Somebody popped my happy balloon.

So I've been feeling a bit sorry for myself for the past few hours now. If you were me you'd feel sorry for yourself too, mostly because you wouldn't understand what just happened to you.

I really liked someone and it turned out that they in turn also liked me. We connected on so many different levels and I thought things were going great. In fact they WERE going great. Then we got high.

Now I've been on the pot for a long time now. I actually don't smoke as often as I once had, but every now and then it is good to do. But I have never experienced what happened when I smoked with said love-interest the other night. We got stoned and his neruosis kicked in full effect and he in short freaked out on me. He couldn't understand why I liked him. One of the questions followed by others. I knew he felt weird about acting weird and then asking numerous questions so I naturally tried to sympathize and ease his mind because I still felt the same about him I still liked him.

Then a funny thing happened. Within a day and a half he decided that he doesn't think he wants to see me romantically. FOR NO GOOD REASON.

You would think that there has to be at least one clear concise reason, but no, there is not. Thus my frustration and temporary depression ensued. His ill reasoned excuse is that he had a bad feeling. That he is neurotic.

I think that's crap. So I fired off questions to try and get a better understanding of what the hell this dude is thinking. This is way too early at the start of a relationship for this much drama, or a decision to end it before it even takes off the ground. The same night (while we were stoned even) he told me how I was so cool and how he thought I was "super fucking hot" and that he really liked that he could talk to me. I asked him if any of this had changed and he said no, that he was still attracted to me, thought I was great and how he found it easy to talk to me. Still baffled, I fought on.

As it turns out, the issue of my leaving the country in 7 months is probably the largest factor in all of this. I should have known. But still, he doesn't seem to be willing to leave this all behind and start over. He wants to be friends. Ha. I told him that this was unfair to me as it came completely out of nowhere, and how he was basically ruining a good thing before it even started because he was afraid. Afraid of being hurt, afraid of what might happen when I leave, afraid to experience something great. Honestly, I hadn't been that excited about someone in a long time. I mean genuinely fucking floored by another person. The strange thing is that I knew he was feeling the same thing too and all of a sudden this weird experience happens and he doesn't blame it on the pot, he doesn't blame it on me, he blames it on himself.

I'm sorry but, I DON'T UNDERSTAND. I DON'T GET IT!

So I'm feeling a bit sad now. I don't know what to do. If I should leave it alone, forget about it and move on, or try to draw him back out of his shell. We're supposed to hang out with "the gang" on Tuesday (only because he doesn't want to hang out with just me yet) and I'm sure it'll be awkward as ass, but I guess I'll do it anyway. I just want to find out what will happen.

Worst of all I cried on the phone. Yes, I fucking cried and I wasn't even mad at myself for doing it. Not like other guys I've known where you think they like the satisfaction it has given them to hear/see you shed tears on their account. I could tell he was upset at the fact that he made me cry over my shear frustration with the situation. "Imagine," I told him, "that you feel so happy and so wonderful about a person and what's best is that they feel the same about you. Then that same person for no apparent reason whatsoever tells you that they suddenly do not feel the same. How would that make you feel? Imagine this situation reversed."
"I would probably cry," he said, "God, I'm so sorry."
"Yeah well maybe you can understand why I'm a little bit confused right now."

And it went on like this.

I tried to reason. I tried to understand. But now I'm just feeling a bit bitter. It would be easy to understand if it were another girl in the picture, but there's not. This guy has not had an actual girlfriend to speak of, an actual relationship anyway, and I think I am begining to see why.

Timmi raised a valid point. Would I really want to continue to see this guy anyway if he is this neurotic? This type of thing could happen again. Even he mentioned this fact, that his tendencies might damage things between us. In any case, the guy needs some serious help. Like from doctors, counselors, whatever.

I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. When just a few days ago I felt all those puppies squirming around in there. Someone just had to go and kill those little bastards.

All of this nonsense makes my head hurt.

Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Worst hat zwei.

Roughly translated, that would mean "Everyting has an end; only the sausage has two."

That's right folks. I better start learning German because I'll be leaving the country for Hannover, Germany in August. I will be an au pair for 3 children. And yes, I am scared shitless.

Let me say this: It is time to move. If I did not take this opportunity I imagine that I would regret it later. It will be scary moving to a country where I don't even know the national language, but learning is a continual process, so I will learn to speak German. Needless to say, I'm sure it will be an adventure of its own.

