The Whereabouts of Loneliness

Mother Teresa (1910 - 1997)
The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.

I can still remember my third grade year at Hershey Elementary School. It may sound sick, but everyone made fun of me for little or no reason. Maybe it is that "separating the chaff from the wheat" tactic that grade school kids unconsciously do, or maybe they just did not have anything better to do. I was a new toy, and thus, I deserved some attention, whether it was good or bad. Of course, the fact that every other kid in my Class of 2001 belonged to a family that was filthy rich may have something to do with it, but either way, these were definitely the people who molded me into who I am.

At lunchtime in third grade, I usually sat with my brother and whoever else he would make friends with in his class. However, in fourth and fifth grade, my brother was in a different scheduled lunch period than I was. In short, I had no one to sit with. Everytime I would attempt to sit with someone, they would usually pick up their lunch and move away. Everyday at lunch for two years, I would sit alone and I hated every minute of it. It seemed as if everyone else would pick on me just because I was slightly different. If I had been black, they would have just whispered comments behind my back like "Weak fucking nigger." I know for a fact that they would do that to the few people in our school that were actually black and I always found that they were just cowards who were unable to speak their minds. However, I had a stutter and I was white, so for some reason, that made it okay for everyone to pick on me to my face.

As the years passed by, I gradually learned when I should speak and when I should not. Most of the time, I did not speak, or else I would receive a certain degree of backlash from people. However, my loneliness also affected me in other ways. My self-esteem went to shit; I remember dropping all of the sports that I was involved in until high school. I conformed to however people would make fun of me; if I was wearing white socks with blue stripes on them, I had to wear just plain white socks or else I would get picked on for the stripes. If I said something that they did not agree with, instant ridicule; I remember once saying that Sean Connery is a pretty good actor, but everyone else laughed at me because they chose more "popular" actors. It was always one thing after another.

In short, they were teaching me to hate myself.

Okay, reality check: once I got into middle school, I actually started getting friends who would look beyond my stutter and listen to what I was saying. Up until then, I was pretty much on my own. Much like how Shakespeare called jealousy a green-eyed monster, I think loneliness is a brown-eyed monster, and those two still eat away at me even today. Yeah, the friends I have help to ward off those monsters a bit, but they can only help so much. I need to take the next step.

My boy Tyler's webpage, February 17, 2003
i'm so ready to settle down, like long relationship type thing. its not even about 'getting some'. i've had my some...very good times. but i want something with more substance, something deeper. i need a connection. the belief and longing for the soulmate has returned...[sigh]...and so has the pain.

I will be perfectly honest: I have never met Tyler in real life. He is a good, online friend of mine, and if there was ever anything that he needed help with, I would not hesitate to give him a hand. If there was a man with a gun who had only one bullet and Tyler and I was his target, I would not hesitate to step in front of Tyler and take that bullet for him. Maybe that is because of the lack of self-esteem portion speaking in me makes me a bit suicidal, but I think that I would do that more because he is one of the better people I have ever met in my life and he has always tried to be a good friend to me. I ask that he stop calling me and other people "fag" even though it is done in a joking manner, and Tyler never calls his friends "fag" anymore. Simple as that.

Anyways, I mention Tyler's webpage and that quote because I have pretty much the same thoughts and feelings. Okay, two slight differences between Tyler and me in that statement: I am still a virgin, and Tyler is not; my pain has always been there. However, everything else is true. I want a relationship with a woman that is deeper than just sex. I want to be able to look into her eyes and lose myself in them. I want to be able to enjoy sitting down and watching an anime with her, knowing that she enjoys it just as much as I do. I want her to enjoy sleeping in on Sunday mornings with me, smooching every once in a while, holding each other, and enjoying the silence in between talks. I want to be able to argue with her every once in a while, but always know that I still love her and that our slight differences of opinion just make us love each other more because we are opening ourselves to each other. I want to be able to take that invisible mask off my face that goes by the name of "being a man," crying like a newborn baby about everything I could never find the tears for that deserved to be cried for, telling her things that I have never told myself let alone anyone else, and have her love me even more in the end. I want to hold her in my arms while she holds me in hers and know that the loneliness in my life has finally gone away.

