I’m going to relate a quick tale about the lessons ones learns in the course of writing… Oh, let’s say the course of writing a blog. As someone who has been writing some kind of personal stuff on a site of sorts for over four years now, you’d think I would have learned about the dangers of writing about any personal issues. The problem, of course, is that no matter how hard you may try to keep things out of the “standard” viewing area of people you know… There is still that ever-so-reliable Google to help people with determination find sites that you knew, or in this case thought, none of your real-life buddies, pals, amigos, or what have you knew about. Anyway, the lesson that should be learned is this: if you, say, have a tendency to vent via blog entries, I would highly recommend that you never underestimate the Internet’s mighty search engines. They are a force that even the Roman Gods would think twice about starting shit with.

Anyhoo, if you’re an avid reader then you can put the pieces together between the not-so-subtle previous not-so-false fable and an old emotastic entry. Nothing like a good bit of dramadramadrama to really, you know, relish the simplistic single days of yesteryear. And though I can say that, it’s both a blessing and a curse — I’d think of less melodramatic terms, but those two sound so good together. The positive aspect comes from the fact that it was, all things considered, not the greatest situation for me. The negative aspect is that it was a really nice change in my daily routine for a decent chunk of time. I had a really fun time for a few weeks where things were just… Different than the ever-consistent daily routine I keep for myself most of the time. I met a bunch of new people, I went to a whole ton of new places, and I had a feeling of companionship which I was actually comfortable with… And so on and so forth. I can, if prodded, create a Top 3 list of things that went wrong, but those aren’t the kinds of things I’ll be writing about in any sort of public eye for a long frickin’ time.

I will pass long one piece of my sage wisdom, though. If you’re going to break up with someone (and it’s not the kind of break-up that makes you all warm, fuzzy, and wanting to hold celebrations in the event’s honor) then, for the love of all things holy, keep a nice, busy routine planned for the days proceeding the deed. It feels like crap to get broken up with, I know, but ending a relationship because you think it’s best (for the pair or for yourself, whatever) and don’t hold even a single hostile feeling for the person… Then the last thing you want to do is do it over the course of a fairly lengthy weekend with not a darn thing else to do besides think about it.

Thankfully for me, I have some awesome friends. One of them brought chips and salsa at random at one of the low points of the whole ordeal for me and, as is a well-documented fact throughout world history: chips and salsa fixes everything for a solid hour of the day. There were another couple of fantasmic amigos who recommended that I watch Veronica Mars. And, sure, the show may appear to be wrapped in some kind of WB clone presentation… But the show is, surprisingly, spectacular. My reaction was lukewarm through the first three-four episodes of the first season, but after that I was completely hooked and watched the rest of the season in two short days. I’ve only seen the first episode of the second season thus far, but it’s shaping up to be a good remainder of the week for my Veronica-obsessed self.

And a quick note for the almost unnaturally adorable Kristen Bell: I’m totally down for a spontaneous marriage. Just, you know, say the word.

Continuing my penchant for a complete lack of transitional material between completely unrelated subjects, I’ve gone on record with my views on Half-Life 2. And Half-Life: Episode 1 is receiving critical praise that can be considered in the same ballpark. And I still maintain my general feeling of meh about the game. Though, I will give it the fact that it is extremely pretty (especially this shot). I was going to write some kind of positively ground-shattering review where the experience in HL2: Episode 1 made me completely rethink my pessimism in terms of both the general HL2 experience and the idea of episodic gaming… But that’s simply not going to happen. Between that and SiN, I’ll gladly take my “Get Out of Trend” free card on episodic gaming like these examples handle. As far as I’m concerned, MMORPGs are the only games that should have something like this (and, even then, it’d have to be pretty extreme to be outside the subscription fees).

As a final note before I head out, I should have Chapter 5 of the book done sometime this weekend. The main plot of the thing is done, I just need to get some unnecessarily emo music going, dwell on the idea of losing a beloved wife, and write the flashback segment of the chapter. That shouldn’t be as fun and exciting a prospect as it actually is. Us writers. We’re just silly folk.

Oh, and Abby for the win. No joke.

Prepare for melodrama.

I’m going to go ahead and violate so many of my own site-writing rules at once that, in fact, I may never be able to write again just out of the shame of my own writing infidelities. But, currently, I think this is something that needs to be done. Some people, when bad events occur, hole up in their living room with a bottle of ice cream and watch depressing movies. Some go on murderous rampages. I write a lengthy treatise on why I am the way I am in a romantic sense. Some people juggle geese.

