Since the June election I've been having somewhat of a roller coaster ride of emotions based primarily around someone ('NFS', as I call her when I'm talking to cbragg) I found on OkCupid. She is beautiful and quirky and smart and funny and all around a really great person. She is like me in a lot of ways, and has had a lot of the same emotional troubles as I have, though she seems to have had more opportunities to grow around them than I have, and is thereby somewhat better adjusted.

Things came to a head after I saw her on Thursday night (this was the 4th time I'd met her in meatspace). I'd been getting some between-the-lines messages about a friend of hers and asked her about him, and at that point all sort of truths started rolling out. Her weird still pseudo-romantic relationship with him did not bother me so much as when she told me that she didn't see me as a potential romantic partner and was continuing to find other people on OkCupid.

I went home after that and didn't get any sleep. This was due in part to having had way too much coffee on Thursday (so that I'd be perky and cheerful for NFS), but mostly because there was this awful mixture of terrible emotions swirling around inside me. In an attempt to deal with it I went rollerblading and lost 100$ from my pocket. I came home and cried and threw tupperware and listened to futuresynthpop songs whose meanings were now frighteningly relevant to me. Not only was I incredibly jealous of NFS's previous boyfriends (who at least had a chance to be with her and all managed to screw it up one way or another), but my fear of being single forever never left my mind. It was some of the worst emotional pain I've ever experienced short of one of them existential crises (which the being-alone fear is closely related to).

I managed to sleep a few hours late Friday morning, packed my camping gear while venting to cbragg (who I could tell was getting very tired of it, but she is a great sport when it comes to listening to me complain about my love life), and finally went to work for a couple hours before meeting some Hoofers for a one night camping/canoe trip.

The camping trip was alright. I didn't feel like I had much in common with any of the others who were along (there was a bunch of jocks, some Asian girls, a weird lady, and this Lewis guy), and I spent nearly the entire time thinking about NFS and trying to sort out how I felt and what I wanted to say to her, assuming she would even talk to me after the tirade in facebook message-form I had left her Friday morning. But there was some pretty scenery, and I did a pretty good job steering our canoe around obstacles. There were only a few minutes when we stopped and were standing around that my inner emptiness really got to me. One of the things I decided was that no matter what else happened, I should keep being friends with NFS and try to get to know her more, and thoughts about that made me feel better.

Upon returning to Madison, I went straight to the office, read her response to my tirade (which seemed apprehensive but understanding), took a shower, and had a long talk with her on the phone. She told me more about her weird pseudo-boyfriend and how through being with him she gained insight into how extroverted 'normal people' deal with relationships and are not shattered by each one as she and I tend to be (she gave a nice livejournalesque analogy about marbles bouncing around).

One important thing I got out of that conversaion was that, though it doesn't seem to be most people's style, it's okay to want and need a stable and deep relationship with one person, but in order to find the right person I need to not be afraid of offending people, because I wouldn't get along with people who are offended by me being myself, anwyay. I started telling NFS about my theory about pretending to be a normal person to 'get your foot in the door', she said "no", and I suddenly realized how stupid that was. The reason I had been so enamored with her from the beginning was the way she expressed herself on her profile and in her messages and in person as if she didn't care what other people thought, because, duh, if they don't like it, they're not going to like her anyway! I've always known this, but probably due to badgering from people who didn't really know what was right for me, I haven't been practicing it.

I am still jealous of the guys she's had relationships with in the past, but good grief, I've only known her a month! I feel like she has the potential to be a good friend, and in time I will grow and be better for it.