It's amazing the state of inconceivable stupidity one can be allowed to sink into.
The worst kind is when it is self-induced.
Most of this general reality-avoiding indolence is brought about by one of the more heart-warming aspects of human life: a relationship.
The last thing I'm saying is that all relationships make people idiotic, overly happy, chirpy freaks. That's not only mean-spirited, but an enormously general statement, and above all things I despise reducing people to mere sectors of single, married, etc.
What I am saying is that I have seen far too many otherwise educated, street-smart, and compassionate people become idiotic, overly happy, chirpy freaks after they have found themselves members of a couple.
Proverbial salt is added to my wounds when it is revealed that my friend or acquaintances' new 'companion' is a complete and total jerk not just to me, but to strangers, other friends and best of all, their respective partners.
Dear, oh dear. Where have all the smart people gone?
Again, pre-Valentine's neuroses appear to be rearing their ugly heads.
What baffles me the most about this entire cryptogram of human sentiment is what one is willing to give up in the name of what we believe is love. Not too long ago, I was involved with someone who I was entirely willing to give up much of 'myself' for.
That included staying in Buffalo, a place I've wanted to leave almost since I arrived, for graduate school.
It meant giving up time with family and friends, forgoing adventure on Saturday nights and ceasing to take off for a spontaneous destination on a whim. It also resulted in watching aimless television on weeknights instead of poring over the novels I've been obsessed with since adolescence.
In a sense, I was becoming a stranger in my own life.
When this particular relationship ended, I felt like my world had crumbled and I had lost everything. Yet in the end, I can't help but be compelled to feel that after all of this, I have actually found something.
Me.
What separates a good relationship from a god-awful one is, without a doubt, the amount of mutual regard and respect that is involved. Your partner should embrace you just as you are, and be willing to make you a part of their life without it being some kind of enormous undertaking. Someone who shares your interests, respects them, and doesn't want to hide you away from the rest of the planet.
Finding someone at any age like that is difficult. Finding someone that is like that at 21 is next to impossible. Therefore, with the hangover from my most recent breakup beginning to abate, I will be spending a lot of my much-deserved free time getting to know myself again.
Instead of slowly murdering my brain with mindless reality TV, I'll be in the drawing room with my novels.
Instead of falling asleep in someone else's bedroom at 10 p.m. on a Saturday, I'll be hitting the town with my dearest friends.
And finally, instead of staying in Buffalo for the rest of my life, I'll be taking off for Italy come May and wiping the dust of this town off my feet.
With all that in mind, this year, I really don't mind being my own Valentine.
E-mail: shane.fallon@ubspectrum.com
