I just found out that someone I went to college with, the month or two I was actually in college, someone I went out with -- exactly once, mind you; and, boy, what an idiot I was back then -- may now go out with my ex brother-in-law. I think I'm going to throw up. I might as well still live in that god awful wretched town I grew up in, Lancaster. It's like the black oil on "The X Files." Once it gets in you, you're shit out of luck. Rock Hill is only 25 miles away from Lancaster. It might as well BE Lancaster.

I think there must be one hundred people that actually live in Lancaster. Everyone knows everything about everyone from who they are -- or aren't sleeping with -- to how their stool looks. You can go to Wal Mart (the new Super Center opens soon, I am told) and see someone you graduated with, someone you go to church with, half your family not to mention your family doctor and, if you're a video poker parlor owner, your accountant, lawyer and the cop and/or state senator who is in your pocket.

It doesn't help that my ex brother in law is a little insane as is most of my ex's family. They are so dysfunctional, they make the Simpsons look like the Waltons. Oh, wait. Should I have said that? But these people give the term religious fanatics a new name. They make Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell look downright normal. Oh, I probably should not have said that either. Just ignore this entire paragraph. Which would be easy for my in laws as most of them can't read anyway.

But back to the town I used to live in. (I like saying "the town I used to live in." Don't you, bleu? Oh. Sorry. Never mind.) There's that old saying, something about six degrees of separation. Something about how everything eventually comes back to Kevin Bacon or something like that. In Lancaster, I think there must be about 1.7 degrees of separation. Did I mention that I went out with my ex's first cousin back in 1989? This was before I even met the woman who was destined to become the ex Mrs. Flood. She was crazy too. Thought we were all descendants of an alien race. She may have been, but I'm descended from earthlings, even though they were a little peculiar.

Hmm. Probably should not have said that either.

Which somehow leads me to this: We are all looking for something we can't find, something that is, in fact, unattainable. We are looking for our soul mate, the one we were destined to be with. Guess what. This ain't Hollywood. To put it bluntly, shit like that just don't happen everyday. We're lucky to find someone we may share a few things in common with, lucky to find someone who doesn't run off to her ex boyfriend for a night in a cheap hotel room the first chance she gets, then comes back saying how sorry she is and that she took your ring off so she wouldn't disgrace it and that she really won't ever -- EVER -- do anything like that again. And then you take her back not because you trust her enough not to drop her pants again the next chance she gets, but because you did, after all, marry her. And how big a failure would the marriage be if it didn't last for more than a year? It should be noted that I am using a hypothetical situation here. I'm certainly not talking from personal experience.

And then there is always those unfortunate fucks that seem to always fall for someone who is already involved with someone. Someone shows just a little amount of interest in them (say over a sales counter in the local discount store) and these guys start thinking that they may be going to Charlotte's Center City Fest together and even buys the tickets. Again, I'm not talking from personal experience here. But I once saw something that struck; it was a quote: "There is no greater pain than to love someone who has already found their love."

Of course, love is used too much these days. The word generally has lost all of it's meaning. In fact, I use it here more to describe a dating life or a social scene than that deep, inner connection that I don't believe exists anyway. I think this is one thing I did not explain very well in those early rants of mine. When I use the word love, I mean more of a warm, fuzzy feeling than anything else. So there.

Have I ever been in love? I thought so. But the bond was broken. Will I ever find it again? I hope so. When do I think it will happen? Probably around the same time that the Devil himself puts on a thick lined jacket.

Love and attraction and connection and a smile of a pretty girl are nothing more than illusions. Illusions of a life never to be lived. And the sooner we come to realize this.....

Anyway, I began thinking of advice I could offer. I hope this doesn't come off as sounding like the elementary school psycho babble bullshit I mentioned in the previous rant. But these are things I have learned from my almost thirty years of, uhm, experience.

1.) Never sleep with a woman crazier than you. This is generally a hard thing to do. Mental illness is sometimes easy for a woman to hide. Also, if you yourself are crazy, finding someone crazier than you may not be that easy.

2.) Don't look for love or lust on the internet. If it finds you, shoot it. Finding friends on line is easy and a great thing. I have many friends on line. But when the feelings start to turn more romantic, my best advice to you is to RUN!!! As fast as you can. Change nicks! Change ICQ numbers! Change ISPs! Whatever it takes, do it.

3.) Never go to a secluded waterfall with an ex. Especially during warm weather. This may seem to come out of left field. But, trust me, it's entirely relevant. No matter how beautiful the scenery may be there, there is always other things to do. You could wash clothes, clean house, get a root canal, give the dog a bath. Anything other than going to a secluded waterfall with an ex during warm weather is advisable.

