i was talking to a friend of mine the other day and we had gotten to the topic of dating an ex. for me, i don’t think that i would really entertain the idea of dating an ex. generally speaking i think that’s a bad idea because there was a reason why we broke up. in fact, i think that getting back together with someone you broke up with is a recipe for disaster because it’s already been proven that things couldn’t work out.

but…

what if so much time has passed that the two of you are two different people? does that change things? it made me wonder. i do believe that i am a very different person than i was 10 years ago. would i be interested in the same kind of person that i was interested in all those years ago?

one of the first girlfriends i dated had a very strong spirit…to say the least. she was very demanding, controlling, and overbearing, but back then i think i liked all of those things. i think that i was a lot less sure of myself and i sought to find the direction i needed in pretty much everything from that girlfriend.

nowadays i know for sure that i could never date someone like that. we would butt heads way too often and way too hard. this, generally, is a good thing, i think. i do enjoy being in a more balanced relationship where each person has a more equal footing in the relationship.

but what of other exes? what were the things that made us part ways? do those things still exist? have we changed so much that maybe things could work out?

it’s a dangerous and tricky situation to be in and i think that when one breaks up with someone else, it’s probably best not to try and open that door again. it’s a door that should be closed and sealed. too many potential problems can come up and there’s still that history that you had…some of that may just never go away.

time does have a nice way of coloring the past though. sometimes it gives you perspective, sometimes it gives you rose-colored glasses from which to look upon an ugly situation and have it look less ugly.

another friend of mine asked me if i would ever consider dating a certain ex of mine again if the opportunity came up. i told them that i don’t see it happening because even though a lot of the problems we had probably don’t exist now because i’m a different person, i still don’t think it could work out because of the history that we’ve had. it just gets too messy.

more recently i’ve come to realize that my mood can be largely affected by the people around me. it makes me wonder what that says about myself. sometimes i think that i may need to build a rougher exterior so that i’m not so easily affected by other people’s moods. it was something that i noticed recently that my mood changed drastically when i was around people who were generally down. someone actually asked me what was wrong with me because it seemed that my mood was so affected.

i guess i need to hang out with shiny happy people.

apparently the santa cruz boardwalk rolls back its prices on monday and tuesday nights to 65 cents for all of its rides, hot dogs, and sodas. pretty cool considering that the rides ordinarily cost something like $3.50 to ride. i have to say that the rides that we went on were alright. maybe i’ve been too spoiled with the likes of great america.

it was nice to be at the beach, though. it’s been too long since i last saw the ocean and it was nice to be able to gaze into it and let my thoughts wander for a while. i think that the beach has always been a reflective place for me.

the hot dogs that i had didn’t sit in my stomach very well though and i don’t know if i would really recommend them to anyone else. but aside from that it was good to get out there.

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i feel like i haven’t eaten in a long time. i didn’t really eat dinner last night because i didn’t want to be weighed down at volleyball. we were missing two of our players this week so i asked cathy and john to sub for us. it worked out well and i had fun. we also managed to win most of our games so that was a good thing.

yesterday was a day of errands for me. got some gel to replace my dwindling supply and i did some other shopping for some odds and ends.

i just finished off my leftovers from the cheesecake factory the other day ago. it was pretty good. i wonder if i’ll get hungry at lunch again.
—–

saw s.w.a.t. over the weekend. let’s just say that that was time that could have been better spent. oh well. i also watched mystic river last night. i fell asleep during the movie. it just moved too slowly and didn’t really get interesting until the last 15 minutes…and it easn’t even worth the wait, in my opinion.

but i did see love actually and it was quite good. so good in fact that i think that i will watch it again.

==========
son: you really want to know?
father: i really want to know.
son: even though you won’t be able to do anything to help?
father: even if that’s the case.
son: ok. the truth is…i’m in love.

…

father: i’m a little releived.
son: why?
father: well, because i thought it would be something worse.
son: worse than the total agony of being in love?
father: ah…no. you’re right. the total agony.