For about the last month and a half, I have been doing my part to attract, woo if I may, a young member of the womanfolk crowd. We met in one of my creative writing classes, and eventually used the good ‘ol college-stalking network known as Facebook to accumulate knowledge of each other through ridiculously lengthy e-mails which, by the time they had come to a close, had exceeded a solid 12,000 words. Then the logical advancement to instant-messenging was made, and more talking commenced. Eventually a date for breakfast was set, and things went well. A week later, and the jump into a committed relationship was made. And a bit less than two weeks later, the committed relationship was ended. By none other than me. This seems like the necessary amount of summary for me to delve into the bulk of this post: me. Because I’m my own favorite subject to talk about.

Actually, that’s a lie, but that’s neither here nor there.

To be totally honest, I’ve done a fairly good job of staying outside the dating pool throughout my time in college. I knew enough of my own tumultuous high school relationship to know that the best way for me to get into a relationship is to not be in one. So… I haven’t. Whether this is for the lack of womenthings that I’d actually want to get into a relationship with or entirely of my own design I don’t know. Either way, I simply hadn’t even thought about a relationship (dating, yes, but not a relationship) in a long time. Though with this girl, English Girl as she had been so affectionately nicknamed by me and mine, I thought I honestly could get into a long-lasting relationship (which seemed — and is — what she wanted) without having to worry about my own skittishness which I had become so familiar with over the course of my life.

Here’s generally how it goes: the first week is awesome. If something goes wrong in the first week, then I generally bail without a second’s thought, because things shouldn’t be that complicated that early on. By the time the second-third weeks occur, though, I become ridden with doubt about what I’m doing in a relationship. It doesn’t matter with who, or what’s been happening, but whenever I get the glimpse that there might actually be a future in any given situation, I bolt like a frightened bunny at the sight of a lawnmower. Sometimes I can get over this without a problem… Though very rarely. I can’t even say I get the skittish way I am. I don’t think of myself as an immature person — well, except when it comes to relationships. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a general inclination to continue my fairly simple, uncomplicated, and fairly hermit-like (I use this very loosely; it’s not all that hermit-like, though I don’t generally feel the need to fill my day with things to occupy me) daily routine. Add that with the knowledge that I get easily freaked out in relationships which seem to be moving a bit faster than I like (which generally means that they don’t lie stagnant in one position for a long length of time).

But, if I have to try and really find the root of this little self-destructive dilemma of mine, I’d say that it’s still because I believe in some weird kind of fantastical romance. I’m not a very emotional person, nor a very romantic one, but I do hold on to the thought that the “right” relationship will be one where the first month (or, preferably longer) simply go so well, so smoothly, and are simply so fun that there’s not even a need to think about anything too serious. I figure that when I’m in the “right” relationship, that all of my romantic oddities will simply disappear, and I’ll be left with only the feeling that everything about the situation is so right that when problems crop up, that I’ll actually want so desperately to work through. Whenever I end a relationship, I’m left with the lingering feeling that the whole “romantic idealism” is simply impossible and that I just let the next-best thing pass me by… Though when that little thought pipes up, I generally just crush under my emotional boot and then it remembers not to pipe up about romance ever again.

And then there’s also another issue I have. An issue which is probably far more applicable to the current situation; I don’t want to toot my own horn or anything, but the problem is that I’m too nice. When I get into a relationship, I should just be selfish and think about my own feelings for the interim period until, like, the two people in the relationship form some kind of shared consciousness together as they bask in the sunlight on a romantic horse ride along the shores of the coastal beaches in the Caribbean. But, instead, I worry just as much about how my own indeterminate actions — my “defeatist attitude” if I may — will affect the other person, rather than just focusing on my own feelings. This sounds like a fairly good trait to have, but I’ll be honest: it’s not. It basically means that my own fears and insecurities are amplified by the lack of certainty with how the other person will feel when (there’s no “if” in the thought process) I screw up. It’s a fairly vicious cycle.

I mean, I realize that no relationship will ever be a completely perfect fairy-tale caliber kind of thing. Though I do maintain the viewpoint that the beginnings of one — say the first month at the least — should be the “high” of a relationship. Things shouldn’t be difficult, but rather the interactions between the two people should feel perfectly natural and should be having the time of their lives… Or something.

