"All You Single Ladies (and Fellas)!"

Valentine's Day... without a doubt my least favorite day of the year.  To me, it's more like Single Awareness Day.  Seriously, seeing / reading about everyone who's enjoying a special day with their special someone just makes feel even more depressed about my inability to find a girlfriend.  It's been like this for me every year since middle school.  And when you get to college and become more independent, it gets even worse.  You wanna know how sad my love life is?  I can't even get a girl to have lunch with me, let alone establish a long-term relationship.

Usually, I'll spend the day baking Valentine's cookies.  But today, I didn't do anything at all, mainly because I have not been able to motivate myself to do anything all week, and today I was particularly lethargic.  I thought about inviting a female friend or two over for dinner, but I just couldn't decide who.  I eventually decided it wasn't worth making only a half-ass effort, and decided to put off any potential Valentine's Day plans I had until next weekend, when I have more time and am in a better mental state to do so.

But the reality is, I'm not really sure if I'm that much in love anymore.  You see, there's this girl that I've had a crush on since sophomore year.  We had a whole bunch of classes together and used to spend many an evening working on homework together.  During our junior year, I really thought we had something going between us.  By summertime, I knew that my feelings for her were more than just a childish crush.  I really felt like she was the one I'd been waiting for all these years.  Put simply, I truly believed that she was my soulmate.

All summer, I kept counting down the days til I got back to Loyola and could see her once again.  I had made up my mind that during our senior year, I would do everything I could to indicate to her my interest in being more than just friends.  I figured that if we started dating early enough in the year, maybe by graduation our relationship would become strong enough that I could consider popping the question around graduation time.  But then the harsh winds of reality blew in to scatter all of my hopes and dreams.  The first time I saw her this year, at Senior 250's, she said hi, but then avoided me for the rest of the night.  I tried several times after that to ask her out on a date - well, technically, I never actually asked her out; I just asked if she had a free night that weekend - but it seemed that she was always too busy for me.  I tried one more time last January, but this time, she never even bothered to return my message.

And then, a couple weeks ago at the Bull and Oyster Roast, I ran into another girl whom I knew just casually but hadn't seen in a long time, and I had a really good time with her that evening.  She seemed somewhat interested when I suggested the possibility of dinner, and even gave me her phone number.  The thing is, though, I really can't tell if I actually have a chance with her, or if it was just the alcohol talking.

So now I'm in a pretty difficult quandary.  I still have feelings for the first girl, and I still have hope that I can reignite the passion that I once had for her - I mean, we know each other well enough that I still believe it's possible - but lately I've been having these really strong feelings for the second girl, even though I don't know for certain if she would reciprocate said feelings in a sober state.  I just can't decide which one I should ask out.

The problem now is, I'm only three months away from graduating, and the three grad schools that I'm considering (Washington State, Clemson, and Tennessee) are all considerably far away.  So if I did manage to find a girlfriend within these next three months, I'm not even sure if a relationship would last long enough to be worth even trying.  I highly doubt that I could maintain a long-distance relationship, and I really wouldn't want to inconvenience my girlfriend by making her relocate somewhere with me, because I'm sure she has career plans for after graduation.  With that in mind, I guess I'm kinda looking for a relationship with a girl who really has the potential to become my wife.  But y'know, maybe that girl isn't here at Loyola right now, but somewhere in the future in some other place.  It's a pretty big world out there, and more than half of its population is female.  I've got my whole life to find that special someone, so right now, I may as well just try to find someone with whom I can enjoy the three months that I've got left here at Loyola.  I have a few in mind, but I'm open to pretty much any girl who might be interested. 

I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to ramble like this, but I just needed to vent, which is the reason I started this blog to begin with.  Thank you all for hearing me out, and to all my single friends out there in Reader Land, I wish you as happy a Single Awareness Day as it can possibly be.  Here's to us Singletons - let's raise our glasses and our heads high, and hope that we have better luck next year!

B-)