Okay, seriously. I can NOT live without one of these!

Terry was—how shall I say—incensed by yesterday’s post. I was sort of waiting for him to pop up on iChat and try to tear down who I am. Well, he did try…but I guess I’m a better person than even I think. This was the best he could come up with:

The art I hated is the art people like you produce.
It’s not art, it’s a fake way to get accepted into some group full of people just like you. [Yeah, my big group of fake-ass trendy friends. Oh wait...you're talking about yourself again, honey.]
[...]
Well, you can put up a front to me if you’d like to, but let’s not play coy, I can see right through you.
You’re basically translucent, and there is no content. [Yeah, that's right...no content...like an...um...empty mySQL database.]
[...]
You’re a walking contradiction spouting out double-standards and judging each person you meet based on the way you feel life should be lived.
Here’s a fucking epiphany for you, Darius: You aren’t perfect, you aren’t even near it. Nor are you correct, or better than anybody else. [I must have missed my "I am perfect everyone do what I say" post. Was that last week, guys?]
[...]
You see what you want to see.
And don’t think you have any room waltzing in here acting like you have any room to judge any person’s life. [Moral judgments are all subjective and are never universal, duh]
I’m a whole hell of a lot less depressed than you are, so I must be doing something right.
I’m not the self-loathing one here who cries about losing all of his friends, alright? [I mourn the loss of my true friends that would bail me out of jail at 2 a.m., not ditch me on my birthday and apologize a week later *cough* the only friend of his I met]
[...]
If anybody is shallow, it’s you.
You think that just because you hang with the artists that you’re an intellectual.
You’re not.
Reading some books and watching some indie films hardly makes you cultured.
Or intelligent. [No, it doesn't, but having an interest in literature and film usually stems from a desire to be exposed to new ideas. And yes, to clarify, not the kind of ideas that you get at Club 21.]

It was shitty to write about the reasons we broke up, but I’m not apologizing. And I don’t think I hang in a very “artsy crowd.” I mean, Christen and I paint and write and such, but (speaking for myself) I’m not very devoted to creating capital-A art, I just don’t have the time. But I do enjoy being creative in as many ways as I can.

I tried to preface all my conclusions with the reality that they mean nothing outside of a framework of how I achieve personal happiness. I dunno, it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

We’re just different people. And I knew from day one that the only way this could end would be him getting mad at me. Whatever. I don’t hold anything against him, we just don’t have compatible lifestyles.

I’m not as tactful as I should be when I write, but then, if you’re going to spend all day wrapping unpleasant truths in pretty bows, that’s time wasted that should be spent getting to the root of the issue. And I found it. That was the issue I couldn’t deal with. Uncreative people are boring.

He told me that he planned to have this cute weekend in the city for us, since he had money, but he canceled it after reading my post. I don’t really know how to take it. He has been (in every way except for emotionally) giving, and I appreciate that. It’s just that it’s not going to work.

Those issues don’t go away.

My mom always bitches that I lose too many friends because of my blog. But really, if I’m not going to be honest about people that bring me happiness and those who don’t, what’s the fucking point?

Terry and I don’t live in the same world. We have excellent chemistry, and he just makes me melt, but that’s not enough. Trent’s right. Love is not even close to enough.

I guess things are sliding downhill with Brian and Aaron too (post-breakup). They aren’t talking as much, and it seems like Aaron is kind of reaching his saturation point with contact with Brian. Heard this like thirdhand, but it’s really sad. They were such a cute couple, and Brian seemed happy.

I did a shit ton of homework today, though I didn’t get as caught up as I want to. They’re having my belated birthday party tomorrow morning. I stayed downtown for hours hoping they’d be asleep when I got back, I guess. They were waiting for me, it looked like. I even stopped at Target looking for god knows what to buy me an extra half-hour. But now we’re even. I waited all day for them, they waited a few hours for me. I know two wrongs don’t make a right, but two opposing social faux pas can cancel out. It’s a rule. I read about it in algebra.

God, I hate these people.

I’m happy to report that the horrible, sucking emo void I felt for a while when Terry and I broke up has now sort of fallen in on itself. I feel self-actualized. I feel like I can say what I feel is right and not have to apologize for it. Things that used to cause me anxiety I don’t care about. I went and ran two errands today before work, I was so in the zone. NO! NOT IN THE ZONE! I am half totally kidding.

We argue back and forth, but don’t see each others’ sides. Maybe it’s best that we’re not going to be friends, no matter how much I still care for him.

C’est la vie, I guess.

I’m listening to Team Sleep…I just did a bunch of math homework, but not enough to catch up entirely. That’s for tomorrow. It’s graphing, y-intercepts, slope, etc. I can do it in my sleep. So I’ll hit up True Love tomorrow and do that.

So many things have been going on…I feel like I am Marcello.

