Thursday 20 December 2001

Pic of the day: Screenshot from Dark Age of Camelot, the massive multiplayer game. Believe it or not. It looks like something out of a sappy movie, if you ask me.

Pointless wish

(The lyrics are for atmosphere only, don't take them quite literally. Incidentally, I recommend buying the actual music. It is beautiful.)

I have been to see the world,
tasted life at every turn,
and all the time your face came back to haunt me.
Day by day the feeling grew:
I know I'm still in love with you
the further that I go, the more I know it.
I want to show it ...

Chris de Burgh, Ship to shore

***

I don't want a girlfriend. I don't miss the kissing and holding hands and all the mushy stuff. It's been decades, and I never got used to it in the first place anyway. I'm not thrilled at the thought of downgrading all my interests to give room for a new obsession that intrudes on my mind every waking hour and then some. If I even could shape my life around someone else, why should I? I already have a good life. I cannot with any truth say to a mortal: "I cannot live without you", for I have done so for decades. And finally, I can sure live without the constant temptation of premarital hanky-panky, not to mention the heavy obligation of later hot sweaty marital arts work-out twice a week. Ick.

I do want a friendly girl, though. (Well, woman preferably. But age is not a limiting factor since there would be only light-tolerant interactions. Or at least that's what I think.)

I wish for a girl to talk to and, mostly, listen to. Someone to understand and be understood by, to a reasonable degree. (I doubt two humans can ever fully understand each other, except perhaps for identical twins.) Men and women complement each other (sometimes they compliment each other too, but this time I mean that they make each other more whole). You can go through life with only one eye and do well enough, even drive a car. But having two eyes gives an added perspective and depth. Seeing the world through another's eyes does this too, for the soul. We were designed for this, by nature or nurture, I do not know.

I wish for a girl to do things together with. To go shopping with, to play games with, to listen to music with, to eat with, to joke with, to laugh with. I have almost forgotten how to laugh. I didn't do it all that much in the old days, now it is only like the stump of an amputated limb. It isn't that I'm unhappy - it is just the idea of laughing alone. Sometimes when I read or think of something really funny, I start to laugh - for a couple seconds. Then it just dies. Laughing alone is like writing on your food: It is sometimes possible, but it makes no sense.

***

Moving fast, all systems go,
you and I had time to grow
before there was a breakdown in transmission.
How I wish that we could turn
the clock back to the days
when were "lovers" in the true sense of the meaning.
You must believe me!

Chris de Burgh, Ship to shore