Overcast Day (Grumplestiltskin rears his head)

I woke up in an unpleasant mood today. This was both good and bad for me. Bad, because no one likes to feel bad, but good, because it allowed me to have things to put on the internet. Driving to work, I was pleased to see that Lubbock shared my melancholy and chose to express it with some grumpy looking, if relatively benign storm clouds.

But the clouds were helpful, they added a nice gloomy ambiance as I fashioned a makeshift soundtrack for the pity party I was throwing myself.

It's starting to rain outside. I have a pretty good view of some trees with the droplets splattering all around them. I feel just like Thoreau, if Walden was 3/4 parking lot.

I used to like a girl who was infatuated with rain. She always told me that her dream was for a guy who would call her every time it rains, just too tell her that it was raining.

For the next 9 months, this girl would get at least a text message whenever there was so much as a particularly dewy day.

Every time it rains I think about her, and while I don't have any feelings for her anymore, I have the benefit of being able to look back and recognize that as the beginning of my modus operandi.

Find out whatever a girl wants and try to be it.

If you are familiar with me outside the realm of this blog, you'll be aware that this strategy has not been particularly successful.

Is this a statement about humanity? Females in general? Just another nice guy finishing last?

I woke up this morning wondering why life was so unfair. How does a guy like me, a guy, who for all intents and purposes avoids any and all "unsavory" behavior, prove to be so unsuccessful romantically? How come so many dishonest manipulative douchebags end up with really great girls? I think I would be flattering myself to say that girls are turned off because I am too honest and noble, but I wish that were true. It's better than the alternative. I'm remarkably unlikeable.

But maybe the issue here is not women. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's naive to think that girls want the kind of romance people write about. Maybe my familiarity with Milan Kundera is not all that helpful in a practical sense. Maybe all girls want is a text conversation every night and a ride in daddy's car. This would be difficult for me historically because I only recently got unlimited text, and my dad is very protective of his car.

Maybe I try to hard (like John Mayer). Maybe girls can tell that I'm only doing things in an effort to please them. Which makes no sense to me. No one goes out their way to please me, with the exception of immediate family. Is every television program ever created right? Is it all about being yourself? (No, they are wrong, because in every television program ever created, when the protagonist tries and tries for a woman he eventually gets her and they live happily ever after)(e.g, Seth Cohen, Jim Halpert)(Both of those men are way better looking than me).

Why on Earth would I want to be myself? Myself is selfish and controlling and jealous and everything a relationship shouldn't be. I thought the beauty of romance was the willingness to sacrifice yourself, to give up on the things about you that could hurt the other person in favor of pleasing them. But maybe I'm just a pussier Francine Rivers.

Zach Braff would have you believe that you can center yourself by yelling into an abyss with Natalie Portman during a rainstorm.

The effect is not the same when you use your outside voice at a gutter while a construction worker and lunch lady look on during a weak drizzle.