I made it known my fondness towards you. Explaining, in a nutshell, how these feelings came to be. A journey that, if I were to ever have children, would absolutely be shared with them.
The tale of a boy who had his first crush in the first grade. An experience most his peers would not go through for a few more years. A teenager who knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, what it meant and felt like to love someone. An incorrect assumption that would make said teenager the ass in situations on many occasions. To a young man in his early 20's that slowly learned, after many mistakes and decisions unknowingly fueled only by emotion, that he may be quite wrong about who he believed himself to be. Ending with the man who had gained the knowledge to know just how oblivious he had been for two decades.

    Oh so pretty to me she was.    Long curly brunette hair surrounding a cute face. It was the first grade and her name was Katie Anderson. It would be nice to list off a few more traits but that is the extent of the list. My only other solid memories from that year are how I was unhappy my best friend from preschool had transferred schools and how I cried the first(and I believe only time that year) the teacher pulled my card for acting up in class. I do not remember why that upset me so much. My best guess is that I disagreed with the teacher's decision that I had done anything that deserved having my card pulled. My second best guess is that I was talking when I should not have.   Either way, one thing is for certain, my pride of not getting in trouble took a hit that day. I had always respected authority and feared punishment so it was always shocking in different ways the few times disciplinary actions occurred.
   Over the next four years emerged a simple pattern. Every year I would have a crush on who I found to be the prettiest in my class. Second grade was a girl named Sonya and third grade was Catherine Smith. At my elementary school we had one class/teacher for all subjects. The only time we were not in that main class was an hour each day we spent in an extracurricular course. Art, music, gym, etc.
     There were small evolutions to the pattern beginning in the fourth grade. That year my crush was Marisa Settles. For all intents and purposes, this was my first experience of being in love. Only being 10ish years old there was no way to realize this was the first time life was showing the flaw that was at the center of why I would be blind to the concept for the next 20ish years.
    Always shy I would never speak to these crushes but that year I finally dipped my toes into the water. Nothing to speak proudly of, a player of the game I have never been, but I knew talking was a requirement if there was ever to be an actual relationship with these infatuations. Now my actions were not the stereotypical boy that is mean to the girl he likes. I would not unsuccessfully dabble in that concept until middle and high school. The first time I spoke to her was when our teacher sent us out into the hall to speak with us. There was a moment while we were waiting for the teacher to come outside. I do not remember what I said but it was something meant as reassurance to her that we were not in trouble. The teacher then came and informed us that we had been recommended for the school GATE program. Cannot remember what the acronym stood for but it was the schools class for the seemingly intelligent kids. So instead of regular class, one day a week we would go to GATE instead. The class seemed to be focused around subjects with the purpose of broadening our knowledge outside of the traditional curriculum taught in school. An attempt to get our minds outside the box so to speak, along with cool field trips and a surprising amount of gardening and such around the school and at a local park.
     The only other time I can recall vividly talking to Marisa that year was when we had to go into the hall and catch up on reading we had missed because of GATE.   We took turns reading out loud. Not sure if we only had one book because there was not enough for the entire class so we could only take one copy outside or what the reason was that we read out loud. All I remember is focusing very little on the book and trying so hard to think of things to say. Suffice it to say, that was not accomplished.
     These are not the only two times I spoke to her that year but they are the ones in my conscious memory that I know influenced my life. The first was me trying to comfort her through strength/courage that there was no trouble coming and the second is about how much nervousness was encountered being alone with the girl I liked so much.
     The last year of elementary school was mostly about a girl name Mary Martin. Tall and pretty, but blonde, which was a change of pace. Not really sure why but my best guess would be that Mary hit puberty around that time so she looked the most like an older girl.   This was also the year I hit puberty which may further explain why that year I liked someone that was more stereotypically attractive and not necessarily "my type". Or perhaps there just was not that many cute girls in my fifth grade class.
     This was when my first real attempt at flirting occurred. The times where she was seated by me, I would be innocently annoying like a nice kid who had no clue or confidence about how to get her to notice me. The only specific I can recall was when she sat behind me I would turn around and blow her pencils off her desk or change the page she was on in her textbook. I also helped her with school work.
     We became friends in a way but only in the sense of friends at school. Kind of like the type of friend you would make in a work environment without ever seeing them outside of work but that was the extent of the relationship.
     I did not forget about Marisa that year by any means though. Unlike my previous crushes, where I forgot about the last one once the new one occurred, Marisa stuck around. She was so pretty to me.
     I spent the first part of that grade figuring out she no longer went to the same school. Being as how I had not been brave enough to befriend her in a way that would have allowed me to keep in touch, I could only conclude that she had moved. To be fair that kind of friendship is unlikely between two people that age that do not grow up in the same neighborhood or share a common connection through older family and such. However the feelings of being cowardice and shy always stuck around and have been a recurring theme over the years.
     It was not until a GATE field trip to a summer camp that I learned she was attending one of the other two elementary schools in our district.   The field trip was for the fifth grade "gifted" classes from all three schools. Talked to her a little and tried to show off my physical strength during camp activities but the most vivid memory I have is from a hike everyone went on through the woods around the campground. It started becoming dark and Marisa mentioned how she could not see well at night. So I started walking in front of her to be her eyes in a sense, pointing out roots sticking out of the ground and making sure she did not fall.
