The good thing about online friendships is that they're mostly anonymous and involve very little risk. I can very easily put myself out there and say whatever I want to say: It's not like I have to work with this person or encounter them in social settings or have them repeat things to mutual friends. Everyone else, naturally, does the same, with the danger of course being that you never know if they're telling the truth. And even if they are, you never know what it is that they're not telling you.

 

I know a lot about Dierdre's past and how she grew up, for example, but I don't know how she'd react to my leaving the cap off the toothpaste. I know that Deb is very sarcastic and has a great sense of humor (such as it is), but I don't know what her laugh sounds like.

 

I was listening to a song by Jackson Browne about how he was young and free and had all these friends and they all lived on the road and had all these deep feelings about things and then died. Well, in this particular song they did, anyway. It was about a dude who may have killed himself. But in an age where it was fashionable to sing folk songs and protest everything and not bathe or get a job, I might have killed myself too.

 

I like that old depressing Jackson Browne music even though sometimes I wonder if I'm playing it at the right speed. It's appropriately depressing this close to Valentine's Day, as I've spent the last three years in therapy with a ten-yar-old who freaks out when the slightest thing goes wrong, and then coming home to get rejected by women because I live with my parents. Not that I miss being in a relationship with a woman who makes me feel that inadequate and is impossible to keep happy, but I was a bit more optimistic before I gave up all hope. It's painful to have to lower your expectations but it's ironically liberating somehow to abandon them completely.

 

Something else I've learned at the foot of the Buddha.  It's not as cool or flashy as levitation or kung fu, but it's something.

 

I say this without bitterness, but I know what it sounds like. And its not that I've given up on life or surrendered to hopelessness; it's that I've let go. I have to do what's best for me and my kids, and it's hard enough doing that sometimes without having to worry about how attractive I am. Or not.

 

If love is like a tornado, I suppose I could be like those insane weather groupies who race around the country in vans, but the truth is I'm more like that cow that went flying past Helen Hunt's windshield in that movie, just picked up and thrown somewhere. I don't need it. I don't believe in love. Love is dead.

 

For a site called Love Is Dead, she ironically talks about her boyfriend a lot. But it's a great blog and I love how she expresses herself, so I sent her the following email:

 

From: John J. Doolittle [mailto:the.claw@bigmonster.net]
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 2:23 PM
To: 'ashleyxcore@gmail.com'
Subject: Love Is Dead

 

I found your blog by accident but it’s awesome. Some of the ladies at my work asked me why I didn’t do Valentine’s day and I told them it was because I don’t believe in love, love is dead. So I posted a thing on my own blog called “Love Is Dead” and then just for fun I googled Love Is Dead because my sister told me that Joey Ramone had a song called Love Is Dead but I know that’s not true because I literally have on my hard drive every single song that any of the Ramones ever recorded, including remakes and covers and tributes and even songs that mention Joey Ramone. I’m not gay I just like the Ramones. I also have every song of Jackson Browne and Buddy Holly. It’s an external drive.

 

This is so ADD but I wanted to tell you I loved your blog. Read mine at http://www.bigmonster.net/whatsnew.html if you like. Anyway you rock! There should be more people like you in the world.

 

John

 

And then she sent me this back:

 

From: Ashley [mailto:ashleyxcore@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 11:19 PM
To: John J. Doolittle
Subject: Re: Love Is Dead

 

Hey John, thanks for your email. It's not very often that I receive totally random ones like yours, I really enjoyed it. The truth is, I do believe love exists. I see love and kindness firsthand every single day. What (I think) I meant was that love is, in a sense, out of fashion. It's dead the way punk rock or poetry is dead. Love is "culturally insignificant" or something... but really, loveisdead.net just flowed so well that I had to buy it :D

 

That's funny that you mentioned the Ramones because I just watched Rock & Roll High School (on VHS, ew!) like 2 days ago and I've been in a Ramones mood ever since. It's not gay at all to love them so much, but buying children's toys off of ebay might qualify. Oh yeah, I read that.

 

So anyway, I like your site! If you want to exchange links or something, we totally should. And hey, if Valentine's Day is bumming you out, there's a Cheaters marathon on G4 all day long. It's just so trashy, I adore it!

 

-Ashley

 

Now why can I not meet a woman who expresses herself like this, and is this much fun, but just have her live a lot closer to me, be 10 years older, and willing to devote her life to me?

 

This is what I meant when I said that love is dead.

 

Let me put it another way.

 

One of the first lessons I learned from studying the Buddha was that external things won't lead to happiness. I can very easily look at a certain job, or a particular woman, or a house or a car or whatever, exagerrate the good qualities of whatever it is while minimizing the bad qualities, and expect that having that thing would lead to happiness. That I do this, and that I'm ignorant of this tendency, is what leads to suffering. And then you get into the eightfold path and it gets pretty involved, but you get the idea.

 

Now, for someone as dysfunctional and hyper-sexual as me, this is a hard lesson to have to learn. But when I finally do learn it, it wouldn't be that I gave up all hope of meeting someone, per se, but that I gave up all hope that meeting someone would lead to my being happy and fulfilled. Those things I have to find elsewhere.