So I'm making a commitment today.

It's been in the works for a while, I guess. It's one of those things that you just figure out as you go, and don't put into words until much later. You can't really tell what it is while it's forming, but eventually, it's obvious.

Today, I decided that the person I am now doesn't need love, as most people define it.

Well...I don't need to pursue romance, at least.

Sure, I can't operate independent of humanity. I'm not exactly an island.

But I'm not going to go out of my way to fall in love again.

I'm not going to throw around the word "love" when I haven't experienced it. There's a buzz, a high, an ecstasy, that's out there. I know it's out there. I've felt it. I've held it.

And no amount of loneliness is going to coerce me into accepting somebody less than that.

If there's somebody out there that makes me feel that way, so be it.

But if I never find it again, I'll be single for the rest of my life.

That's fine with me.

i actually stole this one from facebook. that's right, you fiendish facebookers. fear it.

anyway.

um. the way this game works:

step 1: access google, whether by a search toolbar or actually going to their site.

step 2: type "(your name here) likes to" in quotes.

step 3: repost this with the first ten results.

1) Jonathan Likes to Move it, Move it

2) Jonathan likes to have as much control of his body as possible, so we allow him to choose where we will start which is usually his belly to help warm him up.

3) Jonathan likes to share what he knows through speaking, writing books, writing for online magazines such as Digital Web and Sitepoint, and writing for his ...

4) Kyle adds that Jonathan likes to stay at home, watch TV, and read, saying: “I call him a straight guy who happens to be gay.”

5) Jonathan likes to run.

6) Jonathan likes to go down the slide on his belly.

7) Jonathan Likes to Sing. Jonathan is very often singing or humming now as he works or plays. (this is true...)

8) Jonathan likes to spend his time watching Hitchcock films, base-jumping, donating organs, brokering world peace and lying about his flat. (this is also true. yes, i'm a base-jumper)

9) Jonathan likes to cogitate upon the conundrum of literary schools & conventions.

10) Jonathan likes to play with other children, but at times becomes challenging when he does not get his way.

this...is the best thing ever. do it. now.

I'd forgotten it was possible to feel like this: the feeling of loneliness that I never experience when I'm alone. It only shows up when I'm with a certain person. Even if I'm in the same circumstances with the same people, if one person is missing, it's gone. I hadn't seen her for months, and I had healed up to the point where the feeling was perpetually out of my mind. I lived in a comfortable numb, occasionally observing that I wasn't attracted to any significant degree to any of the girls I'd met recently. I wondered often if it was a healthy symptom, if everybody lived that way all the time. I lost a dimension that had become a major part of me, that had shaped my perspective on life, and it turned me into someone I couldn't connect with. I was emotionally dead. But I saw her tonight. I saw her, and I held her, and breathed in her smell, and I woke up. I don't know if it's a good thing that I'm feeling again, or a bad thing. I don't know if the numbness was healthier. But I can't help believe that if I'm too numb to take life in properly, it's not worth living. I'm going to pursue her, even if it's just to keep my wounds raw enough that they keep me awake. I'm going to chase her, even if it's only to hold on to pain.