Well, I had a girl tell me today that when she kissed me she pictured another guy's face, her ex-boyfriend's. That's a little disheartening. I guess I'll survive. I've been trying not to slip back into melacholy lately, but I'm beginning to feel like it. No. Fuck the self-pity. I know it will come, but I can stave it off for a minute. After we talked I felt kind of free. I'm wondering if I'm glad because I was afraid to get involved or if I'm just trying to be glad as a defense. It doesn't seem like that big a deal. I don't know her all that well. I guess it just sucks to have someone else chosen over me. I didn't want to wallow, but I can't help but think about the girls I've liked who've never returned the feeling and vice versa. It never seems to click.

So am I still friends with this girl? Yeah. I don't know whether not seeing her might be better, or if I care that much. Maybe I'm just in a sort of down mood. School's winding down. It may just be that time for me. I'd love to be friends with her, but I don't think that'll happen. The more I write right now, the more I feel like I don't really want to see her, which is bad because I also feel like she's someone I could be really good friends with.

I guess I feel like any hope for a relationship with her has been severed. I'm glad she told me what she was really thinking, but it also sucks. I don't think I could ever feel like I was first choice now, not that that'll ever be a problem. She might get back together with her boyfriend, or she may just graduate and live her life and I'll never hear of her again.

All this stuff really sucks because I feel like things have been severed, like I said before, but I wish they weren't. I have fantasies that we'll stay good friends and eventually end up together. To further the fantasy I think to myself that it's better to start as friends anyway, and that the situation now is fated so that we can do the friends thing first and then have a relationship. Even though she told me she's not into me, I can't help but create future scenarios where she is.

I feel like I've done this whole deal with rejection routine too many fucking times. It feels almost old and boring but there's still an appeal. Denied again. Then I get all these inquiries from people, my mom, my aunt, my brother, my dad, my friends: am I seeing anyone? And I stick with the "no, I'm just not interested in anyone right now," and I look like a homo or a loser and life continues.

Now I can think about all the other possibilities. I wasn't really into this particular girl; I just wanted to be into someone and at a cursory glance she appeared to fit the mold. I guess that's the only possibility. Give me a minute. I'll find another. Well here's more to the first argument. I lived in the same dorm with this girl for a whole year. If I really liked her I would have done something sooner. Of course I couldn't for a while. I had to respect the grace period after I broke up with that other girl. I didn't want a girlfriend for a long time. It was so great to be free. Maybe now I'm ready. Or then again, maybe it's been several months so now I'm looking too hard. That supports the first possibility.

Over the past couple days as this new girl occupied my thoughts, I didn't feel constrained by the fact that I was into her. I wanted to see her. I looked forward to it, and I didn't know why. I could point out things that were maybe a little awkward but I really wanted to see her anyway. It didn't matter if we talked or whatever, I just wanted to be with her. 'Course this may be slightly cutesy but I did want to just see her. That was the bottom line. Didn't matter what we did. I think. These thoughts could also just be ways to deepen my melancholy and pensiveness. If I wasn't that into her then I couldn't really be that upset if she wasn't into me.

It really sucks that she's into another guy. I think of how it could just be a time thing. She said that early in the year she was "mildly interested" in me. What a consolation! She also said I was a "cool guy," as she gave me a hug on her way out after wringing the last drop of caring and affection from my heart. I felt like getting humorous. Too bad you can't inflect writing. I'm sure it doesn't come off the way I wanted it to sound. O.K. back to the other guy thing. I guess I feel a little inadequate, not good-looking enough, or smooth enough, or appealing enough, whatever that quality is that makes men appealing. Maybe if she had pursued me when she was mildly interested she would be into me. But would that mean that she'd still be more into this other guy if she ever met him? She said sometimes she likes to be "passive." Why the fuck did she feel like being passive then? If all these other people feel like being passive then I never get a chance to be.

So now for a while I go back to no interest in other girls. I can't like someone else for a couple reasons. First, if I go and like someone else that means that this first girl didn't mean all that much to me, and I don't want that to be true. I guess it is true though. I hardly know her. It's funny that I talk like that about her, meaning that much to me. Reason two, I don't want to like someone else. It never works. It's never a good experience. Now's where I get to wallow. Although I guess I won't. It's just never a good experience.

Maybe this girl wouldn't have been a good experience either. She's saving me by pulling away now. That's sort of what I felt like this afternoon. That it was a good thing. I was free again, not that I'd ever really been chained, but my thoughts sort of had. I couldn't stop thinking about her. Not sexually, I would just try to picture her face and remember what she said, and think about what I wanted to say to her and search for hints to what she felt about me. Although sexually wouldn't have been bad either. She was definitely sexy. Somehow sexy just becomes sex though when the passion isn't there. I thought of her more innocently than sexually. Now though I feel like I'm not allowed to think of her at all, not allowed by myself. It's not a smart thing. I need to leave her alone in my mind. Give my brain a rest.

