Sometimes you find yourself in a situation that has no future. And that nevermind how good it might be in the short term, the long term just simply doesn’t factor.

So what do you do?

Live for the short term obviously. Despite its inevitable heartache.

Ho-hum.

God knows that most people wants that fairytale. Meet someone, have an instant connection fall in love. Live happily ever after. A lot of people spend their entire lives looking for it. Only a handful of people ever find it. And that sucks. Especially if you end up “settling” for someone. What a scary thought that is.

I’m not saying soulmates, and I don’t think the fairytale even applies to everyone. Some people just work hard at a relationship.

But goshdarnit if I might possibly have found it. I shouldn’t be saying this because it’s clearly much too soon to be saying anything like that. I’ve never even met her. And the chances of it happening any time soon are slim to none. But she’s so great. Beautiful, funny and oh so sweet and kind. I’m just going to play it by ear.

I like to live the dream.

Why do people smoke? What possible benefit is there? There is no benefit. It costs a lot of money, it’s stinky and it causes cancer. But people continue to smoke. Why?

Because they can. Because people don’t want to care about negativity. This is why the advertising will never work. We’ve all seen the horrific adverts all over the place that use scare tactics to try and stop people smoking. There’s the increased taxes, there are even the bans to try and stop people of smoking. In the majority of cases, none of it works. When I see the adverts on the TV, I think yeh, I shouldn’t smoke, but it doesn’t stop me smoking.

People don’t want to know about the negative side of things. People don’t care. Actually, it’s not that they don’t care, but they’re not bothered enough to do something about it. Subconsciously, they do react to certain things. For instance, when the government force the price of cigarettes up, they simply continue to smoke by spending less on other things. They substitute out of certain things so they can smoke. Elasticity. Interesting.

People are weak. If a change in lifestyle requires some sort of effort to change then it won’t happen. If you can simply ignore a problem then people will do that before making an effort to make a change.

Discuss.

A philosophy professor walks in to give his class their final. Placing his chair on his desk the professor instructs the class, “Using every applicable thing you’ve learned in this course, prove to me that this chair DOES NOT EXIST.”

So, pencils are writing and erasers are erasing, students are preparing to embark on novels proving that this chair doesn’t exist, except for one student. He spends thirty seconds writing his answer, then turns his final in to the astonishment of his peers.

Time goes by, and the day comes when all the students get their final grades … and to the amazment of the class, the student who wrote for thirty seconds gets the highest grade in the class.

His answer to the question: “What chair?”

I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life looking for someone. That person. You know the one. That’s right - the one. I’m not saying I’ve met her, but it’s sure got me wondering.

She’s so beautiful, funny, charming, and oh-so-sweet. She’s intelligent, but a little bit ditsy. Heck - she’s also a surfer. She’s got all the right credentials. I think she even likes me too.

Ordinarily I’d be so excited right now. I have no idea if this would go anywhere, but that’s part of the excitement. We could spend the next few weeks bumping in to each other. Surfing a bit, chatting a bit.. getting to know each other. Some time after that maybe we’d grab a drink. Or see each other out. I don’t know, but I’d love to find out.

Why’s it not going to happen? She’s leaving in a month to go to University. The word gutted doesn’t even vaguely cover it.

Why didn’t I meet her a year ago? Or 6 months ago? Why does she have to be leaving? All questions with no answer that’ll make me feel better. I’m going to try and keep in touch with her, but it’s fairly safe to say there’s little future here. Life’s a real bitch sometimes.

You’ll have to forgive me. Yes, I am very intelligent and sod the modesty. I know it, you know it. But when it comes to regular things, I can be extremely dumb. I read stuff, I see the words, I understand the meaning, but I don’t always do anything with it.

When I talk to you, I just talk to you. I don’t examine every last minute detail. And you now know, that generally speaking, when I say something, I’m just saying something. There’s no hidden meaning, there’s no innuendo or subtext. They’re just words that come out of my mouth.

I can be extremely insensitive when I don’t have my brain engaged. Once I make a certain association, I’m all sorted, but until that moment, I can really be thick as pig shit.

So even though I read what you wrote about me, either on your own or in conversation, I guess I didn’t genuinely put 2 and 2 together. I saw it, I liked it, but what did you in was I didn’t answer you. You then took that my apparent silence, as ignoring the thing - you thought it was an answer. Maybe you thought I simply didn’t want to say the words. Maybe you thought I didn’t give a fuck. But either way, it seems like it upset you. Sadly, the situation is that I’m really just a dummy. I didn’t actively not say anything (if that makes any sense), I just didn’t say anything.

I know why, and maybe an explanation is in order.

The thing is what you said was really nice, it’s very sweet, and will always make anyone feel good. The problem was that my brain wouldn’t let me compose a good answer to it. I’m too rational; too logical. So I was hearing you put yourself out there, but I wasn’t ready to give you the answer you wanted to hear. That’s not say I don’t have that answer - it’s just to say that I’m not capable of giving an answer.

Why? I’ve done it before. I’ve committed to an answer and it’s all gone wrong. And not always fault, but it hasn’t gone the way I’ve wanted it to. So now, I’m defensive. Cynical. I’m alert to the possbility of more hurt. I want to put myself out there, but it’s not the sort of thing I’m going to do lightly.

