test entry (freely ignore)

Shout out: Referer Testing

Shout out: Referer Testing

Lots of match.com activity

I'm no longer a paying member of match.com, but the sudden increase in feminine interest in the past 48 hours is striking.

I've been hit on 4 times just since last night.

Everybody wants a date for Valentine's Day. Sheesh. I wonder if it will be a slow day on the basketball court this Wednesday?

I guess I'll find out. :-)

Things I want to say to a woman someday

This is a fantasy, but it's good. If Churchill was right, that words in and of themselves are powerful; if Napoleon Hill was right, and that focus can effectuate reality, then this is... an expression of hope.

I love you. I love you for the person you are without me. You are strong, independent, ambitious, and proud. You stop to talk to bums on the street occasionally and have given your leftovers away to more than one of them. You simultaneously have the street smarts to know not to approach a group of them alone in your heels or hand out cash.

You can analyze logically, noting nuances in behavior that others miss. You can debate with me and like doing so just because. You debate with everyone a little bit, in fact.

Your hope and faith in the world, in humanity, and in yourself is infectious and without end. When I look at you -- just your being you, without any interactions with me -- I actually believe the world is a better place. I furthermore believe that I am a better man just because I get to associate with you.

You're genuinely nice to everyone. Sometimes I worry about your safety, it's true, despite how much faith I have in you, because you care so much about your fellow man that you might be taken advantage of someday. Your seemingly blind faith comes out in other ways, like forgetting your wallet when we go out, or not checking the pre-packaged salad at the grocery store for freshness.

I am special to you because I empower your hope. Because I am a doer, an achiever, and problem solver, together our kung fu is synergistic. You hope enough for the both of us, overcoming my cynicism, fear, and loneliness. I take that faith and literally move mountains with it. This starts with remembering things you forget, and includes things like organizing your goals into achievable chunks.

Metaphorically, you convince me I can fly. I go out and build a fucking airplane.

Aside from the worldly attributes, I love you for the way you look at me. You know my flaws (grumpy in the morning, impatient with nonsensical delays, fear of abandonment, need for regular reassurance) and embrace them, not as necessary evils, but because they're simply hurdles to jump. You didn't need the manual, but appreciate that I gave it to you (solutions: coffee, a pep talk driving focus away from tasks I cannot control, simply sticking around, and a longing look twice a day). You truly, really, knowingly, maturly appreciate me and I know it every time you touch me.

Every day I look at you, I think you more beautiful. I appreciate you more every time I watch you interacting with your surroundings. I do this because you're just so damn Good.

We look at each other and can't help but admire. You admire me for the things I work at and have been noticed for -- my ambition, brains, athleticism -- but even moreso for the things I'm not even aware of.

You're simultaneously humble about your own brilliant glow. You might think that I love you for your figure, for your wit, for busting my balls on a regular basis, for appreciating me, but I love you more because you, by example, show me, and everyone else, just how much good there really is in the world. You leave the world a better place every single day, and you don't even know it.

In your eyes, everyone does what you do, everyone helps their fellow man, everyone wants to explore and grow and learn and thrive. And loves.

And when I look at the world through your eyes, I believe it too.

We inspire each other. We create together. You are my best friend. You can give me butterflies anytime you want.

I am all of these things to you as well. I can make your heart smile by just winking at you.

We complete one another.

A "really smart guy" I've met

Shout out to fuery.com

A nod to the inner demons

I’m not a flaker, generally speaking. That is, one who flakes often. In fact, aside from the last couple of months, I can remember only a handful of times where I’ve flaked.

I’m often late – I purposefully say “ish” at the end of any given time frame whenever I can. But that’s not quite the same as full-on flaking.

Flaking like I’ve been doing. Flaking to the degree where you know you have an appointment, you are aware, alert, and more-or-less ready to handle it appropriately (whether that means calling someone, getting up and leaving the house, etc), and actively decide that you (a) don’t care about the person you’re meeting enough to even let them know, and (b) care so little about the consequences that whatever you happen to be presently doing is more important.