I hope these kids like me. I'm a pretty likeable person I should think, but kids are often tricky. I hope that I'm creative and fun enough for these kids who rarely watch television. Therefore I'll need to regress back to backyard classics that Blythe and I invented in order to keep these kids entertained. Classics like "Middle of Nowhere" and "Don't Touch the Ground!" See, "Middle of Nowhere" was fun because we would pretend we were lost (in the middle of nowhere of course) and we would find mint leaves and chives and eat them, our only food sources. We would play this all day sometimes, coming up with random scenerios about how we would survive. However, I don't really remember how we were to have found ourselves in the middle of nowhere in the first place. Blythe do you remember? "Don't Touch the Ground!" was also fun because we'd pretend there was a lava pit beneath my playground and well, we couldn't touch the ground. I just realized how creative our titles were for these games we played, but it doesn't matter, the games themselves were fun and lasted for hours. I need to get back to thinking like a child would. What's fun for 5 and 8 year old girls? Do they even play with Barbies anymore? An even better question would be, would I be able to play with Barbies anymore without a perverted mind? After the age of 11, Barbie and Ken had a lot of sex. We didn't call her "Slut and Strut" Barbie for nothing.

I'm also concerned about German humor. I am told that it is not like ours or even British humor. That it takes years in fact to be able to understand and appreciate it. I also read that Germans and other Europeans look down upon unecessary smiling. That they see it as a sign of a weak mind. Is this all TRUE? I better not be giddy or unusually happy in public. Shit. I really don't want to be that stupid American that everyone can point out a mile away.

I suppose that a little bit of this worrying and concern comes unecessarily. I've gotten this book from the library about German culture so I can begin to accept this large a drastic change in my life. I'm not sure it's helping to ease my troubles, but rather adding some extra anxieties to my notions of German life and culture. I just need to suck it up. I can do this dammit!

Women and guitars.

This break from school has afforded me an abundance of free thinking time. I've decided that this is not necessarily good nor is it necessarily bad. It's just driving me into some perverse realm of feeling insane. I believe this is just for the time being, at least I hope so anyway. I now know that I will be graduating, without a doubt, in the spring. All I can say is, good, thank god for that. By the end of this month, I should know more about what I might be doing after I graduate. All of these things have hit me like a brick wall. I shouldn't be surprised about any of this, but now I'm surprised that I'm surprised, know what I mean?

In any case, the men in my life are not making matters any simpler. I won't give them credit of being direct cause to my temporary feelings of insanity, however they can take pride in being the ones to amplify them. To a degree anyway.

Yesterday I hung out with Tom. I had abandoned the idea of ever carrying on with him again until he decided to finally call me back. It's strange. What used to be a big deal a little over 8 months ago has deflated to a not-so-very big deal. I am feeling less and less (not in every way ;P), so I think this is good. The weird thing was that while I was listening to all of his ex-girlfriend drama, I was not in the slightest jealous. Also good. In fact, I was really starting to feel bad for the guy. I think I am able to do this because my affections have been growing for somebody else.

Tom and I went guitar shopping. I basically drove his ass around, played counselor, and scoped out cute musicians at the stores we were at. Why? Because I'm nice. So Tom does a trade in at one place gets some money, we go to another store and he buys this acoustic he's been scoping out. Before we got to the store he was nervous, I mean really nervous, that someone may have already picked it up. However, the guitar was still there waiting for him.

Then a strange revelation of sorts. After hearing all of his drama I begin to understand why he was so anxious to get rid of one guitar and replace it. He admited even that guitars for him were similar to women. My reaction was to say "Well that's because you're an asshole and view women as objects." Then I realized the uncanny situation I was in. A guitar to this guy, and to many musicians, is not simply an object. Those who own guitars become attached to them, there are all sorts of sentiments clinging to this instrument. All are different, they each have a varying sound for those who have that acute hearing for it. But apparently sometimes these instruments have to be replaced for a better one. Perhaps a new and more exciting one. Or maybe one that sounds different, plays different. Or for that "dream" guitar they've always wanted, lusted after in fact. However, it seems that in every collection there is a favorite. One that will never be given up or traded in, the Martin.

I was appalled when I thought about this in the context of men, or Tom, in his relationships with women. I think this ex-girlfriend of his is the Martin. And where I stand in this bizarre parallel I'm still trying to figure out. I could be the little parlour guitar or the Larrivee on his wall, but I just might as well be the beater guitar that gets used all the time for dicking around on. Playing around with sounds. You know.

All of this thought was amusing. Amusing in a good way. For the longest time I was thinking about this guy in this deep complex sort of way. This simplifies things. Makes him a little more cut and dry. Suddenly I understand.

Do you SEE why I feel like I do? I mean really, who thinks about this shit? I just might be ready for the semester to start.