You’ve got to admit our situation is a little unusual. Certainly not ideal. If anything it’s almost futile. And I don’t want that to sound harsh. But I never want to say never, so it seemed to me the way we were going was perfect. Take it slowly. See what happens. If it happens, then we deal with the situation. I couldn’t see how to make any more of a commitment than just friends because it’s just too soon. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that. Think about what we’ve done so far. We’ve barely done a zillionth of the things that two people might do in the build up to something more formal. And from previous experience, I’ve gone in too fast, and I’ve ended up on the receiving end.

I’m sorry if my insensitivity upset you. I’m sorry if you feel like you’ve been hurt. That was not my intention. If you want to carry on how we were and see what happens then that’d be great. If you can’t then, OK.

Your call.

I’ve seen SO many tutti-frutti chick-flick happy ending loveydovey films  where’s there’s a handsome bloke, a gorgeous girl, for some reason they’re meant to be together, for whatever reason somehting goes wrong, but by the end of the film, they’re happily ever after and i’m always filled with that warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach, that makes me think, awww, that’s sweet, wouldn’t it be nice to have that myself. Well the thing I hate, is that I never then actually go and do anything about it.

I’m not sure. but i think fear of rejection is a big part of it. And fear of meeting someone crap, because i’ve had my share of crap people, and i’m tired of it. I know for one thing that my expectations are very high and the longer i’m single, the higher they get. But I don’t want to let go of the fantasy that one day i’ll meet that someone amazing. The trouble is, in my current lifestyle, the chance of me actually meeting that person are slim to none
I’m not saying it’s very rational, if it was rational then i could control it. Human nature is a funny thing.

What can I do, though?

Never underestimate the power of confidence in your ability to do something. It sounds like a bloody obvious thing to say, it really does, but it’s true. Confidence affects everything and is a key factor, regardless of any actual skill or ability in the particular task. Case in point, I play cricket. When I was a lot younger I had some talent, and heaps of confidence and I played well. I was selected for a county side, I scored runs like there was no tomorrow, and there was nothing I couldn’t do. A couple of seasons passed where I didn’t play, and then I started again. I’d lost a little form, but there was no doubt, that being older, wiser and definitely a lot stronger and more powerful, that I was actually a better player than I was when I was younger. But having not played in a while, I was low on confidence. And needless to say, it’s been a real struggle. I keep playing, but even now, I’m not playing anything like my best. I’m better than I was, but I’m not getting the results. I have no confidence.

And confidence is a tricky thing to analyse. Again, it’s obvious, but with confidence, confidence continues to grow. Without confidence, confidence dissipates. In this example, when I was younger and had confidence, I’d play well, and my confidence grew, so I played better, so my confidence grew, and so on. Nowadays, with no confidence, I’m playing badly, so I never gain any confidence, so I continue to play badly.

I believe confidence works on a kind of greyscale, that has a lower bounds, but no upper bounds. That is, there gets a point when you are simply not confident. If cannot get any worse - you are at the bottom. However, you can never be totally confident - that is, you can grow in confidence indefinitely. At some point, though, you might become overconfident, which is really a different topic. But it leads to arrogance and complacency, at which point your fortunes can change, which ultimately might lead to a drop in confidence.

But how do you get confidence? It’s difficult, because it’s another circular argument. One way, is to force your own hand, by taking some risks. If you’re already not confident, then it can’t get any worse if you fail again by taking risks. If it succeeds, you might gain some confidence.

However, this theory essentially contradicts the argument of this article - that is that you need confidence to perform. If you’re able to do something to get confidence when you don’t have confidence, then surely it holds true that you don’t need confidence at all? That, I suppose depends on the type of person you are.

I was in London a couple of weekends ago. I was catching a tube across London to get to Gatwick. In the crowded, sweaty carriage I stopped. I looked at the other people in the carriage. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many frowns and scowls on peoples’ faces. Everyone looked miserable, stressed and angry. People were silent. Idly staring into space. As their lives drifted away.

I was later walking through Knightsbridge. Everything moved so fast. People buzzed about. All in pinstripe suits and expensive shoes. It seemed fake. People were trying to be what other expected they ought to be. What they had been conditioned to be. Whether or not after a while you just become that person, I don’t know.

I just got a sense of something - that I was’t designed for that sort of lifestyle. I’m not saying I have all the answers, and I’m in no way judging the people I saw in that train or the other people on the streets of London… but it made me realise that there’s a lot more to life.

People are naturally jealous. Jealousy is a perfectly healthy emotion. It shows you care about something - that you’re prepared to be vulnerable, to have desires and dreams. Jealousy is a sign that there are parts of your life you feel you could improve. Most commonly, jealousy is in relationships. Jealousy shows that you have trust issues. That some emotional scar is inhibiting your ability to fully open yourself for emotional commitment.

Jealousy isn’t a bad thing, but it can be very destructive if not controlled. Sadly, controlling it is an extremely difficult thing to do.

The irony of jealousy is that it’s an internal war of your mind - versus your own mind. You know that jealousy is a dangerous thing, and that it’s probably irrational, and that it has the potential to destroy your relationship. Yet the gremlins (the ‘green-eyed-monster’) has a say too - and often overpowers your natural inhibitions.

I hate jealousy.