I’ve been a flaker the last couple of months. I’ve gotten up at a normal hour to go to work, for instance, had a meeting I was supposed to attend, and arbitrarily decided that whatever dream I was having was more important.

And then went back to bed without sending an email or telephoning.

Unprofessional, undependable, and occasionally even unethical. Certainly a sign of underlying malaise.

I’ve been doing it to girls, too. Not really wanting to go out with this person or that, I’ll make a tentative date and then not call to “firm up plans”. Or I’ll say I’m going to call and then won’t. Or I’ll make a date and then cancel it. Via email. The day of.

Ouch.

Now, my own golden rule driven morality gets in the way of this a fair amount. It’s not like I’m sleeping with these women (almost two months and counting! And it feels so… um… clean? Stress-free? ), and I do typically offer them more respect than some clown I’ve never met in another division of the has-been company I happen to work for. (Not that it’s any better, but I guess it feels like there’s self-esteem involved with women, but only a mild inconvenience with a pseudo-co-worker.)

Still, I’ve been a flake lately, and it doesn’t feel good. It’s not like I’m actively reinforcing boundaries or insisting on a low-stress lifestyle. I’m just being an asshole.

And I think I’m more of an asshole for it than anyone else.

Insult to injury? Every time I flake, I feel one step closer to the deep, dark black hole that is depression. Or loser-ville. Or just being a bad person in general. The line between me and folks who aren’t successful and/or what I call “not functional” seems every so slightly thinner.

And I become just a little bit less of the person I like to think I am. A little bit less the person everyone else seems to believe I am.

A little bit less human.

Faulty memories are sometimes such a pity

One of life's little frustrations is that you never know the moments that will strike you later until long after their gone. There are some exceptions, to be sure -- if I really think about it, I can tell you some pretty good things about most of my birthdays, for instance -- but for the most part, that little smile you got on that first date with a new person flashes right before your eyes and is gone before you even had the chance to remember it. Sometimes those moments happen when you've been drinking, too, and that just upsets things even more. And then, perhaps, like me, you find yourself clinging to shreds of memory based on the song that was playing (like babyface at my first slow dance in eighth grade), the food you were eating, or the smell in the air, or the taste of the beverage in your hand. Sometimes I even remember what she was wearing more than I remember her face. Or, maybe, I'm just scared I don't remember her face correctly, and so the black and grey horizontal stripes just seem more certain by comparison. -- Someone who wasn't even that important to me walked out of my life yesterday. It was a girl I hardly knew, whom I never called beautiful, nor even kissed. I had been lackadaisical, as I have been with all things feminine since... well, if you're still reading, you know when... and she called me on it. I suppose I was disappointed, not because of her persay, but certainly because it forces me to introspect, however briefly, about how and why I've checked out. I wasn't happy in dating overdrive, but I was too busy to be unhappy. And having women -- even women you don't really care about -- do nice things for you still feels really good. I'm not happy being a hermit either, but at least I know I'm not hurting anyone. And I can't get hurt this way, either. The unfortunate thing is, I don't think a partner just drops on your lap. It's become cliche that she falls out of the sky just when you stop looking, but I don't believe it. Napoleon Hill and all that have come after him would say that I'm creating my own dilemma by focusing on what I can't or don't have, that by having faith in my endless singlehood, I'm autosuggesting a self-fulfilling, self-perpetuating prophecy. I struggle a lot with that ideology, because I've put myself out there more than anyone I've ever known. I've been knocking for a long, long time, and when there's only one or two girls out of the last 100 who I really looked forward to seeing after the third date, that's not my problem, that's the dating pool. That's demographics. -- Another of life's frustrations just occurred to me. The little girls I've hurt over the years still take a gander at my incessant whining every once in awhile, but the ones that changed me have filed me in that special place that doesn't include checking up on how I'm doing. I understand. There is the exception of the girl that hurt me the most in the world. She called me not too long ago, and it was definitely not good for me. It's still frustrating. -- Speaking of that @#$%, I am not a Jedi yet. I'm not even sure the force is with me.