On Vonnegut...and others....But first

Thank you all so much for your comments.  They are great, and enlightening and quite frankly helpful in a way that I would probably not get from friends, because I'm rarely this candid.  I'd like to kind of respond to all without getting very specific to any one.  First of all, it does suck that we all have to be so cynical.  I can remember a time when all I wanted was to be in love, and nothing else mattered.  Now it seems like there is so much B.S. surrounding everything (not to mention my failed attempts at long term relationships) that you have to be cynical until the other person proves to you that you should think otherwise.  And the comment about not one owing anyone anything; well, thats right, and honestly that is how I feel about most situations like this.  But sometimes I run into someone who I just feel like "Wow, I would really love it if there could be something here."  (Full Disclosure:  I've always been quite introspective, and realized a long time ago that the women I tend to "want something to be there" with are the more attractive ones.  It is horrible even to type, but why lie.  Believe me this has led to its share of problems.)  

My position on the whole thing is this: Just be honest, and be who you are and it will sort itself out.  I can say right now that neither of the girls that I was in long term relationships with accurately represented themselves for the first few months that we dated.  I can't claim complete innocence here, but I didn't lie about things or leave out things like "Oh by the way I take 2 Xanax a day and if I don't I lay in bed crying."  I can understand not wanting that to come out on the first few dates, but you're kind of leaving out a biiiig part of who you are if you don't let someone know that within the first few months of a relationship no?  I should edit that last comment: my first long term relationship was amazing for 6 of 6 and a half years.  We grew apart, she didn't mislead me, she just changed in a way that I couldn't deal with.  (In retrospect, were I put in the same situation today I probably would have dealt with it...the old you don't know what you've got till its gone.)

Anyway, thanks for all of your constructive comments.  I'm just gonna go with the flow and not worry.  Or try like hell not to worry.  The best thing about being in a relationship (well, for me during the last couple) is the fact that you can go to sleep at night knowing you have someone you can hold on to if things get tough.  And even if they don't and you just want a hug.

So, in the interest of not being a complete narcissist I would like to quickly write about something OTHER than my personal life.  I've been reading "The Road" By Cormac McCarthy, I'm about half way through.  It is a wonderful, if extremely depressing book.  

The story is good, the writing is good and it is deep in a way that many books are not.  But Mr. McCarthy takes EXTREME liberties with grammar.  I'm no english major (as I'm sure anyone can tell) but for god's sake if you write a sentence with 30 or more words there HAS to be a comma in there somewhere no?  He also uses no punctuation in his dialogue and rarely even explains who is speaking, so I've spent some amount of time re-reading passages to try to figure out who was saying what.  This book won a Pulitzer.  It deserves it.  This will be in high school's required reading long after I'm gone.  I've read other pulitzer winners, and it seems to me that, though it is important that you have a good story (in the fiction category I mean), having a unique sort of writing style goes a long way.

One more thing.  I love nearly everything Kurt Vonnegut ever wrote.  The

 one book, however that I am REALLY not a fan of is Slaughterhouse Five, which of course is what you are FORCED to read in high school.  I was on a Vonnegut strike for a number of years because I figured everything he wrote was probably like the one book I had read.  Finally I was convinced to read the Sirens of Titan, and I loved it.  I proceeded to read every Vonnegut book I could get my hands on.  If anyone out there was turned off by Slaughterhouse Five in high school, give Kurt another shot.  You won't be disappointed.