| About Me I've adhered to a strict policy on this site of not giving away my real identity (unless you recognize me from one of my pictures, but what's the chance of that?). Here's what I can tell you, while following that self-imposed guideline. It's also going to lean rather heavily toward my relationship history - sorry, I'm writing for the masses here, and they want the goods :) I loved kindergarten and the rest of grade school. My year was always the smallest class in the school. The school's average class size was twenty, but we were never more than ten or so, and at graduation we were only five. In spite of that I never developed very close relationships with my classmates and lost touch with all of them nearly right away afterward. I was very quiet, very studious, an avid reader, and an avoider of sports and all things requiring large groups or get togethers. Grade school label: Loner. In highschool I didn't improve much, though I had the odd sense now and then that I could have fit in and been welcomed were I to make the effort. I saw that effort as consisting of behaving like the reckless idiot adults warned me not to be, so I remained on the outside. And I was proud of it. I was also proud of the fact that I'd never tried dating and that people thought I didn't want to. I think I did. I know I did with one particular person, very much (she knows who she is, now). But professing not to made me unique. That must be why I clung to it for so long. Highschool label: Stuck-up loner. In late highschool and early university, my self-identify underwent an enormous change. Until then I revelled in being an outsider by choice and making feeble attempts at being mysterious. I thought was avoiding playing to the crowd, but everything about me was based on calculated impact on the people around me. I really hadn't avoided the 'trap' of social status at all. When I read Ayn Rand, among other effects she had on my life I found a new, real way to state who I was that didn't depend on anyone or anything but me. It was what I'd inherently believed was right all along, and thought I was doing. Now I saw my mistakes. I'd been denying myself all manner of things involving getting to know people and allowing them to know me. University label: Very ashamed ex-loner. So at 22, I truly began to count and value my friends. I started dating, with all the experience of an 11-year-old. I fumbled over my words in ways everyone else had already experienced, learned from and adjusted to. I made a fool of myself trying to date the girl I'd admired in highschool, and lost her forever (yup - she definitely knows who she is). I was attracted to one girl after another who had a boyfriend already, and I started to panic. I should have started earlier. All the good ones were gone. Nobody waited for me. My ex-wife was a good person, but she wasn't the right person. We were too eager to escape lonliness to see that. I had a happy two years of dating and four years of marriage with her, until the cracks started to show and we inevitably grew apart. Now I'm 29. I've been all the way around the track where a relationship is concerned. Most of my positions on Ayn Rand have mellowed. I've discovered that locking eyes with a woman you are attracted to is far more effective than avoiding her; but my life doesn't hinge on her looking back. I can live on my own, look after my own affairs, and do it well. The skills I'm most proud of have improved over time, particularly my fiction writing, and are approaching the levels I've always wanted to achieve. I have a job I love, and I do it well. If I want to have something, I have to want it. I can be happy, as long as I choose to be. Present label: Social butterfly in the making. I started this site as a record of the 'continuing journey', so to speak. I can use it to let family know what's going on in my life, provide helpful links to friends, or to introduce myself to newcomers. I owe a thank you to Chrissy in California, who's site, stumbled upon late one night, was the inspiration for my own. I'd tried making my own personal site before, but could never choose a topic. When I found myself reading hers - somebody on the other side of the continent who I had nothing in common with and shouldn't care a whit about - to the extent I did, and being fascinated by it, I realized that was the correct way to make a web site about yourself. Just tell it like it is. I don't profess to live a life worth reading about every day. Who does? But how many things might you read about here that could make you consider your own life in a new light? Are any of us really as different from each other as we think we are? 2002-07-22 Edited: 2002-08-13 It's long past time I added an additional paragraph here in honour of the new love of my life, LA. We met each other with the help of Quest Personals, an excellent (not to mention free) web site I would have recommended without reservation, had they not redesigned the whole thing into a much clunkier interface... but enough about them. LA fills my life with joy. I loved her before I even met her. Every time the phone rings, I hope it's her. In her company, I feel as though I'm making up for all the mistakes of the past and then some. She is all I ever asked for when I was wishing for company, and all the company I will ever need. I share everything with her and, what's better, she is willing to share everything with me. What I feel for her, she feels for me, and it is the greatest miracle I have experienced. Everyone should be so lucky, and I hope you are. 2003-01-15 |