4.) And finally, if you begin questioning anything of the relationship, chances are it's over. Let me give you an example. If you start wondering why the hell you stay with the one time object of your affection, leave. If you begin wondering if you can still trust them, you can't. Leave. Of course, just because your trust is leaving on that midnight train, does not mean there is any good reason for you not to trust them. You may just be paranoid. Or either your true feelings for this person is showing through your misguided lack of trust. In any event, leave. Too many people stay with whoever they are with for some shitty reasons. These shitty reasons include: not wanting to be alone, not wanting to have to find someone new, or just a general lack of self confidence on your part. (Chances are that whoever you are with has sapped the last bit of self confidence from you.)

As I said, we are looking for our one true love. Yeah, that bullshit. I think we would be much happier if we just looked for someone to be with, someone to have fun with. Don't go into every relationship wondering if this is the one that will work out. If it is, one day, you'll know. You might be sitting in the break room at work and realize that your current significant other is your one true love. This is how it should hit you, when you least expect it. Don't put the burden of being "the one" on some guy or girl you just met. Chances are, they will run kicking and screaming in an effort to get the fuck away from you as fast as they can. Unless they are diligently searching for "the one " too. Then, what happens next is often much worse.

But I'm getting way out there now. I guess what I am trying to say is this: Lighten up, people. Have some fun. Have some sex. Go with the flow. Because, look the man who got what he wished for and realized he had been wrong all along, the same could happen to you. And whatever you do, if you remember only one thing I have said in this badly written rant, it's this: Never go to a secluded waterfall with an ex.

"It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not."
                                                                        --Andre Gide

"If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?"
                                                                        --Lili Tomlin

"What a recreation it is to be in love! It sets the heart aching so delicately. There's not taking a wink of sleep for the pleasure of the pain."
                                                                        --George Coleman the Younger

"In real love, you want the other person's good. In romantic love, you want the other person."
                                                                        --Margaret Anderson

"Thousand have lived without love. Not one without water."
                                                                        --W. H. Auden

"He was awake a long time before he remembered  that his heart was broken."
                                                                        --Ernest Hemingway

"If two people are in love, there can be no happy end to it."
                                                                        --Ernest Hemingway

"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love."
                                                                        --Anais Nin

"The message that 'love' will solve all of our problems is repeated incessantly in contemporary culture -- like a philosophical tom tom. It would be closer to the truth to say that love is a contagious and virulent disease which leaves a victim in a state of near imbecility, paralysis, profound melancholia and sometimes culminates in death."
                                                                        --Quentin Crisp

"Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile."
                                                                        --Franklin P. Jones

"People who are sensible about love are incapable of it."
                                                                        --Douglass Yates

"Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. It's a dug. It distorts reality and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone you really saw."
                                                                        --Fran Lebowitz

"Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you."
                                                                        --Joey Adams

"It's better to have loved and lost than to have to do forty pounds of laundry a week."
                                                                        --Dr. Laurence J. Peter

"One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry."
                                                                        --Oscar Wilde

"Many man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it."
                                                                        --Maurice Chevalier

"I'll probably meet another guy and have another long relationship. But I can't be too sure of that: my ex-boyfriend has a wife; my ex-girlfriend has a wife, and every time I answer the phone, it's somebody calling to change their mind."
                                                                        --Johnathan Van Meter

Interviewer: "Ever make a man who could make you happy?"
Mae West: "Several times."

"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."
                                                                        --Socrates

"Never approach a friend's wife or girlfriend with mischief as your goal... unless she's really attractive."
                                                                        --Dame Rose Macauly

"You don't just marry someone. You marry their childhood, the stuff they're ashamed to tell you about, the monsters under their bed and everything that put them there."
                                                                        --Lois Quartermaine, "General Hospital"

"I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury."
                                                                        --George Burns

"When you're in love, it's the most glorious two and a half days of your life."
                                                                        --Richard Lewis

"Were kisses all the joys in bed, one woman would another wed."
                                                                        --Shakespeare

"We're all in this alone."
                                                                        --Lily Tomlin

"Bisexuals, I think we all agree, are incredibly greedy motherfuckers. I don't ask much from people. But get off the fence and pick a hole."
                                                                        --Dennis Miller

Jerry: "You just met the guy yesterday."
Elaine: "Yeah, but we share a common goal."
Jerry: A barren, sterile existence that ends when you die?"
Elaine: "Yeah."
                                                                        --"Seinfeld"

"The difference between sex and death is that with death, you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you."
                                                                        --Woody Allen

"If you can't be with the one you love, love yourself."
                                                                        --Dick Dietrich, "Night Stand"
 

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