I just want a soulmate. A ying to my yang.

By no means do I want perfection, but I will settle for something that is just a step below perfection. I want a real woman, not one of those fake Britney Spears chicks who have zero personality. Some people search for their idea of perfection for all of their lives, but people are anything but perfect. I just want someone to love who loves me back just as much, and while I am at it, I want to share our experiences of life together until the day we die.

Lance (My brother) just celebrated his 10-month anniversary with Amy (His girlfriend) by taking her out to a restaurant for Valentine's Day, but it almost feels as if his relationship is the antithesis of what I am looking for. Even though we are twin brothers, we share very different tastes. I can describe Amy in one word: vanilla. She is just a plain flavor, nothing special about it, easy to like but hard to love. My parents say that they are just keeping their relationship going because they both want sex, but I think it is more than that, and yet it is not very deep. Lance and Amy have about nothing in common that they can share with each other. My brother loves Xbox, but Amy hates it; my brother loves screwing around on computers, but Amy dislikes using computers extensively; my brother loves going out places and trying new things, but the furthest from home Amy has ever been is 200 miles, and she is one of the pickiest eaters I have ever seen. It is one thing after another. If Amy did not have college classes or work, she would sit at home most of the time and do nothing. Literally. Her only hobby is scrap booking, and she rarely does that. She reads books, but that is about the furthest extent of everything. Yeah, they are a good couple, but Lance is cookies and cream while Amy is still vanilla.

The reason why I say that Lance's relationship with Amy is the antithesis of what I am looking for is because there really is not a whole lot of chemistry. I think of a relationship, and I think of highs and lows, being able to do simple and complex things together, being able to laugh and enjoy the same things, being able to share one with the other and being honest even if the other does not like what was shared. Many words come to mind when I think of having an intimate relationship with a woman: trust, loyal, happy, flexibility, courtesy, sharing, love, and fun.

My first school crush was a girl named Callie MacArthur. I find that the timing of my crush and my arrival in Pennsylvania at a new school seemed weird, almost a cause-effect relationship. When my classes were attacking me, I somehow looked through the crowd and found that pretty girl that helped me through school subconsciously, a "bright light at the end of the tunnel." What is even more weird is the fact that I never talked to her the from elementary to high school. The last time I saw her, she still was as pretty as ever, a very smart woman, almost a bitch but just falling short of my definition of a bitch. I knew many guys who did not like her, but I think that was because of her attitude towards people in general; it was almost as if she was just passing through life and did not want anyone else to bother her. Even if I saw Callie today, I doubt I would ask her out simply because I would lose my words and I would stutter the whole time. I also doubt that she would be my soulmate simply because she is not the kind of woman I am looking for; I just could not see Callie as being the open, caring woman that I need in my life.

I still sometimes have dreams of those kids in elementary school making fun of me, the demons that will probably chase me to my death. I know that if one of them had ever tried making fun of me in high school, I would probably receive at least a 20-year sentence for first-degree murder. No one would look upon that "quiet, kind young man" quite the same after I used a common household object to slice the kid's jugular vein open or to bash his face until is becomes mush. However, I do know that finding my soulmate would calm those demons that will always haunt me.

I am the furthest thing from a Catholic, and yet, I cannot help but agree with Mother Teresa's words. True poverty does not lie within lack of wealth, but rather a lack of love and a wealth of loneliness.

A Monster called Jealousy

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Othello," Act 3 Scene 3
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

Last semester, I remember stepping into my communications class the first day and feeling that I would be doing better this semester. However, that would not be the case, for some things never do change. As apart of this communications class, we had to give a number of speeches ranging from topic to style. I can remember the first speech we had to give: all that was required was that we speak for a minute about anything. It was a simple pass-fail introductory speech, and I am sure that everyone walked up there feeling like a goof talking about their favorite television show or their dog. I went up to talk about an excellent book that I had read over the summer...

