Thoughts on Patience

Have you ever had the strange sensation that the easiest place to convey what you're feeling is the void? The void being the written word, or in this electronic age, the internet? I feel like that often. I don't know why. I think I'm embarrassed to actually tell my friends what is really on my mind. Tonight, a friend asked me what my thoughts were. I told them I didn't know. I lied. In fact, I had many things on my mind. But for some reason, I didn't want to say them. I realized tonight, that I live my life in a state of about 85-95% happy. I have a fairly successful academic career, a few great friends, a growing number of normal friends, a great family, a great dog, activities I enjoy, Coca Cola, etc, etc, etc. I've always been a romantic. When I was a kid, me and the neighbor kid used to joke about having wives on our exploits into space, and junk like that. I grew up watching all these stupid romantic comedies, and got all these ideas of how I wanted my high school/college/early adult years to go. My own life has turned out quite different. And I mean, I consider myself a patient person. But sometimes, my patience leaves me, and I'm just left with longing. Right now I long for this girl who plays oboe. A girl I haven't even spoken 100 words to in my entire life. A person whose history I have no clue about, and who has no clue about who I am either. Save I have a really messed up photo on facebook and that I play trombone. And it just seems that this little thing will go the same way as Jenna, Shawna, Karleen, and all these other girls I've had delusions of wooing. It'll go nowhere. And I don't want that to happen, but I always seem to consistently do the same things wrong. Or not do the same things. The relationships between man and woman have to be one of the most confusing enigmas of this life. I've always sort of wanted love. And to a great extent, I've received it. But the sort I've wanted the most has always eluded me. And like I said before, I'm a patient guy. But sometimes, patience fails. Patience definitely failed me tonight, in the 10 seconds or so I was able to dance with Kathleen. She was so absolutely beautiful, and that beauty just made me want her more and more. That is so chauvinistic, holy crap. By saying I wanted her, I'm not talking about a sexual thing. I can't say I didn't think it in a selfish way, because I wanted to talk with her, wanted to spend time with her, purely to try and escape from my own sense of enduring loneliness. But it wasn't all about that. Jacob gave me a movie to watch, about two individuals who spend a night together in Vienna, and then end up leaving, sort of dangling the possibility of a very different life. It's very presumptuous and unfounded of me to say this, but I sort of feel that way with this girl. Those couple hours I sat across from her on the bus, I just felt so connected to her, even without speech. I mean, do you ever get the feeling that you are the one for someone? I realize this is such a stupid statement to make in my situation, a man with no previous relationships, who bases his ideas on romance from fictional stories between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. I don't really know where I'm going with this at all. Just trying to sort some emotions out, I guess. To sum it up, I always feel some small measure of loneliness stemming from my inability to either attract women, woo a woman, or just in general have someone to love in a romantic manner. And I wish i could somehow make it work with Kathleen, but it always seems that I'll go down the same unsuccessful road. And that really frightens me, because I don't want to spend life alone. Part of all this surely has something to do with a lot of my friends being in relationships, and sort of pressuring me to gain one. Like you can just go to Target and pick out a girl. Whatever. It's not something that comes in a box. That'd be nice, but not the case. No box could contain a woman as wonderful as Kathleen, or the ideal woman of any man. Time is necessary. For people like me, it's a lot of time. Yeah yeah, I'm sort of wallowing in self pity right now, but what do you do? In about 8 hours or so, I'll get up, get dressed, brush my teeth, and put on the same sort of patient optimism I've been carrying since I pretended to be Luke Skywalker as a child. Maybe, just maybe, it will turn out for the better. One of these days.