Choices

(Wrote this on Jan 6, while still back in Cali -- just found it on my laptop. Not sure why I wouldn't have just posted it right away... oh, yeah. I was in Sac and didn't have a connection.)

My life these days is full of transactional relationships. I don't remember deciding that's what I wanted. Nor do I remember making choices to that effect.

Yet, here I am, with contracts that launch, consume my life, then drift off. Relationships start and the girl disappears just as I'm most excited to see her.

I go out with an amazing girl that might just be capable of enjoying me instead of running from my tendency to be too nice, and she's leaving for six months next week.

I meet an almost-doctor, who is tall, funny, responsible, and a great kisser, but alas, outside situations block even the transactional intimacy we both wanted. (Yes, I got cock-blocked. By her friend, and, to a lesser extent, mine. Bleah!) And within the week we'll be back to our respective homes in states 1800 miles apart.

Every day we choose. Every day we move towards something, even if it's by inaction. I chose to be an undergrad. I chose to be financially independent. I even chose to invest in women who were poor mate choices.

But I don't remember choosing this. I started out with nothing consistent and sought out everything dependable -- everything in my life was based on the long term outlook.

And yet, here I am, with future income in question, with women who might come back and spend the summer with me, and with the perchance to dream about what might become. Or have been.

I don't know how I got here, but perhaps this is the result of choosing not to accept all those non-interesting women who I pushed away. Perhaps I'm choosing to see the merit of those women who can't be had because it (cough cliche cough*) is safe, drama free, and allowed to be perfect in my mind for as long as I let it.

Mmm. No. Fuck that. That Lauren felt emotionally amazing or that SBH and I had phenomenal chemistry has nothing to do with where they were in the world or contributed to the transactional nature of those relationships.

Maybe it's that all relationships are transactional until proven otherwise. Friends get close, share an extended period of time together, then drift apart. That is simply the experience of life. Women come into my life, and we have fun, possibly sprinkle in a little disappointment, and go on their way. Eventually, perhaps, like the real friends I have who remain my friends even across distance, in spite of changes in work affiliation, marriage, or residence, some woman will simply remain present long enough so that I'll forget what it was like when she wasn't there.

I don't like that, however. I don't like feeling like there is a limit to my ability to choose. I don't like the idea that it's not something I can seek out, something I can identify, or even achieve.

I don't want a woman to just be around "long enough". I want to choose someone and have her stay because we both want it.

Is that unrealistic?