The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories Read Online Free PDF

she’ll contact me and get really pissed and insecure when she doesn’t. I know she waits before responding which is . . .
    I need to slow things down. I won’t hook up with other people if I have her as an option and I shouldn’t be entering something serious again. But then again, it’s like what William said with his whole “why change options if this one is good” approach. I like Claire. Maybe I need to stop lying to myself about that. I want a girl that’s full of life and enthusiasm and optimism and creativity and assumed profundity. Who I do not have to brag to. Who I can engage in a dialogue. I want honesty, more than anything, probably because Lauren and I lost that. I just don’t think Claire is that person—too sort of sad all the time and self-deprecating. Or maybe she is, and I just need time to myself to . . .
    I worried a lot this week that Lauren might actually be the right girl for me long term, which was depressing because I haven’t had to deal with that whole mindset for a while . . . Not that I made a mistake in breaking up with her. But in that we might have ruined the potential for a future together of some kind. It needed to end for now. THE relationship needed to end for this time of our lives. But it’s obvious I’m not over HER as a person, I just need to admit it. (I know she feels the same.) She had a gig in Laurence the other day and I nearly felt sick thinking about the guys who’d be there to . . .
    I had a dream last night where Claire and I were in a Lauren/Brian state of our relationship. She didn’t want to hang out with me (or I sensed that) and I was compensating by being pathetic and always acting, like pretending that I was happy and cool and fun because I felt insecure about how she felt about me. I’m starting to think Claire should just be my girlfriend!? I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m just exhausted. BUT it also diminishes the fantasy. Why CAN’T we? Maybe it implies there’s something wrong with the relationship. Some reason . . .
    I almost feel like I’m settling. I dunno. Maybe I’m just not totally over Lauren (true), maybe I’m just unsure about her on a more fundamental level. The fear of course is to start dating Claire and then not stop. I just need to find out if she can be imaginative and interesting and spontaneous and make me laugh and want to build something together. BE something. I guess I’m not crazy about her. Or don’t really know how I feel. She’s sort of into pretension and that’s unattractive. She just has this look on her face a lot. Sort of aloof and wide eyed and her lips purse slightly when she’s looking somewhere or reading the computer. And it just really turns me off. I look at her at those times and I just think like, fuck, I need to get out of this. And then I feel bad about it because part of me really does like her. Lauren was hotter—or at least had a better body (more in shape). And the sex was better. But it’s probably because Claire’s so clearly insecure when she’s naked and . . .
    I went into the bathroom and threw up. I rinsed my mouth in the sink but felt nauseous again and returned to the toilet to vomit a second time, and sat down on the toilet, pressing my fingers into my forehead. I’d never felt so disgusting in my life. Not disgusting—but vacant, punched, like someone had taken a wrench and shoved it into my stomach and twisted it around. I tried to remember that I’d had thoughts like that too. Tried to recount the pros-and-cons list Charlotte and I’d discussed from the depths of my bedroom: he was overemotional, too cocky, didn’t shower enough. And I’d had better sex too. But it didn’t matter.
    I walked out of the bathroom and down the narrow staircases through the books and emerged onto the street and the blaring sun. I opened my phone to call Charlotte but realized I wouldn’t know what to say. I walked a few blocks down Pear Street, passing people who