jaytan

I ended up hanging at my buddy's place tonight. He's my brother here in LA if I have one at all, and his wife and two girls are my extended family. I've worked long and hard to convince the 4-year old that I'm her Favorite Uncle, a title about which I take great pride and territoriality, and I've pretty much got her hooked. Whenever I see them, I end up playing with her more than kicking it with the parents, which I know is fine by them, for they're enjoying the time this allows them to handle the other around-the-house tasks. However, each time I leave, I think about the ramifications my natural rapore with children implies. Kinda like a male always-the-bridesmaid thing: great father figure, never to be a father.

Between this, being forced to watch "The Break-Up" at their place (of course once the kids have been put to bed -- and don't think that the irony of being in such a suburban cliche is lost on me), and the general romance baggage of the last year has got me trippin', such that I find myself lying in the bathtub with a tall glass of Knob Creek, ashing American Spirits in the water (like I give a fuck), and trying to concentrate on my wrestling newsletter (the one weekly joy that guarantees Neutonian physics-calibur dependability), only to zone out, look up at the tiles and think "where the fuck are you?"

Yes, this is a semi-rhetorical, semi-self-indulgent emo rant.

Now I won't be so presumptuous to propose that John Cusack makes movies specifically for my plight, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I can relate to his perennial on-screen characters more than I'd like to admit. Being in the mid-30's and coming from a pretty stereotypical suburban family, where Mom and Dad are still together, and with a now-married brother five years my younger, I can't help but look at myself and think "dude, aren't you supposed to have your shit together by now too? Especially after all that quality-not-quantity bullshit you spewed in high school and college, where's your Quality Girl now, pinhead?"

Now I know I've got my shortcoming and hangups, but I think I'm pretty well put together as a person. I'm cool with all my exes (even if Isabel and I aren't talking right now), got plenty of male and female friends from all different walks of life, am patient, loving, ambitious, and loyal to a fault. So what have I been doing wrong, such that i should end up here, tripping over a religious chick that I split with over a year ago, whom I had long-term reservations about in the first place? What the fuck?

Isabel wasn't the one I was most compatible with, but she was the one with whom I worked the hardest. I mean really gave the relationship everything I had; not to the point of damaging self-sacrifice, but I tried to give everything just short of that. Isabel and I were not perfect, and maybe not the most compatible, but we were real, pure, and honest. We both tried with all our hearts.

The One That Got Away was Smiley. She chose someone else, in a different state, a different life. I told her to let me contact her, and that was about six years ago. Didn't figure I could ever find a way to talk with her again and look myself in the mirror, but after things went south with Isabel, if I realized that if there's ever a chance that Isabel and I might become friends again, then I can't hold a grudge against Smiley. I loved Smiley in a more personal way than Isabel, but that boat had sailed long ago anyway, and I was just as aware of that fact.

So if Smiley and Isabel are lost causes, then how the hell can there be someone else out there with anywhere near the same compatibility with the former and the same work ethic as the latter? Where is she, and really, what's the chances that I'm really going to meet her at all? Can't be good odds.

Okay, this is the part where anybody who read this (I can't believe you've gotten this far!) chimes in on their two cents about relationships and how to live one's life to the fullest: "you'll know when it happens, so enjoy the ride until then," "there's nothing wrong with staying single 'til you find The Right One," or "some people are meant to be a part of other families, instead of starting their own." And I wholly believe all of this is true. . . just not true for me (the guy from the suburbs with the mom and dad still together and the married younger brother, in case you'd lost track).

I do have a philosophy (or sorts) to rationalize all of this. I call it the Theory of the Ones. As I see it, whether we're functional, level-headed, socially-adapt people, raging schitzo head cases, or somewhere in between, the world is big and diverse enough that we all probably have anywhere from dozens to hundreds to thousands of people whom we don't realize are compatible enough with us that we could have happy, healthy, loving, Meant-To-Be-caliber, lifetime relationships (if only we could live but more than one lifetime to find out!). We'll never know most of these because, obviously, the world is a big place, and geography, culture, language barriers, and only so many days in a lifetime prevent us from ever getting an idea of how many people out there we're actually compatible with. Of course, most of us would be happy with finding one of these people, and many of us can make it work with finding someone close enough to that level of compatibility. So Store Locator, please tell me where is the nearest Most Jaytan-Compatible One? I gotta find her.

And when you get tired and weary of looking, as many of us do, how do we know when to have faith and keep on keepin' on and when to, for lack of a better phrase, settle for someone close enough? Hell, when we're in the thick of a relationship, how do we know if we've got a fully compatible One or if we're settling for less? The younger ones who got hitched, how did they know, and which of them will turn out to actually be right?

How Do I Get Her Right In Front Of My Face, And Will I Really Know When She's There?

So back to the cigarettes, bourbon, and bathtub. I started trying to calculate the odds that my One is here in Los Angeles? Damn, I hope so. Out at a bar with friends, thinking in the back of her head that she'd rather find her One and kick back with him in a bathtub on a Friday night? Possibly. Nah, she's at home, flipping through channels, soon to cash in her chips and go to bed. Doubt it. Because if we were in on the same night, then we'd go out on the same night, and I'd surely have run into her by now. She's probably stuck with some loser, wondering how the hell she got into this mess. Yeah, those are usually my Ones -- The Unavailable Ones.

That's when I saw her, sippin' a water
I want to thank her mom just for having this daughter
Excuse me miss, I don't mean to come across strong
But I've been waitin' awhile and you've been takin' too long

Time to throw out these cigarettes and get back to the gym. Keep on keepin' on, until I can come up with a better idea.

Peace to all the happy relationships and families on this site. Y'all are the most thing I can think of.