... only to stutter.

The professor referred me to the university's Office of Disability Resources and Services, saying that I should get papers from the department stating that I had a disability, and thus, would be allowed a time extension for my speeches. I figured that I did not want a repeat of the previous semester, and that by complying with his request, I would be able to get an easy grade in the class because I would only be graded on my speech itself and not the presentation portion.

After my first appointment with the "specialist" at DRS, I realized the horrible truth: there are professional assholes in this world. Now, realize that I went in there with an open-mind, hoping that they could possibly come up with a way to help me out with my stutter. The specialist's first solution: give me pills. In my book, pills are the easy way out of everything, and they only wanted to give me the quick fix, the demon (Referring back to my previous entry). I am lucky that stuttering cannot be fixed with just a bunch of pills, or else they would have been force-feeding that garbage down my throat. The reason why I say that the specialist is a professional asshole is because as soon as they realized that they could not solve my problem with just pills, they stopped looking for any solution and just decided to give me the papers saying that I was disabled. For someone who is in a position of authority where it is their job to care about finding solutions for disabled people, I found them incredibly lacking tact and patience. Yes, I realize that there may be plenty of other students in the University with problems that are on the same level or of greater importance than mine, but DRS did not even go that extra mile to try to help me with my stutter. Talk about pathetic. I guess dogs are too hard for some people to depict.

Let me just get one thing straight: I am not disabled. Being disabled denotes inoperative, broken, incapable, et cetera. I prefer the term handicapped, since that denotes the ability to function but slightly hindered. However, I do realize that some people take offense to the term handicapped but not to disabled, despite the obvious difference in meaning. The politically correct terms are differently abled, persons with disabilities, and handicapable, but talking about it in that fashion feels unnatural, or maybe just because (In English) the last word in a phrase tends to have the greatest meaning.

Here was my final speech for the class, done in any style we pleased:

You look out into the audience before beginning. No one is paying attention. A few people are sleeping; most are imitating masses of gelatin. "Typical 9am college class," you figure. As your speech rolls off your tongue in every stuttered fragment, you feel embarrassment. You feel stupid. You wish you were anywhere else.

You feel pathetic.

You are only reminded of how much you hate yourself. Hate yourself for a stutter that was never your fault. Hate yourself for putting up with years of torment as a child. Hate yourself for not being able to be treated as everyone else is.

All the time.

Fire minutes pass. Ten minutes pass. Your speech ends shortly after the 15 minute mark; your back dripping with sweat, your mouth dry as a desert. All from nervousness, a preordained fear of public speaking. Everyone else has a 5-7 minute limit. You have a 10-14 minute limit. You stand out like a marrigold amongst roses. You even went over your own time limit.

You still hate yourself.

You walk to your seat, anxiety shaking your bones. You sit down at your seat in silence. No questions, no applause. Your shirt sticks to your back like wet paper. Your seat quickly overheats, and your pants will become moist with sweat in a matter of seconds.

It happens every time.

You stare at your desk, whether it is cleared, or still possessing your damned speech; the sides have developed a soft curl from being in your sweaty palms for seconds. You might not be in front of the class anymore, but you feel eyes of contempt piercing the back of your head. You imagine those were 9mm rounds piercing the back of your head.

If this would be the rest of your life, would you want to live it?

The next person goes up. They are done in six minutes and change. They are showered with questions, almost unable to answer all of them because of the sheer variety. All eyes on the speaker. They look like an idiot, unable to coherently answer any questions longer than 10 words.

In Japanese, they would call this person baka.

You can think of a 2-minute response, at minimum, for each question. This was not even your topic. However, there is an idiot talking, who probably has no background on anything they spoke about. You are not an idiot; you are frustrated. The person somehow gets through the barrage of questions, and go to sit down. They receive applause. Although the applause may not be for any sort of appreciation, it is a sign of recognition.

