Wandering, But Not Lost

I attribute my current situation, everything about it, to a general lack of direction. What do I want to do? Well, honestly I have no idea. I don't understand how anyone knows what they want to do with their life specifically. When I think about a career I really don't care what industry or field it's in, I just want to have a job that keeps me happy. I wrote about my dream job (one of my favorite posts!), which is not a feasible position, but that is precisely why I don't know what I want to do. From my perspective, unless you are a professional athlete, I don't see how you can have a job you truly love (for lack of a better word). I still maintain that professional soccer is the best job. Since I have no idea what I want to do, I'm going to look for some temporary work in the accounting field, even though I really did not enjoy accounting in class, in hopes that actual accounting work is bearable. Temporary work will provide me with some freedom because I'm not locked into anything from the beginning, an idea I thoroughly enjoy.

A career isn't the only thing I lack direction in, practically my whole life is one mystery. I usually don't know what I'm going to do each day and make impromptu plans (and apply to random jobs) spur of the moment. Mainly these plans revolve around the same three or four people since most of my friends are really busy now, but it sure beats sitting around alone all the time. Life after college sure is strange. My sister already went through all this when she graduated from college two years ago, but I can't really use her as a template on what to do because her situation is drastically different from mine. She worked for a while at the local public library and then moved out to the Washington state with her boyfriend over a year ago now when he got a really sweet job. That's a unique situation that I will not be following, but I would like to get a sweet job at some point! So I don't have a job because of lack of direction because I only went to a business school and studied accounting on the simple thought process that this course of action would lead me to a well paying job. The trouble is that I didn't really embrace the subject matter. Spring semester my freshman year of college I got a 3.6 GPA, and it was practically downhill from there, especially when junior year hit and I disliked all the important accounting classes that made up the major. I still managed to finish above a 3.0 though (but I'm slightly stupid)! My indecisiveness has left me unsure for a while if I made the correct decision, I even spoke to my parents about changing my major during junior year. However, I decided to take it up the ass and stick it out as an accounting major which brings me to where I am today, looking for temporary jobs because I still don't know what I want. I also realize that I have continued to expand on my career (or lack there of one) when I opened this paragraph writing that "a career isn't the only thing I lack direction in..." Feel free to complain if you would like, the unused comments space is not reserved exclusively for the only two people who have ever commented on any of my posts.

Have I ever mentioned that I really like blogging? I think beginning this blog was one of the best things I've done in my life, and that's saying a lot considering how much I've done to this point including graduating high school, holding a minimum wage job, and beating Halo: Combat Evolved on Legendary with JQ. Life has two very important aspects, a job/career is one (which I just discussed), and a relationship is another. These two aspects, in my estimation as usual, are what make a person's life, why they enjoy or cannot stand life. Lack of direction is also a lead contributor to why I have not yet had a girlfriend. In many ways for the same reasons I have had such slow progress developing a career path, but different. I don't have a checklist for the requirements of the person I want to date nor do I go looking for a significant other. I'm waiting for the right person to show up in my life, but the problem remains that I don't know what I want. What I do know is that smoking, of any kind, is a huge turnoff as well as excessive drinking, it's not my thing. Actually, very recently I had a nice conversation with JQ, my longest standing friend, on the drive back from Cape Cod. Somehow we got on the topic of girlfriends, neither of us currently having one. JQ had a girlfriend for a while that ended about a year ago. I remember the two of them coming to watch me compete at a track meet Junior year when we were running at their school. Anyways, we had gone to a bar the night before with another friend and one of his friends. JQ and I left the bar before them after threw up on myself and some huge guy. When we left we simply walked up and down some of the streets talking about random stuff and listening to these two guys tell us not to go into a bar down the street because it was a "queer bar" while he continually shouted back at the people in the bar that they were all "fa**ots." So on the ride home we were talking about the bar and how neither of us were really the bar scene type. I added that I would not want to meet my girlfriend in a bar to which JQ agreed with me. Why, you might ask. Well, I'm not a bar going type as I mentioned, but chances are if you meet someone in a bar they probably do that type of stuff often which isn't a good fit for me and then there is also the chance that two people that meet in a bar might only like each other when they are drinking.

