Overdosed again

Isn't it funny how you often find you can't resist some habits even though they invariably lead to pain, heartache, and general feelings of dissatisfaction? I mean I've commented on my addiction nature before now. This is more the unfortunate side of having that personality. Well that and naturally being attracted by a specific genre regardless of medium.

I am addicted to romance. Unfortunately that brings to people's minds so many connotations of hopeless romantic and completely unable to differentiate reality from fiction and all those other 'stupid female' concepts. Even more unfortunately is that at times like this, when I reach the point of overdose, I'm pretty much proving many of those preconceived notions. I hate that because I don't as course of habit presume life will happen anything like it does in the books - I'm not sure I'd want it too - anybody who likes romance novels are necessarily the way to go with you life hasn't read enough of them. At the same time when I'm lonely I wouldn't mind some of the attention some of the characters in the books draw.



Now I'm normally a very good romance reader/listener/watcher even writer at times. I get swept along with all the feel good moments and laugh/cringe at the use of cliché. I am a huge person for the romantic cliché. I know so many people who think I'm silly for liking romance because of the clichés. In actual fact I think they are some of the best bits. Of course she is his secretary who knows everything about his life and yet he sees her completely asexually until the company Christmas party. Of course she is remarkably outspoken, clumsy and an uncommon beauty. I don't mind this - I love knowing the story progression by heart so that I can be completely swept up by the details.

So why am I suddenly not amused? Unfortunately it happens when my own love life is failing hopelessly. Yes I do begin to find myself wishing for the story, the fairytale. That doesn't make me like the genre though it makes me hate it and find it depressing. I really don't like it when my brain suddenly decides the romance stories are real. I feel it start telling me that everybody has that except me. Damn it but can I see that when I look around as well. So many of my friends are in relationships. Certainly every guy I've ever had a crush on is currently in a relationship (well except for the current one).

More than anything I hate having to USE the word crush. I feel like a 13 year old kid not a 20 year old who has been out of home for 4 years and seen 3 friends married and many more engaged. Yet what else do you call liking a guy who doesn't see you that way? I feel like all those secretaries in the M&B Sexy novels, only in the words of 'He's Just Not That Into You', I am the rule not the exception.

So at the moment I feel like a have an emotional hangover at the end of any chickflick I watch or book I feel. Even my music occasionally makes feel that way - country music has a large romance component to it (how else would you get such cliché song titles as 'Sleeping single in a double bed'). Everything is reminding me of the fact that I don't know how to have a real life relationship. The only romance I've ever known was found between the covers of a book.

How do you tell a friend you would be interested in being more than friends? Particularly when you are reasonably sure they could never see you that way. Hell, I've had the conversation in the past and completely destroyed my friendships. It has stopped being worth it. I don't have enough friends to risk friendships for relationships where the odds aren't good. As he has said quite directly (we were discussing beating around the bush vs direct approachs and this has been hopelessly removed from its surrounding statements to make it seem so much harsher) 'if I liked you you'd know'. It wasn't said to mean 'back off' but damn if I can't extrapolate. Friend zone it is.

I don't mind the friend zone - it doesn't effect my feelings towards a person at all. Certainly it means they talk to me and interact with me. Its only when we aren't together that it becomes a problem. Knowing I have no claim when I sure as hell would like one and knowing they have a claim they'll never want to stake over my emotions. Mostly though it is simply the thought that I will lose out in the end. Being in the friend zone means you will lose out when they do get into a relationship. I live waiting for that moment - it undeniably comes along every time.

My favourite times in life are when I'm not interested in any particular guy. I can read romance to my hearts content without these terrible feelings. I'm rarely if ever lonely. I don't find myself wasting hours on nothingness. Unfortunately going from where I am now to back to being not interested in a guy would be unbearably painful. So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard-place emotionally. What I hate the most is that it makes me sound like such a superficial, self-absorbed girl. I want there to be more to me... but I just don't know where to find that (dear heaven not in my studies).

Convincing Myself I'm Not Depressed

As I've mentioned I'm not particularly skilled with members of the opposite sex. I've also mentioned that I have a huge crush on one of the other guys in my year. I think I even mentioned the fact that even if I remain incompetent for the rest of the year, there's always next year etc. and slowly but surely I'm getting better with time. Pathetic yes but all well and good. I can go plodding along and hopefully make some progress...

Or not. Saw him yesterday, he's one of the 3 other members of my bible study group, how I have love going to bible study for the 5 minutes we get to talk before the others get in and get started. but dammit, this week... he had news... and for me it was not good news. He's leaving, not at some indiscriminate time post graduation, not even the end of the year. He's leaving, next week!!! 

How do you get AROUND that? Maybe if I was good at the relationships stuff... but I'm not... I keep my feelings well and truly close to the chest. But goodness I had to work to not break down throughout the rest of the study. Yes, we literally went straight into the bible study like nothing was wrong. Admittedly he seemed a little be more sullen than usual, anxious to be leaving I suppose. Leaving this place would be like getting out of a prison. Excited about finally being free, nervous about what the real world will look like outside its protective walls. I'm as institutionalised as can be... so i never really expected any of my close friends to not be... that in itself is quite a shock...

