Doh!

Anyone who knows me is well aware of the trials and tribulations I've had with the ladies. I am never nor do I believe will I ever be a smooth guy. My flirtation runs in the vein of dipping one's pigtails in the inkwell or saying she's got problems. Then there's the "innocuous approach" where I start out as a friend and then get shot down because I'm such a great friend. I've had girls cry after I've kissed them, been told they were too busy to see me for an entire quarter, I'm really sweet and will make a girl happy, the works. Basically, I win.

Then all that changed. As of March 2004, I met the most wonderful girl and we have been dating for about 19 months (18 if you ask her).

I'll spare the details about any further mushy behavior. You people came here to read something insightful, funny, and.... uhm... why are you here?!

Yeah. So it's a two way street. Maybe I should have made my intentions clear from the start. Maybe I shouldn't have expected the girls to "get the point." Maybe I shouldn't have been such a nice guy that they wanted to have their cake and date another guy that totally didn't treat them right while still having a guy emotionally there for them.

Cheer up, emo kid!

I'm a little bitter. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. I hate the fact that I let those folks control my emotions and take energy, time, resources, and love from me yet never giving any back. It doesn't work that way because you give and give until finally you're husk, a shell of your former self. And I was there. I was that point where I was ready to hollow everything out just for the HOPE of a date. Cutting those connections were hard. Not the hardest, but pretty freaking tough all the same. Compared to other things I've been through they were small potatoes but that doesn't mean they hurt any less and that I am sitting calmly one day and get snapped into an old memory, out of the blue.

And then I run into someone, in person. Totally random, just they're there. They look a little different, slightly changed but deep in that exterior I see the face of someone I fell in love with so long ago. It's gone now but not without a little ache in a place long forgotten. By no means am I advocating to forget those come and gone, but I also worry that sometimes I'll get so mired in the past that I won't be able to move forward any more than I have now. It's especially hard now being out of school and not knowing what will come next. It's so easy to go back and look at the past and want to have that again in some way whether it is through seeing an old classmate or going back to high school. We've all done it, we all still do it. It sucks, it hurts, but it reminds me why I am where I am, and what I am to NEVER. EEEEEVER. DO. AGAIN.