     Then came middle school were the pattern ceased. Other than usually liking brunette over other hair colors, it was mostly just random crushes. A decent size number of them in fact. It was the first time there were multiple crushes occurring simultaneously. This was likely due to how we did have a different class/teacher for seven periods each day. Plus how South Lankford middle was made up of kids from the other two elementary schools in the district. Which meant there were many pretty girls to see and lust after. I came back into contact with Marisa those years because she did end up attending the same middle school as me and we did become closer friends through the coincidence of ending up in the same circle of friends but that was the extent of that. Later on in high school we lost touch with one another over the four years as that circle of friends we were in became no more as two key members that connected everyone moved away.
     Middle school was, overall, the calmest of my school years when it came to matters of the heart. I would randomly crush on people that I had classes with and I did begin actually talking to some of those crushes online with the old AIM messenger. Through that medium I also dabbled in online "girlfriends." People that I had not and would not ever actually meet, but wanting to have a girlfriend so bad, was willing to settle for whatever version of that I could find. Not that I was really able to understand in any logical way that is what was going on. At best I knew online relationships were the biggest version of "long distance does not work" that existed.
     Mary was around for a little while in middle school. During lunch there was a canteen the students could buy snacks and drinks from. The canteen offered options that were more appealing to a teenager compared to the cafeteria food so I would purchase her things. Slowly I began getting Mary items from the canteen more and more often. Surely my young self thought buying her things she wanted would make her like me. Or at least create the spark. I do not believe that I concluded, on my own, the fault in my actions but am rather sure my newly forming circle of friends pointed out the fact that she was taking advantage of me. Pretty innocent on her part considering our young age but I stopped buying her things and soon after she stopped talking to me.
      This was also when I started trying other peoples "moves" to see if that would improve my chances. I tried being mean in a way that seemed to really work well for my best friend Kris. I believe it was Amber that I called a bitch one day, in an attempt at disarming humor. This hurt her feelings quite a bit so I decided that was not the way for me to do things. I could not tow the line in a way that did not just make me look like a jerk. Kind of like how I could not prank people because I would cross a line unknowingly.
     I did have my first girlfriend during those years. A girl named Sam, short for Samantha, that I met through my stepbrother, who was dating her sister. She was my first kiss, and although it was nice to cross that milestone, even if it was a bit embarrassing to miss her mouth for her nose on the first try; that was not the biggest impact she had on this young teen romantic that was so thrilled to finally have a girlfriend. She specifically was not required to manifest the experience, as it could have been any girl at the time who triggered the first life lesson in how selfish I was; not that I would fully comprehend that lesson for years to come. You see, this was not learned through anything between me and Sam but through my actions towards my best friend Kristopher Michael Kuthord.
      Me and Kris became best friends in the sixth grade by no choice of my own. I was a loner, quiet, kept to myself and did well in school. That was my main thing, being smart. The second was being physically strong. The positive attention given for easily making straight A's and beating everyone, including a 40 year old substitute teacher, in arm wrestling are what fueled those ideals. So when I was paired up with Kris for the science fair, there was no way of knowing I had just met the greatest friend I would ever have. This was the first time I ever had to do a project with someone else that required work being done outside of school. I hated working in groups of any size, mainly due to my shyness but also because I felt the work I could do alone would be better than anything a group would come up with, especially at that age. Long story short, it got to the point were going to Kris' house was the best solution to finishing the project. No real recollection as to why that was, mainly because I am pretty sure I was convinced it was not necessary for completing the project. In the end though, my momma insisted on me going to his house. She had met him once or twice over the course of the project and I believe she felt that he could make for a good friend to me. From that point on we became best friends.
     Turns out we had been riding the same bus since kindergarten. In fact, we were in the same kindergarten class, on top of riding the same bus home for 7 years and had never given each other a chance. That is probably the first time coincidence showed me how boundless it can be.
     So when I was dating Sam, Kris and I were given some yard work around my parents' house to get done. We started the yard work and then at some point when we were about halfway done I received a phone call from Sam. Being my first girlfriend and all, talking to her on the phone was the best thing I could be doing at any given time, other than hanging out with her. So I talked to her for like an hour or two or three and when I was done Kris was upset with me. We were suppose to be doing yard work that had to be done that day(cannot remember why, probably for money or something) and I had left him halfway through to go talk on the phone. Which left him having to finish the job by himself. At the time I barely, if at all, understood why he was upset. He explained it damn well for a kid in the seventh grade but I could not wrap my head around it. Being on the phone with Sam was so much what I wanted to do that I could not understand why my friend would be upset about it. Was he not happy for me? It was all there logically speaking but my mind was so clouded with being in love that my wants outweighed loyalty to a friend. Down the road this moment would come back to haunt me as a missed opportunity to better myself. She ended up breaking up with me for another guy but I handled the heartbreak well. Everybody telling me how unattractive she was probably had something to do with me not taking it too hard, along with her not really having the ability to be mentally stimulating.
      Moving along to eighth grade was the first girl who I was fully convinced that I was truely in love with. Amber Tennant was her name and Kris and I had the biggest crushes on her. I met her in sixth grade, she rode the same bus as us and we became good friends with her. She connected us with good friends of hers and that is how the circle of friends I spoke of earlier came to be. We actually dated, for all of two weeks, before she broke up with me. This hit me noticeable harder than Sam and was the first time, in hindsight at least, that I got to see how resentful I can be towards people that I have feelings for when they hurt me. Nothing major in the asshole department. Just not talking to her on the bus for a few days, sitting far away from her on said bus while keeping a constant face expressing grief/sadness. Either way though it was wrong attempting to make her feel bad for hurting my feelings. Another lesson life was trying to teach me that I ignored. We stayed friends until she moved out of state in the ninth grade, which was the catalyst to our circle of friends growing apart.