You feel left out.

The next person goes up. They rattle their speech off in perfect order, almost hitting the seven-minute mark. William Jennings Bryan would have looked like a fool next to this person. The subject is as bland as grits. You turn around to look at everyone.

All eyes on the speaker.

Your face develops a hint of red. Anger. Anger at people who have no manners. Anger at someone who got something you did not. Anger at yourself.

They make it through a downpour of questions. They go to sit down; if applause were rain, they would have received a monsoon before taking two steps.

Class is over.

People get up to leave, even though there is another five minutes of class time left. You do so as well. Another act of trying to be normal. People begin to talk to other people. You have no one to talk to.

You are not normal.

You think of a word to describe a feeling that you push deep down inside of you.

Fury.

You are a quiet person. They sometimes call you kind only because you do not speak much, or they call you kind simply out of pity. You never vocalize because you do not wish to get the same response from everyone. You are an adult now. You got that response when you were a child. People were suppose to have grown up and matured. You find that statement to be just as true as telling yourself, "I am normal." They have only become older.

Jealousy is a monster that only grows.

Before leaving the classroom, you remind yourself that you have been labeled as "disabled." It is suppose to be an excuse.

It is only a burden.

I ended up with getting a C- in the class. It is so nice to know that I get embarrassed for a semester simply for a lousy grade and good, legitimate speeches. I guess the professor was just joking when he said that he would only grade me based upon my speech itself and not my presentation. Thanks a lot Professor Hugh P. Curnutt. I am pleased to be reminded that asshole student teachers like you always make people like me feel worse. Go fuck yourself.

The truth is, nothing has changed since I was little. Okay, that is a slight exaggeration; nothing has changed since I moved to Pennsylvania. When I lived in California, everyone treated me the same way they treated each other. I was just another kid, and to be honest, I enjoyed being just another kid. No "special" treatment from people because I had a speech impediment. I was never picked on for being different, and I loved it when it was that way.

In short, when I moved to Pennsylvania, I was forced with the harsh reality that I am different. Everytime I opened up my mouth and spoke to someone, they would give me that look. That look is a bit difficult to explain. As my philosophy professor once explained to our class: in the South, feelings of racism are overt, while in the North, feelings of racism are covert. I guess that is the best way to explain that look that I would usually receive. It was usually a poorly hidden look of disapproval, that somehow I had gone against the norm, and thus, did not deserve equal treatment that everyone else did. It is disgusting how some human beings treat members of their own species.

If I said that I was not jealous of everyone who lacked a stutter, I would be lying. Yeah, I know all of that bullshit about "playing the hand you were dealt," but it is a bit hard to play your hand while you are learning the game as it is being played. Of course, everyone else goes through the same thing in life, but it seems as if they were all dealt slightly better cards. They do not have to deal with looking like an idiot everytime they open up their mouths.

Shakespeare is right: jealousy is the green-eyed monster that mocks the meat it feeds upon. I guess the green-eyed monster and I are one in the same.

The Forever War

Robert Edward Lee (1807 - 1870)
It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.

I can remember a mere three weeks ago yelling obscenities out my fifth floor window of Bruce Hall at anti-war protesters marching down Forbes Avenue. While the snow fell lazily upon their heads, I felt almost betrayed by people for some strange reason. I may not be the biggest Bush supporter out there, but I felt that people were disrespecting the position of authority at the time, and that they were ignorant of past crimes committed by Saddam Hussein. And in some way, I felt that what the course that the United States was taking was definitely the best.

In those three weeks since that anti-war march, I began to feel more and more jaded by the position that my country was taking. Yeah, I still felt as if I should be supporting my country, but it was not taking the course of action that I wanted. I may not know all the facts, and the public at large probably never will know all of the facts behind why the Bush Administration is taking such a hardline policy towards Iraq and Saddam Hussein, but I do know one thing: going to war requires tact.

