I'd Better Stock up on Porn

There are a lot of things that make me weird. My socks don't match, I eat apples from top to bottom, and I'm the only person on the planet who thinks Jar-Jar Binks is adorable. And I know those are just quirks, but some weird things about me aren't charmingly idiosyncratic. For one, I never finish anything. Okay, so I finish off boxes of cereal and essays and cups of tea, but most things I don't finish. There are at least nine paint-by-numbers crammed in a crawl space somewhere that have like four empty spaces each because I was too lazy and bored to mix color 4 with color 95 to make "light puce." I have eighteen candles that I keep at a really low level of wax and constantly buy new ones because I don't want to let the old ones burn out. I have a box full of eighty paper cranes that I planned on hanging up, but instead just kept making them until I moved on to a new craft. I study things until I almost understand them, and then rely on innate intelligence to do well on tests (hint: this doesn't work for computer science or art history exams). Most of all, I don't follow through on what I really want. Most shit I do just isn't for myself. So, in linguistics today, I got my billionth harebrained idea: I decided that I would be single for a year.
At this point, you're probably wondering (as am I a little): why the hell would anybody want to do that? Isn't life about the pursuit of happiness, which is synonymous with love for some people? What the hell am I going to do with my day? Actually, I have absolutely no idea. But that's kind of the point. Basically, I'll lay this down for you: I've been in some sort of relationship since 8th grade, with no more than a two week hiatus between relationships, crushes, hook-ups or flings. My relationships have been like the pile of coats at a party: they all overlap messily, and there's always another one on the way. After every break-up, I've always announced to my friends, "All right guys, this is it: I'm totally going to try to be single." And I've always failed, because for some reason, I always become immediately infatuated with the next guy I meet who knows who Neil Gaiman is, or listens to Blink-182 (without shame). So this time, I'm going to finish something. I'm going to actually be single.
Yesterday, a friend of mine revealed to me that he thinks I might be addicted to love. My first thought (after I hummed "Addicted to Love" for a few bars) was that I had never considered love as an addiction. And aside from being addicted to chocolate, flash games, and looking at a hilarious picture of Dugtrio as three black men fondling each other, I've never considered myself as being addicted to anything. But, seeing as this made sense to me (See also: I had just read Choke and had addiciton on the brain), I decided that like with any addiction, I should try my self-control, self-confidence, and self-respect by using will power to quit. Granted, this addiction isn't anything like herion, but for me, it actually kind of is. Now that I think about it, every time I break up with someone, it feels like a detox. Sometimes I even get physically ill from it, but let's face it, that's not pretty, so I won't delve further into my fantastic stomach pyrotechnics. So while it may seem like this harebrained idea is just that, to me, it's about proving that I can do something just for myself. And actually do it. I have to learn to be happy on my own. To me, being alone is the same as not having a boyfriend, and that shouldn't be the case. I need to learn how to be happy alone before I'm happy with someone else, and when I choose to date someone else, I need to learn how to treat him like a gift, and not like a pile of paper cranes that I can get quickly bored of.
So, to do that, I figure I need to retrace my relationship steps-- figure out where I went wrong. But all I can picture is this weird powerpoint with a boring template flashing pictures of my old boyfriends and me while "Free Fallin'"plays softly in the background. And besides, it's not as if anything went wrong specifically in my old relationships, it's just that sometimes people don't work out. And even though I truly believe that, it doesn't make break-ups any less difficult. Essentially, I guess, so concludes day one of Sally being single. Oh but I've decided that this not dating thing will end next year on Valentine's Day, because that's just so appropriate.
Also, for all those reading this (Hi Gramma), if you're a conservative member of my family and swearing and sexual references offend you (or you're my mom and you think it's weird that I'm all grown up), I truly apologize, but this blog is as much my catharsis as it is for your entertainment. To my close friends, I hope you all make wise bets on how long this is going to last (you guys suck :p), to all others, follow me if you want, and encourage me if you can, because this isn't easy: I love boys and relationships and everything about this. I just, inexplicably (or, actually, very explicably as seen above), need to do this. Support is all I can ask for. So it begins!