Sleepless in Seattle

So on Friday, I believe it was, I got an email from a buddy Devin who I hadn't talked to in about three or four years after a nasty little fight (nasty on my part) in eight grade. I decided, being the adventurous lout that I am, to pay him a visit. I bought a bus-ticket to Seattle for a reasonable price, packed my luggage and my comforter, and here I am.

I've spent the time mainly alone, doing probably what I would have been doing at Reed, except that I'm in Seattle. I picked up, from my friend, a copy of the book "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok. It's interesting, but I'm somewhat perplexed -- why does everybody think this book is so great? The writing is fine, even efficient, but maybe a bit pedestrian, if I can say that; the plot is engaging, sure, but it ain't exactly Ibsen. Someone in the opening remarks compared this book to Ulysses! What hyperbole -- people, I think, like to praise a book vociferously because it flatters them to think that they are living in an age of such genious. I am unconvinced that there is anything supremely worthwhile being published in our own time. But I am also unqualified to say so. So I am a skeptic, or an anarchist, or an idle scribbler.

I am also lonely. Hence "Sleepless..." I think I'm going to be single forever. Everyone says (which is so infuriating!!!) that when you stop looking, you find someone. So what? They might as well tell me that I'm never going to find anyone at all, because I can't conceive of reaching a point where I wouldn't be looking. It's been a year since I broke up with my last boyfriend, real boyfriend, and though I've met six or seven guys who are either uninterested or uninteresting and gone on six or seven dates to boot, well...

And I suppose if I were dating, I wouldn't feel so bad. But aside from a miscommunication last Friday I haven't been on anything remotely resembling a date for at least two or three months. I must be doing something horribly wrong. Perhaps because I'm such a disagreeable person (viz. above comments about Chaim Potok)? Or a recluse (viz. above comments about Chaim Potok)? Or pretentious (viz viz)? I should go back into therapy; but I wonder what a therapist will be able to offer in the way of advice -- how am I going to meet gay guys at Reed? And off campus is a jungle; it's much more likley that I'll meet someone I can actually talk to at Reed, but much less likely that I'll meet anyone at Reed, a Catch-22 or something like that.

Everything is difficult. The lines of W.B. Yeats (misquoted to be sure) keep coming to mind, "The best lack all conviction, and the worst are filled with passionate intensity"...