Now the other experience I had was quite different. A girl came up giving me all these compliments about how well-groomed, well-dressed she thought I was compared with all these other guys at college. She wasn’t really my type (too much make-up, etc.) but I got into her as she kept giving me these complements and striking up friendly conversations with me even though I initially did keep my distance, being my own ‘rational’ and distrustful self. But still, I fell for her. Then at some point I was talking about how I like having a whisky at a local pub with a friend from time to time. So her friend who was sitting at the same table as we were talking proposed that we go out for a drink sometime.

I agreed to meeting in the pub as I thought it would allow me to get to know that particular girl a little better. It wasn’t a ‘date’ but rather just an occasion to be away from college and see how she was in a different setting. She brought over another friend of hers (not from college) that particular evening whom she ended up engaging in childish conversations with, to the point of just plain ignoring me. I began to suspect she had a boyfriend and afterwards I asked one of the other girls about it. Turned out she had a boyfriend all along but was unhappy in the relationship.

I thought I had a hot chick who was into me who might be worth getting to know better but I quickly found that I was just some kind of a diversion to her, like an expendable trophy, and I am sure as hell that I was just one in a series of similar ‘victims’. Not once did she mention her having a long-term relationship, and when I began to just stop talking to her altogether, she would still force herself on me and sit right next to me during lunch break. I was terribly angry with her, of course, and I managed to piss her off by ignoring her so she stopped bothering me. Looking back on it, I should have told her straight in the face that she’s a slut worthy of hell. But oh well, another lesson learnt!

I’ve had been terribly unlucky in love yet I still want to give it a try. Then again, when I look at all the nonsense guys have to put up with from these whiny, childish, and sometimes downright greedy spoilt brats, I honestly believe that ‘relationships’ are overrated. Would having a girlfriend really make you happier? Maybe! What I’m saying is that having a girlfriend or wife isn’t the holy grail. You might be happier with one, but then again, a bad girlfriend might also destroy your life. A good girlfriend, on the other hand, would be someone who gives direction to your life and gets the best out of you. It takes a while to find those, although I think it’s best not to obsessively ‘search’ (or hunt) for one.

As for friendship with women, trust me, it’s impossible. There is no such thing as platonic love between men and women. Not too long ago I got quite close with a girl who I had lots in common with in terms of outlook on life and worldview. She was attractive in a certain way but not necessarily romantically to me. I just happened to have lots of respect for her as a person. She was in a steady relationship already so I did keep a certain distance. However, I got to know her sister somewhat and ended up having a crush on her. When I tried to ask her sister out, she was somehow devastated and didn’t talk to me for a while. In fact, she felt ‘betrayed’ or something.

This just shows how men and women differ! She probably liked me more than she was ever willing to admit so I guess she was just jealous about my asking her sister out, even though she was in a relationship herself. From my perspective, that doesn’t make any sense. I would have thought she’d have been flattered by my having feelings for her younger sister, but she was angry instead. Ever since that happened, things haven’t been quite the same. College’s finished and now she hardly corresponds, which is fine by me, because at the end of the day – apart from your mother and sister(s), women who are not relationship or marriage-material are a big waste of time.

My advice – don’t let allow them to waste your time. Only girls that really had some potential should be ‘allowed’ to give you heartaches, because at least those may have been worth the try. So, make sure you find out whether they’re single or not asap and if they are, drop them immediately. These abusive tarts should not be allowed to waste one single second (or penny) of your life. Also, never allow yourself to develop a crush on someone just for their good looks, especially if you don’t have any chance of talking to them. This is pretty easy to do, it just takes some self-control. Apart from that, just ask yourself this – would you rather have a couple of real good (guy) friends the rest of your life, or have a wife who’s got over 50% likelihood of cheating on you and divorcing you anyway?

Then again, life is full of risks, and birth is perhaps the biggest risk of them all.

What the Hell makes you think she’d have a change of heart? And why would I even want to talk to her again after the way she treated me? Besides, after all this time she probably doesn’t even have the faintest clue as to who I am anymore. I don’t see any reason why she WOULD remember me.

Coincidentally, today was just one of those (rare) days where I happened to randomly catch a glimpse of her. And apparently they’re still together, and I want nothing to do with married women. Honestly, the thought of participating in an adulterous act with someone just repulses me.

God, just thinking about that entire experience makes my blood boil, causes me to wish I never signed up for that damned class in the first place. It ranks at the top of my “worst life experiences ever” list, with this one coming in a close second.

Let me tell you, I absolutely cannot wait until I graduate, that way I don’t even have to run the RISK of noticing that woman on campus or anywhere else ever again!

how about try talking to her again?? maybe she had change of heart <3 .

Although most people over here are trying to prove you wrong (and you’re not) , I would like to say that I agree with you 100%!

I have been through the same damn thing over and over again.(I still am at this moment)
There are times when I want to ask people “are you seriously that naive?”. And yeah it’s true, once you get to the stage when you think she actually has feelings for you too, get the hell out of there! At first it’s all rainbows and love songs but then reality swoops in bites you in the ass.