I had this big epiphany on my birthday. My family ended up not planning a party for me, so Chris (that cool guy from Davis) took me out for sushi! He is officially my birthday savior. So we were talking about politics and relationships, and it just hit me.

I’m not going to compromise the person I am for someone that I don’t respect.

I’m not going to date a gay clone. I’m not going to date someone who doesn’t have any kind of respect for art or literature. I am a cultured, intelligent guy. And I am NOT going to listen to Britney Spears.

I’m not going to date someone who lives in a moral vacuum either.

For me, it’s all about living the authentic life. And for someone who just eats up whatever gay culture serves him up, that’s just not possible.

I guess how I feel is best summed up by Molly: “It’s like being a religious convert and annoying everyone around you with your newfound wisdom, except, even more annoying, you really are right. (Instead of just Christian.)”

I’m not willing to put up with boring people who suck down the status quo. But of course I’m not going to be vain enough to think that I don’t have to care at all about the rules that society has (like Adrian). I evaluate my own morality.

And really, I can’t fucking deal with it. I will never settle. I will never settle.

I tried to. I really tried. But it doesn’t work. We weren’t right for each other. At all.

And it’s systemic, I’m sure that he tells his friends about me and they all agree with him (because they are the same kind of person as him), and my friends take what we consider the higher moral ground. Neither of us are right, of course, because all moral values are arbitrary, it’s just that I don’t coexist with his kind of people and he doesn’t coexist with mine.

I’ve been talking to a lot of my old friends that I sort of lost touch with in all of this, and they’ve been really supportive.

Terry was right. Even though we did break up, I’ve learned a ton about myself and I think that Terry has too.

I wish him the best, and I don’t mean to sound judgmental (I try to preface all my judgments with the fact that they mean nothing to anyone but me).

And it’s interesting…issues I had with him, I don’t have with other people. Well, I don’t care if my friends smoke, I’m very live and let live, but my lover…that’s a different story.

I have a very clear notion of the kind of guy I’m looking for.

One who is well-read, intelligent, cute, cultured, and charming. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Three out of five was amazing, but it wasn’t enough.

I think I just need to date another writer. :) Someone who is able to form logical arguments, cry when he’s sad, fight when he’s angry, and love me no matter what.

Terry totally writes off the HorseCow people, but they are an unexpected source of wisdom. In between Steve Winone’s drunken ramblings about Marcello Mastroianni (I am totally not kidding, we were on the same wavelength and it was awesome). I really couldn’t tell if he was hitting on me…Christen said he was, but I can never be sure. I’m such a straight guy. Anyway, he was talking about all the women he’d dated…all their different personalities, and how powerful the need for freedom is.

I guess I felt suffocated in a relationship where I had no freedom to be me and feel good about following my own moral code. I think I need to be in a relationship where we’re only together because we want to be, instead of this

I mean, I’m still going to think like that, but everything doesn’t have to be perfect right away. And if it is, then it’s awesome.

I guess being with him taught me that I really can get to the point where I admit to myself it’s not working instead of keeping the unrealistic dream going.

I wish I could discuss this in more detail, but this is going to have to do. The voice-rec is dead until VMWare comes out with a patch.

I got the highest grade in my class on my lecture geology test, but flunked my algebra test. You win some, you l lose some.

After class I went out and hung out with Brian and Katie at the Starbucks near the college. We had a great time, chainsmoking and talking about how much we hate everything. Katie and I even swing danced! :) We totally remembered the Texas Tommy from our class we went to ages ago.

Well, it’s one, and I have to work early tomorrow, so I’m going to sleep.

Oh, also, I got the cutest fucking thing ever. I got a Hello Kitty notebook.

Yeah.

I’m that hardcore. ;)

I haven’t felt much like writing. I have, but I keep obsessing about the same things.

It’s my birthday on the 18th, btw.

Christen and I are celebrating our birthdays today.

I got her something super cute.

Went and visited her after I had dinner with Terry last night. We ended up eating at this one place we went where we were first dating.

I miss him terribly. The whole time we hung out I just wanted to grab him and kiss him. This separation is killing me, but I keep trying to stick to my mantra “It wouldn’t have worked, it wouldn’t have worked.” But like, Christen and Allen fight and they still like each other.

We were talking about it (oh god, here it goes, better switch to voice-rec)

Oh. Voice-rec isn’t working.

When you’re using it, it’s like magic. You speak, and words show up. With nearly perfect accuracy. And sometimes, you fire it up, speak, and nothing happens. You start to think “Was this all a lie? Do we really have voice-recognition software? Is this real?” And for one Philip K. Dick-ian moment, I’m not quite sure.

I’m adapting the user files…maybe that will help. It says it’ll take three hours.

Worked fine before that stupid 1.1 update. I swear, updates fucking break everything. It’s so hard to be on the cutting edge and also have everything work. Actually, it’s nearly impossible.

I should open my birthday cards. I don’t know what to say to these people. I guess I’ll write letters back.

If my voice-rec ever starts working again.