The lows are low, but the highs are home

Part 2 of my post from yesterday. If you haven’t read it, this won’t make as much sense. I said that I would write about “how I see love, why I say that Brittany "cheated” on me with an emphasis on the quotation marks, and why I have no problem with it.“ Read on if you’re interested, and if not, you probably hate me by now. Sorry!

        I think the ideal form of love is selfless. If you really, truly love someone, then you should want them to be as happy as possible. If being in love requires you to get something out of it, then you don’t love them as much as you think you do. If I had forced Brittany to stay away from this guy, because I really did think that being with her was the only way I could be happy, that wouldn’t have been love. Or, at least, it would have been showing that I loved myself the most, and cared more about my happiness than hers. I let her go because I knew that if it worked out, she would be happier with him than she ever would be with me. We might have been content together, but because she didn’t truly love me, it wouldn’t be a perfect, happily-ever-after kind of thing.

        This is mainly a romantic thing, because it’s not like you ever formally agree to spend the rest of your life with your closest friends. Still, when you care about someone a lot, you should be more interested in what you can do for them than what they can do for you. Since they (hopefully) care about you the same way, they’ll take care of you just as selflessly. And everyone wins.

        So, as for infidelity specifically, I should start by saying that I wouldn’t ever do something like that to begin with. The fact that I could accept it from my partner doesn’t mean that I condone it. To me, the worst thing about a one-night stand would be if it was kept a secret - that’s a betrayal of trust, which hurts. Who cares about the sex at that point? If they come clean right away and don’t make a habit of it, it’s forgivable. And could you really blame someone if they fell in love with someone else? It sucks, but sometimes people just click. Again, if they keep it a secret and start seeing someone else, that’s intentional and wrong. But it’s love, and if they’d be happier that way, let them go and move on. I do think that we can be monogamous with the right partners, and I’m willing to forgive a lot. And, yeah, I’m tough enough to let someone go so they can be happy. It’s hard to appreciate right away, but I think it’s the best decision to make.

        It never really bothered me that much that Brittany was with this other guy, that she had feelings for him, and so on. It was never a secret - she asked for my permission repeatedly, and I gave it every time, with the one condition being that she not do anything behind my back. If she’d done all of this and pretended our relationship was fine until the day that we broke up, I would have been infinitely more hurt. I would have no issues telling people that she cheated on me. If I were to say that now, it would make it seem like I was victimized - when in reality I personally encouraged her to go after this guy. Yeah, we were "officially” together while all of this was going on, but that really doesn’t matter. She didn’t want to hurt me, but at the same time, she was falling in love with this guy and going back to me would have been impossible. I can’t honestly say “no, you should stop yourself from falling in love, and also you should stay in a relationship where you are content rather than search for one where you are truly happy.” Even if someone could do that, why would they? And why would you want them to?

        Anyway, now you probably understand better why neither of us is honestly worried about old feelings coming back. The people who were worried about that, they don’t know this stuff - they just know that we dated in the past and now I’m offering her a place to stay. I’m still surprised that I’ve never posted about this before, but now I have and now you know! It’s probably not worth the effort to explain all of this to people so that they can understand why we could live together and not consider being more than friends. But the people who know we were together ought to know why we broke up, and not just that we did.

        I mean, man. How did I not write about this before? Still amazed by that.

I’ve been thinking for the past week about what different people get from reading my tumblr. Random internet strangers probably just read the posts about things they’re interested in. People who know me well will get to know me better. But for people who don’t know me yet, it’s not a perfect window into my life - there are a lot of things that don’t come across all that well in text. I post about the things that interest me, and I post a lot of information about my life, but not so much about more abstract things - what I believe in, what kind of person I am, and so on. There’s not much point in simply telling you those things. because there would be nothing to back it up, and even if you accept that I’m nice because I said so, it wouldn’t really leave much of an impression on you. Trying to show you things like that with words is tough, but I’ll think about it and work on a few drafts to give the internet at large a better idea of who I am.

        I started playing Catherine last night, and aside from being a pretty satisfying puzzle game (as long as you don’t get really stuck on a hard part), it’s an absolutely wonderful thing to experience. I’d be surprised if I got more than ten hours out of it, but the value of playing it can’t be measured in time spent playing. The basic gist is that you guide Vincent, a 32 year old underachiever, through the worst week of his life. First, his girlfriend of five years, Katherine, starts talking about marriage. Then he drinks a bit too much and has a one-night stand with a girl named Catherine. What happens from there depends on the player’s decisions, but it’s a really well-crafted experience.