I'm just not quite sure what to do now. By nature I crush long and hard... I'll probably make a good wife oneday if my relationship skills ever improve. My high school crush, the last super one I had, only really ended cause he stopped talking to me, and then we finished school. But this one... doesn't have the animosity in it. I don't want to have to be convincing myself not to think about him, it is painful and awkward... and my mind says completely pointless. But the saner part of my mind also says he'll be going all too soon, and there are bound to be girls from where he's from, and I'm too hopeless for anything... I just don't know... Now I feel guilty when I watch for him, feeling like I'm feeding a part of me I don't have a right to be. Such is my life right now...

About a Boy

Ok... Most of the time... I'm the most content person about about my not having any relationship experienced. I'm its unusual but not unheard of to be 18 and never had a boyfriend. In fact except for one long term and rather childish crush on one of my best friends I can definitely be termed a late bloomer. I didn't understand how girls thought of actors in movies as hot or not... Not until about grade 11...

Which isn't to say I don't get it now :) it all makes sense to me... Though from a Christian background as well as a strong faith of my own I never quite the same sex lure as many of my friends... More than happy to wait... Plus its easy to have that attitude when all the guys at school you find to be repulsively immature. To this day I don't understand the teenage ability to date half their class if they feel like it. A) you know them way too well and B) because you know them you know how immature and shallow the majority of them are. I was more than happy to keep to my one or two hopeless crushes.

Now though... I'm starting to wish I hadn't... I have zero relationship experience. ZERO. The only time a guy has every asked me to anything.. was a date to the formal - a joke... When we were in grade 10 (yes 2 years from any formal)... Who knows how that might have panned out... He was the type of guy who probably would have gone through with it... more for a laugh than anything. But he left halfway through year 12 and missed it anyways.

The only other proposition i've had? also him... The day he left school. Asked me for a kiss before he went. Unfortunately in the middle of a Chemistry class test. I didn't take him up on his offer. Tempted - a little, sceptical of his motives - a little, embarrassed for wanting to - a lot.

So that covers in 2 paragraphs all the invitations I've ever had... Now is where I point out my position at school. I was the smart girl. I was well known throughout, but simply for being smart, I'm certainly not what you would call a looker and a number of kgs overweight for the majority of my life. It doesn't bother me else I'd work harder to change it but was without a doubt an effect on that side of my life. I'm not after some stereotypical hot guy with no brain anyways so meh...

Now to the parts that detrimentally effect my personal confidence around boys. I mentioned a crush on a best friend? Four years, in fact a large part of the reason we (my best friend and I) initiated the friendship can be attributed to that (on my side at any rate), I had that crush and four years we were friends with him without too much of a hassle. He dated another of my friends for 6 months... and if that didn't have my nose a little out of joint to boot. But I never would have said.

That is the one thing I do well. Crushing on a guy in silence. That is basically what I'm doing at the moment, the reason for this rambling, and I HATE it... I'm more than over it. I got over it at high school too... and told him. In his way he didn't really make much of a response. In fact he didn't give a response at all. He never truly spoke to me again. Six weeks, or thereabouts, before the end of year 12 I lost one of my best friends - and of course the boy I'd been crushing on since I could remember... It hurt to say the least.

When I say we initiated the friendship it wasn't an easy friendship. He was enough of a loner that we had to disrupt him in the library to get anything out of him. Over the years it just became our thing. We were still in the library but he no longer (unless we did something 'terrible' and pissed him off which was only once... maybe twice lol (we got ourselves and him kicked out, for a week!)) attempted to read rather than talk to us.

But anyway... dredging all that stuff makes me feel better but only cuz I'm distracted and it doesn't hold the same levels of emotion as the predicament I'm in at the moment. I like a boy. I like a boy SOO bad. More than I have done any of the other minor crushes I've had over the last year... and more than I can ever remember liking that guy back in school. From this I've discerned that emotional growth hurts like a bitch. I can't work as effectively as I normally would - though I would say that in part that is end of year blues - which I'll save for another blog sometime :)...

So I've developed the stalker qualities... You know, if he is in your general area and you don't need to be looking at anything else you watch him. I've done the internet search even... It was funny cuz he actually did come up, for some award he won back in high school... was quite entertaining for me. I've done the depression moment cuz he doesn't have facebook. Nothing more than that but it makes me feel rather stalker-ish which depresses me further...

I just don't know where to go from here. There are only a few weeks of the year remaining when I'll have him so close... and after that, not until February when classes resume. Once of the blessings of a tiny uni campus if you can be sure you'll always see people again, whilst your here that is...

The other thing is the stalker stage can't last forever. As it is, he has started to pick up on the fact that I watch him if I see him on accident. Just tonight I noticed a figure (identifying by gate(step) more than anything) walk under our tv room (we have a outdoor walkway underneath) so I switched sides of the common room to, well honestly more to check if it was him than to specifically watch him :), and walking with a mate he turned a little back to my block window and waved at me...

and THAT is what has me freaked out... What do I do? Is that even a good sign? We are connected through the university christian group, he is even in my bible study... Is it just as a friend... But no I don't think that really explains it... WHY did he look back at the block enough to spot me at all? And even if he did... Even if it is EXACTLY what I hope it is... What do I DO?!? And that... is all I have... today there is no solution... and I doubt sleep will grant me the answer... I'm destined to flounder is curious, fear, excitement and all that other good stuff...