Dictionary.com's definition of tact is "acute sensitivity to what is proper and appropriate in dealing with others, including the ability to speak or act without offending." Like the boyfriend who slaps his girlfriend because she says "No" to consenting to sex, the Bush Administration is going too far when dealing with something of this magnitude. The same thing happened during the Vietnam War; the public kept saying that they did not their country to be involved in a war that was not theirs. Back then, the United States was fighting against the spread of communism; today, the United States is fighting against "rogue" and terrorist states.

As sick as it sounds, but this situation feels like it would be the downfall of the United States. When members of NATO and the United Nations Security Council decide that the United States, one of their staunchest allies in the past, has gone too far and that we need to be stopped, they will not go to war. Going to war against an enemy is probably one of the worst things you could do, because that allows others to take pity upon you and that also allows you to rebuild whatever was destroyed to the point that it can be the most advanced of its kind in the world. The same thing happened after World War II; the United States steel industry went sour and died out because Chinese steel was far cheaper and easier to manufacture. Rather than go to war, the nations of the world will turn their backs on the Unites States, and even though we would never do the same to them, they would do just that to protest the rights and wrongs that we have done in the past and present. When other nations turn their backs on the United States, longtime friendships come apart at the seams and others are strengthened, but it is only together that we will be able to go forward in the best way. I do not know who will be the next king of the hill, but I have a strong feeling that if we pursue on the course that we are currently taking, we will fall from that "precious" position of "most powerful nation in the world."

I realize that Saddam Hussein has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the past, but that is exactly when it all happened: in the past. By no means am I saying that we should automatically forgive him for what he has done, but rather, we should take a look at ourselves and realize what we were once doing. The United States' sheets sure are not clean. From the start of the thirteen British colonies to today, the United States has not stopped committing crimes against its own citizens and perceived "foreigners." The demise of Native American culture from the 1600s through the 1800s by use of genocide and relocation; the enslavement and extermination of now African-Americans from the early days of the colonies until the post-American Civil War days; the "moral reducing" bombings of World War II against Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and many other cities; the use of concentration camps against Japanese-American citizens during World War II. The United States has to come to grips with the legacy of blood that it is built upon; we are also guilty of past acts that would be called crimes against humanity, but do not forget that many other nations also have committed their fair share of crimes against humanity: Japan, China, Cambodia, Russia, France, and Germany just to name a few.

There is always a Western double standard that is used in the world and even in the United States, where "we" are allowed to do this but "they" cannot also do this. Racial profiling is a great example in the United States, a classic example of where only "they" can do this and so they must be blamed for something. Nevermind the fact that they may not have done anything to anyone because "they" do those things. It makes little sense to me, just like sexism. Even not very long ago, it was enacted that all male Muslim (U.S. translation: Arabic) emigrants to the United States were to be specifically checked out, kept under close watch, and entered into a database for future reference. Forget the fact that being Muslim is not dependent upon skin color; there are plenty of Catholic Arabics in the Middle East, but they are Muslim in the eyes of the United States government. This racial profiling of male Arabics is just based upon stereotypes, and I would not be surprised if all male Arabics were rounded up (Similar to the Japanese-Americans of World War II) and thrown into concentration camps "for the good of the nation." I wonder, but where does the checks and balances of Congress go when Bush decides to go to war. In some sick fashion, this nation was running away from the King of England about 225 years ago, and we eventually create our own king even though that was not the intention of the founding fathers of this country.

In the ancient Chinese philosophical treatise Han Feizi, the emperor asked a painter, "What are the hardest and easiest things to depict?" The artist replied, "Dogs and horses are difficult, demons and goblins are easy." By that, he meant that simple, unobtrusive things in our immediate environment--like dogs and horses--are hard to get right, while anyone can draw an eye-catching monster. War is a demon, not in any horrific sense, but rather that it is a quick fix to a rather complicated problem that does not solve anything in the long-term. The world needs to come to grips with itself and decide on how to make a dog and then go about doing it, whether it will take one year or a hundred years. Dogs are much more difficult to get right than demons, but dogs are much better than demons.

