Lots of posts lately. I guess that's just the way it is sometimes.

Good things I have accomplished today:
Really cleaned my room
Did the apartment dishes
Cleaned out my car (found Mary's sunglasses, they were tucked way underneath the seats behind some papers)
Had breakfast at Harold Waite's while reading some Donald Miller
Picked up some guitar stuff at Holze's Music Co.

And to think, this is about the time of day I've been getting up for the past three weeks, and already I've gotten this much stuff done. Every single time I finally fix my sleeping hours, this is exactly what happens. So why don't I do it quicker? Excellent question. I don't think I'll ever know the answer.

So on Sunday I wrote a lengthy entry that contained a few paragrpahs of purposely vague material. I'm feeling a little less inhibited about opening up right now, given current circumstances, and so I'm going to clarify as best I can. If you didn't read Sunday's entry, this might not make much sense.

I know myself to have a very stark, pronounced, and unabashed fear of accidentally ending up with the wrong person. I know full well that this is not something that is anywhere near unique to me, but that doesn't make it any less real. A problem that many people share doesn't cease to be a problem simply because it is a common one; it just becomes easier to ignore or shrug off. This translates, roughly, into a fear of commitment. After all, if I never commit to anyone, then I can't commit to the wrong person, can I? Safety in loneliness would be a simple way to say it, but obviously it's not as simple as all that. Who wants to be lonely? Not me. So this is a thought process that doesn't make sense. Still, in spite of that, and the fact that I know full well that it is completely retarted, my fear continues to allow me to feel safe.

So, in light of this fear, any time I start to get comfortable in a relationship, I try to convince myself that I'm not really all that into it. I become convinced that my comfort is really just a sign of apathy and boredom as opposed to contentedness. I tell myself, "You know, if this relationship were to end, I bet it wouldn't bother me. I'd be fine, probably trying to chase some other girl in a few days." This is reprehensible. Not just the thought process, but the fact that I do it every single time and the fact that I am always lying to myself. It is, as of this writing, impossible for me to admit that I actually just like the girl and just happen to feel comfortable around her because she's easy to be around. And so, because I am incapable of being comfortable, I decide to make things uncomfortable.

Anyone I've dated for more than a couple of months since coming to college can tell you approximately when this happened, even if they didn't know it was happening. Why do they know this? Because this is when I start to pick fights. I do things that are irritating and pretend not to know how irritating they are. I pretend to be irritable, and I am short with them. Like some elementary school crush or something, I antagonize them. Then I get to see them mad, pretend it's their fault, and when it's gone on for long enough I'll just throw up my hands in frustration and end the relationship. Problem solved, commitment avoided. It's a foolproof plan, acted out on an almost entirely subconcious level. Of course, within twenty-four hours after things end I realize what a bastard I've been and wish desperately that I could take it all back, but of course it's too late and the damage is done. The one time I called the girl the next day, she was crying her eyes out and I didn't have the heart to try to fix things; I felt horrible for making her feel that way, and I had no way of knowing I wouldn't do it again. I pretended that I had been trying to call somebody else and had dialed her number by mistake out of habit. Seriously, who does that? I mean, aside from evil people.

Aside: the greatest failure in my life, it seems, is the failure to figure out that unlike Photoshop, I have no "Apple-Z" buttons to push (that's "Control-Z" for you PC users; the "Undo last action" command). I never realize that I can't take things back until after I realize that I might want to. Solution: think before I speak. Problem: I've never been very good at that. Ask any of my teachers from high school.

Second aside: I'm not sure what I mean when I say "evil people." I guess I mean people that do stuff that all of us do, the stuff that hurts people, but they're not doing it subconciously because they're selfish, they do it on purpose because they're mean. I would also imagine that they don't feel bad about it afterwards. In this example, we'll say that's what it means. I reserve the right to change the term's meaning for future posts.


I don't know how, I don't know when, but this blog entry will come back to bite me in the face. When I write about relationships, they always do. So why am I going to post it?

I don't have a good answer for that. Anymore, I post on here because it's something that makes me feel good. Problems be damned, I like to write and this is my podium, so I'm going to keep writing.

Ashlea and I broke up, by the way.

Listening to - One Sweet World by Dave Matthews