Mou Sukoshi - I think I should stop watching romantic anime.

I was thinking about girls earlier today. More in the vein of, "what is that essential trait that I need in a girl?" rather than, "what body parts have to be what size," but I guess that's more to be expected of me. I think I've kind of nailed it down. I think what I want most is substance. First I thought it was all these combinations of things, but I think it comes down to the fact that there has to be more than meets the eye in a good kind of way. Maybe we're all a collection of puzzle pieces nicely laid out. If you got a GED, you have one piece, if you can sing well, you've got another piece-- every little detail, every little ability, every little thing is another piece. And I think what I need is a girl who has lots of pieces. Lots of details and things about her. For example, if I'm a puzzle, then I'm all over the place. I've got pieces in all quadrants with some pieces that aren't even connected to other pieces. Oh, another important thing is that she can't be totally bounded. I think it's kind of a given, but you know how you start puzzles from the outside in? You set the boundaries first, and then you go for the substance. It can't be that way though. I don't think I'm quite bounded yet-- there are border pieces, but since everything isn't quite connected, you never know how many pieces are gotta fit in between what I've already got. I want it to be the same way with her-- I want her to grow and change, just as I expect myself to grow and change. I'm more worried about the size of the puzzle and the piece count, and not so much the actual content of the puzzle. (although, to be sure, all that's pretty important too)

That being said, I think I should stop watching romantic anime. There's a particular strain of romance that does something to me. It...kind of feels like I get to see myself, zoomed out. I realize how many pieces I've got to me, but also how many pieces I'm missing. It makes me realize how discontiguous I am, it literally makes me feel like I'm all over the place, like I've got holes in my identity, in who I'm supposed to be. It makes me feel pathetically incomplete. It makes me realize that maybe the most important quality isn't the piece count, or the size of the puzzle, but that she'll fill in the holes and make me feel more together.

I don't like this feeling of being pathetically incomplete, as though I'm not a good enough person to stand on my own; to be a person in my own right, but maybe I'm not. What if I find her, and the sun sets and I lose her again? I'm scared that I'll, pardon the phrase, go to pieces. If I get used to this feeling of being complete, only to have it ripped from me, could I handle it? Could I keep it together? Or more importantly, could I, could Chris as a being, as an entity survive?

Sure I'll biologically survive, but I'm not quite as sure that who I am will.

...Yeah, maybe I should lay off the romance.

Untitled; to the flash Starshine2 play

If I knew your name tonight,
would I rush to find, the rest of who you are,
where you are and maybe why I am so pulled to be with you?

If I knew your voice tonight,
Would I take off in flight of fancy,
imagining your face, your smile, your eyes, your soul
only to find that I'm too drawn in to ever pull back again?

Or maybe I would flee and hide,
to spend some time in solitude
to be the man that you deserve,
rather than the boy I am today.

To build the muscles to protect,
the wit to make you laugh,
the charm to coax a smile from you
The knowledge to impress.

I'm scared I won't be good for you,
My secrets you won't scry,
My darkness won't make sense to you,
I'm scared I'll make you cry.

But what if I'm not good enough,
if you're already gone?
And what if you've found someone else,
if you're my only one?

Then maybe all my solitude
is not so much for you
but just because you couldn't wait
but needed someone new

You needed warmth within your heart
and arms around your head.
You wanted phone calls when it rained
and cocoa when it poured.

I would've been the warmth for you,
A fire blazing red.
But now you've settled for the coals,
clinging to fires dead.

I would've been the arms around your heart,
A shield from all the pain
I would've been there when it poured,
and loved you while it rained.

But now you cannot be the one,
the one for me is gone.
I'm set adrift, with half a soul,
a key without a song

My heart desires trickery,
to scheme you back to me.
And yet to soil the love we'd make
I'd rather let it be.

My honor code is firm on this,
that love you cannot take.
And so I watch you drift away
ignoring a dull ache

I know that in the skies our destiny
was nearly holy-writ.
But star-crossed loves scripted above
is mere contract tacit

And bards will sing of this, a love
that was quite nearly true
and maybe they'll embellish it,
they way they often do.

But 'almost' makes for tragedy,
which calls for romance end,
and 'almost' breaks the reader's heart
which only love can mend.

But you and I were almost there,
a moment gone askew
if I were perhaps someone else
and you were not quite you

I cry a foul on destiny
the Fates I claim unfair
I serve my sentence; solitude
I only claim my share

So cast adrift, without a hope
one-winged, half-souled, alone
I mourn the loss of melody
that never had a tone.

I'm gonna marry Korea.

"To see Korea, whether through a camera lens or in person, is to want to touch her. She's tough, fiery and independent--yes--but she's also gentle and warm, rich in colors and textures which flit and freeze in her golden light like luminescent butterflies a-dance over cliffs of granite."

