I thought I would depart a bit form the usual �what�s been going on with my life�, recap style entries and blog a bit about the present and future. Because my actual graduation was last Sunday, which is typically a party unfriendly day, I�ve deferred the actual hardcore celebration of that occasion until today. I usually don�t like throwing parties for myself, because by virtue of who shows up to celebrate with you and who doesn�t, you get a fairly accurate hint of who is actually close or wants to be close to you in terms of friendship.

I�d rather give everyone the benefit of the doubt and say I�m cool with everybody, and everyone wants to be cool with me, but as a human being I hold certain expectations and by simply having those expectations I carry with it a chance at disappointment. I am of course pretty cool with those who send their early regrets due to previous engagements, life happens and I understand. It�s the people who you think are solid and then later flake out on you that seem to sting the most when it happens to me. I�ve developed a fairly thick skin over the years, but there�s this certain degree of vulnerability that you can�t help but expose yourself to when you put yourself out before your friends like this en masse.

Still, no matter who chooses to show and who doesn�t, I will resolve to have more than a few drinks and celebrate the accomplishment of my master�s degree, even if it�s only with a small handful of people I could actually call true friends. If anything, I�ve definitely earned that. One thing that totally flew over my head was the 7 year anniversary of Ray�s death, last Tuesday, June 17th. I�m sorry bro, you know how much you mean to me. Even though life is happening to me and I forget once in a while the silly little human things like anniversaries, the one thing I will not forget is the friendship I had with you.

Along with my the celebration of my graduation, I will also celebrate the friendship that I had with you. I will do so by striving to continue to be the kind of friend that you were to me and so many other people. I know it wasn�t the easiest thing for me because I was by nature an introvert, but I know the reason I�ve been crawling more and more out of my shell is because of you. It wasn�t easy, but even in your death you somehow transformed me to something better and in my opinion that has got to count for something.

So that gives you a small slice of what is going on with me in the present. Now I can start talking about the thing I have been more or less dodging for the past 4 years, possibly even significantly longer on some subconscious level given my track record. I�m talking about relationships with the opposite sex, or more accurately my lack thereof. School has for a large part been one of my greatest excuses. I know myself and I know how intensely I could throw myself into a relationship so school was a rather convenient way of not having to worry about all that. In retrospect I believe it was a fairly constructive way of detouring myself and focusing on something that was arguably as important in my development as a person.

The thing is, that the logic of avoiding relationships because of school is arguable at best and in many ways can still be considered an excuse or a cop out. There are people who go to work who also pursue a higher education, who also have relationships, whether it be just dating, or serious and steady relationships, there are even people who have marriages and who also start and raise families. It�s amazing what certain people are able to accomplish and although I am not necessarily detracting from my own accomplishments, I could certainly have done more if I really wanted to.

So we move on to the real reason I�ve actively and effectively stopped pursuing any real relationship, and that is fear... I�m actually afraid I am never going to find real love again and even if I do luck out and find somebody, that person may actually fail to find the love in me. I think the idealist and the romantic in me has somehow died a slow and painful death beginning with the fallout and divorce of the one real relationship I had, then suffering through several heartbreaks of falling for someone who didn�t quite want me as much as I wanted her and then further suffering through the death of my best friend and later the grandparents who raised me. It was pretty much all a downward spiral after all that.

Even the prospect of sex, the very thing I have aggressively pursued when I launched this blog (tomorrow will be my blog�s 6 year anniversary), does not hold the same appeal or meaning that it once had. Don�t get me wrong, I�m still a guy and I still have a certain drive. I still have an attraction to women, though lately the women I�ve been attracted to, seem to be in some sort of relationship or another and I have little interest in being a factor to the demise of any established relationship, no matter how strong the attraction.

If there is one positive thing I�ve learned from all this, is that I�ve learned how it is to be alone and if needed, I can be this way for as long as I need to be. This of course leads us to the big question, which is, "Do I want to be alone?" The answer to that is of course not a simple one. You see, I�ve grown accustomed to being alone and there are moments where I actually enjoy the solitude and the inner peace. I enjoy not having to directly worry about someone else or their well being. I enjoy making decisions on my own without anyone else�s agreement or approval. I revel in my own independence and having someone who is dependent to suddenly latch on to me and suck off of my strength is not the most appealing thought to me.

Although I don�t exactly need anyone to �complete me�, part of me still wonders if I can make love happen again. I guess if that question is still in my mind then the idealist and romantic in me is not as dead as I once thought. I don�t know, I�m hoping for some divine intervention because it�s probably what I�m going to need. Also, despite all the things I�ve been though, to still have faith in that thing called love, to still believe that romance can happen to still believe in the chance that something that good can still happen to me, I owe it to myself to try and to keep trying until something happens. So yeah, Derrick is back and after 4 long, hard years of studying and finally graduating, he�s looking for a girlfriend. Wish him luck, because he�s going to fucking need it. That truly is all there is to blog for now, so until next time...