so anyway...

There're some goals you should set and some you just shouldn't.

For example:
I want to get all of my recital music in my ear and under my fingers, as it were, before the end of February so I can spend the month of March polishing.

This is a good goal. This is a goal that is reasonable and easy to accomplish if I am diligent and work hard. This is a goal I will most likely keep.

Another example:
I want to get laid before Valentines Day.

This is a bad goal. This is a goal with the expectation of someone else's mutual interest in you, which may or may not be the case. This is a goal set up along the timeline of a holiday that generally makes lonely people feel sad to begin with, and adding an extra qualification and the prospect of intense disappointment. This is a goal I will not likely keep.

Monday night as usual I went to the Loophole for dollar drafts night, with every intention of being responsible and intelligent about how much I drank, how late I was out, etc. However. A few new people showed up right about the time I was thinking of leaving and that group included a person in whom I was somewhat interested. Said person was already intoxicated and quite friendly, leading me to believe that maybe I could get the ball rolling on my ill-fated resolution. I had no intention of sleeping with Party A that evening (I've learned my lesson about drunk sex), but I thought being chummy couldn't hurt. So I drank another beer and took a proferred shot of Jager (mistake number seven, or so, but probably the worst) and pretty much just caught a second wind. Bar time rolls around and I find myself at a friend's house with Party A, passing whiskey around the table and eating Pop Tarts and fried eggs, talking out my ass about stuff I usually only tell my closer friends.

When the next morning I sleep through half an hour of work (Oh $3 I could have earned! Oh precious!) and stumble through the rest of the day feeling like at any moment I might collapse in a pile of either tears or vomit or both, a realization starts to form in my mind. It doesn't solidify right away, however, because it's all I can do to process basic motor functions.

The next day, a beautiful, sunny, warm and spring-like day (which turned out to be a cruel joke when yesterday it all turned to foggy mist and cold north winds), I was feeling much better and expontentially more clear-headed and reasonable. It was then the realization of the day before began to take a coherent form, which was basically this: drinking because you want to hang out with someone is not necessarily a bad thing, but drinking too much and ignoring your own instincts just because you want to hang out with someone is a recipe for disaster. Not a big difference there, maybe, but subtle enough to count.

And then I realized that I wasn't really interested in this person. That although I've met some new and interesting people lately, no one has really managed to catch my eye and keep it. The older and wiser I get the more romantic and physical interest in someone I have tends toward the mutual. I am tired of chasing after people, of going out of my way, of being in a position of instability. I would like someone to take my interest and return it. I would like to see someone at a bar that I feel like hanging out with and have them return the favor by paying attention and engaging me in conversation. I would like to feel that I am desirable and entertaining and charming.

It's not so much to ask, really.