One of my other very good friends, Seanahue (hope he enjoys that one! But I didn't come up with that name), and I have also discussed a similar topic many times before. I've known Seanahue since freshman year of college and even got to live with him and some other really great people for a year! We used to speak about how we didn't want to meet someone (a potential girlfriend if you are having trouble following) at a party. I don't mind if I meet someone in class or an activity who then goes to a party, but I don't have the inclination to meet a girl via party. I like to get to know people, and I don't think parties are the place for that. Of course it's nice to see what people are like in that situation, but there's so much more to a person than who they are when they're drunk. I prefer getting to know someone by having conversations with them personally in a one-on-one situation or in small groups. This probably has something to do with my fascination of how people act, but I really like having one-on-one conversations. Also, if you can't have conversations one-on-one with someone that you enjoy, then there's no way in hell you should date them either. But getting back to the point I was making, I don't have any sense of direction for a girlfriend either. As I said before, I don't go looking for one, rather I believe that it will happen naturally. However, not knowing what I want has led me to taking far too long to begin exploring the possibilities of having a relationship twice now.

Maybe this is the direction I need

I have gained valuable knowledge from each of these experiences, and honestly, I just wasn't ready for a girlfriend at the right moments. In other words, those moments weren't the right moments for me. I don't have a checklist for a potential girlfriend, but I definitely have turnoffs. I mentioned smoking of any kind as one of those because it's not good for you and it smells really bad. I also don't like the smoking of marijuana, not because it's illegal, but because I don't see why anyone would want to get high. But I also don't understand why people like to get drunk, so I'm probably just weird. I think I'll make a post about turnoffs, and maybe turnons, in the future. That actually sounds like fun to me! More studying of peoples' habits! I've also been watching these sweet videos on YouTube for the past few weeks of this guy who does real life social experiments! I really enjoy them and I think you should check them out, too. You can see them in the video below and there are new videos every Monday. See what I did here? I'm helping promote someone's videos on a blog that barely anyone reads, obviously I'm helping out.


While I don't know what direction I'm going, I like what J.R.R. Tolkien had to say: "Not all who wander are lost." Speaking of having no direction, I originally planned for this post to segue into Batman because of how incredibly brilliant he is, but that's not going to happen now. I'll save that for another post, but The Dark Knight Rises is coming out in theaters soon and I'm pumped for that! Batman is my favorite superhero dating back to my childhood when I would randomly dress up as the caped crusader on any given day. Maybe it sounds strange, but I'm happy to have this situation upon me, I don't feel like I'm tied into anything in particular. My options are wide open. I mentioned that I really like blogging, but in case you didn't get that part, I really like blogging. I also like randomness, to a certain extent that is, which is why I occasionally jump around to different topics. But I do like blogging if you haven't figured that out yet. Now that Sycophantic Laughter has existed for over a year I have found that one of my favorite things to do with the blog when I'm not actually writing for it is checking the traffic sources. I like viewing where the hits come from. Most of the hits come from the pictures I post on the blog, meaning that barely anyone actually reads anything on it, or at least I highly doubt they do. So the 6,000 something hits indicated on the blog page right now are extremely misleading in terms of how many people read my dumb crap. However, I really do like looking at the traffic sources to see where hits are coming from and what keywords are bringing up my blog in Google searches and the like. This week when I checked the traffic sources I noticed that I had some hits from Stumbleupon and I think that's great. I think it would be funny if some people randomly stumbled upon this blog and took the time to actually read any of its content, even if they absolutely hated it.

