Generally, I like to think that I have a good perspective on life. (Nate speak translated: I laugh at a lot of shit I just don't understand. I'm not overly bright, so you'll find me laughing quite a bit) I try to keep an open mind, I try to shut up more often than not, and I try to listen. (This lesson is still being taught and still being learned. I respond best with the threat of physical violence. And duct tape to the mouth. Or taking away my game controller) I try not letting myself get too high or too low and try to keep on moving on with my life instead of wallowing in the minutia that life sometimes presents.
I don't know how or when, but I think I lost perspective. I think it was just a gradual decline. You don't notice minute changes daily, they just kind of creep up on you. But gradually the little things add up and shift your perspective of normality from something completely different than what it was. (Like porn and women. I used to respect women. And then I watched porn. And slowly, but gradually, my high regard for women morphed into viewing them solely as objects of sexual conquest (Jokes!).
So I really tried to maintain what I thought to be a healthy, objective distance to this whole online dating thing. I approached it with about as much humor as I could muster, laughed off the rejections and unanswered emails and kept on mowing through profile after profile, hoping to find the girl out of the match.com commercials that is attractive and equally attracted to the guy that she's with, that laughs at his jokes and such. I kept on sending email after email. It became like a job, an obsession; I enveloped myself in this world on winks and emails, profile views. And I kind of lost it. Perspective that is.
As an adult (which I barely am), your personal shortcomings sneak up with you and surprise you, kind of like how zits still pop up from time to time, even though you were assured in the sex ed classes when talking about puberty that they said that acne would go away with adulthood (those fucking liars). Being on match, its made me realize that I was lonely, dangerously so, that I was willing to put my life on hold and live in this artificial world that online dating had become to me.
I don't know. It's just fun to sit there and look and pretend (yes, I use the word pretend. I realize that this world is fictional. I'm not that delusional.) and let your imagination wander. Its easy to get lost in the possibilities - its easy to get stuck in the trap of complacency, thinking that you are moving, when all you're doing is going through the motion.
And then something jars your world back into focus. And its usually as pleasant a splash of cold water when you're really, really hungover. Or an unexpected, swift kick to the nuts.
Yeah. I don't really know where I'm going with this blog post. They usually just write themselves, but right now, I wish I didn't feel so run down. I should stop taking shit so personally.
Heh.
