The title of tonight's entry comes from "Sonnet 116," a beautiful and compelling poem by the one and only Bard, William Shakespeare; again, I've somewhat truncated the lines to account for the limitations of the LiveJournal website. The full poem:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his highth be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

As promised, this entry shall offer, in gory detail, my recent thoughts and feelings. Before I delve into the dank catacombs of my psyche, however, allow me to point you in the direction of my cousin Peter, whose fledgling journal, albeit only just begun, is rife with eloquence and wit; he is one of very few whom I consider a true equal, and he deserves as large a following as he can muster. Visit him today, and drop him a friendly line. (Or unfriendly, whatever floats your boat; as they say, there's no such thing as bad press.)

Recently, I've stumbled upon a personal revelation: I'm an extremely passionate and romantic person imprisoned within this somewhat cold and aloof exterior. It has come to my attention that it is not intimacy in and of itself of which I am leery, but rather the uncertainty of whether the person with whom I'm being intimate shares my feelings and will reciprocate my affections. If I were attracted to a young woman, and knew without a doubt that she felt the same way about me, there is little doubt in my mind that I would become a veritable Romeo: hopelessly romantic, devoted yet not quite doting, charming, affectionate, and, I can only hope, as good a boyfriend as I can be. Only self-doubt, and the self-consciousness that thence arises, prevents me from achieving my true romantic potential.

It is for this reason that I so desperately wish to find such a young woman; not because instinct tells me that as a virile male I should acquire a nubile mate with which I may help propagate the species, nor because society dictates that it is the proper thing to do, but simply because I wish to release the Cyrano de Bergerac who heretofore has lain dormant within my subconscious, only to reveal himself when such things as self-image are not important (over the Internet, for example). As David Bowie so perfectly stated in "Nature Boy": "The greatest thing you'll ever learn / Is just to love, and be loved in return."

I want to love; I want to know what it feels like to have my heart aflutter, to feel the warmth of my lover's breath on the back of my neck as we embrace; I want to feel the frisson that can only come from taking the hand of the one I love and looking into her eyes. I want so much to know that someone loves me for who I am, and does not dwell on my imperfections; likewise, I wish to cherish the one I love not as the flawless jewel she could never be, but rather as she is, whether she finds herself beautiful or not. For where can a diamond's beauty be found but in its imperfections?

But as sincere as I am above, realise that I'm not too idealistic about all of this love stuff; I realise as much as anyone that finding "true love," that celestial bonding of souls which can only occur upon the exact alignment of the planets, is something that is mainly, if not always, for the movies. What we finally come to understand as we mature is that, far from being a paragon of perfection, "true love" is merely a series of compromises; attempting to lay the foundations for a relationship without making sacrifices on both sides is folly. Much like any successful business agreement, each party makes allowances for the other, and both come to a mutual understanding that even if she snores like a lawnmower and his flatulence has the ability to kill small animals, they will nevertheless look past these imperfections (which, in the grand scheme of things, are really quite trivial) for the sake of their love. Perhaps a rather pragmatic and antiseptic way of looking at love, but at least it's realistic.

So that's the current state of affairs. In a nutshell, I'd very much like to fall in love, and, for once, not have that young woman: a) already possess a boyfriend; b) completely ignore me after learning about my feelings for her; or c) flee shrieking in terror or revulsion. I have a passionately romantic person buried somewhere underneath this hardened shell, I'm sure of it; it's time for him to come out, get a breath of fresh air, and make a special young woman as happy as he can.

[Exit Orpheum.]