Going back to the career thing, and thoughts of my dream job, I have no idea where I'll be in as little as five years. I enjoy leading an active lifestyle, but most "professional" jobs are almost entirely sedentary. I like to express my own thoughts, ideas, and opinions via blogging, but most jobs don't allow you to express your individuality. Maybe George Carlin was right, maybe it is called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it, but at least a job isn't what completely and absolutely defines a person. That's an issue I have with the way things are in society right now. When you first meet someone, often in the introductions you and the person you're meeting introduce themselves with their name and then tell you what they do for work. What bothers me is that people tend to let their job define them. This is so-and-so, they're an _______________ (accountant, student, flight attendant, police person, musician, fashion guru, baseball player, asshole, movie star, custodian, high school teacher, landscaper, etc.). I was recently speaking with a recruiter and he asked me to tell him some things about myself that would not appear on my resume. I've been to a bunch of interviews over the past year or so and he's the first, and only person, to ask me anything like that. I ended up really enjoying that interview far more than any of the others I have had. I commend him for asking me that because there is so much more to people than what looks good on a resume. I just don't think people should define themselves by their jobs or careers, but rather by what interests them. Jobs and careers might contain some of a person's interests, but I don't believe that 100% of anyone's interests lies within the constraints of their job.

I should have worked more, it's the only thing I'm good at

Of course eventually I would like to have a successful career, but I want to achieve success in so many other areas, too. I still hold that Huxley's Brave New World is the most powerful book that I have ever read and I have no idea why I don't own it yet. I really do think that people are raised to love their servitude for the country and I thank Mr. Huxley for that idea. I strongly recommend reading Brave New World, that book would be way ahead of its time if it had been published today. I want to enjoy myself by doing the things that make me happy and surrounding myself with people I like. I could care less what my title is in the "professional world," I just want the ability to live comfortably while I have a good time.

That's all I have for right now. I really enjoyed putting this post together, hopefully it is serving as a harbinger of a string of good posts. I'm not quite sure what's in the queue for upcoming posts, but there will probably be something about Batman (the greatest superhero ever) and who knows what. Joe bless you.

Moving On

I've fractured my ankle and taken a baseball bat with a weight taped onto it to the face, but neither of those injuries have the fatal blow of emotional anguish. In previous posts I have mentioned a girl that I have taken a liking to. A girl who once told me to introduce her to my parents as my girlfriend. A girl who I stayed in touch with while she was studying abroad during the past fall semester. A girl with whom I failed to see enough during my time in college. A girl who I was going to ask to be my girlfriend and I to be her boyfriend. This girl told me today that she was with someone.

I am by no means mad at her, but I am very sad. I can't help to think of what could have been. For the past few hours I had been debating whether I should blog about this or not because it is such a sensitive and personal subject. But looking back at past entries I can see how my life has unfolded since I began Sycophantic Laughter right after Thanksgiving of 2010. While this is not a happy day in my life, it is an important day for me, marking the third coming of the search for a girlfriend.

My face when I found out

This is the second time that I've liked a girl enough to think about asking them to be my girlfriend, and the second time that it has not worked out. Not only did I choose to blog about this as an important day in my life, but I find a comfort in blogging. This blog contains my thoughts, ideas, events in my life all written in my own words with my own feeling encompassed. With that said, it saddens me to miss out on an opportunity with this girl, I'll refer to her as "Mystery" so I don't have to keep typing "the girl" and out of respect because she deserves to have a name. I also choose the name Mystery because of my past relationship experience, mainly that I have never had one. That's correct, I'm twenty-two and I've never had a girlfriend. Given that I have never been involved in a relationship with anyone, my friends have always been interested to see who I choose. I can recall some friends imagining the characteristics of the girl they thought I would date, some good memories there. So I'll tell you about Mystery.

Mystery is one year behind me in school, she will be entering her senior year of college this fall. I met Mystery during my sophomore year in college because we attended the same university where we met through a common activity. Looking back on that year I remember Mystery asking me what I was doing on the weekend and telling me she was going to be all alone in her room bored on some nights. At that time I was too stupid to realize that maybe she was interested in getting to know me, what an idiot I was. Although, to be fair I was still attempting to work something out with the first girl that I ever wanted to date (from my high school), so I can't throw too much crap at myself for that. So that year ended with me just thinking of her as another nice person I had met during the year. She also had started dating someone else at the end of the year, so I just thought of her as a nice, new friend.

