Re:Search

I turn my mind, occasionally, to love. At this stage in my life, as for most people of my age, I have established the fact that I know nothing about love. I have had experiences with the word love: my family, my friends, and a couple of the people I spent large amount of time holding hands with when I was younger. This idea of a romantic love, something so deep it cannot be explained, is still foreign to me.

That I do not understand this does not concern me. I'm a sophomore in college, and I have no plans for settling down. At the same time, I adore being in a relationship. The euphoria, camaraderie, excitement, and insecurities that ring-around-the-rosy and encapsulate budding romance thrills me to no end. I also feel a bit more like myself when there’s that special person, one who exceeds regardless of how slightly, the title of friend.

I am single, happy, but definitely keeping my eyes open.

I have also found, through keeping a skeptic eye on myself, that I can establish an idealistic crush in an instant that can trail me for ages. These can be focused on friends, acquaintances, coworkers, performers, baristas, secretaries, or essentially any girl I pass who is singing. A friend and I had a conversation through letters a few months ago about how she had a tendency of developing harmless crushes an a heartbeat that could easily dissipate when needed. I see this in myself.

Perhaps I am confusing infatuation for admiration or a simple want to converse. I’ve seen Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind in Chicago three times now, and each time I have been mystified by the strength, forwardness, honesty, and pride that I have found in one of their members. Does this mean that I would like to become in someway romantically involved with this person? No. I simply want to sit down with her and two cups of coffee and absorb everything she has to say.

There are others that fit into this category.

I say all of this because my relationship status has been the subject of conversation lately. Times it has been brought up by myself, times by others. I’ve been asked why I find it so hard to find a girl on a small liberal arts college campus where I am one of few males known for being extremely outgoing, humorous, and (to a degree) confident (I hate myself for even typing that). One person even brought to my attention that a lot of what girls look for is in facial expressions, so I should watch how I position my features while speaking.

All of this has me very aware of myself, something I find completely unnerving.

The facts are: I am loud, somewhat obnoxious, eccentric, liberal, radical, socially deviant, creative, overweight, near sighted, passionate, eager, supportive, sarcastic, demeaning, introspective, brutally honest, often dishonest, judgmental, uncaring, apathetic, devoted, regretful, loving, confused, isolated, out of place, teddy bear-ish, masked, serious, lazy, completely insane, logical, satirical, disrespectful, stubborn, argumentative, begrudging, hopeful, optimistic, a Johnson, a Bobst, a Smolinski, and many more. I wear brightly colored button down shirts or baggy, earth toned sweaters, knit “newsy” caps or trucker hats, skate shoes or blue and yellow basketball shoes. I’m an English and Creative Writing major who is finding it increasingly difficult to read and write for class. I second guess almost everything I do while rarely thinking it over first, and I constantly let the people closest to me know both how much I love them and how easy I find it to tear them down. I try harder than I know. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I have not typed this out of loneliness, sorrow, self deprecation, or to be told by anyone that “there are plenty of fish in the sea” or that I “really am a good person.” I said this merely because I wanted to.

I find solace in the fact that I will never stop examining myself.

I hope you can too.