Things have been become more clear lately. However, at the same time, and I hate to sound like a cliche, they are becoming harder to see. Things that have perplexed me greatly for quite some time are starting to reveal understanding. Even the idea of understanding is starting to make more sense. I think, for some reason, I’ve been looking for some sort of universal understanding of why things happen to me the way they do, and I’m beginning to understand that all I can get out of any of these events is my own understanding, in terms of myself. And this is slightly comforting.

On the relationship front, I feel sort of like I did back in high school, where I’d occasionally run into some potential relationships, but only to have them fail. I reckon this is the way it’s always supposed to work, it’s just damn taxing on me. However, I don’t think that this has anything to do with the fairer sex not making sense. They don’t make sense, but they’re not supposed to. I mean, when you think about it, relationships are pretty weird. How do you decide if you like someone enough to spend inordinate amounts of time with them? It’s a mix of many things, some of which can’t be defined in words. I will, however, give a brief description of the soup of “things.” First of all, there’s the obvious shit like how the girl physically appears, how she dresses, behaves, acts, interacts, and speaks. Then there’s the way you perceive her mind, i.e. how she thinks, what her plans are, how she perceives things relative to the way you do, etc. All these categories have many sub-categories. For instance, in way she interacts, you can look at not only how she interacts with you, but with people around her, and her environment. And it’s not a checklist, it’s some subjective perception where only you know who wins.

Now, given that a girl is a winner in these respects, it’s not over yet. She has find you to be a winner according to her undefined checklist. And then, maybe, if the timing is right, i.e. she’s ready, and you’re ready, and nobody is moving across the world, nobody is dying of a terminal disease, nobody is caught up in a terrible game of global diplomacy, then you get together. And then, if you were wrong about something, or something new pops up you don’t like, it slowly eats away at you until she is no longer a winner. And then you start over again.

This is the way it kind of works… unless you’re willing to settle. And then you’re just miserable. Like my mother always said “It’s better to be alone, than to wish you were alone.”