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[Disclaimer to Patrick and/or any of The Guys: you know the rules. You don't read me talking about you unless you can handle me talking about you, accept it, and assume that I hold you in the highest regard.]
Instead of studying for the exam which I continue to put off studying for, I spent the weekend hanging out with The Guys. The Guys can be easily and quickly identified by the generic nature of their first names: Tom, John, Patrick, Will, Chad, Ben, Dan, and sometimes Brian. Add to these Patrick's family, Chris, Jane, and Mike, and you have me wondering whether top 20 names are a prerequisite to living in Richardson.
In any case, time with The Guys, (who actually belong to Patrick instead of me, although he lets me borrow them occasionally,) primarily consists of sci-fi movies, videogames, and RPGs, with the occasional board game thrown in for good measure. We are geeks, but the best sort of geeks who are otherwise socially well adjusted.
I'm going to restart this entry.
=========================================
Valancy's sister, Cath -- the same sister of "Armageddon Fat" fame -- at one time made a list of what she was looking for in a romantic partner. On the surface, this sounds silly and a bit middle-schoolish in the vein of keeping a "wedding book", but the way Cath did it was something else entirely. It gave her a sense of what she valued, and helped her to evaluate past and present relationships. The list was split up into three parts:
(1) Things that are absolutely neccessary, like trust and compassion. If anything on this list is missing, the relationship will fail.
(2) Things that are very important, but you might get away with having just 4 out of 5 -- things like wanting to live in the same place, or having a strong relationship with family.
(3) Things that seem like they shouldn't be important but are, like being a good dancer or enjoying a particular genre of movie.
The idea of this list has been knocking about in my head since it was first mentioned about a month ago. At the time, I was unable even to begin to assemble a list of my own, which bothered me -- people often undervalue the importance of knowing what you want. If you don't know what you want, how can you go about finding it?
I'm going to restart a second time.
=========================================
At![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hipgunslinger's behest, I have been working on an autobiography. At present, I am in the "cast of characters" section, and more specificially "people I've dated." So, being the econometrician I am, I've been constantly sifting them in my head, trying to discover the underlying patterns in order to work backwards to Cath's list and thus better understand myself. After discarding Chris Blacker as an outlier, [this is actually slightly unfair, because it would be more accurate to say that there is a bi-modal distribution. --Ed.] some trends pop out that I wouldn't have predicted.
The one that caught me the most off-guard was the following: I seem to place a high degree of importance on knowing about old cars. [Cue for Patrick: You can say "O shit" now.] Specifically, I like philosophically literate musicians who work on old cars and are fascinated by nature -- whether camping, astronomy, or the life sciences. The other things that are important to me include braggodocio coupled with humility, a physically powerful presence, acting ability, sense of humor, a background in sci-fi and gaming, the ability to scream, a deep loyalty to friends and family, and current or past participation in the early punk scene. The final neccessity is a volatile edge of unpredictability, which can be mistaken for insanity but is better-termed a disregard for societal authority.
I've just described Will, whom I happened to be sitting next to while all of this occurred to me in the middle of a D&D game.
We have just lost cabin pressure.
On the other side of me was Tom, whom I'd been dating for about a month and a half and had broken up with that very day, standing in the abandoned parking lot of a children's playground, because I knew there was something missing that I couldn't put my finger on (which also explains why The List has been on my mind). Tom is one of the finest people of my aquaintance, and I throroughly enjoy spending time with him, but I took my lack of emotional attachment to mean that being a couple was a bad idea. Being the top-shelf gentleman he is, Tom took this with grace and with dignity, but things will neccessarily be stilted for a few weeks.
Across from me was Patrick, my best friend, whose greatest fears are (1) that he is completely unloveable, and (2) that once he introduces his friends to each other, they will pair off, get married, and leave him in the dust.
Return your seats and tray tables to their full locked and upright positions.
The rest of The Guys filled out the circle, with Patrick's brother Chris popping in and out to grab DVDs. As for me, I was strung out on caffiene, alcohol, and sleep deprivation, and I had just discovered that the hole in my pants, (the pants I have fought so hard to save,) was reopening and would require further attention.
So I did the only sensible thing I could do: with a dawning sense of horror, I fell in love with Will. (One of the supreme ironies in my life is my refusal to believe in love in an instant and my recorded tendency to do just that.) The "dawning sense of horror" bit is important to note, because:
a) as far as I know, Will's indifferent to me
b) he lives several hours' drive away and does not strike me as the long-distance sort
c) I have no idea whether he already has a girlfriend, but I'll hedge my bets with a "yes"
d) I refuse to be the chick who just goes around the circle, dating everybody in a given friend group, and
e) friendship will always be more important to me than romance, and Patrick and Tom are my friends.
So basically, I feel as though I went through five breakups in one day: Tom, Will, and Patrick three times. (Once for him, and once for each of his friends.) It hurts. It hurts like a motherfucker. And perversely, it's the Will one that makes my heart twist in a cramping clenched fist, although he's the one that I've spent the least time with. At least this reassures me that the Tom breakup was the right thing to do.
