Chapter 25: Break Time

I’m sick and tired of trying to read people. I’ve got my job where I am trying to figure out if people are going to be able to do well or not. Then I’ve got my personal life where I am trying to figure out if people even want me around, much less trying to figure out if they like me. Experience has taught me one thing and now I am trying to do the complete opposite.
I have a problem with guys because in the past I have misread guys and in one case there was a guy who really didn’t even have a high tolerance for me. The guy that I got closest to in high school made out with my best friend a month after graduation. Not to mention that for the past five years I have been surrounded by guys of the most idiotic nature who say one thing and do another. Needless to say I have become quite guarded around guys. I have trouble expressing an interest in guys that I truly like (who are we kidding, I can barely talk to guys I like), I turn tail and run if a guy likes me (whether or not I had previously liked them). I can’t read into anything they say or do because I only convince myself that there is no way that they could like me. Several times I have persuaded myself that I will die alone…even if that is a depressing thought.
For a day or two recently I have tried to sway myself in the other direction. I’ve tried to talk myself into putting my heart on the line, though I have discovered that I don’t really know how to do that. Upon a self-evaluation I feel that my attempt to put my heart on the line may just come across as stalking, and that’s illegal in all 50 states. On my drive home today I wondered at how some girls date and some girls don’t. What makes them so different and is it something that can be taught or are those of us who lack the capacity doomed to hopelessly float around life all alone. Am I going to miss out on something because I just can’t let my guard down? Because I can’t believe that someone could like me?
It all comes back to Buddy land doesn’t it? Do we all start out with a hopeful palette and then slowly each experience moves us towards normalcy or towards Buddy Syndrome? There is no way to prevent it, no one can know what life is going to hand them. It’s a sad thought though, but how do you overcome it?
Right now I am ready to take a break, I hope it won’t prove to be a mistake, but considering that I am still having dreams about dying I think I have enough stress in my life, so I need to cut some of it out. This is the only type of stress I can do anything about. It’s not like I can force myself to no longer like people, or to stop getting nervous around them, but at least I can just stop trying to impress them, stop pretending that maybe some day he’ll recognize that I am exactly what he’s looking for and that he fell in love with me without even realizing it. Something tells me that it just doesn’t work that way.