Knotted knickers and other unfortunate things

Internets, I have a confession to make. Sometimes, when recounting a story for you, in the spirit of making the story accessible and not completely full of mundane details, "and then we did this... and I said this... and I chewed my carrot 14 times before swallowing it..." I may change the story a little bit.

For shame, I know.

I firmly believe this is my privilege as a writer. And I'm telling you this because I believe if any knickers are to be knotted they should be because of this--not because of how much a person in the story emotes (or doesn't emote, because as I've already pointed out, it's my privilege to share as much of that as I want and it will always be colored by my own lens on the experience). Skewer me if you want to, you can be Oprah and I'll be James Frey and we can talk about how disappointing everything is, and how I've just shattered the world into a million little pieces. But trust me, it was much easier to read (okay, or maybe it was much easier to write) what was posted, even if I left out some details.

In my mind, the important detail is not the when or where of the hug or if that hug even existed at that space in time, in fact it has absolutely nothing to do with said hug, it is all about what was said and how much that means to me (in light of what I did or did not get in previous relationships). So if knickers are to be knotted, they should be either over the fact that I changed the time/space continuum to make my story easier to tell, or over the fact that I would have ever been in a relationship where a guy would not think my outstanding friends to be outstanding. For shame, I know.