Upon arriving back at school my junior year I knew that I was not going to have any type of a relationship with my friend from high school who was going into her sophomore year of college just like Mystery. The first weekend everyone was back on campus I happened to see Mystery in the dining hall at breakfast. Actually, I didn't see her, but she and her friends spotted me as I was about to leave and they called me over. I heard my name and looked out into the depths of the dining to see Mystery waving and smiling at me. So I went over to say hello and she got up to give me a hug. We also happened to have a class together that semester which she was happy about. I saw her a few days later in one of the buildings at school and she came up to me to tell me how we could walk to class together and sit next to each other. Of course I had no problem with this, but I still wasn't really putting the pieces together that maybe she was interested, even if she did still have a boyfriend at the time.

Hugs make everyone feel good

So we did go to class together and sit next to each other. On most of those nights Mystery and I ate dinner together, too. Mystery and I would speak to each other quite often. I always enjoying speaking with her, she's very interesting and not shy to say what's on her mind. I remember her telling me about people she didn't like because they were rude to her and how certain things annoyed her, I distinctly remember her talking about her boyfriend to me once where she said "I don't even like him." That's verbatim, too. Eventually that day came where Mystery came to the home track meet and told me that I should introduce her to my parents as my girlfriend. I was really caught off guard by this and just laughed. I didn't introduce her and that could be a huge mistake that I am suffering from now. I saw her later that weekend in the dining hall again and she told me that she still needed to meet her boyfriend's parents. For some reason I just didn't ask her to be my girlfriend which has come back to haunt me. I'm noticing that I have developed a habit for waiting far too long to ask.

We're almost at present time now. Mystery studied abroad for the fall semester, but I kept in touch with her through social media (I found a good use for it, who would have guessed). She told me about how much she was enjoying herself and how she wanted me to cook dinner for her when she got back. So everything was well at this point, but when she did get back I never got the chance to make even one dinner for her. She got an internship and was rarely at school during the spring semester. I did manage to have lunch with her one day and have a coffee with her before the end of the semester. Now it's summer and Mystery got another internship offer in another state, not too far away though. I had been keeping in touch with her and today I got the news. Mystery told me she was with someone else. I don't know who that someone is, but if she's happy then I don't want to interfere.

What did I like about Mystery? Well she is a very nice person who holds her friends closely from what I can see. I think she is very easy to get along with and she's got a brain, too. Mystery is also very good looking, but she does it in a sophisticated way and there is so much more to her than merely her stunning looks. I've always felt comfortable conversing with her. Mystery is a lovely young lady with a promising future. I can't say enough about her, she's simply a wonderful person. She's also extremely outgoing and sometimes has a little too much, but she maintains herself well.

It's my loss really, I always wait until it's too late. I'm glad that she's happy, but it makes me feel down. I've only felt like this once before with my previous failure to develop a meaningful relationship and it is no fun. I don't really know what I'm going to do now, I have this strange empty feeling and I doubt I'll be able to go to sleep easily, but at the same time  I don't really want to do anything. This news combined with the stress of looking for a job is definitely taking a toll on me. I just feel useless right now. Maybe I just need some more cowbell, but I'm perplexed with my life right now. I wish Mystery the best. She still wants to be friends and I can't say no to that because I do like her and I don't want to completely severe ties with such a wonderful person. I could just really use a nice, warm hug right about now.

I don't know what's next, but I might actually have an interview sometime next week so hopefully I'll have some happy news soon. As a huge fan of soccer coach Jose Mourinho and Special 1 T.V. I've adopted the phrase "Be Champions" as a motto to live my life by. I think that everyone should be a champion. I don't care if you are a superstar, a person living a successful life, an aspiring future leader, or a crack pot smoker. Everyone should live their lives as a champion and I plan on handling this unfortunate situation as a champion. Mystery, I dedicate this entry to you and I wish you the best.

On the Subject of Girlfriends and Dating

At this stage in my life, about a month away from entering senior year of college, I am one of few people I know of in my group of friends who has never had a girlfriend. I have realized this very much recently because many times over the summer people I haven't seen in a while have asked me if I have a girlfriend at the moment. I guess everyone is just very interested in this topic, so here's my story! Most of my friends have been involved in a relationship, some have had many, others just one, but either way these relationships usually break down. A lot of the time I think these relationships don't last because the timing is bad. I never dated as a teen, but I think that age is almost too young. I don't think anyone at that age really knows what they want, that's why I have waited thus far. I never wanted to get involved in a relationship that didn't have a chance of going anywhere, what fun would that be?