--Korea Insight Guide, 1981

When I first read this line, I thought, "This is exactly what I want in a woman: fiery, independent but also feminine and gentle." For the longest time, I've tried to put together what it is that I want in a woman, in a wife even. But whenever I tried, I'd always come up against these contradictions; "There's no way a girl who would want to try mountain climbing would ever be good at cooking." (it's an example, don't bite my head off) But I've always come across these contradictions in personality that I want. I could never get it down to a formula because in the end, it came down to the fact that I was always most interested in the entire package-- the sum of the parts. There were and are far too many variables and so many ways things can go that I can't say who will or won't attract me. I almost gave up, concluding that I must be the ultimate narcissist, wanting someone as quirky and convoluted as myself. I thought I wanted to marry myself for a while and I was going to hand myself in to a head doctor.

The first part is the easiest really; the physical. In this sense I guess I'm lucky-- I'm not particularly attached to any particular part of the body, be it boobs or butt or whatever. I've always been a total-package kind of guy, so I think looks have always mattered for me less than it does for most guys. But on the other hand I have to admit that it plays a role and sometimes I'd like to think that I'm above that, but I'm so not. I get pushed and pulled by cute and pretty girls just like every other guy-- I just don't get whiplash from it. But I know myself-- I get pulled around enough for me to be wary around pretty girls or cute girls. I know I have a weakness in girls with looks and that it'd be so easy for me to be strung along, so I'm trying to avoid relationships altogether so I don't make any stupid mistakes.

I've been talking to Emily about this, and I'm trying to narrow it down though.

I've always been convinced that Intelligence was a non-negotiable. Without it, I'd get bored. Me being the type of person that can actually get bored of people, this isn't good. I've always needed someone who could engage me intellectually; challenge my ideas and make me smarter for it. But Em pointed out that engaging works just as well-- she's got to understand the way I think to even be able to communicate with me. I never asked for incredibly smart (we don't want me to be overshadowed here =p) it's just a matter of equality, really. I don't want to be in a relationship where I'm towering. It would be...uncomfortable.

I told her that I was essentially looking for a companion, a partner, someone who can strive with me toward a goal, but at the same time hold her own against me when I'm wrong and someone whom I can come to love and trust unconditionally. Weird thing is though, I don't expect the same in return. I've got this messed up idea that I don't deserve unconditional love and trust, but giving it is required for me.

I'm not consistent; I can be cold and hard, but also gentle and warm, goofy and ridiculous but also efficient and all business. I'm so multifaceted, in ways and extremes that I don't seem to think most others are and I need someone who can handle all of that. Someone who can pull me out of my moods when they come upon me; someone who can save me from myself. I think I could fall in love with someone who could just save me from myself, because I think it would take so much to do it. Poetically:

I'm looking for someone with fire and steel, with night in her blood but light in her heart

Obviously I haven't met her quite yet. Not at UCI anyways; if I did, I think I'd fall over unconscious just because I found her. But then again she could be right under my nose and I might never know; my social circle isn't really huge.

Then I get a bunch of categories from Em, so I just went down the list:

• Committed, but not to the exclusion of everything else
• Good listener would be nice, 'cuz I'm a pretty good listener and a pair of good listeners have a leg up on relationships!
• On Candid vs. Sentimental, it'd be best if she could roll with it-- candid where it calls for it, but don't bust my chops all the time for little stuff
• As for ministry...I'm not sure. I don't even know where I'm going in ministry, so I'm going to totally leave that up to God.
• I think to balance out my own introverted tendencies, she should be an extrovert, but I tend to 'figure out' extroverts much faster, and then it goes on autopilot, which is uncool. But then Em said that she'll probably figure me out too, and that would be rather nice. So we'll see about this one too? haha.
• Korean: ?

That last one was weird because I have a longing for Korea in my blood. I have a pathological need to go there one day, maybe even live there for a while. She can't be someone ignorant of the asian; the Korean part of me. I read once in an essay that an Asian-American wrote that America is her mind, but Korea is her heart and soul. That's how it is with me. I can have a purely intellectual relationship, but love encompasses the heart and soul, and without it, it'd be a pretty useless relationship. But then I thought about food, languages, and so on. It's a factor, but not an inflexible one.

Then she says, "Chris...honestly what I think you're pursuing really isn't all that complicated." It was like getting shot in the heart with a ray of sunlight; HOPE! haha. It was a nice feeling to be less conflicted, to know that it was both feasible and possible.

I'm a strange kid; I've been thinking about my wife and kids since I was 12.
12.

Then came the obligatory warning to love her for who she is, not who she could be-- to not fall in love with a what if or could be. And then, the kicker: "and by the way...you tell me that you really dont categorize what's "attractive" or whatever...but I TOTALLY know you go for the super pretty feminine korean girls." After a few minor protests, she replies, "Well not much changes; they have to be petite, feminine, cute, if not pretty." I know she's hit the mark on some level, but I still feel a need to protest and defend myself, so I say, "I can't help my shallow nature!" But she excuses me, saying, "it's okay. why not, you know? :P But at the end of the day I dont think youre THAT shallow.."

Yay for my not-that-shallowness!

Haha, so that's my venture into looking for that oh-so-special girl that I haven't found yet. Wherever you are.

Peace.

--Chris