     Now we arrive at my tenth grade year. While performing magic tricks for people on the bus ride to the technology center, a pretty blonde girl smiled at me in a way I had never seen before. My gut said that smile meant she liked me, which lead to introductions, and the rest is history.   That is the year I met Tracy Hoforth and started on a journey that would be my first real eye opener to how little I understood about caring for people and most importantly how little I knew about myself.
     I told her I loved her after three weeks of dating and she reciprocated that she loved me too. A first in my life. A girl loved me back. A month later I lost my virginity to her. Two major life milestones happening back to back with each other and man was I happy. After all the years of crushes, being shy, lacking confidence, self hate and desperation for someone to love that loved me back, I had found my true love forever and always. That is how it felt anyway.
     Yeah she was the first girl that smiled at me in a way that I could somehow tell she liked me. Yeah she introduced herself to me first. Yeah she asked me to the movies. And yes she was the one who instigated our first kiss.   But man oh man did I not care about any of that. The naive teenager that believed he was a romantic in the purest of ways had finally found the person he could spend the rest of his life with. It was that rush of emotion that would blind me for the next three plus years.
      Now to go back to when we were still just talking but had already kissed. I shared my feelings with her, as a way to suggest how I would like to date her. She then, in possibly the most honest moment I may have had with her, informed me that she was not good with commitment. I was confident in my feelings and sure that if we dated my love for her would fix any commitment issues.
      Jump to two weeks into us dating and after school one day a female friend of mine called to tell me she saw Tracy making out with another guy after I left for home on the bus. I then called Tracy to ask her and she completely denied it. Suggesting something along the lines of my female friend lying because she wanted to date me. I took her at her word and called my friend back who was very adamant that she was telling the truth. When I confronted Tracy about it further she admitted that it was true. I then spent the next hour or two on a three way call with my friend and Kris deciding what to do. They were both strongly of the opinion that I should break up with her. They both knew of her before I met her and were aware of how loose she could be sexually with people. I did not take their advice and chose to forgive her. This was the first real mistake in a long line of many that were made on this adventure. Not listening when she said she was not good at commitment was naive. Not realizing that this action showed me clear as day how true her statement had been, along with ignoring the common sense advice given by friends that cared for me, were the first two pieces of undeniable proof demonstrating the immense blindness that my emotions were being allowed to create.
    Things went pretty smoothly for the next few months until she was involved in a car show run by the technology center. She took automotive and I took computer assisted drafting. I did not go to the show. Afterwards she confessed of having flashed some guys and smoking some cigarettes. Being a kid who had always been a
do-gooder, smoking cigarettes was something I frowned upon at that age. It was another moment where I was being shown it was not a good idea to continue dating but I did not listen.
   The next issue came in the form of me not wanting her to do drugs in addition to not smoking cigarettes. I was a goody
two-shoes in regards to such things because all the authority figures in my life always said drugs are bad, do not do them. So I did not. This was a situation were I felt if she loved me she would not do drugs and such based off of me not wanting her to. I now know how very selfish having those kind of expectations is but did not have a clue at the time. She randomly admitted to smoking often enough that I figured "if you can not beat them, join them," which I did. It is still such a vivid memory of that first cigarette I smoked at the dead end of a street by a bunch of fenced in electrical generators. Under 18 and worried we might get caught. Of course no one cared, even if they had seen us, but it was the first time in my life of doing something that I felt was truly wrong. I knew it was wrong and could possibly bite me in the ass in the long term, and ten plus years later with a whole lot of cigarettes smoked, I know that decision was probably one of the worse of my life. The only argument that can possibility spin it positive is that had I not joined in with her that day our relationship would have probably ended long before it had the chance to impact my life how it did.
     The rest of what happened and when is a blurry mess in my head. All you need to know is that she continued to betray my trust in worse ways, mainly in the form of cheating numerous times and I continued forgiving those betrayals, giving her more chances. Unfortunately, when you do not know how to care for people, you also most likely do not know how to forgive them. What this lead to was me lashing out because of the hurt I felt from her actions. Thinking it was okay to verbally abuse her because that would keep us even. Well life does not work that way and I learned just how evil a person that has been hurt by someone they think they love can become. The fights became more common and abusive as those last two years past. The end of the relationship was an extremely emotional back and forth between knowing things needed to end and not wanting it to come to a close. It was one of the worst relationships I've ever witnessed and I took part in it.
      It was a time of my life that runs deep and is not necessary to delve into further because its the part of this story that I spent more years than we were together thinking about. The important point is what I learned from the experience. The first came from an argument we had were she called me selfish. I ignored it at the time but later looking back it opened my eyes to how selfish I was and had never realized. This was a major moment for me because it made me question everything about who I was, and how many other traits had I been incorrectly believing about myself. Which lead to the biggest question of all. Did I really know what it meant to love and care for someone?
