You had me at hello.

I may be back.
Blogger has changed significantly during my little hiatus of two and half years. One of the psychiatric patients I heard from this week spent sixteen years incarcerated in Sing Sing and said he had culture shock when he came out and was suddenly in a world with cell phones and DVD players. I'm having my own little culture shock here. User-friendly links to change fonts and colors so you can be html-illiterate like me and get away with it. Crazy. I'm not quite sure what's driving me back to this site, but here are some of my suscpicions.

1. I haven't been writing and I miss it.
2. Well, that's a lie, but I haven't been writing as much and I still miss it...
3. There are no more pages left in the journal I've been using.
4. And I'm living in a Blog/Xanga/Livejournal-friendly community now. Not so in college, at least among my closest friends. (don't underrate peer pressure)


There are moments in life when something small, yet ridiculous happens to you -- something that makes you step back for a second and rub your head. I had one of those yesterday. I was walking out of the gym and I walked straight into a glass door. It made me wonder whether I'm headed in the same direction in a bigger kind of way. I'm not sure what my glass door is and it's possible that the omen-feeling I got is because the milestones that have filled my last two weeks -- birthdays, deaths, graduations, even exams -- have me thinking about things in big pictures.

But my glass door might just be friendships with guys. Here's some backstory. Last night, on the phone with Jackie, she (as always) had an entertaining social life update.

Jackie: "I accidentally asked out this guy from my section."
me: "Accidentally?"
Jackie: "I said we should go to an art gallery, I meant it just as a friendly sort of thing. And he emailed back very excited and said we should go out for drinks and dinner."
me: "Did you?"
Jackie: "No, just the art gallery, but it was definitely a date. And it was amazing, but I'm not attracted to him. Anyway, this was a week or so ago and since then I thought that I had given him the clear message I just wanted to be friends and that it was all resolved."
me: "AHA! and you were wrong!"
Jackie: "Yeah."

Things are never resolved for the liker. Not until you call them up at two in the morning and tell them, Jerry Maguire style, "you complete me." This is a fact. I know this. I've been there. You can say the word friend until becoming cyanotic, no resolution. Tell them you're not ready for a relationship, you like someone else, you're gay. And I promise you, no resolution. Tomorrow comes and with it, do you like me now?

To be fair, feelings change. I think this is especially a female phenomenon (pleeeease correct me). You meet a nice guy who seems unfortunately ugly. Maybe he had a mild case of Treacher Collins syndrome. Become friends with him, ask yourself, seriously, why can't I like him, he's such a great guy. Have a dream about him one night that he's in bed with you. Kaboom. Next morning suddenly his receding chin and low ears are cute.

That said... betting on a change of heart, or eyesight, is risky business. I think for now I'll apply my brakes on those friendships. I'll watch the superbowl with the committed men of Einstein and root for the underdogs.