Who wants this to happen!? Except for Simon of course...

I have had my fair chance to start relationships or go on dates, some of which are very comical, at least I think so. Last summer I was given phone numbers by three girls while at work. I haven't been able to keep pace so far this year, having not reeled in one yet, but there's still some summer left! Anyways, while getting these girls numbers was intriguing and certainly entertaining, I'm rather certain these young ladies were a bit too young. I wouldn't be surprised if they thought I was only a little older than them considering on of my coworkers this year thought I was nineteen and was rather surprised when I told her I was 21. I guess I look young for my age, but I'm not complaining. The reason I say the girls were too young is very simple. I received two of the numbers at the same time from a group of friends, who politely left me their digits on straws. One of the straws even had a message on it that read "So and So is Hot!" I won't write the name for privacy reasons, I'm not that much of an asshole. I still have the straw if you don't believe me. I noticed this group of friends after they got out of their movie. I watched them leave the theater and enter a car clearly driven by a parent. That was when I thought I probably shouldn't go there.

When's he going to call?

The other girl whose phone number I received I'm not as sure about, regarding age that is. I was speaking to two friends from high school who were one year behind me when all of a sudden this other girl started speaking to me. I had never seen this girl before, at least not that I could remember, but she sure knew who I was. She told me she recognized me as the guy that ran the hurdles in high school. I guess my fame must have stretched a bit further than I realized because I really had no idea who the girl was. The conversation lasted for a little while, but she wasn't in my concession line so it got cut off when she got to the front of the line. However, she came back to me later to get a drink, but looking back on it, I'm sure that wasn't why she really came back. I didn't think anything of it at the time, until later that week when I was leaving work and this other girl who I'd never seen stopped me and talked to me about the girl from the other night. This girl told me that the one I was speaking with the previous night was her cousin and then proceeded to give me her cousin's number. Let's just say that nothing came of this.

Are you old enough?

Well, that was all good and fun, but I have had some much more serious opportunities. As I said before, I just don't think high school dating leads to much but trouble and hurt feelings. Exceptions always exist, it is possible to have a successful high school relationship, but I think the vast majority end with the two people not liking one another very much. As a result of this thinking I never tried to date anyone in high school, nor did I have any inclination to attend prom, so I never went to that either. I could have done both, but I just didn't want any of the complications that come with dating and prom, not at that age anyways. I think that waiting until you are more mature to date is the way to go, especially following high school because it is at that time that you gain full independence and discover who you and other people truly are. Of course there is always an exception, though. There is one girl who I met in high school that I liked a great deal. I kept in touch with her for about a year after I graduated, but since then I haven't had much communication unfortunately.

Currently I am in an intriguing situation with one of my friends from college. She has hinted many times at having a relationship with me. Yes, I have noticed and when I come to think about it, I think it's been happening since the end of the previous school year, but I hadn't put it together at that point. At the beginning the hints were very subtle, I remember going to the bookstore to pick up a book with her and she referred to the rendezvous as "going on a date." Probably sounds silly to you, but given the circumstances and previous interaction, things I could never portray in words, it makes sense. Did I mention that she had a boyfriend at the time? Anyways, she came to our home track meet this past outdoor season and somehow we began talking about my parents, who were present at the meet, which is probably how they came up in the first place. What happened next always makes me laugh when I think about it. She asked me if she could meet my parents and I said of course. She proceeded to tell me that I should introduce her as my girlfriend! Then she grabbed my arm and said we could practice first. It was certainly a good time to say the least.

Some of my friends have told me that they are very interested to see who my girlfriend is in the future. Well, I still don't know when that time will come, but there is certainly potential. I have to do it at some point, I don't want to be lonely, but at the same time I don't like rushing into things, especially of great magnitude. I want to find the right person. So now you can wait in suspense for updates!