2:33 am

One thing seems to get me into more trouble than any other -- a lack of honesty. Not a lack of honesty in the "I'm actively dishonest" sense. In other words, you can trust that I don't lie much. However, it's become more and more clear to me lately that I don't get things off my chest very well, nor very often. This usually stems from some desire on my part not to hurt the other person involved.

In other words, if I don't like you, I'll probably tell you all the bad news.

But, if I do care about you, damn do I have a difficult time saying the hard things. Now that I think about this, I realize that it's happened time and time again to me.

...It's possible that part of what's involved is an almost selfish desire to not be responsible for hurting the other person involved. This is, of course, counterproductive. Holding back feelings and emotions is just about always bad in the long run. It's hard for anyone to like the real you when they don't know who you are. In cases where someone does dig you, you certainly do them a disservice by holding back.

I think might be more of what was playing out in my last entry.

This is something that is worth working on -- worth improving. I think I'd like to be able to be more up front about important issues when the chips are down. I've made efforts in this before, but I think I've also held back. Perhaps I can try to not do that anymore.

I've also come to the conclusion that retrospective-type conversations with old lovers can be a good thing, depending on the person. Not only can they be fun, but it's also a good time to take a look at yourself and see what kind of dumb mistakes you've made. Maybe this is what's got this on my mind.

On an unrelated note, it's funny that I sat down to watch High Fidelity tonight with said ex-girlfriend of mine. Only during the middle of the movie did I realize the slight irony of that we were watching a movie about a guy, Rob, who spends a great deal of time getting back together to talk with old ex-girlfriends. Here we were, essentially doing a similar thing, though for far different reasons than Rob.

Rob's story is quite different than mine, but I thought it was funny nevertheless. And by the way, that movie should be mandatory.