All My Gettings

Most of the time, I feel the way about love that Alice does in the novel The Romantic Movement when she's decided to break up with Eric. He tries to convince her to stay by saying "I love you" and she thinks:

So many hopes surround the word, one may with confidence take love out of its packet in the midst of almost any crisis, and count on it having a miraculous effect, a complete loss of critical faculties accompanied by salival, beatific grins.

“May I ask why you’re currently making my life insufferable, abusing my credit card, polluting my bathroom, wrecking my kitchen and playing pin-ball with my mind? Ah, I see. It’s because you love me. Oh, well now I understand, in that case, fine, go ahead, and don’t forget to burn down the house and hit the other cheek before you’re done.”

But lately, and much to my dismay, I've been lonely for some sort of romantic interest. Though, interest isn't exactly the right word, since there's lost of people floating around that I'm interested in. So, a romantic counterpart, perhaps? Someone to spend time with, to share my affection, to be on the same team with, and, of course, annoy and be annoyed by, hate occasionally and care about in that way that only really comes when there's a combination of emotional and physical ties.

I fear I'm feeling a bit desperate about all this, but hopefully not acting it. Also, I'm so hideously shy in this arena that I'm basically paralyzed and stagnating. It probably doesn't help that fewer and fewer of my friends are single, in the sense that they're married. Maybe the mood'll pass, right? And then I can go back to being the person who's (almost) mostly alright with living and dying solo.