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[url=http://www.track15.com]dardy[/url] and i were chatting a little about relationships (what else?) and some of the pitfalls that people seem to fall in when it comes to seemingly destructive relationships. why is it that so many people continue to stay in relationships that seem to destructive in nature? why is it that so many people continue to stay in relationships that just don’t seem to make sense?

i asked him if he knew that a girl had a lot of issues, would it dissuade him from pursuing something with him. intellectually, people generally know if someone is not good for them, yet they still seem to end up dating the person. why is that? he said that it would probably really deter him from pursuing something…unless she was fabulously sexy or sassy or something. so really, so long as the girl is attractive to you in some form, recognizing these other issues doesn’t seem to really stop one from pining over them.

and then i asked, can you have a crush over someone who you know possesses qualities about them that are deal breakers in relationships. usually if you recognize that someone has qualities about them that are not desirable in terms of a relationship, one would just close the door on them, right? but instead, he told me that thought it might make sense not to pursue them, some may consider these people as projects. they may think that they could change the person and mold them into the person that they want them to be. ah, to date a project.

it made me think about whether or not i’ve dated someone and considered them a project. i don’t think that i ever have. i don’t really believe in changing other people and molding them into whatever idea of perfection that i have. it is far too much work to try and change people like that and i don’t think that i would appreciate someone else trying to change me either.

usually if i meet someone and i realize that they have one of the few deal breakers, i immediately get turned off and don’t think of them in any kind of romantic way. why bother? i will admit though that there have been girls who i’ve met who i started to get interested in only to find that they do have one of the deal breakers and then it was very hard for me to let those feelings go. but i figure you can’t pine over something that you ultimately don’t want…it just can’t end well.

but it seems to be that in a lot of relationships logic, reason, and commonsense seems to go out the window and instead we employ the far more dangerous guide of our hearts to lead us to our destiny. odd in a way, but for me, i’d have it no other way.

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[url=http://www.phamily.org]paul[/url] invited some people over to bbq. he had made prime rib. mmmmm. 3 hours of slow roasting joy. i don’t know what he used to season it, but damn, that was some of the best prime rib i’ve had in a long, long time. he had horseradish and all. it’s never a disappointment to eat his cooking.

it makes me want to make my own prime rib. i just don’t know if i have three hours to push aside sometime just to make the prime rib…but if i did…mmmmm.

the only regret i had last night was that i left a little early because i was feeling tired and i wanted to go back home so that i could just rest up. i didn’t end up going to sleep as early as i had hoped, but i think that just lounging at home was more relaxing.

it seems that i haven’t been getting too much sleep, though. today was ok. maybe about 6 hours. much better than usual, i suppose.

—–

have you ever looked back at a time in your life and wondered…”woah, what was i thinking back then?”

such examples of this can be found through various moments in my life. there was a time in my life when i really wanted to get my ear pierced. i thought it was the coolest thing and a great form of rebellion. now that i think back to it, i wonder what it was that i was rebelling against and why i wanted to rebel so much. back then i think it was a rebellion against my parents, but these days i think that i find myself striving to be more like them than anything else.

there was another time in my life where i was seriously considering moving to sacramento and starting up a new life there. i think a lot of that was motivated by a recent break up and general discontentment with my life. i think about what my life would have been like if i were in sac now…and all that i can think of at the moment is…much, much hotter.

but i also think about past relationships i’ve been in. i think that i’ve changed quite a bit since the first girl that i’ve dated. in my very early relationships, i was the kind of person who wanted to be told what to do. i was the kind of person who needed someone to take care of me…almost to the point of thinking for me. basically, i was whipped…and then some.

it’s been a slow evolution since. i think that the kind of girl that i want to date has changed quite a bit too. i used to really like the strong, mean types. i thought that they could take care of me and anything that may come my way. since then, i think my type has changed to a softer, gentler type. i think that the kind of girl that works best for me is someone who inspires others to want to spend time with them. it’s the kind of friendliness that is just inherent in their being.

it’s interesting to look back at yourself from time to time (oooh, i almost forgot my hair dyeing phase) and sort of laugh at yourself for some of the things you’ve done and then try to remember why it was that you were like that.

you know, it’s odd. sometimes i see the world just go by and i feel like it’s just moving all too fast. sometimes i feel like i’m standing still while everyone else is just running out and around me. these days i think that i’ve been taking things more slowly.

there has been something that has been mildly bothering me for a while now and so i had decided to make minor changes in my life to see if it would improve the situation. generally speaking, i think that it has given me a little perspective on my life and the goings on of it.

i can’t help but feel a sense of disconnect when it comes to some of my friends. we just haven’t seen each other in a long while or we haven’t really talked in a long while. and when i see all of the changes that have been going on in their life, it sort of makes me realize how much things have changed.

i see some of my friends lamenting about this or that and they seem to be going down a path that will just further add to their lament. the one thing that i’ve learned over the years is that you can’t force people into the “right” decision. most people don’t want to be told what to do or how to think. we’re just far too independent for something like that. sometimes people just need to make the mistake that they did and learn from their own experiences.

sometimes you can’t save everyone. sometimes you have to go and see them hurt so that they can feel it for themselves so they know that they’ll never want to do it again. it’s your life, you gotta live it…both good and bad.