intend it to be when I started typing. what kind of a relationship would 
be described by "ping.pong.", I wonder. Surely not the same relationship 
as could be described by "ping pong"? Something slower, I'm sure. 
Something where each person waits, and thinks before playing their 
cards. Cards? I'm mixing metaphors, I'm clearly not an English student. 
Perhaps, I should have been. English students may have more answers than 
I. All good books ought to polish a little more of the glass through 
which we try, and fail, to see the world clearly.

There's a lot of space here. I wonder if I should fill it all. I would 
like to believe in true love, but I 'm not sure if I do. My last clear 
position was that true love exists, but isn't something humans are 
capable of.  Then what of relationships, if there is no true love? One's 
life could be a series of casual relationships, or one could settle for 
something less and work to stay with the same person. There must be many 
other options, but I'm not clear about what they might be.

It would take something of a shift in my point of view to be happy to 
embark on a relationship I felt sure was going to end. One-night stands 
ought to be excepted, but I don't think I could deal with those either.

Sometimes, I am very happy. Sometimes, I am very unhappy. There is not 
always rhyme or reason to my moods. I do not understand myself, and yet 
I demand understanding from those close to me.

I suspect this entry is going to attract a collection of posers. I 
should delete it all and start again with something like

"spiky hedgehog seeks perfection".

Any response will frighten me. I have had bad experiences in the past. 
When I can't think of anything to say, I don't say anything at all. 
Frequently, I don't think anything at all. My mind is cluttered with 
shards of thoughts; incomplete, scattered and eroding fast. My life had 
order, now it is confused.

I am a perfectionist. I am afraid of trusting. I panic in difficult 
situations. I avoid confrontation, except with those close to me. Then, 
I seek confrontation. I cannot stand being wrong.

Perhaps true love exists. Sometimes, I feel I am falling in love with a 
person from a brief acquaintance, or merely from watching them. Reality 
suggests to me that were I to make the acquaintance of such a person, I 
would cease to feel the same way. Yet the emotions I feel are those 
reported in the books I read. Some of those books, anyway. Had I been an 
English student, perhaps I would have read better books, and understood 
love better. Let us suppose, then, that on getting to know one of the 
people I feel I am in love with, I cease to feel the urge to marry them. 
Then with whom can I share true love? Does it creep up on a person 
gently? Will it creep away? I cease to believe in my capacity to love.

Yet, I have hope. For I am here. I feel no hope, only a yellow glimmer 
on the horizon, where the sun might be rising or might be setting. 

If I speak with the tongues of angels, and have not love, I am nothing. 

This does not necessarily refer to romantic love. Charity, even. Can I 
find in myself the ability to love? Maybe already there are people I 
love, but I haven't correctly identified the emotion---if love can be 
called an emotion.

There is no limit on how much I may write in this box? Then I must 
enforce a limit myself, and draw my meanderings to a close. My thoughts, 
such as I have been able to express, must make their way into the deep, 
wide ocean. They are afraid. I am afraid of letting them go. I fear that 
they are incomplete, that they do not allow their full personality to 
show, that they show it too well. 

I fear that I am making a fool of myself.