        If you absolutely love puzzle games, there’s probably $60 worth of gameplay in there, but everyone else should play the game on easy and act as honestly as possible. It’ll get you thinking about what you would do in a given situation, and about relationships in general. Which is absolutely fantastic, and I’m so glad that this is a “mainstream” video game. I mean, ok, it’s not a AAA blockbuster release, but it’s not some budgetless, vague indie game either. It’s a game that deals with marriage, cheating, responsibility, the nature of relationships… It’s a work of art in every definition of the word.

        So I’ve been thinking a lot since I started playing it, and naturally one of the things I’ve been thinking about is infidelity. Apparently, I’ve actually never written about this before, which is surprising because of what happened between Brittany and I. It’s kind of an important detail, which makes it strange that I’ve never mentioned it. It also means I have to write about it now, in order to get into the stuff I want to say. Alright, so, here’s the quick and dirty version. When we were in 9th grade, Brittany got involved with a guy a year younger than her, and she was really serious about him. It ended badly, she did her best to get over it, and then in November of 10th grade we started dating again. In PEI, high school doesn’t start until 10th grade, so when we moved onto high school she didn’t really see the guy until the fall of 11th grade.  Before too long, despite having a girlfriend, he started flirting with her. She was wary of him because he proved to be a supreme asshole the first time, but I knew she was drawn to him in a way she’d never been drawn to me, and so I gave her permission to talk to him and braced for impact. Fast forward a few months, and by November things are very serious between them and we finally break up ten days before our anniversary.

        I don’t think I need to get into what happened between them after that, but suffice to say that he was actually worse than a supreme asshole. An uber asshole, if you will, the horrible embodiment of all the terrible things women expect from men. Meanwhile, I had encouraged my girlfriend - who I loved dearly, and who was at the time my one source of happiness - to leave me. In the end, her relationship with him made her reevaluate her feelings for me, and there ended the possibility of us getting back together. Understandably, our relationship became strained as things went on, and we spoke less and less often. Eventually it seemed like we couldn’t even manage to carry on a conversation. Considering she was my only close friend, the only person I thought I could share my secrets, doubts, and fears with, this was hard for me. I was incredibly lonely, and of course I spoke occasionally with my friends and family about this stuff, but it was this loneliness that led me to meet Vael and open up to him.

        What I realized, over time, was that I missed Brittany as my best friend far more than I missed her as my girlfriend. We went from speaking all day, every day to never speaking at all, and that alone was hard. Not having anyone to talk to about personal stuff was worse. I don’t remember the exact details of what happened, but at some point I must have told her this and asked if we could “just be friends.” Yeah, I said that, and I said it after we’d broken up. Delicious irony, if you can ignore my crying, desperately lonely 16-year-old-self long enough to laugh about it. Of course there were issues to work through, and of course I struggled with my feelings for her. After all that time, I couldn’t just snap my fingers and only think of her as a friend. But in the end, it all worked out, and now we’re friends and she’s living in my mom’s house. It’s been almost a week now, and it hasn’t been at all awkward for me (although I’ve been at my dad’s house this whole time). She doesn’t find it weird being there, and I assume being around me is no different than it was a month ago. Which is to say I haven’t asked about that, but maybe I should.

        SO OK NOW WE’RE BACK TO CATHERINE AND THE THINGS IT MADE ME THINK ABOUT. Now I can tell you how I see love, why I say that Brittany “cheated” on me with an emphasis on the quotation marks, and why I have no problem with it. Except that when I say now, I actually mean tomorrow, because this is really long. And the chances of people reading it all probably increase when it’s split up. So, that post will go up tomorrow morning, and I hope you all enjoy it!

I have received an offer, in my e-mail inbox, that is simply so good that it must be true. After all, not only did they send me an e-mail, they also offered a Skype account to contact should I wish to further discuss this wonderful advertising opportunity! I will share the message with you, because I believe that it is just so fantastic that such effective advertising opportunities are available thanks to modern technology.

———————————————————

Hi!

We want to offer you a new way of advertisement!

If you want to promote your business to the next rate or to increase useful traffic to your web-site,

If you want to make new friends or find your love,

If you want to realize something, such as a car or a house, or buy something,

Then this offer is just for you!

We own a huge number of databases, we can make any sample of recipients.
For example, country and city of residence, hobbies, profession, post, income, height, eye color and even sexual preferences!

We process all orders as soon as possible!
We are people who have no limits

Prices:

All advertising project that you want to will be beginning with  $ 500 we appreciate our time.
Also there is a system of bonuses and the best offers for all your needs!