      The next few years were relatively calm. Dated one girl and talked to another. That was about it. A large amount of time was spent reflecting on the years with Tracy and what I had done wrong. Trying to find the subtle in what I thought was obvious. One of the highlights during this time was when the girl I was dating broke up with me. I did not react in a negative way like I had in the past. It seemed like solid progress in growing as a person but I also never fell for her because we just did not match well for two people trying to date, so there is a good chance that was the reason behind why I took it so well.
     Someone absolutely worth mentioning, that I believe came into my life during those calm years but it may have been near the end of my relationship with Tracy, is my friend Laura. It is hard to determine where to put her in this story because I met her when I was around 20 and she is still a close friend of mine to this day. But man oh man has she been an interesting aspect of this journey. We met working at the Papa Johns in South Lankford. She was a new hire and it was either her first day or one of her first days on the job. I was folding pizza boxes and our boss sent her over to learn how. Not a complicated thing to learn and I believe I mentioned that I was sure she would figure it out easily. The way she introduced herself though is what made me like her immediately. She said "hey I'm Laura and I do not believe in god.". This was in the south mind you and that is not how anybody introduces themselves down there. As a matter of fact it has never happened again. Being an atheist and at a time in life where the subject of religion was a major discussion point, I absolutely loved it. Who was this girl and where did she come from. She was pretty and apparently intelligent. A combo I did not run across very often.
     We quickly became friends. We would hang out, get stoned and talk about life or whatever was on our minds. Plenty of conversation about religion and various philosophical concepts. It quickly became apparent how similarly we observed, analyzed and interpreted the surrounding world. This was the first instance of me feeling like I had found a person that I related to on many levels. There is a better way to explain that... Ummm... It was more than just relating in multiple ways. It was the specifics of what we had in common that mattered. So it was not just, we had X number of things in common but more along the lines of, the things we had in common were important personality traits that I looked for and hoped to find in people.
     Its worth noting how monumental this occurrence was at that time in my life. It had never happened previously. I had made a decent number of friends up until that point, even the best one that could be had in the form of Kris, but none of the people met before had come anywhere close to being such a match with myself.   At that point in my life I was starting to believe that someone like Laura might not exist. I had spent two decades feeling so different than everyone around me. So finally coming across a person that felt similar to myself gave me hope that there were people in the world that viewed it through the same lense as I. She was humble and had an ego that was small so it did not cloud her thoughts through emotions like pride and envy. Traits that allowed her to care more about finding the correct(or as close to correct that is obtainable) answers to questions concerning life instead of wanting to feel right or "win" the argument in any given situation. Its rare to find that level of humility in a person and that is probably one of the biggest reasons I kept her in my life.
     Around a year or so after meeting her she ended up moving to Raleigh, North Carolina. I never showed my interest in her over that first year because she had been in a relationship. But being such an important person that I had met in the world, it was high on the priorities list to keep in touch with her. Even if it was less about maintaining our friendship but more in the vein of hoping I would get the chance to date her in the future. So I would hit her up every six months or so to see how she was doing and that is what I have continued to do for the last nineish years. She wound up back in South Lankford a year or two after I moved away. Talk about crummy timing.
     The second time I visited home I made it a point to hang out with her since she was living there again. She was also single at the time. She now had a little boy but was no longer in a relationship with his father, saying that she wanted to be independent and grow as an individual. We hung out a few times during my week long visit. I shared with her how she was the only person from back home that I ever met who seemed to share a similar mind to mine. This was surprising to her and I believe she may have actually expressed sympathy over how difficult that must have been for me to feel so alone. I saw her on the last day of my visit and had dinner with her, her son and his father. At the time I did not see how all the stuff she expressed about wanting to be independent and grow as a person on their own, was more an attempt to convince herself that she felt that way and not the reality of her true feelings. So whenever his actions or words had underlying vibes of expecting them to rekindle their relationship I made the incorrect conclusion that he was in denial. At one point in the evening I even made a comment in private to Laura in regards to how he did not seem to be on the same page as her. Can not remember her response but I think it was semi agreement. At the end of the night I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. While waiting for my flight back I sent her a text expressing how special she was to me and how it would be awesome if life ever allowed us the chance to give things a go. It has not happened yet and considering she is married to her son's father now, it probably never will. But I am okay with that because having her as a close friend is pretty awesome in its own right. Even though she did not stick with her plan to grow independently, which is something that I consider very important and possibly only attainable when we experience the world alone for an extended period of time, it appears that her life is going quite positively. So what do I know right?!?! Part of me worries she may find herself in around a decade feeling lost and regretting not allowing herself to take the time that individual growth requires but their relationship seems very healthy, which is the best scenario to prevent that outcome from ever happening. Because I do not believe it is impossible to grow individually while in a serious relationship, but am of the opinion that it is extraordinary difficult to accomplish. Pulling it off requires two people that truly care about each other growing, learning and becoming better humans. They do appear to have this quality of care for each other.
     After another visit or two she messaged me about how good of a friend she considered me to be. It was quite humbling to be told such a thing from someone who lived on the opposite side of the country. Later on at one point during a phone call she was talking about emotional troubles she was having and told me of one mental battle she kept experiencing in regards to her past. Upon sharing this she informed me of how she had never told anyone about it before.   What she shared was an intense thing to deal with and then to learn I was the only one she had told was such a mixed bag of emotions to experience. Part of me only wanted to focus on how close we were in regards to thinking of how good a relationship might be with her. Mostly what was experienced though was in regards to how special it made me feel to have a person in my life that thought so highly of me as a friend and felt close/comfortable enough to tell one of their secrets. Even though that friendship has lasted close to a decade it was only during that first year that we lived in the same city which speaks volumes to the quality of our friendship to have continued existing. It is a major opinion of mine that if there are parallel/infinite universes that we ended up together in at least a few of them.