So thanks for your post.

And if she supposedly “didn’t dupe” me, then what exactly am I suppose to “forgive” her for? Also note that everything that I wrote about took place almost TWO years ago.

It all depends on the life you led growing up, up to the point where you’re reading this blog post right now. If you’re on the fence right now about falling in love, go ahead and do so, and reap the benefits many before you have professed to you over and over again. However, some people were born being comfortable as loners or adapted themselves to be loners. Others may have wanted to be left alone as a change from their lives of the past, if they’ve ever been in an unworkable relationship, or thought themselves to be at the mercy of others too often.

I fall in this latter category. I am someone who values his own personal freedom, beliefs, and values very highly, over everyone else’s. I had the bad luck to be born into an entire family of helicopter parents (both my parents, as well as uncles and aunts) – and I’ll let the concept do the work for you. I was always questioned about the daily activities I did, what friends I made, how and why my grades were a certain way, and I was always lectured to like some kid about what I should be doing with my life – studying much more than relaxing. Even if I brought up good counter points, or brought up perfectly valid experiences from my own limited lifespan (I am 20), they’d always treat questioning them as a form of rebellion, scream and yell at me, throw tantrums of some sort (if you could call them that), saying variations of things like “We’re your parents, why would we want to hurt you?” or “We love you, we know better,” “We’re older, we have more experience, and you don’t,” “It’s for your own good,” and so on and so forth. Over the years as I grew older I could compromise with them on certain things, but those compromises always seemed to go their way. To make this long story short, in the end, with parents, and with “love and care” in general, I can’t distinguish between “love” and “control.” You can always pull out the tired old excuse that I should be more understanding of my parents, but none of you who are reading this has ever lived my life in order to make a full judgement of my character. I can understand the fact that I’m the only son they will ever have, because 1 – they risked their lives to escape from Saigon in 1975, from the Communists who were supposedly “fighting for the greater good,” because “they knew better and we (South Vietamese) didn’t”, and 2 – there was a guaranteed chance that their next child would be a Type I diabetic, and be plagued with health problems his entire life – I apparently was the lucky one, and 3 – they have apparently saved enough money so I don’t have to repay medical school loans and have a secure residency – (medical school was their idea, not mine), an advantage I am certaintly grateful for, but does not justify their parenting mentality. Personal politics aside (although I will mention a bit of politics later on in this piece), this is the main point that has led me to not seek romantic love and a “meaningful” relationship.

The catalyst came during college when I was in my first relationship. By then my misgivings about love were pretty much fully formed, but I wanted to see if I could be free in a relationship if at all, and perhaps turn over a new leaf. We dated for a whole year but our differences began to show through. We were both attracted to each other for what we thought were our genuine personalities but uncovered some annoying personal habits and beliefs along the way. She talked to me almost every day until the day we broke up, asking me about everything in my life. I think I spent a lot of time with her than my other friends, which in retrospect was not a good idea. She never really approved of some of the things I did, for example, she worried about me playing airsoft (which is technically sanitized warfare) and about my plans to obtain a handgun permit. (again, please put personal politics aside) I always wondered about how badly she wanted me to the point where I thought I was being robbed of seeing my friends. When she transferred away back to her home state I knew the relationship was done, but she tried to save it by saying she’d try and put aside all the differences we had and accept me for what I was. We made plans to see each other but within a month she called it off, saying that she couldn’t bear to see me stay for one day, and then have to leave for school the next day, even though I thought she could have waited until the summer break. In the end, it just wasn’t worth it, just another person trying to control you, and someone you feel you always have to satisfy, and live up to their expectations of you.

What did I learn? I learned to hate control – control of me. I want to have all the time in the world in order to work on myself, and to improve myself as a better person the way I see fit, to go about and do as I please within sane reason. I want to be the best of the best, at some costs. I want to be accountable to no one, no one close to me. I do not see why I should be chained to serve other people’s whims, to be bent to another person’s will. I do not want to be controlled, and then have it called “love.” These days it seems that “love” is used as a bludgeon by many people in order to justify so many beliefs and causes that it pollutes the meaning for me. If I were to be in a relationship, I feel like I would be controlling the other person no matter what I did. I can compromise, reason, empathize, give and take, but I know my limits, and to compromise with a so-called “soul mate” is unacceptable, because you have to give up something in order to make the bondage. And I am not giving up something anymore. People say that compromises make good relationships, but they have never lived life in my shoes. People say that giving the other person control over you doesn’t make for a good relationship, but I think that no control is the best control when it comes to relationships, and ultimately I deduced that no relationship would ever work for me, due to the nature of my character and beliefs.

And this is how it all came to be. Being alone is meant for people who fit, for lack of a better phrase, a certain psychological profile. But it isn’t for everyone, just as falling in love isn’t meant for everyone. To be honest, I don’t think anyone can understand what it feels like to shut yourself off from romantic love completely, this powerful feeling of numbness, this feeling of energetic invulnerability, that allows me to keep going every day of my life.

James, I hope you find whatever answer about “love” you are looking for, I’m perfectly satisfied with mine.