Anyway, this has been entirely too much of an emo entry, and for that I do apologize. I did serve a bit of its therapeutic purpose, so I guess that’s a good thing. I think I’ll go drink a big helping of testosterone so I can become one of those guys who hits on the drunk womenfolk at parties/bars, proceeds to have a one-night stand, and then forget about them forever.

But, no joke, I know I’ll never be that guy.

Contrary to the name of this post, this really isn’t going to be focused on a pretty girl. There could be some overarching reasoning to my naming the post this, but I don’t plan on fleshing that reason out.

I’m probably going to be write less and less about my personal and “romantic” life, mostly because I’m just going to live a relatively confined existence for, at least, the next year or so. I’m pretty much just going to go about doing my own thing in school; as in, I’m going to focus a bit more on school itself, but primarily I’m just going to get by in classes, be friendly and such as usual, but I’m going to be a bit more myself.

You see, over the last two years, I’ve become a far more jaded and immoral person than I have ever been in the past, and I’m just not fond of that development. I want to be more like myself; I’m a nice and very moral person, but over the last couple of years I have simply gotten worn down by the people around me (not necessarily my friends or anything, but simply by the environment as a whole). To put it bluntly: I just don’t like the average college student. Maybe this has something to do with my particular school, and it’s trend towards a more snob-ish, elitist person, but overall I simply do not get into the “experimenting” phase of things. I know what I like, I know how I’m comfortable, and it’s not drinking myself into a coma, it’s not “hooking up” with that pretty girl across the room, it’s not smoking pot, it’s not “fooling around” with a girl while she’s away from her boyfriend, it’s not in a “friends with benefits” relationship, it’s not a guy looking to change himself to be funnier, and it’s not a guy looking to change himself to be more popular.

What I am is the nice, quiet guy that talks to people that talk to him. I’ve never been a terribly outgoing or confident person, I’ve always been more of a quiet person that opens up after someone else has made the initial line. Maybe this isn’t what I should be, but it’s not going to change either. If this means that I’m sitting by myself in my home on a Friday night playing a game in a darkened room listening to music, instead of drinking myself stupid at the shaking house on the corner with the volume-distorted music playing through poorly constructed speaker systems while a bunch of drunks have sex with each other on the dance floor, then cool. You can have your party, I’ll take my situation over that any day of the week.

And this isn’t me being an elitist, this isn’t me being jaded or apathetic. This is me choosing what I feel comfortable, not to mention happy, doing. It’s not like I’ll forgo any and all human contact in a desperate effort to be alone - far from it. I love being around people, as long as it’s in a situation I’m relatively comfortable with. The best memory I have of the previous year is me sitting on my bed, with about eleven other people in my room, just talking about random stuff until 4am in the morning (we spent about three hours simply talking, even though a number of people in the room may have disliked another).

Talking to a few people over the last week has really helped me realize that I don’t need to try and like people that I don’t feel comfortable with, that I don’t need to change myself. The kind of people I enjoy being with vary incredibly, but I am sick and tired of feeling like I should be more rebellious or meaner in order to fit in with people. And, to be honest, the times where I always have the most fun is when I can be myself. In fact, one of the the times this year where I felt most at-ease was when I was home with my family for Christmas break.

I also have no problem holding out for that special girl. I see no point in getting in a relationship with someone who I’m not completely attracted to. If that means that I spend the majority of my college, if not all, completely single, then so be it. I’m okay with that situation. I’ve had a lot of relationships up to this point in life, but of those, I can count with two, maybe three, fingers the number of those (the total number is above a dozen*(3/2), that’s all I really know anymore) that actually mattered. Outside of this set, I can think of only four other members of the opposite genre of human that had great potential, and of that set, I can only think of one (possibly two) instances where I’m positive the potential could be met. Does the reader realize just how many other failed possibilities that leaves?

To the four: good work on being you, I’m infinitely sorry things didn’t work out. To the two, one of which may know who she is, the other most likely not, you’re always in my mind. To the others: I’m just sorry.

Do I realize just how emo this all sounds? Yeah - yeah, I do. I don’t care though… And that’s the beauty of the whole thing.

And David Shaw is my newly adopted little brother.

