Women

I was showing one of our rare, and therefore incredibly wonderful, sound booth volunteers several blogs Sunday. We sawe Jose's and Rob's blogs, and then I showed him mine. "This is my blog. I mostly complain about women."

This is, to a large extent true. I don't mean it to be, it just is. And I'm sure there are plenty of women who have felt the same way about guys, so hopefully they can understand where I come from.

Only a few people are afraid of being alone for the rest of their lives at 27, or so High Fidelity informs me. I am one of those people. So, fear turns into the ultra-unattractive duo of neediness and desperation. Because I don't want these to be the defining characteristics of my interpersonal relations, I avoid much human contact.

In another time, I was invited by a girl as part of a group of people to go ice skating. I managed to utterly screw up the directions, and left horribly late, in part because I was trying to carpool some other people. We ended up in the middle of nowhere, probably several miles if not more from the intended destination. As I tried motivating the people I went with to get moving so we could leave, they encouraged me to go by myself. If I could do it over, I would have. But I was nervous. I didn't know her all that well, and I sought the safety of the people I knew. This is easily in my top 5 regrets of all time, alongside not trying to play football in high school and not pursuing engineering in college (much as I like economics, the job prospects are much harder to come by).

It's these sorts of things that haunt me. Blown chances, missed opportunities. It's like flying in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book, not recent movie): you have to be able to throw yourself at the ground, and miss. The trouble is, this is very difficult to do. I succeed at the throwing myself at the grund part, but in the crucial moment, I remember. I remember, seemingly in one instant, every rejection that came before. And so, instead of missing the ground and engaging in the perfectly normal conversation I might otherwise be able to have, I hit the ground, usually imitating a fish (opening and closing my mouth with the occasional bubble coming out).

In a previous post, Jose empathized with the observation that to a nice guy's dismay, women seem to fall for jerks. The veracity of this aside, I think it's like in Father of the Bride: at first you're worried she'll meet the wrong guy. Then, you're worried she'll meet the right guy.

I'm tired. I'm tired of chasing after things I can't have. I'm tired of waking up depressed because I saw her, or heard her voice in my dream; a simple "Hi Dave" in my head that is rarely duplicated in reality. I'm tired of the whole package. I don't want to have my heart stop in my chest when I see her. I don't want to instantly flash into jealousy when another guy mentions her. I don't want to think about her at all. I want to forget her utterly, totally, and completely.

And I don't want to lose her - not (and I'll thank you for not pointing out the contradiction) that she's in any way "mine" to lose.

Hear that thumping? That's me beating my head against the wall. I figure, someday I'll knock out enough brain cells to forget all this nonsense. Hopefully I'll retain enough to not drool on myself, or enough to not care about that, either.