here's what i've come to realize: i watch way too much television but one of the reasons is that it takes the place of a person. hear me out. i live alone so that means i don't get to have any chit chat conversation with anyone unless its over the phone, right? okay, so i put the television on, even in the background, just as noise, as something to hear, and i think it makes me feel close to someone or something, like my tiny window into these artificially created shows in my little idiot box keep me close to the artificial people. notice that i don't listen to nearly as much music as i do watch television. music doesn't seem to transport me into another world quite like t.v. does. and i'm not saying any of these are good things. television is taking me away from getting work done and living a more fulfilling life in which i find myself experiencing outside more. i just think its amazing how i've centered my life around meeting the needs of other people and then suddenly those people are taken away so all that's left is just me. so there i am and since i don't have other people to plug in the void i use television as my stopgap. no wonder i keep taping episodes of dawson's creek. man, that's hard to admit.

i'm also obsessed with romance. i watch way too many romantic comedies and i end up having two emotions from them: one is that i'm angry i don't get the perfect love story like the movie, and the other starts with jealousy and moves into sadness that i don't have the perfect love story. a character from the movie "Magnolia" said the following line and i totally feel that:
"i do have love to give
i just don't know where to put it."
i keep saying that i'm not in a good position to be dating someone, that right now i'm no good to anyone, that i'm too fucked up for anyone and in one sense i think i'm right but in the other perhaps i'm blowing smoke up my own ass? perhaps that just an excuse used to justify my total lack of female interest right now and allows me to be lazy and not pursue and females. i need therapy.

but seriously, i'm obsessed with romance, but in our culture how could you not? yes, i am saying that to a large extent i am a product of the shit produced in the arts, and i go and watch and listen to those products, so i help perpetuate the myths. every song on the radio tells us we should either be in love or how horrible it is without it. every movie show us what the perfect couple should look like, what the perfect thing to say is in every situation, what the perfect kiss should be and the perfect first night of sex. AND IT ALWAYS WORKS OUT! so we grow up, or at least i do, believing that there is such a thing as the perfect romance, the perfect thing to say, etc. maybe all that's out there are people we meet, like, care for, date, then move on from. what's so hard about that to accept? why do i and most of the people i know in the world hold out for that elusive one person, one relationship? i once told someone that true love was friendship because that was kind that didn't fade or die...or some shit like that...could have been a fucking hallmark card. the truth is that friendships will never give us the same feeling. they don't make our blood boil, our stomach go in knots, our legs tremble, our heart and chest ache, our heads spin, or our eyes well up with tears of joy, sadness, separation and togetherness. let's look at the songs i listen to: nearly every day i've listened to the song by ben lee called "8 years old" about this kid who had a crush break his heart at age 8 only to meet her again on the bus at age 17 and find that he was still in love with her. why am i so amazed by this song that alicia found for me? it give me hope, it talks about the great love story that has the happy ending we all want, especially being young and stupidly in love. why does romance drive so much of what we do, affect our moods, ideologies, and lives more than any other single factor or emotion? it makes no sense. is it something inherent within us or does popular culture feed us the myth we are all begging to believe in? i subscribe to it like everyone else, i buy what all those crappy, predicable, shopworn films sell me. i buy into the idea that i'm supposed to find someone, that something is wrong with me or my life if i'm not dating someone. we should all be coupled, all of us, and happily so, and monogomous. we should all strive for that, a serious, rewarding relationship. fuck all that. its like its ingrained in me, and i hate that. why does dan always ask me if i have any prospects whenever we talk...i don't get it or even if i do i don't want to live with it any more. i'm so brainwashed i'm in love with the idea of being in love, to the point where if someone shows interest in me i jump WAY into it and into them because i'm happy someone liked me. then i end up liking the fact that they like me, not so much the person...case in point: jen. adam duritz wails on my speakers about lost love and a girl leaving and i keep listening to his whiny voice tell me the same thing that every other damn song does.

no matter what i do and where i go and what i read and what i say i come back to the same 5 words: i want the happy ending. hallmark and hollywood have done a great job on me folks.