Music
Best Tribute to One of the Two: Sugarcult - Pretty Girl (The Way)
Best Tribute to a Lost Summer: The Calling - Stigmatized
Best Epitaph for A Grey Sky Morning: New Found Glory - 3rd and Long
Best Sad Truth: Dan Bern - God Said No
Best Depressed Romance: Sister Hazel - Hopeless
Best Tripped-Out Depression: Zero 7 - In The Waiting
Best Reminder of a Greek Hermaphrodite’s Journey: Iron & Wine - On Your Wings
Best Ode to a Funeral/Shot in the Back: Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
Best Evidence of the Optimistic Continuity of Life: Off by One - Try

I’m on a roll with the romantic topics the last couple days, so I figure I might as well continue the streak. So here’s my story of what is, without question, the best date I ever had; though, to be honest, it wasn’t really a date. A date would imply that I went out somewhere with a girl, but instead I just went to this girl’s house with the premise of spending Memorial Day together.

Backstory: This girl and I had been “together” for what may have been fourth months at this point. We become an “official couple” a week or two before Valentine’s Day (only reason I remember this is because I went through hell trying to figure out what kind of Valentine’s Day gift a week or two relationship warranted), but we became interested in each other during our drama class, a class which I took about four of five times throughout High School, in the previous fall. We then spent more time together around February in a larger drama production which we practiced after school most days. Our first go-around of the “relationship” lasted about a month and a half, at which point she broke up with me to “save me grief.” I was more grieved by this action, so a week later we become “official” again. That lasted another month, then I broke it off for some reason or another. In the two or three weeks to follow, I dated a close friend for about two weeks, asked her to Prom (I was a junior), then dumped her about a week before Prom, got back together with the girl this story is about, and we went to Prom together. At Prom, we attempted a first kiss (yes, a first kiss had not happened up to this point) which kind of failed miserably due to bad timing on both parts; we then sang a few songs from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack together on the way home, I drove back home, and then we talked online for another three hours. Now fast-forward to Memorial Day (whenever the fuck that is).

The Story: I got to the girl’s house, and was all nervous as hell. I had never been there before, and had heard horror stories of tales that had occured under the roof of the place. This occured well before my addiction to a certain painkiller, so I didn’t exactly have any drugs to ease any of my obsessive-compulsive/anxiety disorder habits either. It was a dark time.

So, I got into the house, and aimlessly walked around talking to this girl, playing little games with her two younger sisters and her younger brother (the brother either disliked me or feared me, but the youngest sister and I got along very well). It was about an hour of uneasiness as I ambled around from room-to-room, trying to keep up with my girlfriend, and figure out what, exactly, my place was in this situation. I don’t think I ever did. Keep in mind I was here for about a total of six-seven hours.

Discussions came and went with various people, mostly my girlfriend’s family: her sisters, her mom, her dad, and the conversations I actually had with her were probably fewer than those I had with everyone else. It was a very weird, a very odd, and very uncomfortable night. We ate steak for dinner, and I’m not a huge fan of steak, personally, I think it’s good, but there’s so much fat on most steaks that it takes an inordinate amount of work to actually eat all the meat on a steak; I don’t mind working for my dinner, I do mind working to eat my dinner. Anyway, I cleaned the fucking thing right the hell up; chowing down the fat and all. By the time I was done, my plate was fucking clean. Then I looked around at the rest of the plates, and everyone had these massive piles of fat on the sides of their plate, and there was mine, clean as all day. Her father looked at me and asked me something along the lines of, Did you feed anything to the dogs?

I looked around, terrified, and meekly responded, “I, uh, a-ate it all, sir.”

He laughed at me, picked up his plate and walked away. I gave a quick glance at my girlfriend, who just laughed at me. It’s a good thing I had grown comfortable with the “I’m a dumbass” feeling over the years, or I may have been forced to hide in a corner somewhere.

More time was spent in uncomfortable, awkward conversations with parents and the like, until it was time for the bonfire. Now, apparently, the family saves shit all year for a Memorial Day bonfire, and they had a ton of stuff stacked in this firepit in their backyard. They exchanged talks of fire permits for the night, a topic that was relatively alien to me, since I lived way the hell out of town where we can pretty much do fuck-all without anyone every bugging us, so the idea was relatively interesting to me. Anyway, the father brought out this large, very dead, very dry tree, set it in the pit (amidst the large amount of other shit), and lit the thing. The whole thing caught fire faster than I could even comprehend, and I’m a pretty big fan of lighting shit on fire. It was beautiful. I just sat in the ground, with my arm around my girlfriend, her head leaning on my shoulder, and enjoyed the absolutely huge, mesmerizing flame which had warmed my entire front to an almost intolerable temperature.