Jesus. Will. Fucking Will, of all people. It's not fair.
This will never work.
Instead of studying for the exam which I continue to put off studying for, I spent the weekend hanging out with The Guys. The Guys can be easily and quickly identified by the generic nature of their first names: Tom, John, Patrick, Will, Chad, Ben, Dan, and sometimes Brian. Add to these Patrick's family, Chris, Jane, and Mike, and you have me wondering whether top 20 names are a prerequisite to living in Richardson.
In any case, time with The Guys, (who actually belong to Patrick instead of me, although he lets me borrow them occasionally,) primarily consists of sci-fi movies, videogames, and RPGs, with the occasional board game thrown in for good measure. We are geeks, but the best sort of geeks who are otherwise socially well adjusted.
I'm going to restart this entry.
=========================================
Valancy's sister, Cath -- the same sister of "Armageddon Fat" fame -- at one time made a list of what she was looking for in a romantic partner. On the surface, this sounds silly and a bit middle-schoolish in the vein of keeping a "wedding book", but the way Cath did it was something else entirely. It gave her a sense of what she valued, and helped her to evaluate past and present relationships. The list was split up into three parts:
(1) Things that are absolutely neccessary, like trust and compassion. If anything on this list is missing, the relationship will fail.
(2) Things that are very important, but you might get away with having just 4 out of 5 -- things like wanting to live in the same place, or having a strong relationship with family.
(3) Things that seem like they shouldn't be important but are, like being a good dancer or enjoying a particular genre of movie.
The idea of this list has been knocking about in my head since it was first mentioned about a month ago. At the time, I was unable even to begin to assemble a list of my own, which bothered me -- people often undervalue the importance of knowing what you want. If you don't know what you want, how can you go about finding it?
I'm going to restart a second time.
=========================================
At
hipgunslinger's behest, I have been working on an autobiography. At present, I am in the "cast of characters" section, and more specificially "people I've dated." So, being the econometrician I am, I've been constantly sifting them in my head, trying to discover the underlying patterns in order to work backwards to Cath's list and thus better understand myself. After discarding Chris Blacker as an outlier, [this is actually slightly unfair, because it would be more accurate to say that there is a bi-modal distribution. --Ed.] some trends pop out that I wouldn't have predicted.The one that caught me the most off-guard was the following: I seem to place a high degree of importance on knowing about old cars. [Cue for Patrick: You can say "O shit" now.] Specifically, I like philosophically literate musicians who work on old cars and are fascinated by nature -- whether camping, astronomy, or the life sciences. The other things that are important to me include braggodocio coupled with humility, a physically powerful presence, acting ability, sense of humor, a background in sci-fi and gaming, the ability to scream, a deep loyalty to friends and family, and current or past participation in the early punk scene. The final neccessity is a volatile edge of unpredictability, which can be mistaken for insanity but is better-termed a disregard for societal authority.
I've just described Will, whom I happened to be sitting next to while all of this occurred to me in the middle of a D&D game.
We have just lost cabin pressure.
On the other side of me was Tom, whom I'd been dating for about a month and a half and had broken up with that very day, standing in the abandoned parking lot of a children's playground, because I knew there was something missing that I couldn't put my finger on (which also explains why The List has been on my mind). Tom is one of the finest people of my aquaintance, and I throroughly enjoy spending time with him, but I took my lack of emotional attachment to mean that being a couple was a bad idea. Being the top-shelf gentleman he is, Tom took this with grace and with dignity, but things will neccessarily be stilted for a few weeks.
Across from me was Patrick, my best friend, whose greatest fears are (1) that he is completely unloveable, and (2) that once he introduces his friends to each other, they will pair off, get married, and leave him in the dust.
Return your seats and tray tables to their full locked and upright positions.
The rest of The Guys filled out the circle, with Patrick's brother Chris popping in and out to grab DVDs. As for me, I was strung out on caffiene, alcohol, and sleep deprivation, and I had just discovered that the hole in my pants, (the pants I have fought so hard to save,) was reopening and would require further attention.
So I did the only sensible thing I could do: with a dawning sense of horror, I fell in love with Will. (One of the supreme ironies in my life is my refusal to believe in love in an instant and my recorded tendency to do just that.) The "dawning sense of horror" bit is important to note, because:
a) as far as I know, Will's indifferent to me
b) he lives several hours' drive away and does not strike me as the long-distance sort
c) I have no idea whether he already has a girlfriend, but I'll hedge my bets with a "yes"
d) I refuse to be the chick who just goes around the circle, dating everybody in a given friend group, and
e) friendship will always be more important to me than romance, and Patrick and Tom are my friends.
So basically, I feel as though I went through five breakups in one day: Tom, Will, and Patrick three times. (Once for him, and once for each of his friends.) It hurts. It hurts like a motherfucker. And perversely, it's the Will one that makes my heart twist in a cramping clenched fist, although he's the one that I've spent the least time with. At least this reassures me that the Tom breakup was the right thing to do.
Jesus. Will. Fucking Will, of all people. It's not fair.
This will never work.