Sometime in the future, I will probably write another entry in this online journal regarding the outcome of this crisis facing the world. If the United States and the United Nations succeed in creating a dog to fix the outcome of Iraq, I guess Bush will have a much higher chance of re-election, and the United States may not fall from its perch ever so high. If the demon of war comes though, I am afraid of what may happen, for things may never be able to go back to what they were afterwards.

Although Robert E. Lee did not have to deal with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction, he knew the costs that war brings with it.

Chronicles of a College Guy

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
The difference between truth and fiction is: fiction has to make sense.

I got a call from Steve on Friday night, and he tells me to come on over to his place at Bouquet for the usual "party" (I say "party" because I consider parties to have loud music, dancing, and not just alcohol). I guess it would be more appropriate to just call it hanging out. Anyways, he calls me about 8PM, and after screwing around on the computer for a while, I got a shower and I go to head on over to Steve's place about 9PM.

I get into Steve's place to find the usual people plus a few extras. Steve hands me a mixed drink that no one had drank yet (Pretty tasty pineapple mix), and I get to talking to people who are hanging out. A few people are playing beer pong, so I watch that game and wait for a chance to join in. Steve was carrying his team (Which consisted of Andy and Steve), but they still lost because Andy cannot hold his liquor at all. Give him a few beers and he is gone for the rest of the night. Two guys I did not know were in the next game, so I was still stuck on the sidelines.

It was about this time that I find out that they had started drinking at 5PM. The Pabst and Labatt Blue that they had bought were pretty much gone by the time I had arrived, but I did manage to grab a Labatt before they all disappeared. I will admit that Pabst never has tasted very good at all, but Labatt made Pabst taste like rhino piss. It was not hard to beat down the competition, but Labatt is definitely some quality stuff. Basically, I was not going to be getting a chance at playing any beer pong that night.

Despite the fact that I had arrived a bit late to get even a buzz, a few people had been there for quite a while, and from those few, Dave and Lindsey had had enough to get drunk (Okay, more Dave than Lindsey). I nursed my Labatt for a while, chatting with people and watching the last game of beer pong get rocked by JD and his partner (I still forget the guy's name, even though I have seen him more than a dozen times). About 10:30PM, three girls came over, and I had never seen them before. Aileen, Julia, and Hailey seemed pretty nice and all, but no one really knew them. Chris was chatting it up with Aileen and Julia for a bit, but nothing serious (I am guessing that he is looking for a new girlfriend).

About a dozen of us were just chilling out, talking it up, and Julia suddenly runs off to the bathroom. Aileen apparently knew what was going on, because she followed Julia closely behind. They come back about ten minutes later, and it is obvious that Julia had been crying. I later learned that she had been crying because she saw Dave giving Lindsey all of the attention. Now, I will be up front and say that I do not know how to identify guys as attractive simply because I am not attracted to guys in any intimate way, and thus, I do not have particular features that I am looking for to define my own meaning of an "attractive guy," but from what I gather, Dave attracts the ladies.

The story is that, sometime during the previous weekend, Dave had gone to a party and had found Julia there completely plastered like it was her job. Sometime during their brief contact with each other, they messed around (Dave's words, so I do not know nor do I want to know the specifics) and Julia got it in her head that they had something going when that was not the case at all. It was a fling, but I guess Julia had never done anything like that (I was once in the same situation before, and I understand Julia’s plight to an extent). She expected a relationship, but was shown the reality of the situation when she saw the way that Dave and Lindsey had been acting towards each other.

