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Wow oh wow where did the time go, and oh what an experience has it been

HEALTH

Great. I've been consistently hitting the gym since my last update and noticed results all across the board. It's a commitment and definitely one which took me a long time to stick with, but once I began seeing results and taking my goals one step at a time, it became that much more tolerable. As the father of Taoism Lao-Tzu once said, "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step" - coming to this realization after a long time of quitting and retrying truly allows me to pursue long term goals much more thoroughly. It's one to take to heart. Who knows, maybe it'll allow me to update this blog consistently as planned!

MUSIC

As with my gym progress, I diligently picked up the guitar once more and have been avidly practicing for the past couple of months. Progress on this front is amusing.. You really don't notice a steady rate of improvement. One day I just sit down, play, and break through a glass ceiling - then i hit another. It really is all about consistency, and it's paid off in this department as well in spades.

ROMANCE

What a story. My mishaps with romance have been so grand the past two years that I truly believe I can write a powerful novel straight from experience. What truly amazes me about relationships are two things - what you want, and what you need.

You can sit down with yourself and write up exactly what you want in a significant other - what they might look like, their hobbies, personality, quirks, culture, religion, etc - but you know what? In the end all of that is worthless. Trying to tackle the emotional field with that of logic is simply impractical - for the difference between what a person wants and what a person needs is vastly inconsequential.

How do I mean? Well, let's take a look. Earlier in the year, I dated Laura for a period of 6 months. On paper, this woman is everything I could ask for. Tall, beautiful, very easy to relate to, shared the same sense of humor, same hobbies, and most importantly - I could be perfectly myself around her. This sounds perfect, almost like I found my future spouse. But hey, guess what? 6 months in, and I never felt that emotion. All that logic, it all made sense on paper, it's what I wanted. Clearly however, it's not what my mind and heart needed - I never fell in love with this woman. What pains me the most? She felt the way about me as I wished I could feel towards anybody, towards her. The resulting breakup hurt her terribly, and I felt horrible and guilty for staying with her that long. Most importantly I thought to myself... Why couldn't I fall in love with her? Nothing was missing...

And that brings us to my most recent endeavor. Gerrica.
I have never met anyone in my life as drastically different than me before as her, let alone someone I dated. She listened to Bright Eyes and Elliot Smith, I loved Metallica and Tiesto. She is a psychology major with a large interest in the arts, I'm a computer engineer with a love of technology. She found shock and cringe humor amazingly entertaining, I favored the humor of goofs like Dave Chapelle. She loved the limelight, I loved pulling strings from the background. So different, but yet, a familiar emotion began creeping up on me...

Yeah, I was falling for her. However, I suppressed that emotion. As impressive as the subconscious mind is, one aspect to never underestimate is the power of instinct and gut reaction. Throughout my time with this woman, I never felt the ability to truly trust her. I had to fight with myself to keep from falling for her, and what an exhausting fight that was. Over the time of our relationship, I always felt something was off - something was up. Was her gay best friend really gay? Did she truly love me like she claimed? Did she really need money that badly that months into our relationship she decided to strip? I couldn't be sure, and as such, I remained emotionally vigilant. What a payoff.

A period of four days go by with her phone off. I began to worry. I look up this gay best friend's number and give him a call. She's sleeping at his place. We talk. I introduce myself and mention she spoke a lot about him. I asked him if he was the gay best friend she'd always go on about. What a reply I got! 'Gay best friend? Absolutely not. I'm her boyfriend.'

Pow. I knew it. I knew something was up all along. He knew me as her coworker. They were together for 6 months... And I was the second man. Lesson? The gut, go with it. Always.

Believe it or not, my reaction wasn't as clear cut as expected. I had a morale dilemma. Dante Algieri once stated that "The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis." For those who cannot relate to religious context, MLK stated a similar quote, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." I didn't want to break the news to this guy, I wanted to discuss it with Gerrica on my own time. But I knew she would continue to see him, I knew that if I exposed her she would use every excuse and manipulative technique in the book to continue her scheme. It needed to end. What a surprise he had when I informed him of the truth.

So what happened after? Well, the next morning, we both dump her. She exchanges unpleasantness via text, blaming me for all that's happened - and threatening me as well. It's amazing how vividly a person can disassociate all personal fallacies from themselves and onto others. I sent a harsh rebuttal, stating only truth about her. I got no reply.

The 'gay best friend' texts me hours later. The woman attempted to take her own life.

Damn.

She gets out of the hospital and unleashes all sorts of nastiness towards me online - her false emotions towards me, racial remarks regarding my origin, and once more playing the blame game. Again, I send a rebuttal with the harsh truth. I'm blocked, and a harassment warning is issued on my facebook account. Hmm, classy.

Looking back, my harsh sentiments towards her may have best been left unsaid. She was defenseless where she stood, a sick puppy with fight left in her. But no, after all she put me through, I felt I had to have my final say. It amazes me really, how after what's happened, I still felt compassion and sympathy for her. Maybe my battle of emotional suppression was a failure. Maybe I did fall in love with her.

So, how do I rationalize this experience? Why did I have the capacity to fall in love with somebody so vastly different than me? Was it looks? No, in fact I believed Laura had that on her. So what was it? How can I rationalize not what I want, but what I need in another? My conclusion:

I'm Order, and I thrive for Chaos.

The search continues.