Split Sides

Contradictions

From this night, deep in the depths of my nadir, I make a solemn oath: Never again will I give my heart to anyone ever again. Now that my age has granted me maturity and a sense of self-awareness, I promise to be a loyal, honest, trustworthy friend; but I will never allow myself to fall in love with a woman again. It's just not worth the heartache anymore. I can be friends with them, and I can use them sexually if I choose to, but I will never allow them to own me, and I will refuse their love if they offer it to me. They don't deserve me. They don't have it in them to maintain whatever commitment they swear to me. They are intellectually, emotionally, and romantically inept and incapable of loving, protecting, caring, and desiring me. No, they can't do it, not with my complexities, my flaws, my beliefs, and my tragedies. No woman in God's green Earth has the patience, the persistence, the passion, and the power, to bear with me and to stand by me. Wanting something is not the same as getting it.

But this does not mean I have forsaken love in its entirety. Far from it. I understand love, and now that I'm older I can see the value that love provides to all of mankind, even me. Love is truly a beautiful, precious feeling, one so powerful and vital to drive brave men to sacrifice their futures and their lives in the service of it. Love is a worthwhile project, I can see that now. Sadly, I know in my heart and my soul that love, as a romantic notion, can and will never be for me. I like it, I treasure it, I value it, but I have largely grown out of it. It's like the Crown Jewels. You see it, you admire it, you are enthralled by it. But you can never hold it, you can never own it, and you can never possess it. And in that sense, I can never claim love for myself. You can say I've grown up romantically homeless, therefore I never seem to have a lasting memory of love.

Maybe that's who I am now. Be a romantic nomad. Roam the earth, learning new ideas and cultures, meeting new people to know and befriend and sleep with, but always moving on to somewhere else. I started with defiance and I have ended with hope. I started like Arthur Morgan and ended up like Max Payne. In short, I'm like Niko Bellic.