Please write us at [withheld] or Skype [withheld]

———————————————————

There is a system of bonuses, and the best offers for all your needs. They are people who have no limits - do you wish to realize a house, or find your love? They can do all that and more, with this wonderful form of effective advertising and their huge amount of databases.

The world is such a wonderful place!

Classes for the fall

PSYC 2001 - Intro to Research Methods in Psychology

PHIL 2501 - Intro to Philosophy of the Mind

LING 3002 - Phonology I

COMP 2001 - Intro to Systems Programming

CGSC 2001 - Intro to Cognitive Science

Classes for the winter

PSYC 2700 - Cognitive Psychology

PSYC 2200 - Biological Foundations of Behaviour

LING 2005 - Linguistic Analysis I

COMP 2004 - Programming in C++

CGSC 2002 + tutorial - Theories & Methods in Cognitive Science

[edit: I wish tumblr would put multiple spaces between paragraphs to make my walls of text less intimidating, because I’m bound to write them anyway]

I’ve been surprised before, but officially, I actually only have the one tutorial in the winter. I expected to have a tutorial in COMP 2004, and LING 2005, while LING 3002 is a strong candidate too. Won’t be surprised if I come to class and they tell us to sign up for tutorial times, anyway.

        The one problem with my schedule this year is that I couldn’t fit the french course I wanted into my schedule: FREN 2401 - Mechanics of language: French (liberally translated from fonctionnement d'une langue: le français). Basically, studying the structure, sounds, and so on of both Canadian French and French from France. France French. First of all, I thought it would be interesting, but it would probably help with my french too. In a grammar course, they mainly just tell you “this is how it is.” But a linguistic analysis could tell you why it is that way. The other thing is that I still want to do a minor in French and for that I need four credits, or eight classes. FREN 2401 is a full-year course, and both of the available times conflicted with classes I need for my degree. There are more french linguistics classes beyond this first one, so I’d take those later and fill out my required credits.

        So anyway! Instead of taking some french courses I wasn’t particularly interested in, which is a recipe for disaster and apathy, I grabbed a couple more programming courses. Considering how many jobs I couldn’t apply for because I didn’t have experience with C++, I thought it would be a good idea to get some. Unfortunately, COMP 2001 is required for COMP 2004, which also means I wouldn’t be “learning” C++ until january. Applying for a job that’s asking for a year of experience with C++ and saying “well, I’m taking the course right now…” probably wouldn’t go over well, I’m going to use the wonderful resource that is the internet to introduce myself to C++. I probably won’t have any time to actually work on a project with it in the fall, between class and helping Mako, but I’ll start reading all those AltDevBlog posts about C++ and learn some pro tricks hopefully. Then COMP 2004 can (well, hopefully it will) teach me the rest. And I’ll keep up with Java a bit, because why not? If I do get a summer job as a programmer, it doesn’t matter a whole lot whether I’m using Java or C++.

        Oops, this is getting pretty long. Well, the rest of the classes are pretty self-explanatory. All required for my degree, and they should all be interesting, so yay. Linguistic Analysis II is only offered in the fall, so I’ll be doing that next year and that way I won’t forget everything I did in Analysis I. The tutorial for CGSC 2002 will probably involve Python somehow, because Jim Davies is teaching it. Otherwise, I can’t imagine what we’d be doing. I don’t think we’d be doing actual research in an undergraduate class, that’s all.

        And, of course, my notes will be up on UniNotes as I take them. When classes actually start, or when I go pick up text books (because it would take thirty times longer when classes have started), I’ll be able to tell you more interesting things.

[Alternatively titled: How I Learned to Stop Being Suicidal and Love Life]

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine told me they were feeling suicidal. Don’t worry - things have turned around completely, and this friend is feeling happy for the first time in a long while. Still, it made me think about the way I used to feel when I was suicidal - how I felt when I was 10, and the slightly more refined thoughts I had during junior high and high school. It made me realize how much I’ve grown up, and I thought it was worth sharing. I’ll try to be concise! Sometimes you have to explore a few tangents, but I’ll try to keep them relevant.

        I gave a quick history in my Depression post last year, and I touched on my suicidal thoughts as well. One thing I forgot to mention was the feeling that I had nothing to live for. When I was 10, I thought that I was so smart and wanted to do great things - but I knew that the world doesn’t work that way and figured I’d wind up in a crappy office job, living a “normal” life. I was just a kid, you know? The life of an adult, in my mind, consisted solely of their job. It never occurred to me that I could have a normal job, and still do great things.