Over time, the crowd dissipated, and eventually my girlfriend and I were left to ourselves as rain slowly started to fall from the midnight skies. We made our way under a nearby tree and enjoyed the fire from a distance. We talked about the night’s events, she continually laughed at my various screw-ups and oddities for a while, until we had our first real kiss (and more) under a tree, with a perfect bonfire warming us, while rain fell all around the tree above. It was truly one of the most perfect moments I’ve ever had in a relationship; it was really one of those kinds of moments you hope every day that you can have again with someone else. And, to be honest, I haven’t had anything close in the nearly three years since that night.

Though my relationship with that girl went rapidly downhill in the weeks to follow, but that’s just typical me right there.

I’m getting disowned by my shit connection to this Internet, so my ongoing addiction to Guild Wars is put on hold for the night, a sitution which makes me sad, and I feel wrong playing Painkiller on a set of pathetic headphones, so in a non-typical act, I plan to write a relatively “full” post about something. This is more of an exercise to keep me entertained rather than to appease whatever sense of being you hope to achieve by reading this. Don’t confuse that with apathy of any sort or type though - it’s more selfish than that.

I’m not sure why, but for some reason I’m feeling all romantic lately. This isn’t a new feeling for me by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a feeling that has become alien over the last year; I’ve just been on a kind of “dry streak” as far as my Endeavors With Women go. That doesn’t mean it’s been a completely inactive time, as I’ve definitely had a few “stints,” but they weren’t important, they were just kind of there. And, to be honest, I’m sick of stints, I’m just not that kind of guy. I’ve tried to figure out why I’m not a fan of the “friends with benefits,” “one-night stands,” etc. courses of action… Or, rather, I know why I’m not a fan of it, I’ve been trying to figure out why other people are so big on the non-commitment sex. I’ve gone that route (kind of, I don’t really get into these kinds of details in such a public forum), and I always leave with a feeling similar to the one I get when I eat Wendy’s or McDonald’s - it did the job, but it sure as fuck doesn’t feel good.

I like the commitment thing, I actually do like it. I enjoy the chase it takes to get there, I enjoy the process of keeping it up, and… well, I don’t really enjoy the end to the process even if my track record with relationships would beg to differ. The idea that at the end of the day, there’s someone always, or almost always, there to talk to, or simply chill with, is a fantastic feeling. A feeling I haven’t had since I left High School and if current trends in my dating pattern kee up, a feeling that may not be harbored again for a while.

Throughout the year, I was relatively okay with being completely and utterly single; in fact, I’d say I did almost everything in my power to avoid a relationship. If I ever thought I might be interested in someone, I sabotaged the entire thing to ensure that stability in my uncommited status. It worked well, and throughout the year, I was fairly happy with the whole thing; however, about a month or so before school ended (which, for me, was eight days ago), things changed. I actually “found someone,” and I use this idea very loosely, that made me want to rethink my ideas on staying single. Hell, I didn’t even really know the girl, there was simply something about her which made me want to do something about it. As time went on, it wasn’t even the girl herself which was important to me, but the idea that there was someone out there, in one of my classes where I knew no one, that I was attracted to (even if it was in a very slight, simple way). And this made me realize something: I have become a really shy person since I came to school. I wanted to talk to the girl, I wanted to just start some conversation up, but as time went on, I just becoming more and more unsure about how to go about things. I’ve went from being relatively outgoing in High School to becoming someone who can’t initiate conversations with people I don’t know.

Though it’s summer now. I do so love summer, and I think this’ll be one hell of a summer. I’m taking classes, sure, but I’m staying in a new dorm, almost entirely new people (and, hell, somehow Mike is living there this summer too, which confuses the shit out of me), and a new outlook for myself. I figure this is as good as time as any to start becoming less shy/introverted, and more like the old me.

Though, mostly, right now I just want to get back on a decent schedule - Shower, Breakfast, Class, Running, Lifting, Shower, Homework/Dinner, Relaxation, Sleep - again. Being home is totally fucking me up.