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Being sick, as I was this morning, always has weird effects. For one thing, I ended up sleeping 4 more hours than I normally would have. When I woke up, I felt groggy and disoriented, and I haven’t completely recovered.

I can tell that there are a lot of emotions boiling underneath my normally calm, cool, and collected exterior. I had a massage scheduled today — the first professional massage I have ever had. While I enjoyed it, it was a constant struggle to stop thinking about work and relax. When I get in that mode — where I can’t shut down — that’s bad. I know that means I’ve been ignoring all the emotional drama in my life. And really, there isn’t that much, but when I ignore it it tends to build up to unhealthy levels.

Most of the emotional drama is centered around my love life (or lack thereof.) I haven’t had a relationship since R and I broke up. That breakup was 10 months ago. This is by far the longest time I have been single since I started dating back in high school 10 years ago. While I have thoroughly enjoyed most of my time being single, it really does gnaw at me sometimes. The problem is exacerbated when someone comes into my life whom I feel I’d actually work out with in a relationship — and there have been a few of those (I can name 4) in the past 10 months. I immediately launch (mentally) into this long list of reasons why it wouldn’t work. He lives too far away. Likes something I don’t like. Doesn’t date girls like me. Too old. Too young. Then I plow into the “even if” category — even if he wanted to be in a relationship with me, I fuck up relationships. I don’t know what I want. I vacillate. I throw walls up. I disengage from relationships on a regular basis and just work, work, work. And I seem to hurt every single guy I’ve ever dated in some way. That sucks.

I kick my own butt about all of this on a regular basis. The thing I keep coming back to is that I wish I could just throw it all away. I’m really great at being a nice person. I’m pretty genuine; I wear my emotions on my sleeve and give out lots of hugs. I enjoy my life, my work, and my customers. Why can’t I just be that person and never have to deal with relationships? It really seems like every time the word “relationship” comes into the picture, there is drama. I genuinely wish these guys would accept me as a best friend and I would be able to hug them with no drama.

But then there’s a piece of me that wants more than that. And that’s where it all falls apart.

I don’t know what to do. Other than begging for a drug that shuts off my heart; that allows me to be genuine and happy with people while never, ever wanting anything to do with sex or anything more than “BFF” (best friends forever), I’m at a loss. I have all of these emotions that I do not want. I do not understand them. They are complicated and they do not follow a logical pattern and that drives me crazy. Work — I am good at that. Things that are logical and make sense — I get those. Things that are emotional and follow no discernible pattern — yuck.

Life just doesn’t make any sense sometimes.