Blogger 365 Day 205 - Pulling a Macaulay Culkin

     For those people that know me or interact with me on a semi regular basis, they are probably familiar with that half of one of the lines I say from time to time.  ususally in conversation, or just before a conversation is about to end I will say something like "it is time once again for me to pull a Macaulay Culkin and go "Home Alone" again."  The line is usually good for a chuckle or two, not uproarious laughter or anything, but maybe a slight guffaw.

     The thing is, the older I get, the more I am just getting comfortable with that notion that that particular aspect of my life is never going to change.  Not that I sit around longing for someone when I get home, or doing the "Woe is me" act, I am more than content to play the cards that life deals me when it comes to relationships.  It just so happens that the cards I have been dealt are not very good ones.

     Usually things fall into one of a two categories; the person I am attracted to is unobtainable.  By this I don't mean that they are spoken for, I am not my father and have no desire to go around wrecking existing relationships and/or marriages, but I have some of my own built in rules that preclude me from even approaching certain people.  The rules are not simply how someone looks, while looks matter in initial attraction (and I challenge anyone who says they don't unless that person is legally blind, there is always something visual there that says someone is or isn't appealing) I really don't have a type I look for, there is not one set of physical characteristics that I find I prefer, tall, short, eye color, hair color, none of that really figures into my personal equation so much as how it all comes together in the end in one cohesive package.  Not that anyone asked but yes, part of that package is mental as well, I need to be able to carry on a legitimate conversation with whomever it is that I am attracted to.  Just the same, someone could meet all of the criteria but still be unobtainable, it could be age (I refuse to be the lecherous old man looking for someone young enough to be my daughter), it could be that in my own warped mental caste system I don't find myself worthy of the person I am attracted to.  The football analogy is someone who has out kicked their coverage, and it is something I don't think I will ever worry about because it would violate one of the rules.  The other issue is that over the course of 45+ years on this planet I have found that usually the ones that I am attracted to and are attracted to me are people who ultimately are extremely bad for me.  It becomes very easy then to treat any potential relationship as a voyage made for Icarus, so far better to sit off to the side then hop on the carriage that is bound for the sun.  I have seen how that turns out enough times and I know my judgement in such situations is usually disastrous in that I ignore every conceivable sign to the contrary and convince myself that this time will be different.  So when you can't trust your own judgement, sometimes the best thing to do is create a situation where judgement is no longer called for.

     So tonight I am pulling a Macaulay Culkin, tomorrow night I will probably do the same, and the next night and the night after that.  It's "Home Alone" meets "Groundhog Day" and I don't see it changing any time soon.