      Following the calm few years after Tracy came one of my biggest regrets. I had an affair with Kris' fiance Vanessa over a 6 month period of time. I was living with them for a few months and one thing lead to another and before I knew it we had started hooking up. Their relationship was having trouble with Vanessa feeling like Kris did not care for her much anymore. The truth was that he was working so often he was always exhausted and not putting in the effort to still show her love. A balancing of life any young person focusing on their career and in a relationship has to learn. Really just a bump in their relationship because a few months later they had starting fixing the issue. Them getting better made Vanessa more and more not wishing to be hooking up with me behind his back. But I was so in love with her I never let it go and kept pushing. She had been such a good friend of mine for years that the romantic idea of being with your best friend caught hold of me and would not let go.
     My friend Carl said to me during the affair "the truth always finds a way out in the end.". Man did I not listen to that advice. You would think after all the times the truth with Tracy had wiggled its way out I would have been more receptive. But, I was in love with my best friend, so I did not listen. Thinking to myself that it would be tough but they would eventually break up and I would have my chance with her. If the affair did become known that was the only path I thought the situation would take. Boy was I wrong.
      A couple months later Vanessa confessed to Kris what had been going on. She called to tell me she told him and how we could not see each other anymore. "But you said you loved me" to which she replied "sorry, I just got caught up in it all but telling you I loved you was not true". I have never fully believed what she said that day but I know there was truth in it. She loved me like a brother and had let herself get caught up in my well of emotions. I was showering her with love when the person she loved was not. That is a scenario that is easy for a person to get caught up in when they are dealing with the situation she was in.
     And that is how I lost the greatest friend I have ever had. It would be over five years before me and Kris would speak again and I have never spoken with Vanessa almost a decade later. This is my biggest regret. Heartbreak is a real bitch that can run deep. Sometimes, at its worst it can make you contemplate ending life, but time does eventually heal it every time. At least that has been my experience.
     Losing the best friend you have ever had through your own actions though. That is something time does not heal. I still regret it the same today as I did then. I can even spin it that I would not have been able to learn how to truly care for people close and what it meant to love someone had I not made that mistake. That is the lesson in life I am most proud of learning but it does not dull the pain of losing Kris. That's a catch 22 if there ever was one.
     So the big eye opener here you may be asking? If you think it is do not sleep with your best friends fiance, that is the obvious answer and something that I was aware of the entire time. No, the question became, did I not know what it meant to care for those close to me?   And if that was true then everything I had thought I knew about love was false . If I did not know how to care for my best friends, who by all means I would have said I loved, then what were all those feelings of being in love over the years? They were not love. That became fact when the loss of Kris showed me real love lost. It does not heal. Distraction is the best you can hope for.   Sure I still thought about Tracy frequently but with less and less pain every time and always in an analyzing way. There has never been any continued reflection with Kris. It is just been something evil I did that has the same regret attached today versus then.
     The fact that I did not know how to care for people was apparent to me almost immediately. Which finally put me on the path to really analyze who I was. Clearly I did not match up with the image of myself I had held so highly most of my life.   I didn't know how to love and care for people. Selfish through and through. I remembered times like the yard work with Kris and it finally clicked why he had been upset with me. It was all about me. I wanted to be on the phone and keeping my word to a friend completely fell to the way side. Why? Because I didn't care about my friend. I only cared about myself.
     So I began hanging out with my friends Lex and Charlie. They let me sleep on their couch for over a year and never asked for any kind of rent. I still had my moms house to sleep at but eventually I spent most nights at their place. We played games and made podcasts. They allowed me to slide into their lives like a best friend. Then Charlie got a promotion that would move him to Kansas. Lex worked for the same company and was going to be following Charlie to Kansas a few months after. So I decided to follow them out to Kansas. It seemed I had gotten so lucky to have made 2 very good friends right after losing Kris. What were the odds I was going to get lucky like that again? Unlikely, so I moved.
    Kansas was nice. We lived there for a year. Made more podcasts. Made a few friends. Then me and Charlie moved to Seattle. Lex would not follow for a number of years but that's its own story. There were no love interests in Kansas. Knowing we would only be there a year, it felt best to not travel down that road. Our final destination had much more opportunity, which meant becoming attached to someone and risking getting stuck there needed to be avoided at all costs.
     Seattle. Man what a place. A big city with skyscrapers, surrounded by water and mountains and making an income that was double any job previously. Charlie had allowed me to ride his coat tails out there. Man had life been kind to let me have such a friend after all my actions. Between the Kansas move, followed with Seattle, I focused on being a good friend to these two guys life had given me. With Seattle being a permanent move I chose to focus on making more friends and being a real friend to the people I met. It was important for me to do that. Not only because you have to go out and meet people when u move somewhere new but so I could keep practicing at friendship.   I wanted to be good at being a friend. And I did well, making a number of really good friends I still have today as I write this. Its so strange at times because these folks will tell me how good of a person I am and how much they value my friendship. Things I had never really heard before. The only exception being Kris and Vanessa and we know how much I appreciated that. With these friends I felt appreciation and pride. I was figuring out how to care about my friends! It was clicking and lining up. After three or four years of thought and reflection, it was paying off.
