Hiho

Well, look, man - you lack self-confidence.  I don't think you like yourself all that much.  So, when someone else dislikes you/isn't attentive/leaves you in the dark (the girls you've been interested in), they reinforce your self-image and that makes you happy.

Now, this girl is interested in you - and you can't understand why.  You know you're shit, so only a real idiot would be showing you this much attention, right?  So, this girl is an idiot - she's nice and all, you know, but how can you feel something for someone who is gullible enough to spend time with you?

It sucks, eh?  And, listen, the really fucked up part is that if this girl stopped calling you, stopped making desserts for you, you would full-on fall in love with her one to two days later.  If she was smart, she'd string you along with her affection, and that'd keep you interested.  There are a whole bunch of stupid reasons why I think you feel this way.

I don't know you can get over it - maybe you can't.  You'll be able to easily waste four, five years, perhaps, probably more, doing this.  Don't.

When you get up in the morning, pretend you're going to die that night.  Pretend that you have to suck every last bit of goodness out of every single moment during the day, and appreciate every small piece of grace, beauty, whatever, that you're presented with.  Get out of your damn head and live.

My conquering my version of your problem was the product of my five years in college, basically.  It was a gigantic fucking pain in the ass - my parent didn't raise me correctly.  She got about 85% of the way there, and then stopped short - I think, perhaps, an issue with a lot of people from their generation - self-absorbed free-spirits who never learned anything about discipline, reserve.  I had to basically start over and re-raise myself, and, I did.

A lot of reading helped - not because it taught me new things, no, because it reminded me about myself.  Writing strikes someone because of some aspect shared between author and writer.

Well, now, I'm rambling.  What's some good reading?  I think Montaigne's Essays and Emerson are good reading if you want to see strong personalities.  Shakespeare offers about eight hundred of them.  I think Blood Meridian, a Cormac McCarthy book, is pretty good at bludgeoning you back to earth.  Ask Peps for some Roman writers, maybe Plutarch, or Seneca (eheheh).  I don't know.  Try to get a clear picture of what you look like, how you act, how you're perceived.

Ah, I could go on for years.  I don't know how to tell you why you feel this way, but I can tell you how you feel this way.

(on a lighter note, yesterday Caniprokis and I played D&D over at Sapphire and Calliander's house.  Thousands of miles away from home, over half of my life, and still that interest remains, resilient.  It's neat.)

St00n