Anyway, what I was trying to say is that I’ve been really moody lately. Extremely moody. Almost on an emotional level.

Another post-breakup phase. I go through this for a few months after breaking up with someone, but it only started to hit me recently. Funny how I’ve only now had enough relationships to actually realize this. I look at my monthly archives from the beginning of the blog and most of them begin with some emotional, confused line. In fact, this entire blog started as a way to vent these post break-up thoughts and feelings, until it became something more than that. Now I’m falling back into that trap. I’m starting to do stupid shit again, things I wish I didn’t do, afterwards.

Every day, in my head, I plan out my entries for the next week. Yet, every time I sit down to type, I’m never in the mood to write. It’s just the same shit, over and over again.

The difference is that this time I know what to do. I’ve been looking for too much meaning in too little.

I want to get out. For the first time in my life, I’m sick of this winter. I want to sit in the sun. I want to be amongst others.

I want to lay on the track, feel hot steel screaming at me
Expose the bones on my back, let me show you what I mean.

While John was here, we got into a discussion about hypocrisy. Being the complex person that he is, he admitted that he sees no problem with acting in a hypocritical manner. In fact, he tried to convince me to feel the same way. “You’re letting your morals get in the way of advancement”, he would say. I don’t heed any of this advice, of course, because our mindsets, goals, and relationships are founded on two different sets of values, this being one of them. Having built the first twenty-four years of our lives on this foundation doesn’t make it difficult for us to change them, but makes us indifferent to change instead. As much as we like to consider ourselves dynamic individuals, able to adapt to a situation in the best manner possible, this is limited by our desire (or lack thereof) to do so.

In any case, I find it difficult to be a hypocritical person, and in turn, I find hypocritical people difficult. The most aggravating are those who are hypocritical critics. I don’t have a problem with people pointing out my flaws. I have them, and I admit it. It’s the first step towards self-improvement. It’s also great for gaining perspective, for learning how different people interpret things (because I know that many see problems where there are none).

I do, however, have a problem with the people who freely give criticism, when they can’t take it themselves. These are the hypocritial critics; the people who judge others past themselves, when they are the last ones who should be passing judgement on anyone. This hypocrisy may stem from something as complex as insecurity, to something as simple as upbringing (especially as a result of parents who refuse to admit fault to their children). It becomes especially important in equal (non-authoratative) relationships to recognize the barriers that get put up by such a double standard.

Funny how an authoratative relationship taught me this.

I swear I’m missing some underwear.

For the longest time, I had enough boxers to get me through the week at least, but now I find myself having to do laundry before Saturday comes around. I can’t imagine anyone actually taking them, although every time I lose an article of clothing, I always suspect the most recent ex-girlfriend first. This isn’t for any specific reason (in fact, I’m pretty sure none of them have ever actually taken anything), and is probably just a paranoia cultivated through group hug confessions.

That, and knowing how important smell can be to someone. Ashley, in particular, used to take my undershirts on a regular basis. She’d tell me to wear them for days (good thing Asian people don’t sweat), and we’d have a rotation thing going on where I’d give her a new (used) shirt when I couldn’t see her for a while. She told me that she’d fall asleep clutching them, although the smell would never last longer than a week.

Michele was different. She didn’t have any natural scent, and told me that my shirts would never stop smelling like me. I suspect that she had a much sharper olfactory sense.

Sam I could smell through the pages of a book she once gave me: a copy of Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes. She picked it up at a book sale, and read it in one day. By the end she was crying, and thought I would enjoy it. Every time I turned the page, it was like she was sitting in front of me again, coffee smell on her breath.

Louise was different still. She had a great scent that was a little sweet, under the Cool Water by Davidoff she would frequently wear. She didn’t seem to care for my natural body smell as much as the artificial “male” scents, such as the Gillette series of products. Jacky once told me that she was using a stick of the same sport antiperspirant that her ex used because it reminded her of him. When I actually saw the stick, even already knowing that it was a stick of “guy antiperspirant”, I was still surprised at how male oriented the marketing was, with high contrast fluorescent stripes and bold fonts. It looked a little odd when she put it on, holding the stick with her dainty hands.

I find that most girls are like this; they prefer the manufactured smells of an aftershave, body wash, or even deodorant. Instead, Ashley taught me to appreciate an eau de natural. I remember walking up to her house, after not seeing her for a month, and being able to smell her from outside the door. I would miss her even more just standing there, almost as if this made her ethereal presence tangible. Ever since, I’ve believed that the scents we produce are more important than the ones we put on. They’re unique to one person, and never go away.

Unlike my underwear.

I’m not usually someone who misses things. I miss my cat when I’m away for a few days, and occasionally I get a bit wistful because I miss being in Hong Kong, but that’s about it.

I’d miss hanging out with my friends on a day-to-day basis if I hadn’t already accepted the fact that they have lives of their own. I’d miss living in the social, relaxed, jocular environment of residence if I didn’t already understand that university is a part of my life that’s over, and that I most likely won’t being going back (it certainly helps to know that living in residence is nowhere as nice as living in a comfortable apartment or house).

What I do miss though, is having a girlfriend who moisturizes my back in the winter, when parts of my skin get uncomfortably dry and irritating. There are spots I just can’t reach, like between the shoulder blades. It’s also nice to have someone with warm hands who can stop the winter morning shock of cold lotion.

Life is a lot like business. There’s investment in everything, and relationships are no exception. One has to spend money to make money, the way one has to give trust to get trust. There’s no guarantee involved that says one willl get their investment back. On top of this, one can choose how much or how little to invest. Just like everything else in life, the more one risks, the more one can lose, or the more one can gain.

And the world can be divided in two according to this classification: those who play conservatively, and those who play it all. Those who stay distant, and those who throw themselves into love.

If we’ve been hurt in the past, if we’ve lost all that we chose to give, it’s natural for us to hold back in the future. But at some point we have to break out, and we can’t be scared to give as much as before. The key to living this way is understanding that our past investments, relationships, have no bearing on the ones we have now. It’s like the coin flip problem taught in second-year statistics, or, more appropriately, the Gambler’s Fallacy: even after 10 successive occurrances of a single outcome, the chance for the same outcome remains at fifty percent. We have to treat every trial, every case, every relationship differently.

Life, in relation to people, is a series of investments. We end up gaining from some, but not all. That’s what life is about. That’s what love is about. Nothing is worth it if you don’t put yourself out there. It’s important to figure out which ones are worthwhile, but not as important as figuring out that the worthwhile ones need to be given a chance. We need to put at least a little bit of our trust into them, or nothing will happen.

For what use is recognizing a good investment, if we don’t treat it as such?