03.05.2004 10:56 am
ethics

[Christopher's lovely music.]

It's safe to be in the dorms for only one night.

Bowling was fun, although it makes me uncomfortable that Miss Kate flirts with everyone, constantly. I talked to Corey about it, trying to figure why it makes me so angsty... it's just flirting, why does it make me feel the way it does? I have my own private theory... too private for this forum. So other than the flirting, it was wonderful. Galactic bowling, neon colours glowing in blacklight like everything had been dusted in radioactive isotopes with a half-life of one and a half hours. By midnight all the glow was gone, the disco ball was back to seeming cheap and shoddy.

I smoke too much.

So then we came back to campus, said adieu to Ian. Kate and I wandered up to Corey and Chris's room, where movie-watching was in progress. Kate went to bed, and I decided to crash on the futon in order to see all of "Lost in Translation." The movie was good, but better yet: sitting with Corey, talking about all manner of things... my several-months preoccupation with lust and love. I get confused, recently, between lust and love. And intellectual fascination. I am dissatisfied with myself. I wonder, sometimes, about Anna's criticism that I focus too much on social interaction, that I let myself get distracted by friends and intrigues. I think some of that is self-criticism, coming from her. She lets herself be distracted by "love"--not to be harsh. I can imagine, though, a future time when she'll look back on her time in the grey ghost with Matt and think, "Why did I try so hard?" Who knows what the future will bring. I'd be happier for her if the future brought resolution to all the issues of her relationship. And marriage. And babies. I think that's what you want, Anna, so I wish it for you.

I'm a horrible person. Until Assunta mentioned... what was it called? "Human boundary protocol"? The idea that you can't just psychologically dupe people without explaining to them what you're doing. You must be considerate of the emotional anguish which you create for them, in terms of psychological experiments or invisible theatre. Until she brought that up, I'd been toying with the idea of having my own private Adam. I know what you're thinking... Would she tell him? No, of course not, I couldn't.... I wanted to try to change someone, and then have them come to the play. Horrible, horrible thing to do. But we're human; what can't we recover from? If you go out with someone, begin to care for them perhaps, and then discover that it was all an experiment, is that any worse than finding that they simply didn't like you, were bored with you, hated you? I think it would be easier to find that they had been lying to me. It feels less personal, less of a rejection. Yeah, I got played, yanked around, fucked with, but life goes on. Sometimes when you break up with someone, you're not lucky enough to hate them from the moment it ends. Sometimes you hang onto what was lost, hang onto the hurt, hang onto the memory. It's easier to forget when you are angry. It's when your reason to hate isn't as strong as your reason to love, that's when you're in trouble.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -