Am I crazy?

Of course. But what do you think makes me crazy?

The craziness that's on my mind now is that I've been seriously thinking about relocating for awhile. It took me so long to adjust to life in Warner Robins; how am I going to make it in another new place? I am slow at making friends and in Warner Robins I now do have a couple of good friends - Mo, Emory, Cindy. Two of my best friends and favorite bridge partners - ramesh and sean - are moving out of Atlanta soon and it may be about time for a change of scenery for me as well.

As much as I like traveling, I get traumatized when I have to move. When I moved from Athens to Valdosta when I was 5, I didn't talk to anyone for a year. then I finally met Casey and became best friends. When I moved to Atlanta for college, it wasn't so bad because there were just so many people that were in the same position as me. When I moved to Warner Robins, I had some of my best friends to still see on weekends in Atlanta and I could go 2 hours to my parents almost any time. But considering a move to Boston or New York is a lot different. I don't feel like I can handle it right now, but I think I need to. When I moved to Warner Robins, I sort of decided that if, after 3 years I wasn't attached to someone local, I would move to a big city where there are opportunities to meet people and to experience that big city lifestyle. I sort of got that while at Tech but not really. For a long time, I thought I was going to be attached, but such is not the case, and that's a good thing. It's not that I am unhappy with my job or where I live. I'm just afraid that I will be unhappy soon and I want to do more with my life and live in a giant city while I am still young.

"When you have to have a tough conversation..."

Ideally, a second actual date with someone 5 weeks after the first and lasting multiple days is not how it’s supposed to work. A second date with someone should be about a week after the first and include no more than 2 hours of time in which conversation is acceptable. The third date should probably be another week or so later and be limited to maybe 3 hours. Maybe by the 15th date, people (or at least me) are comfortable enough with each other for a more extended period of time together. Actually I don't believe in dating, and I don't believe in having "the talk." It shouldn't be necessary. You shouldn't have to "define the relationship" but it should be just something you feel. But then I inevitably find myself wondering where I stand and needing to know how the other person feels, so more of a relationship definition is needed.

There are many reasons it shouldn’t work, at least not now or near future, but the actual reason for this failure was a bit startling. It really puts lots of doubts in me, as if my social skills have reverted back to when I was in high school and couldn’t maintain a conversation. Conversation this time was supposed to be easy and fun – but it never is with me, unless bridge is involved. I’m struggling to keep myself together, and I don’t have anyone I can reliably turn to for comfort and support. I long for that - a best friend - more than anything, really.

Catching Up With Grey's Anatomy

Tonight I’ve done a lot of catching up on Grey’s Anatomy. I saw relationships being torn apart because people are so concerned with their jobs and others trying to force them into having more of a social life. It kind of scares me because it’s people like Cristina Yang that I am most attracted to. She is so concerned with being the best cardiothoracic surgeon in the world but she hides her emotions and pushes people away when there is any hint of coming in between her and her work.

The vast majority of the women I have ever been attracted to are highly motivated career-oriented future lawyers and doctors who often seem as though they care more about their careers than family or the possibility of a potential family interfering with work. I value family a lot and would put family over my career any time. I’m certainly motivated to have a career but not so much that it totally consumes my life. I tend to think I have a good balance of work and play. Maybe this is just a product of going to Georgia Tech and working for the government. While I also tend to think that I would be okay with moving to wherever my future spouse finds her dream job and her working 60 hour weeks or more, a part of me thinks this difference in philosophy is going to cause major problems – not an ego problem because she’d be working more and making more money but because I would be more needy, needy of her companionship and her being too busy to spend enough time with me. What attracts me to people like this?

The TV shows and movies I like most are largely about people who are so consumed with their work that they become incapable of having healthy relationships. Or they’re about people realizing that all the effort they’ve spent making a good career for themselves really tears apart some wonderful relationships. Maybe the really brilliant people in the world aren’t meant to have love or they’ll only be happy with someone who is equally consumed with their work but I don’t believe that is the case. Or maybe once they get out of school, their views on relationships will change. When I was at Tech, they said that we get our life back 2-3 years after graduation, once we’ve settled down in a job. But I haven’t changed, at least not in terms of how much free time I have or how I view relationships. School was not time consuming for me. It’s not because I’m that smart or didn’t get good grades – there were tons of smarter people than me at Tech and my grades and my ability to have a balanced life were just fine. I dunno. We like who we like and we can’t help it. Someday something will work out.

Attempts at Cooking Indian Food

So, I'm going on about 10 days of a fruit, veggie, fish, and beer diet. Why? I'm not entirely sure, but it might have a little something to do with Dana. Maybe it's an effort to be healthier. Maybe it's an excuse to save money by having to bring my lunch to work because non-meat options at fast food restaurants are very limited. I could even claim that it's for lent since that started yesterday.

So, yesterday I made an attempt at cooking Indian food for the first time in years. I cooked palak paneer and it turned out far better than any Indian food I cooked before, but I need more practice before I try to impress dana with it on the 26th. Maybe adding squash wasn't a great idea. It seemed like it would go well with spinach and cottage cheese, but maybe that's why it's not as good as Shahenshah.

Interfaith Relationships

Today's post deals with interfaith relationships/marriages. Clearly there are widely varied opinions on this. There are traditionalists who would disown a child for marrying someone of a different religion. There are modern theists who are open to the idea of possibly marrying someone of a different religion, but know that it will inevitably create some extra conflict. Then there are the agnostics/atheists who could give a hoot about what religion their partner is.

I’ve searched a lot for statistics about this. But for the most part, experts seem to think atheists and agnostics have a lower divorce rate and born-again Christians have the highest divorce rate. Does this surprise anyone? I’ve seen many interfaith marriages work out well. And I’ve seen many marriages within the same church crash and burn. I’ve seen people go through a relationship for y ears only to realize that they’ve been wasting their time because they could never marry each other due to their religious convictions. I think a big reason the non-religious people may have more successful marriages is that they are more open-minded and their judgment is never clouded by the notion of God and what He wants and trying to idealize things.

I suppose I fall into the category of a very liberal born-again Protestant. I say liberal in the sense that I totally respect all religions and am open to learning about them and possibly changing my faith someday. But my set of morals and values are as strong as anyone’s, and they are mostly independent of religion. Back to the topic at hand. All religions teach basically the same things. They may have different Gods, different prayers, different holidays but all religion is essentially the same. And which religion we are is largely based on where we grow up or where our parents grew up. The goal of all religion is the give us an explanation for the unexplainable, to guide us to be better people, and make the world a better place. Even the extreme Islam groups have this as their primary goal - they just have a very radical idea of how to achieve that.

So, interfaith relationships are totally fine. Religion is not what keeps us apart. It’s the morals and values that we often associated with religion that are the crucial issues. There are many Christians who, when you evaluate the way the live and their personal values, are very non-Christian, while some atheist may have a lifestyle and values that are equivalent to a good Christian. And to me, a good Christian will be better off with the atheist than a Christian with different values.

New Roommate Means More Travel Plans

Roommates can be fun. Roommates can be annoying. Roommates can be good friends. Roommates can be invisible. For those unaware, I had a roommate in my house for about 8 months last year, from February to September. It started out as an attempt to find a new friend or find a new place to direct my bitterness or to create a new distraction in my life, which didn’t seem to have much going well. It turned out to be little more than an extra $425 spending money. I hardly knew he was here. He normally was gone to work before I woke up and asleep before I got home, and he never left a mess in the kitchen (a dirty kitchen is my #1 pet peeve with roommates). A few times he was known to be waking up for work on a Saturday or Sunday as I was coming home from a long night out.

So, as I prepare to allow the same guy back again this year (his job was like an 8 month contract and then he went back home to south Florida for a few months and is back on a new contract), it’s not because I need a distraction or am in need of friends or just want someone to be around. I’ve been extremely happy for several months and I’m excited and optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead. Most of the people responsible for that have been mentioned in here, but I don’t think Sean, Dana, or Natalie has been given their due praise.

Anyway, the extra income again should ensure that I meet my budget goals for traveling. Well, I don’t actually budget such important things, but it’ll help me not feel guilty about being a frequent flier on cross-country weekend trips or overseas trips. The trip to the Reno national bridge tournament March 17-21 was already booked, and a late May trip to Europe is in the search for good deals phase, now I look to add a trip to Boston late this month, and maybe an NYC trip in April.