a summary of the rather depressing conversation I had with BD the other day:

so he indicts me for having a rather boring and empty life, which I can only agree with. that's just how it is. the thing that is troubling is that I really don't have the wherewithal to do anything about it. now I know that no one is going to rescue me from this downward, toilet-bowl-flushing-like spiral, so as far as I can extrapolate into the future, I'm just pretty screwed.

sure, it's a defense mechanism. because I'm pretty much done with dealing with rejection, having had extensive experience with the process. so I've pretty much decided that I'd rather not meet any new people. solves a good percentage of my problems with dealing with humanity. my rationalization is that I'm barely able to keep up with the people I already know anyway.

but they say no man is an island, and I know deep down this is pretty pathological. I guess I try to cope by trying not to care, by detaching myself from the situation. so if someone doesn't want to hang out or talk to me, oh well, such is life. it's not like I'm not usually busy anyway.

so BD hopes that things will be different in 5 years. for one thing, he's sick of hearing me tell him the same old shit. definitely in terms of my emotional growth, I haven't changed for the better in the past 5-7 years. in 5-10 years, he anticipates embarking on what CB once called the hetero-normative consumer pathway—the American Dream, the lifestyle that includes 3 bedrooms, 2 bath, a 2 car garage, and 2.5 kids. ah, married with children. he'll be telling me about the not-sleeping-because-the-kid-keeps-crying, the dirty diapers, the teething, and all the stuff that I'm bizarrely familiar due to my job, but which I don't really anticipate being able to put into practice in my own private life. now I'm not one to call anything impossible, but I wouldn't exactly bet my life savings on the possibility of being in a similar position in 5-10 years. (Lord have mercy on my convoluted sentences.)

the reality is that I know that this can't possibly continue on for that much longer. realistically, something drastic is going to have to change, or I'm probably going to be dead. sucks, and I hate to be alarming, but I can't envision much else happening in the long-term future.