As I inevitably hope that she'll like me in the future, even though I don't know if it would mean anything to me then, I think about how I would show this letter to her and we could read it and talk about it together. It would be all cheesy. She could say, "Wow, that's how you felt about me. That's so sweet." I guess this is sort of a disclaimer. If she ever reads this, which she probably won't--actually it's a disclaimer and a piece for the time capsule. When she reads this she will say, no, I'm not thinking that, or you're a clown for writing all this and liking me after one date, or yeah, I am thinking that or whatever. This is my prophecy, my hope for fate. As I write this, so it will come true--I want to push some indifference on her, show her that I'm not
all that distraught. I knew she was going to read this, and since I did, none of this means anything because it's all a facade. I can't figure out whether I am distraught or not. I don't know if I liked her that much. How could I after such a short time? Is it just the feeling of rejection? That's pretty weak if it is. I guess I have a right to feel like this though. Whether I liked her that much or not, she didn't like me. That's the bottom line that's no fun to deal with.

Now I have to go on and be nice and friendly and pleasant and all that stuff. It's funny that if I wanted to talk to someone about this it would be her, but I can't really talk to her about this. I already did the talk thing with her, and it was good. But what's she supposed to do. She can't console me. Funny irony that the person I would want to talk to is the person I can't. I guess though I don't really have to talk to anyone. I can talk to myself, like I'm doing now.

It probably also sucks for her too. Maybe it doesn't, but I would think it would. I wouldn't want to tell someone I respected that I didn't like her and was stuck on some other girl. I wonder how much she's even thinking about it now. Probably a lot. I get the impression from our talk before that she did think about all this stuff. But I can't know what she's thinking. I told her I'd leave it up to her to come find me if she wants to hang out or do whatever. I wouldn't come find me if I were her. Or if she does come, I'll feel like it's out of an obligation, a courtesy. She's gracing me with her presence because I'm one of those poor losers, the mass of humanity that just doesn't get it, somehow we're out of sink, don't have the right stuff. And then I'll tell her that I'm thinking maybe she wants to do something out of obligation, and she'll say she's not. But it won't matter anyway because it'll be weird whatever we do. We can't do anything because I'll just sit there thinking I'm taking time out of her day when she'd want to be with her ex-boyfriend. Maybe she'll convince me, and we'll do something, and it will be weird and then after that we'll cut off communication. Until then I guess we have to try to be social.

It seems weird that I'm writing this to myself when all I think about is what she'd think if she read this. Most of this is stuff I'd want to say to her. Why don't I just write her a letter? I can't. I'm leaving her alone. That's the best thing. She can sort out her stuff while I get over her. Getting over people sucks because you don't want to. I don't really have a choice though.

The really funny thing is that after all this I sometimes think that if she did like me and we did go out then I wouldn't like her. I would find things that bothered me about her. I guess I'm stuck. I'm doomed to like girls who don't like me, or when they do to not like them. I wanted at least to find out whether I'd still like her if we went out. I won't know now though.

Maybe all this torment will make a good writer out of me. I could sell my experiences. Torment's not the right word. I just used it because it sounds pretentious and deep and poetic. That's not how I feel. I just feel bummed, but not even that bummed, which is what really sucks. If we had gone out for a while and then she bailed on me then I could be bummed. I haven't even learned the franchise to be bummed. So where does that leave me?

I was thinking I'd just go on thinking about her until I ran into another girl who could walk away with my thoughts. That would suck though, like so much of this other stuff. I guess I just have to try to think of someone new. I'll create someone. This will be my first step into psychosis. I'll drive right on into my own brain, fold it in on itself. Create entertainment and my world to extinguish the outside.

Even that is just a fantasy. I know I'm sane, and that sucks. I have no escape. That seems to be the bottom line of all my stuff, no escape. So I need an escape and after all this time and all these years, I'm still looking. I already talked about the alcohol/drug thing somewhere else so I won't know. To solve the boredom thing, if that's even what it is, I've been thinking bungy jumping might be good. I need a jolt to the system.

Right about now this piece of writing is getting so long and boring that I won't want to read it. Maybe that's the key. Find ways to induce boredom and just embrace boredom. Maybe the problem is that I spend my time trying to escape boredom when I need to stare boredom in the eye and say, "Are you good with children?" After stuff like that I think there might be hope, that I could go insane. But I just laugh at myself, which brings me back to sanity.

I guess I've resolved now that the point of this writing is to keep writing stuff of such inconsequence that I couldn't ever read the whole thing, so boring that it's an extreme chore to make it even through a little way. This is my drug: this boredom, this thoughtlessness, my shot for escape. Even embracing boredom itself is an escape. Or maybe not. Maybe that is the only escape, but it wouldn't really be an escape then. Maybe I'll call it an answer.

I'm trying to string just the slightest thread of coherence through all these sentences so that what I've written couldn't be written by some automated gadget. How to be random enough to be boring and yet coherent enough not to be mindless? What silly games I play.

Well, this started as an epitaph. I guess I'll finish as such. Here lie the anticipation and rolling thoughts that engaged my mind when I thought there was hope. I'm putting them to rest. At least she'll always be perfect to me know because I never got to know her.