The original entry

I cannot, do not wish to, date. I want to attain a constant union of souls with another.

You could unite with other souls without wanting it to be forever. Dating could have been fun and would have been educational for you. You would have been better-rounded and less hungry for experiences of which you denied yourself.

Kate and I bordered on it shortly in the birth of our relationship. We cease to fully belong to our respective selves.

Yes, the infatuation stage turned loud because you were older adolescents wanting to figure out who you were and who you wanted to be. You could keep neither your hands nor your minds off each other.

Infatuation is made to end.

She said we were making our own universe together. It faded. She felt it meant we hated the world, that it was us against them.

You both loved the world, though not in the same way. I don't think either of you were capable of hating the world, however much it deserves it from time to time.

I had my date with CG. Only I am not precisely sure it was a date, in the conventional and my subjective way, as CG brought her friend Bryscream (obviously another pseudonym, I do not have permission). That and she dropped me off at my car an hour after the date began.

I do not know what was actually happening there. The two of them sound like best friends in a way that, no matter how many people you include in your menagerie, you never had.

Perhaps meeting this other woman was part of the test, and you did not meet Bryscream's expectations.

Now that you mention these tiny fragments, I can remember the date a little, though mostly the discomfort of wanting to get to know a woman and being on the periphery of constant inside jokes. On a date, no one wants to be the third wheel.

Seeing this made me realize that it is exactly what I want. I am not about to get in the middle of their dyad. I cannot possibly have with CG what she has with Bryscream. I would always be on the outside. One to be discussed as an issue, not the one she would discuss issues with.

You've made worse decisions. You wouldn't have lasted long dating someone who had no room in her life for you.

I hope the two of them ended up together somehow. I would like to believe they are, at the very least, friends to this day. Likely not, but I won't get to know the conclusion of CG's story anyway. I don't even remember her name.

To wit, I have experienced, both personally and vicariously, people fleeing from the mere concept of dyads.

You mean Kate. You can just say that you mean Kate.

Although, given that you are young, this is a sensible thing for your peer group. They are not looking for the sort of commitment that you think that you want.

Too restrictive, they lament. It sounds codependent, they falsely justify. I'm too much of a tumbleweed, they state. Well, tumbleweeds are quite dead before they are able to be blown about aimlessly.

You are acting like a stuck-up brat again. Stop judging people for knowing what they want. You don't know their lives better than they do.

You also don't know how tumbleweeds work. The plant is fine. The part that breaks off rolls around to spread seeds, albeit invasive ones.

I am content being alone with Xen. I'm told he's a lovely person with whom to be alone.

I wish you were, but you don't act that way. .

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Thomm Quackenbush is an author and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has published four novels in his Night's Dream series (We Shadows, Danse Macabre, Artificial Gods, and Flies to Wanton Boys). He has sold jewelry in Victorian England, confused children as a mad scientist, filed away more books than anyone has ever read, and tried to inspire the learning disabled and gifted. He is capable of crossing one eye, raising one eyebrow, and once accidentally groped a ghost. When not writing, he can be found biking, hiking the Adirondacks, grazing on snacks at art openings, and keeping a straight face when listening to people tell him they are in touch with 164 species of interstellar beings. He likes when you comment.