparent in our chats. He was a multi-tasker, finding little difficulty in reviewing a report, while posting on ILW and chatting with me at the same time. He was extremely resourceful, often provoked to search for the derivation of an expression I'd used, and C & P the results of his "google" into the conversation with a matter of moments. Neither of us could understand how the time would pass so quickly, and both had difficulty in actually deciding that it was time to log off.
At the end of the second week in January CMR expressed how strange it was that he was so drawn to me and finding it difficult to resist contact. He pasted a link to the song below, stating that some of the lyrics were appropriate to our situation.
You are an obsession
I cannot sleep, I am your possession
Unopened at your feet
There's no balance, No equality
Be still I will not accept defeat
I will have you, Yes, I will have you
I will find a way and I will have you
Like a butterfly, A wild butterly
I will collect you and capture you
You are an obsession, You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be, To make you sleep with me
You are an obsession, You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be, To make you sleep with me
I feed you , I drink you
My day and my night
I need you I need you
By sun or candlelight
You protest, You want to leave
Stay Oh, there's no alternative
Your face appears again, I see the beauty there
But I see danger, Stranger beware
A circumstance, In your naked dreams
Your affection is not what it seems
You are an obsession , You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be , To make you sleep with me
You are an obsession , You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be , To make you sleep with me
My fantasy has turned to madness
And all my goodness, Has turned to badness
My need to possess you, Has consumed my soul
My life is trembling, I have no control
I will have you, Yes, I will have you
I will find a way and I will have you
Like a butterfly, A wild butterly
I will collect you and capture you
Obsession ~ Animotion
I'd be less than honest if I were to deny that I didn't feel the same. The conversations were intoxicating. When he commented on the song being particularly appropriate to our circumstances, I chuckled. One line in the song, "There's no balance, No equality'", was very germane to some of the posts I'd been making on ILW. I dismissed the rest
We had shared a lot of personal information, yet even at this point I was not sure CMR was his real name. Not that it really mattered, but he'd used the expression "That's what I go by" when I queried it. Having already spent nearly 200 hundred hours in online chat, and realising that we were quickly becoming close, I wanted to be sure that if we were ever to lose contact online, I'd be able to make contact by some other means. CMR had my address and phone number, along with a lot of other information, but I didn't have his. I asked for his number so that we could speak outside the virtual environment, for obvious reasons, but also because I was keen to hear his voice. One can tell a lot about another person through intonation, pitch and timbre. He didn't outwardly refuse to offer it, but he asked for me to be patient; he'd been very deeply betrayed before and was very cautious and guarded. He'd need a little more time.
Naturally, I could empathise. I had recently experienced the same and was not sure myself how I could have overlooked so many signals that DF was betraying my trust. I had often asked myself, wasn't my natural antenna functioning properly? But after much introspection I had come to the conclusion that it wasn't that I was oblivious to the signs, but that my attention had been purposefully lured astray by use of a decoy. And, possibly, maybe I didn't act upon signals that I perceived because of some subliminal reproach that I could even conscion such evil thoughts of my own husband.
With CMR, my interest to develop a strong friendship at a comfortable pace for him made it easy for me to suggest that he take his time in sharing more with me. We had time. I was going through a nasty divorce. Time was on our side and he was respectful of the emotionally charged situation I was in and I was deeply saddened to hear that he, too, had suffered in the past. He was the consummate gentleman and agreed to ease my concern by chatting on voice until he gained enough courage to share means for direct contact.
After much struggle to connect the speakers and microphone to my computer (I'm computer challenged) the voice chat feature was ready to launch and within moments I was delighted to hear his voice fill the small room. It was clear, resonant, crisp and bold, like that of a radio announcer.
... a voice I would never forget.
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