continuing to play the game of survival. everyone's telling me the same things -- that i'm a smart, good, funny, attractive guy and that i'll have no trouble getting back on the horse, so to speak. it's not very comforting.

the problem is that i have ridiculously high standards. i'm sure i'd have no trouble finding someone who would get married to me, but this isn't very helpful. i'm not particularly concerned about my ability to attract people if and when i move back to society (it's impossible in minneapolis, where i simply don't encounter single females above the age of 10.)

the problem is that no matter how good things are at the beginning, eventually they all come crashing down. eventually some little blip happens and i screw things up and someone isn't in love with me any more.

i'm sure the argument against this is that we're just not right for each other, that this isn't me screwing things up. but the thing is, the two times this has happened to me, the circumstances have been exactly the same. i move away, have no life where i move to, become utterly dependent on her, to the point of ridiculous clinginess. and i overthink in the absence of stimuli, and i become a ball of emotions instead of a person. on top of which i don't have a whole lot of interest to talk about since nothing is happening.

with the parallel so strong, i don't see how it can be anything other than my inability to deal with this sort of situation. if only i were able to relax, if only i were able to take things in stride. eva and i weren't happy in the long-distance setup but we were surviving, and i felt that we just needed to survive until i came back, admittedly a rather foolish setup in its own right (since if we were going to just do that, why would i leave? but we already know that it was stupid of me to leave.)

i'm sort of floundering right now. nothing's really making me happy. i'm following the classic advice and looking for distractions, actually going into work every day. maybe it's helping but i feel like i'm just killing time. i don't want to just kill time. i want either to be happy or to be working towards something in the future. right now there's nothing in the future i'm really interested in working towards, which leaves just the one option of floundering.

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