        I wanted to improve the world, though, and since I wouldn’t do it at work, I thought it was impossible. Then I thought I could do it by taking myself out of the picture. When I realized that would only make things worse, I looked for other ways to make the world a better place. I figured that if I could improve at least one thing, no matter how small, I would have lived a worthwhile life. When I met Brittany in junior high, I decided my one thing would be to help her. I figured I could help her with her problems, and then she’d go off and be happy and it would all be thanks to me. I didn’t think that would take too long, and after that, even if I killed myself, I would have made the world a better place. It never quite worked out that way, but I held onto the idea that I could make people’s lives better in some small way and live a good life.

        I knew that I couldn’t kill myself if anyone would be left behind to mourn me and blame themselves for my death, so I decided I would have to disappear quietly. The day no one would notice I was dead, I could slip away and that would be that. I figured that I could leave home after high school and gradually lose contact with my family, and then I’d just have to make sure they couldn’t trace my identity after I died. I felt that it was inevitable that everyone in my life would leave me, so when that happened, I’d be free to end it. “Unfortunately” for my tenth grade self, I’ve made new connections and gotten closer to everyone else, more or less foiling this plot.

        You know how sometimes you can’t figure out whether something actually happened, or you just had a dream and thought it happened? I get that sometimes, except I can’t remember whether I said something or just thought about saying it. Either way, in high school I once said (or thought I said) that I “wanted to be happy when I grew up.” Which is super dramatic, and sad, and that’s what really made me want to say it. I was also trying to say that it didn’t matter what I “was when I grow up,” in terms of what career I chose - as long as I had enough to survive and something else to make me happy, I’d be ok.

        What I realized, thinking about all of this, is that I’ve done it. I grew up. I’m happy with my life, and I’ll still be happy no matter where things go from here. That’s not to say that everything is perfect; I just know that I can deal with and overcome pretty much anything. I’m happy with who I am, and I think I’m a good person. I doubt I’m radically changing the lives of everyone I meet, but I’ve made good friends and I’m helping out whenever I can. Enough to say I’m a net positive influence on the world, at least, which was always the plan. And that’s enough to make me happy!

Should I apologize for not posting while I’m on vacation? I feel guilty about it anyway, but I’m thinking most people focus on their vacation and don’t post at all. Well, I love you too much to stay away for long. Also, I can’t help but think up tumblr posts when I should be sleeping, and the best cure for that is to actually write one before bed.

        If that’s not a significant caveat, I don’t know what is.

        Anyway, I have news! News big enough for its own post, even. It’s a big change, technically, but at the same time I’m hoping for a minimal amount of changes to accommodate it. If that makes sense. Ideally, I’ll be able to continue working at the same pace I have been and life will go on as usual, except with an extra person living in my house.

        I’ll skip the long story of how we got to this point and summarize: Brittany is moving in at my mom’s place, and she’ll stay there while I’m at my dad’s. I’m giving up my bedroom, but I prefer to sleep on the futon in the basement anyway, so all that’s left is to figure out where I’ll move my “office.” No big deal, although everybody’s worried about us living together, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.

        If you’ve been reading my tumblr long enough, you probably know Brittany as my ex-girlfriend. But we broke up two and a half years ago now, and I don’t think our status as an ex-couple (do people say that? makes sense to me) defines our relationship anymore. I mean, yeah, we dated and we broke up - but there’s no tension, no unresolved issues, none of the things you would expect when you’re meeting someone’s ex for the first time. And the more time I spend with her now, the more comfortable I am with the way things are - we’re friends, the same way I’m friends with Vael, Sebastian, or Max.

        I’ve been offering to let Brittany stay with us pretty much since we decided to move to Ottawa, mainly because I’ve always thought her family treats her terribly. Her mom has been threatening to kick her out recently, or at least make her pay rent, which is difficult considering how few jobs are available in Summerside. Ottawa, on the other hand, has many more opportunities. So I asked my mom if she could stay with us, because it would be cheaper for her than getting an apartment in Summerside, and she’d have better odds of saving up money for school. Fast-forward to our vacation, and Brittany came out to dinner with us. One of the first things my mom says is “so Brittany, are you coming back to Ottawa with us?” At first she said maybe, and then there was much discussion and working out of details, and now the answer is yes.

        I figure I’ll be introducing her as my friend from now on, and that’ll avoid plenty of awkward situations where people misunderstand or assume things. Not like it’ll be a secret that we dated, but if it comes up, I’ll just say she turned me into a newt and then I got better. Or something along those lines. I just want to say that I got better and make it clear that it’s a Monty Python reference.

        Anyway, that’s that. There’s not really a whole lot to say aside from re-assuring everyone about the way things are between us now, so there you go. Consider yourself assured!

        tl;dr: my ex-girlfriend is going to be my roommate, but it’s not what you think