     Around a year after being in Seattle I had my first hard crush since Vanessa. There had been two people prior that had been pretty to me but I did very little in regards to it. It was not time yet to focus on that beast. I had friendship to consider.
     Oh Brianna. So damn pretty and I fell hard. Being from the northwest her words were actually interesting to me and she seemed like a intelligent girl. Smart, pretty and a stoner, line me up! Nothing serious ever came of the situation. She began dating my friend Matt and over the twoish years they dated, my feelings subsided and she became another friend I cared for. Getting to know her over those couple years knocked down my "love" as time went on. After they broke up we did hook up a couple times but the spark that had been so prevalent in the past for her just was not there anymore. Unfortunately Matt decided to end our friendship at that point, questioning if he could trust me. I know it hurt his feelings that we hooked up a couple times after they broke up. Probably not the nicest thing for me to do but once a relationship is over I do not believe a person becomes off limits because it may hurt their ex's feelings. That is just a part of life when you break up with people. They end up seeing other people. Sometimes those are people you know. Also it maybe worth saying that he was aware of my feelings towards Brianna. I discussed them with him plenty, especially prior to the start of them dating. So once that began I could not just pretend that my feelings had disappeared. That would have been a blatant lie. The other option was to continue being open with him about the subject. I chose the latter. Once the Mai(her story is next) situation started I had already mentioned to him multiple times about how I did not feel the same for Brianna anymore. Add to that how intensely I described my feelings for Mai it should have been obvious that he did not need to worry much over Brianna and I having anything serious. If by some chance it did occur, I would have stepped back from the situation until she became stable in her life, and doing so would have put substantial time between their break up and us trying something serious. He just could not see through his emotions what was actually going on around him and most importantly what she was going through.
      During the first year or two in Seattle I met Mai and man oh man oh man is me was she pretty. So pretty in fact that after hanging out with her a few times I decided to stop. She had a serious boyfriend of five years and between her extremely attractive to me face and being a stoner chick, there was no way keeping her in my life would end well. So I stopped kicking it with her.
     Jump ahead twoish years and I began working at the store she managed. Same field I had been in and with my super awesome boss at the time quitting and his replacement being horrible I decided to go work for someone I knew. Knowing who would be my boss seemed like less of a gamble than a completely new to me store manager. I had done so well at not talking to her for the last year and a half that I was not concerned with working for her turning into a big deal. Yeah I did not get that one right.
     Worked for her for about a year. I can still see quite clearly in my mind her face from when I went in for my interview. So pretty. After a month or two my feelings started revealing themselves. Her relationship was on the rocks and I was going to be next. Decided I would go all out, in my own way, to win her over. Talked to her more and more often. She was intelligent with the ability to be silly. Our conversations would go on for hours and we talked almost everyday. A few months after they broke up I shared my feelings. In hindsight I suppose this was actually a mistake if I wanted to win her over but if that were the case then she was not the person for me.
     She began slowly pushing me away. Upon pointing that out she become defensive and denied it was happening. When I told her that working for her was not a good choice for me emotionally she only pushed more. I was trying to transfer stores because if our friendship had a chance, I felt that was the only way. Seeing her all the time kept my emotions at the forefront, engulfing most of my thinking. Not a good thing. But this seemed to hurt her feelings because she was concerned with what she was doing to make me feel that way. She never seemed to understood it was simply what was best for me emotionally.
     Not that I did not have my asshole moments. She stopped talking to me for about a month during all this. Her friend Kevin told her that I said one of the times we hung out was a date, which was not true. Instead of talking to me about it, she shut me out for a month before sharing why. This hurt my feelings. She had been so adamant about wanting me to be honest and keeping her in the loop with my feelings that when she believed a lie so easily without asking me about it, that did not sit well with me. Which lead to me slowly being more and more of a jerk towards her. A great example of how being hurt by someone I have feelings for can turn me evil. Never did I come anywhere close to the asshole Tracy knew but I was still meaner at times than I would have liked to be. Also Mai was very fragile with mean comments which meant her feelings got hurt long before I had enough time to fully turn in the devil. This all ended up leading to us having arguments about her not being comfortable with how I would rub her back and stuff when we hung out. That upset me because it had been going on for months and she had never said anything. There were even times massaging her neck and shoulders where she told me how good it felt and wanted it not to stop. When I confronted her about that aspect she said that she had told me many times before about being uncomfortable, which she had not. At that point I realized how selfish she had been and how much she let her emotions make decisions for her. So when I went to talk to her around a month later she said how she was not comfortable talking about my feelings. The main problem with that for me was that what I was talking about at that point did not involve her all that much. The parts that did were about how getting over her had been a big moment in my life. A learning experience that taught me about a major flaw in myself. We will get into later. I like to believe me growing as a person is also what kept me from being the asshole of my past but I am pretty sure if I had not stopped talking to her it would have gotten there sooner or later. I had been so sure of my love for her and I had been wrong, again.
      The situation with Mai brought to light a question. Why had I been so good with my emotions about Brianna and then gotten so lost in them with Mai? As people there was nothing that made one of them more appealing than the other. Smart kind stoner chicks. Then I realized. Mai had been the more physically attractive of the two to me. That was the only significant difference. Which is when I began focusing specifically on the concept of lust.
