The Reason

I am made up of equal parts Hopeless Romantic and Misanthropic Cynic. This causes me to often wonder on the nature of love and why it sucks so hard. I feel like the dyslexic agnostic insomniac who stays up all night wondering if there's a dog.

See, here's the problem i see with modern dating: romance is easy. Well, for me at least. Part of this is due to my inherent compassion and empathy and partly from my mother's rigorous training in consideration and listening skills. Women maybe illogically co mplex, but they generally have the decency to be consistently so. Tasteful displays of affection, little gifts, true emotive declarations; no girl doesn't like this stuff.

In high school, i was in a select Men's Ensemble. We would put on several concerts a year, participate in a couple different competitions, and generally spend a couple hours a week being really geeky. For fun, we once transposed and taught ourselves a moderately sappy love song to sing as a surprise for our friends and family at one of the year-end concerts. At the time, i was falling head over heels for a certain girl.

When the time for my part came, the rest of the guys softened to a background and i belted out the following lines:

"I don't care what consequence it brings

I have been a fool for lesser things

I want you so bad, I think you ought to know that

I intend to hold you for the longest time"

To this day, i have never sung anything more genuinely than those lines (although i admit, such a perfect opportunity rarely comes up). In true, corny romanticism, i didn't care about anyone else in the room; i sung only for her.

Such displays are beautiful, grandiose, and make great stories, but they mean approximately diddly-squat when it comes to maintaining a functional and healthy relationship.

My longest-lasting relationship spanned two and a half years. It took me exactly that long to realize that it wasn't going to work. The romance had died, and what was left were two people who thought they understood each other, trying desperately to hold onto a love for a person who no longer existed.

The butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling is delightful, but it never lasts. Disney movies are, sad to say, not real life. Years later, the grind of daily life and endless repetitions of once meaningful words render romance dead for all but a few sacred days of the year. It is the rest of the days that make up the actual relationship and it is the hours of those days that become Sisyphean in scope.

I believe in love. But i must acknowledge the horrible facts of life that so often make love seem like its not even worth the bother. I have determined, then, that the problem my Hopelessly Misanthropic personality has been forcing me to try to solve is a mystery, rather than a puzzle. You see, dear reader, all it takes to solve a puzzle is to find one piece to complete the picture. A mystery, on the other hand, requires a perfect understanding of all the factors, the influences, the intricacies, AND the missing pieces.

I hope to figure it all out before i die. Or get married. My wife deserves it.