Ranting and contemplating life with Boston girl

I am unhappy. My body is shot, suffused with a surfeit of alcohol and dying for a break. I think I will give it up for Lent, alcohol that is. Not that I believe in Lent or religion of any sort for that matter. As Sergdun once said, I don't even want to be called an atheist because that suggests I care about religion enough to define myself against it. Nevertheless, my body does need a rest and that will give me a natural resting point to pitch to fools who will not understand that a man does sicken of the boring rituals of urban life. I wonder what extreme lack of imagination drives us to perform these, over and over again, without pause for contemplation of what our participation in them says of us. Why are you at the same bars with the same people, hearing the same jokes and going home with the same person (you), every single week? You're a fucking dull twit you know. As am I, as we all are.

I was going to write a long and grand post about my sixty hour date of last week, but as you might have guessed already, I'm not in the most positive frame of mind right now. Thus rather than any attempt at lyricism and storytelling (at which I would have failed inevitably), I'll simply say in plain words what is going on. I saw a girl last week and it went well. Despite the fact that I have ended two potential relationships because I did not want to deal with distance, once again I find myself entertaining that exact same idea. She's in Boston though and I suppose that is the only reason it has any real chance. She will find friends among my friends if I do decide to let things play out naturally because if I have six close friends in the world, three of them live in Boston and complain that they do not see me enough. Add to that the fact that she loves NYC (as all reasonable people do) and would not mind being here twice a month, and you have the potential for a working long distance relationship. Forgive me, but there is nothing in Washington DC or Syracuse that suggests to me that I should spend much time, aside of the wonderful people I spurned along with those locations. Nevertheless, Boston girl is not quite in. We've got chemistry and that is great. It might even be enough. I have no way of telling. How do people decide to go into relationships? I said before that I would be in a relationship sometime very soon but never having established a proper relationship, I'm not sure of the criteria by which one starts one of these. How much do I have to give up when I find someone I've got a decent amount of chemistry with and who fulfills a few basic requirements? In most of the superficial categories, she fits the bill. Very pretty, intelligent, feisty (hi Alice), goofy and serious (I don't think I could ever date anyone slight). Yet I know our chemistry is mostly born out of my easygoing nature. It's what makes dating so fraught for me. I'm charming and non-confrontational by default. Unless moved to anger, I absorb and work around everyone's little foibles without comment or declaration of war. Like when the wing man ditched me this weekend, claiming fatigue, when I really needed a hand dealing with the complicated social situation of girl from last week, girl who is spending the weekend at my apartment this week (platonic but suspicious) and yet another girl wanting to go out all on the same night. I didn't go nuclear on him, or to be honest, even express my disappointment and irritation. His lame and repeated apology told me he understood what he was doing but would do the right thing unless I put him under duress. Fuck that. I think that people should be masters of their own actions. I'm willing not play puppeteer. If you know what you ought to do for friendship's sake, but decide not to do it, I won't pressure you or even deign to inform you of your obligations. It's only reason 196,785 for me to stop answering his calls and drop him like a worn and jamming Ruger. What all this kvetching means in the frame of potential relationship with Boston girl is that there are already things that displease me, which I have ignored and worked around because that is just my style. Like most women, she complains too much (about many things I've little interest in hearing about), her tastes may be too pedestrian (leaning towards the worst of those rituals I was denigrating above) and she has little prejudices and ignorances that I dislike (like the fact that she is an Asian girl who only dates black guys and insists on talking about it too much). Nevertheless she has many redeeming qualities and I did very much enjoy the weekend she spent here. It felt a lot like a rehearsal relationship, with domesticity of all sorts (she made Beef Wellington, I made soft boiled eggs), shopping (her trying things, while I sat outside and ignored the pretty girl attendant flirting with me) and unreasonable food demands (a twenty block hike in the freezing cold for cupcakes at Magnolia bakery). And I enjoyed it all. It was filled with the pleasures I've always imagined one derives from a good relationship; intimacy (for which I am a whore), sex (plain but good), companionship (a precious commodity indeed) and all that kind of stuff. So what then? What compromises are acceptable? I'm well aware that no one finds the ideal person, who for me is simply a hotter, smarter, better adjusted and female me (just call me Narcissus). Do I give up too much even before things get started? Will they be first fault lines as the relationship develops or will they lessen in importance as we adjust to each other? Hey, you guys have been in relationships. Help a brother out here.