      It came to me that physical attraction alone was enough to make a person, or atleast myself feel like they loved someone. I had put in effort to learn how to care for those in my life but now had to figure the ultimate form of caring, love. The concepts are very similar but learning the first did not teach me the second. That was subtly already happening on its own and soon it would become known to me.
      Now we go back to shortly after I moved to Seattle. Becoming friends with Matt. One of the first times we hung out is when I met Brianna and her skinny friend Stephanie, who was not my type at all. Too skinny for me, not the right facial structures, and my least favorite color of hair, black. Not an ugly girl in any sense of the term but not for me. Over the next year or so I would see her a handful of times whenever I happened to make the journey down to Tacoma with Matt to see Brianna. Her and Stephanie shared a dorm. Over that time I came to a simple, disheartening realization. Brianna's friend sure did remind me of myself in a surprising amount of ways that would be great to find in a person. Wish I thought she was attractive.
   After that school year Brianna moved back home and I only crossed paths with Stephanie the few times she was over at Matt's to see Brianna. Her not being a big fan of him meant visiting was a seldom occurrence. So every blue moon I would experience that same realization as before. It sure would be cool if I found Stephanie attractive, she seems like a person I would enjoy spending time with. Yet it never crossed my mind to consider the concept further.
    There was once when I mentioned this observation to Matt and Brianna, but they did not agree. Only knowing me as the person they met a couple years prior, there was no way for them to see the parallels with my younger self that stuck out so prominently to me.
      Around the time that the Mai situation was getting into full swing I started kicking it with a friend Kyle, who I had met through Matt. It was pure coincidence that he also happened to be dating Stephanie. Once again, probably for the first time in over a year, I got to experience that same realization again.
      It is worth mentioning how insignificant this realization was, at that point in the time line, when it did cross my mind. It was no more important than realizing a piece of furniture had moved since the last time you had seen a friend's place. Just another thought like any other during a day that comes and passes with the next. It does not stick or make you ponder. Granted it was a unique thought compared to most, considering it had never occurred before but without any physical attraction what was there to gain from digging deeper? Now to be fair, that was not a concept my brain thought much about back then. Hindsight and educated guesses are the closest one can get to explaining why thinking on the matter never went deeper. After those considerations, I am left with the opinion, to some degree and perhaps completely, that the lack of contemplation was connected to how it had always been a major desire to find someone that was similar in mind to me and virtually no one had ever struck that chord before. The two that managed to hit it previously only grazed it, hitting a few notes at best, while she played it like a person who had practiced their entire life. Why think about how I had met such a proper match for myself personally if I was not interested in them romantically. At best it was a well that would only get more depressing the further down I went.
     Without physical attraction derived from lust making me feel "in love" there was no desire in the slightest to pursue this amazing human. Even after years of noticing that this one person, out of everyone who had crossed paths with me throughout life, only this one human viewed the world around us through essentially an identical lens as myself. There was a beautiful balance about it all too. The ways in which we differed were subtle and probably had more to do with being opposite genders and growing up in vastly different parts of the country. Not to mention that a number of the differences reminded me of one of my best friends Lex,(Charlie and Lex. Remember? From earlier in the story) a coincidence that meant the various ways in which we were not the same just lined up with traits that I appreciated and looked for in the people close to me. Even more reason at that time to have given the idea consideration.
      After hanging out with Kyle and Stephanie for around six months something very unexpected happened. Stephanie arrived at Kyle's one day after work. He and I were sitting in patio chairs out in the front yard. She walked down the concrete path through the yard and went inside the house. As I was observing this something was quite different. She was pretty. Catches your eye and makes you do a double take kind of pretty. Well, that had never happened before.
            And it kept happening. More and more often when I would see her. I was so confused. It did not add up. How did this girl who I had found to be unattractive for close to three years suddenly become attractive. It was something that had never occurred before. What was going on?
      After around six months of this I took a stab in the dark trying to figure it out and thought, maybe I like her. It did not really make sense. Something like that would have become obvious much sooner would it not? None of it lined up with any story of falling for someone I had heard before or experienced personally, so there had to be another explanation. I looked for other evidence trying to determine what was going on, such as the possibility that hanging out with her frequently could have been causing all the feelings that were developing.   But that had not been the case with other female friends of mine previously, so that option was scratched off the list. If anything, seeing and getting to know a person more had, up until that chapter in my life, only lead to a lessening of how I felt towards them. Another option considered was that perhaps she was flirty with me and/or sending those type of vibes my way, but even a blind man could have seen clearly how that was quite obviously not the case. Out of the blue falling for her was the only thing that made any sense, even if the amount of sense it made was very little.
     So I accepted that I did indeed like Stephanie. Was not sure at all why yet but with that stab in the dark appearing to be the most correct answer, it became the decided upon conclusion.
      As time passed those feelings of liking her just kept growing, on their own, as they saw fit, without any input from myself. Simply put, I was basically just watching everything unfold inside me. Only after observing them over the next few months did I begin to see what was happening. I was developing unfathomable, true care for a person for the first time because of who that person was. It was not until it happened that I realized it had never happened to me before. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.