Later on that night about 1AM, Steve went off to bed, Koop went out to see what was going on with Brooke (His quasi-girlfriend), Chris and Andy had gone home, Lindsey had left because of her official boyfriend, and I was left in Dave's room to just chill out some more. Whoever else had been there had already left, and the party was pretty much dead. I was watching some of David Chapelle's new show on Dave's computer while Dave was lying on his bed, and Dave asks me, "Eric, what should I do with these girls?" His question was so far off my perception of who Dave is that it definitely altered my perspective of him forever. Dave was not the kind of guy that asked other people for advice involving women.

I already said before that Lindsey had an official boyfriend, and Dave is sort of her unofficial boyfriend. Basically, Dave is in love with Lindsey, Lindsey's boyfriend is in love with Lindsey, and Lindsey herself is in love with both Dave and her boyfriend. This creates quite a difficult situation. In monogamous cultures such as the majority of the United States, we are taught to love one and only one person in an intimate way. However, I have trust in that both Dave and Lindsey are telling the truth and are simply not leading each other on.

Dave so desperately wants Lindsey to love him and only him, because she is the first woman in his life where he can be himself around her and not alter who he is. She sees Dave for himself, and not some altered "bettered" image of Dave, and I can truly respect that. However, even though she thinks of Dave whenever she is with her real boyfriend, she does not want to break up with her boyfriend. It is an awkward situation for both of them. Probably the one piece of information that made it much easier as to why she should just break up with her boyfriend is that she had only been going out with him for a few months longer than she had known Dave, and the simple fact that her boyfriend has absolutely nothing going for him.

I forget how Dave explained it, but it was something along the lines of how he keeps reaching for her, but he can only get so close and never any closer. I re-explained it to Dave in another fashion by relating it to those old Looney Tunes. In some episodes, there would be a character that would get a stick stuck to their back or head, it would hang over top their head, and there would be a piece of bait out in front of their head so that they would constantly run around trying to get it. The problem with this is that the harder the cartoon character runs, the bait is always right there to keep on running away from him as fast as he is running towards it. In essence, nothing is accomplished except that the character is exhausted from chasing something that he can never have, that is, unless they wise up and go about solving the problem in a different fashion other than being straightforward about it.

At the same time, Dave has two other women who are chasing him: Arleen and Julia. I already explained Julia's problem, but Arleen is entirely different. She is easily one of the hottest women on the entire campus at Pitt; however, she suffers from lack of self-esteem. No matter how many times you tell her that she is smart, beautiful, clever, could make a million dollars selling dirty water, or whatever, she will always think that she is not good enough. She thinks that Dave's rejection of her is because she is not good enough for him, and so, she gets depressed about situations very easily. My hypothesis: her parents did not hug her enough as a child, her parents hugged her too much as a child, or her parents beat her as a child. That may be oversimplifying things, but the general gist is formed: she is one screwed up cookie.

Dave wants Lindsey but does not want two other girls. I even told Dave myself, "Heh, I am jealous of your situation, but I am also happy that I am not in your shoes." I am jealous of the fact that I would probably enjoy having women chase after me, and then I could pick which one I wanted (I guess it is that whole American "shopping" mentality). However, I would not want to be in Dave's shoes because he has to make decisions that are going to affect people's lives and emotions, for better or for worse.

I think Dave and I talked for at least a good hour until we had down everything that needed to be accomplished: he needed to get rid of Arleen and Julia, and he needed to find a way to get Lindsey to become his real girlfriend so that they could stop messing around behind her boyfriend's back. Maybe they will find a compromise somewhere along the lines, or Dave will just be forced to live the rest of his life knowing that he could have had the perfect ying to his yang. I hope it is not the latter. Maybe the problem is more than just what it seems, a "what is not said is more important than what is said" situation. Whatever it is, a problem like this cannot keep going on.

I doubt that even Mark Twain could ever write such a story similar to Dave's situation; people would not believe it for a second, unless they knew it was real. Reality suffers from the standpoint that it does not have to make sense, only that reality continues onward without hesitation.

I still need a girlfriend.