So it's easier to just babble in this little box than it is to put in the time and effort to do the real blog entry. But I'm working on that, gonna try and set it up so when I've got something to say I don't have to reupload the whole page. Had a bunch to say in the past few months, but I haven't wasted your time with putting it in here. . .I've just wasted the time of anyone I've had a drink with...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> Anyway. It's that time of year again. Apart from the going to get officially older in a little while, it's the whole single thing rearing its ugly head again. It's not that I don't want to be single: I do, I'm happy with it for the most part. It's that I'm in Albertson's last night shopping, and there's a Valentine's aisle full of red-and-pink-coloured tastelessness. I've got another friend who just got engaged- which reminds me, I should say hi and congrats. It's the endless internet ads telling me to log on and find my soulmate, my perfect match, my other half.

You know what? Fuck that. Why am I always made to feel guilty that I'm single? I've got a hell of a lot going for me, I'm going to do something with my life, so why am I made to feel like a failure because I haven't had a relationship in the past three and a half years? Why must I be defined by how long I've managed to get someone to put up with me on an intimate, physical level?

This sounds angry, but it's really not. It's frustration more than anything else. It's frustration that if I go and watch a movie by myself I get weird looks. It's frustration that any time I hang out with someone of the opposite sex, people start quizzing me about it, is it going anywhere, she's cute, who is she, are you going to ask her out? Sometimes it seems like the only place a single bloke my age is accepted is a strip club.

Besides, why does sex have to make a relationship successful? Why does relationship automatically seem to carry with it the implication that you're 'with' that person? Why does 'platonic' have to be added like some sort of disclaimer? I have some great relationships, some that are very important to me, and they're all friends. All of them. I include in these relationships people I've dated, people I've slept with but not dated, people I've never touched. They're all relationships, they're all important to me, but I'm buggered if I'm going to split them up into platonic, neo-platonic, un-platonic, quasi-pla-fucking-tonic. They're tonic. They're friendships. Even my relationship with my parents is a friendship. And that's the only relationship I guess you really don't have to disclaim as being platonic, cos I hope it's assumed.

So here's to all my relationships with all of you. I'm still not getting any of you anything for Valentine's Day.