     There are no words to describe what is felt when you care that tremendously deep for a human. It is so precious and special, but never overwhelming. That was one of the most noticeable differences about the situation for myself. Experiencing such intense, broad reaching emotions but with a canopy of calmness keeping everything balanced. Which allowed for the ability to soak in all the awesomeness occurring instead of being suffocated by it. I spent a lot of time enjoying those feelings. You always hear that you have to love a person for who they are and this taught and showed me what that truly meant.
     It is honestly quite the challenge to put those emotions into words. Especially after so many situations of lusting over people in the past. Leaving me with a constant nagging in my head reminding me how almost anything that is said, with the intention of elaborating on the details of the matter, are words that have been spoken before.   Everybody knows how the person you like presently always seem as if they are unlike anyone before and your feelings about them give an undoubtable and unwavering impression of being more legitimate than the emotions experienced with past love interests. That is one of many "what ifs" my mind will bring up and usually over think about when it comes to considering the possibility of being incorrect regarding the true nature of my emotions. Another thing my brain will do is point blank ask if I am correct and really do care for Stephanie to the extent that I claim. This tends to occur when I am in a neutral mood, well, pretty much any mood really where Stephanie is not the focus. The main point my mind is attempting to shed light on is ,how, if there are moments when I am not feeling head over heels for her, if that is not occurring at all times, then maybe my interpretation of said feelings is wrong. Obviously if that were the case then it would be much more a sign of being unhealthy emotionally. Not to mention that train of thought always leads to the same conclusion. Once I spend a few minutes thinking about it all, I wind up right back in the deep well of affection concerning her, reminding me of how stupid a question that is to ponder. What is left after that kind of brainstorming can best be described as only wanting to share the literal explanation of how my feelings came to be after getting to learn about who she was as an individual.
     So making a list of what I find attractive about her is not something I have spent much time thinking on, but do not get me wrong, I can tell you about how funny she is to me, how intelligent she is, how so often she will use certain words when speaking and group those words into sentences that for one reason or another sound like something I could potentially say which consistently reinforces and expands how much I care for her along with keeping miscommunication at a minimum, how she reminds me of my younger self in many ways,(such as having a smaller than average ego that allows her to be more interested in finding the right answer to a question instead of simply wanting to win a discussion, the mutual amateur level of interest we share for science, we enjoy a good bit of the same TV/film entertainment and even have the same favorite cartoon, how we tend to share the same opinion on most any given subject, the way she can make hasty decisions due to impatience or anxiety to get something done and over with even when it would be better to wait , we both enjoy driving, how we share a love for pot along with not being huge fans of alcohol, both of us greatly appreciate nature and nine times out of ten would choose a leisurely scenic hike over other activities, our opinions regarding how it is important to explore enjoy and fully appreciate life's many facets, or the same opinions we share towards religion, which is one of many traits that show how open minded she is.) how she cares for those close to her, she is thoughtful, she speaks her mind without an arrogant tone which in turn seems to help prevent her humility from descending into gullibility, she is not controlled by vanity in regards to how she looks, or how she is aware of her emotions and the ways they influence actions. I assume there is more but I think you get the point. All those things combined make her so very beautiful.
    When I finally did get around to sharing this with her it was not the best or worst. I knew she did not feel the same. Still too young to travel down such a path with no guarantee she ever would but I thought it best to share it with her for how important of a point in my time line it was.
     She is one of my best friends now. Hell, it is probably safe to say she is my best friend. I cherish her friendship the way I should have cherished Kris'. It is quite difficult, to the extent of feeling impossible, to imagine my life without her.

It is a story I will get to share for the rest of my life.

Which brings us to the present. You say these feelings are just a phase. In no manner that is condescending, mind you, although part of me wants to feel as if that were the case. That, predominantly, is just reactionary emotions on my part, probably stemming from my life long defeatist attitude, especially in regard to affairs of the heart. However, calling these feelings a phase is something I cannot do. They are the finale of a long traveled road, centered around discovering what it means to care for a person. Like how an author knows when they have arrived at the end of the story they are telling. I know that my journey of learning, understanding and knowing what it means to love someone has reached its conclusion. I actually had it years ago with Kris but only see that now. Plus I am not gay so it is not exactly the same. All of that does not mean I will never find another person to care for and love again. To believe such a grim lonely outcome as being the only option would be disrespectful to myself after all the knowledge that has been gained over the last 15 years. I am fairly certain that finding love again is completely possible, even with there being a strong sense of belief in my gut that predicts the only way to accomplish such a thing will be by settling for someone. All that means in a nutshell is that my internal well of feelings for that person will come up just a hair shallower than the one you created. Yeah yeah, that sounds like some sad sappy love sick puppy bullshit I know but that prediction does not fill me with fear or despair. I am actually quite content about it all for the simple fact of how life works out the way it works out and sometimes you get to be with second or third place but not first. Which is okay. There is nothing wrong with that, especially considering how I think my life has been pretty blessed overall and that is all anyone can hope or ask for. That is the main reason why such a thought is never given much time of day. Basically none really. Enough effort was made to figure out the possibility and it has since been left alone. The focus stays on what matters and is important, like continuing to appreciate and cherish the people who are in my life, because all of those relationships are very dear to me. The reasoning behind why I believe settling will be the only option is not complicated, nor does it stem from a place of pessimism. Essentially it only exists because of one unique variable... It was you who taught me. To teach a person any life lesson leaves a lasting impression and you happened to teach me about the one I value most. No one will ever be able to do that again. That simple fact will always make you just a tad more special than the rest.