blueswede

this is what i'm looking for

3:20 AM. I just got back from "Pirates of the Carribean," a
fun movie if there ever was one. Not brilliant cinema, but
definitely a good time. For whatever reason, I felt an urge
to write an entry. So here goes.

My roommate has rearranged the furniture on his side of the
room, effectively creating a large partition between us. It
does impose on the visual field a little, but I really don't
mind, since I gained some big-time space as a result. It's
interesting that he would take the time to do this, since he
still plans to move, but he gained from it to some extent as
well. I guess he got sick of my morning routine of getting
up and standing around in my underwear for a minute while I
figure out where I am and what day it is.

Apparently I'm receiving some award from the local Phi Beta
Kappa chapter, along with 19 other people in my class. It's
something for outstanding academic achievement last year, so
I guess it's legit for me, since I did do quite well. Truth
be told, I think I deserve an award more for surviving last
semester, considering both outside pressures and the sort of
shit I put myself through. But seriously, I'm really stoked
about this. It would seem that I'm on my way to joining Phi
Beta Kappa, which is something I've wanted since learning of
its existence. Imagine, an organization that actually bases
membership on whether you do well academically! It was most
definitely appealing back in high school, and it remains so
to this day. Just gotta keep going strong.

Socially, nothing's really changing except my outlook. For
whatever reason, I was thinking the other day about the same
old failed relationship that I griped about so much over the
spring and most of the summer. I've probably told this same
story fifty times, but for old times' sake, I'll run it once
more before I pack it in, most likely for good.

I knew this girl back in high school, though we were not at
all well-acquainted until senior year. For some reason, as
I got to know her, I found her increasingly attractive. But
sadly, due to her parents' views, we were unable to date or
anything like that, though we finally did go to this guitar
recital for which I had free tickets. Anyway, we decided to
keep in touch, and if things changed, we would see where we
stood, and progress. It was all well and good.

So then we lost contact over the summer and through the fall
semester, especially being at different colleges. Then, one
fateful day, I decided to look her up and call her, restore
contact if nothing else, since I knew it would bug me until
the end of days if I didn't get some closure. Well, she was
ostensibly happy to hear from me, and had nothing other than
"I've been really busy" as the reason behind her failure to
communicate. So we had dinner together on the one night of
our breaks which overlapped, and I found out that, contrary
to her parents' wishes, she was seeing somebody.

It really hit hard. What had really happened between us to
cause the breakdown in communication? What role did I play
in the failure of our relationship? What did this other guy
have that I didn't? And on top of all the unanswered (maybe
even unanswerable) questions, I was faced with the knowledge
that I had devoted 25% of my time and energy over the course
of four years to attempting to impress women, and had gotten
nowhere in the end. The equivalent of a year, pissed away.

At the time, I was in therapy to help deal with some of the
stress from computer science and my various failures in life
(as I perceived them at the time). This whole mess took all
that shit, added a new pile to it, and multiplied the whole
load by about ten. Things got progressively worse as weeks
passed and my workload increased in direct proportion to my
drinking (which, for the record, was still not much even for
me). And it eventually culminated in a partial breakdown on
the night Daylight Time kicked in. I finally talked with my
father that night about the shit that had been getting to me
all this time, and what he had to say made things infinitely
easier to take. Following that, I got my shit together, did
well in CS after my string of screw-ups, and formulated the
Dave Improvement Plan for the summer.

And yet the situation with this girl still bothered me, and
threatened to screw me up over the summer. If there is one
thing I like to have, it's closure, and it was nowhere to be
found in that mess. To this day, I haven't heard back from
her since dinner that night in March.

Finally, though, I found out from a mutual friend (who, for
the record, had no knowledge of the events) that she'd been
pulling the same non-communication shit with pretty much all
of her friends from high school. So it became apparent that
there was more to the situation than met the eye, and maybe
my father was right after all: if I didn't know what I might
have done wrong, then I probably didn't do anything.

Anyway, the point is, when I was looking back on this mess,
I realized something. There was most likely some extremely
fucked-up shit going on with her life that led to everything
falling apart between us as it did. Given this, it is very
likely that my father was right, and I didn't fuck things up
as I thought I had.

But here's the important part: if things went as they seem,
then she wasn't lying when she reciprocated my fondness for
her. And that means that whatever we had between us, though
short-lived, was authentic and real.

Somehow, in the midst of all the shit happening here, and my
continued lack of success with women, that thought gives me
comfort. Even if I have no success now, and foresee none in
the near future, I know that I've experienced whatever it is
that I'm really looking for, at least to some extent.

And somehow, that makes everything all right.

This is Dave, signing off.