these are old private journal entries that i happened upon today. i'm not sure when they were written, but it was obviously during more frustrating times. it's curious and strangely pleasant to read the strife i went through to become who i am today. it's also nice to notice how much i got everything i asked for (and more) when i found Corinne. or, rather, she found me. read on:

god, i'm so tired of falling asleep alone. i'm so tired of dating. i just want to love someone and feel more alive because i met her on the street one day and she gave me back my smile.

it shouldn't have to be like this. i'm a caring, cute, intelligent, successful, soulful, stylish, passionate, creative, strong, sexy man, lover, and friend. i care for my family. i care for my community. i love the ones i love with my everything. and still i find myself lied to, cheated on, deceived, and treated with such little respect that i wonder if each woman i've dated ever really saw me as a human being.

fuck "if it doesn't kill you, it only makes you stronger." i'm strong enough. i'm ready to love. i've had plenty first dates that amount to nothing. plenty of short little relationships that end without even a phone call. plenty of half-truths. plenty of meaninglessness. plenty of time spent "getting to know" someone only to have that person exit my life as quickly as she entered.

when do i get to share the sunday paper with someone while still in our pajamas? when do i get to kiss her sitting in the back of a taxi? when do i get to make love to someone and not just fuck? when do i get to work out our differences because that's the only thing we want to do? when do i get to really learn from someone? when does this agonizing cycle of ridiculous, superficial human interaction stop? i'd like to get off.

don't bother to respond. i wasn't looking for your sympathy, pity, or even your affection. i just wanted to tell the world that the world sucks.

it's occurred to me that no one may ever "get" me. i may remain only partially revealed to everyone for the rest of my life.

this thought comes to me as i'm sitting in the dark, looking out my fifth story window at the City, a position no one may ever find me in, and wondering what it is that attracts people to me. what traits in me do they find appealing and are they traits that i exude because they are who i am or because i innately know they are attractive? knowing that something is "not becoming", do i tuck it away and do it only in private? do i wrap myself in Banana Republic sweaters and paint my walls red because i think it will impress someone?

i'm straying from my point -- i'm being too introspective for the topic. i would like to know if what makes me liked and loved are things that i would necessarily characterize as "me". i would like to know if those things that are intimately me were exposed would i be so much loved and liked still.

i have absolutely zero answers to this. it's not something i feel i have any evidence to support or refute. no amount of mind's eye turned inward will really help because the answer belongs too much to the perceptions of others. whatever i think it is that i am outwardly may have little to do with that which people take in of me. and i know much too much of my own motivations to properly judge how my actions seem without them.

but let's assume, for argument's sake or just to make this entry longer, that the things others take in of me are not what i would consider the intimate me. what tragedy is that to be unknown. what unachieved life is one which is lived in a virtual lie.

and then the question wonders if anyone really wants to know that intimate me. does someone select qualities that appeal, find chemistry and a few laughs, and then close the book on real knowledge and understanding?