grave pristine absolutes walked in my mind

On the Concept of a Perfect Match

My heart is a huge troll. You’d think that it’d become more wary with age, but the older I get, the easier it is to fall in love with people. In high school, it took me at least a semester before I could acknowledge that I’d developed feelings for somebody. In college, it took me about a month and a half to form an attachment to my first love. A year later, I began feeling things for a friend after one hangout and a couple of long Gchat conversations. In a span of eight years, the process of love (or something like it) has hastened from four months to about 0.2 seconds — the time it takes for someone to flash me a smile as we pass each other on a sidewalk.

Maybe it’s biology. I’m 24 and the clock’s ticking. I suspect I’ve been reading too many novels. Or maybe I’m bending to social pressures, as half of my friends are either dating, married, or in serious relationships. All I know is that sometime during the last 8 years, I gave up maintaining a tolerance for attraction. Back then, I at least tried to not like people, especially when they were out of my league. Now I just run with it because really, what else are you supposed to do when you meet somebody whose company you would enjoy even if you were stuck together in a broken elevator for 12 hours?

Now I know what has ruined me — Genesis 2. You know, “Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”. Can you imagine waking from a deep slumber to find your perfect match? As much as a I rail against the concept of soulmates, I’ve conducted my life as if I actually believe in them. I rationalize all of my failed relationships and pursuits with the idea that they’re steering me toward the person I’ll eventually end up with. Sometimes I wonder if we’ve already met and I just don’t recognize him for who he is. I don’t anticipate a beacon of light, the songs of angels, or even an epiphany, but rather, the delicious assurance that this person was prepared especially for me.

Reposted from my personal blog, which you can visit to read more entries like this one.

A quote on soulmates

“He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold on to him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.”

- Bob Marley supposed said this. I haven’t been able to find solid verification, so let’s just enjoy this quote for what it is.

Neil Gaiman on falling in love

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

I loved his weak side, too

“To tell you the truth, though,” Naoko went on, “I loved his weak side, too. I loved it as much as I loved his good side. There was absolutely nothing mean or sneaky about him. He was weak: that’s all. I tried to tell him that, but he wouldn’t believe me. He’d always tell me it was because we had been together from the time we were three. I knew him too well, he’d say. I couldn’t tell the difference between his strong points and his flaws, they were all the same to me. He couldn’t change my mind about him, though. I went on loving him just the same, and I could never be interested in anyone else.”

- Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami

Love Again

Love again: wanking at ten past three
(Surely he’s taken her home by now?),
The bedroom hot as a bakery,
The drink gone dead, without showing how
To meet tomorrow, and afterwards,
And the usual pain, like dysentery.

Someone else feeling her breasts and cunt,
Someone else drowned in that lash-wide stare,
And me supposed to be ignorant,
Or find it funny, or not to care,
Even … but why put it into words?
Isolate rather this element

That spreads through other lives like a tree
And sways them on in a sort of sense
And say why it never worked for me.
Something to do with violence
A long way back, and wrong rewards,
And arrogant eternity.

- Philip Larkin

LIII

What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear;
And you in every blessed shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

William Shakespeare

And so, if this man next to her now was not a man she would have chosen before this time, what did it matter? He most likely wouldn’t have chosen her either. But here they were, and Olive pictured two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union - what pieces life took out of you.

Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout

guiltyyyyy

Ted: We’ve tried everything - baseball, strippers - the guy still won’t eat a damn pancake. I think he’s beyond repair.

Robin: See, this is the problem with guys. You don’t know how to deal with heartbreak.

Barney: And what’s your prescription, Dr. Estrogen? Eat Haagen-Daazs and watch Love Actually till your periods sync up?

How I Met Your Mother, S2