The Doogster

Ya know, Doogie Howser (the MD.) used to type into a diary at the end of every show. How dumb is that? What moron wastes their time typing the events of their life into a diary? ...

ANYhoo, it's nice to be dating a girl who is willing to be patient for me and to even "take a step back" to a previous way of doing things. Without being too detail oriented (a gentleman never tells), we had progressed forward to a point that I wasn't ready to be at, and after much agonizing over the "why" I wasn't ready to be there, I decided it didn't really matter why. I just wasn't. And, rather than blow the whole thing out of proportion (thanks to a great friend for helping keep my senses in line), I just talked to her about what I was feeling, said I wasn't ready to be at the level we'd just danced on, and she was cool with it (at least she said she was. I haven't been dating her long enough to know if she was just saying that, but I've been uber-honest with everything with her so far, so I'd like to think it's reciprocated.) All that being said, I do not recommend a passionate imbrace the day you get your braces adjusted. Just thought I'd warn you. Have a good night.

What the world needs now?

You know, around the time I turned 25 (which was only a few months ago), I finally came to enjoy being single for the first time in my life. I mean enjoy it. I loved it. And I was totally ready to never need, nor perhaps even want, a "significant other" with whom to spend the rest of my life. I knew the things I wanted to do, the man I wanted to become, and I figured that the possibility of finding someone who wanted similar enough things to simply come along for the ride without trying to change the destination was slim to none. That didn't bother me; I was happy with who I was, happy being single.

Then I met this girl. Now, I haven't been seeing her for all that long, but we have a pretty good time together. I feel like I can be myself around her, and that's okay. And, from my experience, that's a rarity in this world. But, for all the reasons I had to be single, I did my best to keep my distance. First I told her that we should just be friends, but I liked her, and being just friends seemed a silly things since there was clearly a mutual attraction. Then I tried to keep it casually dating, with the understanding that in a few years I'd be off to grad school, by myself, and so it wouldn't behoove us to get into any kind of relationship. And still I struggled with that. I liked spending time with this gal, and I felt like, despite my best efforts, a relationship was eventually in the cards.

Upon rereading a taoist book of mine (The Te of Piglet, the not-quite-as-good sequel to the Tao of Pooh), I realized that I was making one of the biggest mistakes that non-taoists normally make: I was making a problem out of something that wasn't a problem. I liked this girl. I liked spending time with her. She feels the same way. Why struggle against what seems to be a natural course of events at this point? I'll tell you why: because now that I've opened myself to the possibility that there may become something serious between her and I, I've launched past the point of just letting things be, and I've gotten panicked that I'll somehow screw it up. Within 24 hours I've shifted from fighting to keep out of a relationship, to now being worried that one won't manifest itself. I'm trying to tell myself it's not a big deal, but I'd be lying to deny the monstrous shift in my thinking these days after pulling that 180. So now I have to somehow shift back into the middle, with the "hey, whatever happens, happens" attitude. We'll see if I can pull that off.

Titles Hard

It's a lot easier for me to merely ramble along in my thoughts than it is to come up with a title for what my ramblings are going to be. Clearly.

I type here, yet again, spurred onward by the fact that I still have a few friends who actually read this thing. Which, in all honesty, makes me wonder about their utility. See, there are friends I don't get to talk to all that much anymore (one of whom dropped a line to say hi and offer sound council after the last posting) that to hang out with again would ordinarily necessitate some degree of catching up. But if I post my comings and goings here, then... there's not much catching up to be had. I mean, I can still catch up on their lives, but if I start to tell about something that'd happened to me recently, I'm bound to get "Oh yeah, I read that on your blog."

So should this be more of an airing of thoughts and feelings, rather than events? Should it stay an idealistic thought-stream without touching on the occurances of my life? That would be difficult, I think, because my thoughts are more or less formulated in response to events in my life. So I suppose I'll just take my chances.

Not especially much to say tonight, I suppose, except that I must say being single is very underrated. It is, quite possibly, the best way to be. And my only real complaint about it is that although I have no intentions of being tied down, I neither have any intentions of swearing off women. I will casually date for an unspecified period of time, and my concern is that opens the possibility that I'll hurt someone in them getting more attached than I care to be. That's actually become less of a concern the more I've lived with this way of thinking. As far as I'm concerned, as long as I'm up front and honest about wanting nothing more than to have fun with someone, and am perfectly clear that the odds of a relationship are damn close to none, at least within the next few years, then I'm not going to worry. I'm not going to live my life in fear of hurting someone, because I'd never get to do anything. I will date different girls, I will spend time with different girls, and if anything physical happens, well, I won't turn it away, but I don't particularly care one way or the other. That's not all that important to me. But if any of those girls get hurt, it is their own fault for getting too close when I specified ahead of time that a relationship couldn't happen. I have my reasons for that; lengthy, a bit, but main one is that when I go off to grad school in a few years, I'm going by myself. No doubt, no chance of anyone coming with me. I want that time in my life to live on my own, to face my own fears by myself, so that when I am done, I will have the confidence and the courage to embrace life anew and without hesitation. And I think that's a good reason, and any girl that I would want to date is one who would understand and respect that. So if they forget it, or ignore it, and think there's some exclusivity that there isn't? It may be harsh, but that's their problem. I have no qualms about being friends with a woman. If there's the chance of them getting too attached, I'd rather them address it up front and I'd be more than happy to keep things soley on a friend level.

On a side note, to the lovely lady who, in all honesty, spurred tonight's posting simply by demonstrating an interest in reading it, we most definitely need to go to the depot and hang out again. It has been entirely too long. That said, I bid everyone good night with a quote, funnily enough, from a video game. I'm hoping to make it something of a personal mantra:

"You don't need a reason to help people."

My flaw(s)

Oh yeah; I recently brought a major flaw of myself to light, and it's one I'm hoping to correct and eradicate. No, I don't mean my inability to pick meaningful titles. It involves the way I treat my friends. I did a good deal of soul searching after my last post about how long I'm supposed to put up with certain complaints, and I came to a disheartening realization.

Whether I am correct or not, I at least consider myself to be wise. Not in the sense that I know everything, because I certainly don't really know very much that can be learned in books. But I know it in the socratic "I only know that I know nothing" sense (which Socrates pointed out is something most people don't know, so they aren't even that wise), but also in the common-sense "this burned me the last time I touched it so I won't touch it again" sense. That feeling of self-wisdom has led to an arrogance of sorts, unfortunately. And that arrogance, coupled with legitimate concern for my friends and the feeling that I should always offer them advice, led me to forget that they are their own people. After offering my advice, which I felt would be the best way to make them happy (or at least the least unhappy), I was bitter if they didn't take it. I felt like my thoughts were disregarded simply so another bad decision could be made. And I had completely forgotten that they are their own people, entitled to make their own choices, and that I must respect them, even if I don't agree with them. Their choices, their lives, their dreams, are no less valid of my own, and it was wrong of me to forget that. I've apologized to most of those who've been directly affected by this error in my thinking, but let's consider this posting to be a blanket posting to those I may have missed. Good night.