2001-01-23 - 22:23:57

I meet a lot of nice guys who frankly aren�t that smart. They�re smart enough to get along and have a good career, but they don�t read books and they�re not intellectual. They don�t think about the same things I do. They�re plenty smart to get along in this world. But they don�t keep up with politics (or they do, and they think little Bush is a hero) They don�t write. They don�t dream. They don�t ponder existential questions. Their minds aren�t always racing. They may think they�re smart, but they�re not. They�re just not as smart as me. And so even nice guys like Corey the bartender from Northside Tavern, who used to be a highschool football start and has beautiful blonde eyelashes and is paying for me to go to a hockey game with him this week -- no matter how nice these guys are I�m simply not attracted.

Unless they�re smart. Like me. As smart as me in the intellectual way I want to be understood.

Dan. He writes, poetry and stream of consciousness, but only for himself he says. Dan reads books on superstring theory and quantum cryptography. Dan reads literature like books by Hunter S Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut. Dan likes Morcheeba and Willie Nelson. Dan wakes up full of energy, sleeps only a few hours at night, and has to smoke pot continually just to keep his mind from racing. Dan sometimes stutters when he talks because his mind is thinking faster than he can get the words out. Dan has done enough hallucinagens to see the world as it really is. Dan was teased growing up for being smarter than the teachers. Dan is smart, really smart.

Apart from the phenomenal sex, This is the one and only reason I�m hanging out with Dan. Because I never meet anyone smart like me and I really think Dan is smart.

The downfall of being truly smart is that smart people are all so fucked up. Other smart boys I have known used their intelligence to manipulate women into bed and honestly wanted to date stoopid girls. Other smart people I have known have gone mental before, checked themselves into mental hospitals or simply driven raving through the town because there was noone to understand them or calm them.

And Dan is fucked up too, in a most unique way. Dan does not ask any questions. Ever. He has never once responded to anything I�ve said with a follow-up question to draw out more of the story such as �how did that make you feel? or what did you do then?� He has never asked me any question about my past or future or about my sexual experience with him. He hasn�t asked me a single question about myself. He just doesn�t ask questions. This is frustrating - because it makes me wonder if Dan cares to get to know me at all. I finally met someone with whom I can talk, but the conversations end up one-sided because I ask him what he thinks about such and such and he doesn�t ask me what I think.

Maybe he doesn�t want to get to know me further. Maybe he doesn�t think I�m as smart as him. Or maybe he�s met so many people he can�t keep them straight in his mind and anyone�s company is as good as another. Or maybe as a kid he was the smart guy in the corner who knew everything and never had to ask questions, or wanted to be ignored, and now he doesn�t know how to make conversation. Or maybe he has just smoked too much herb.

But I realize I have slept around a bit in the last few months, all the while knowing that I was not going to end up being with anyone of these guys because I�m leaving. So does that mean that I�ve been the one using them for sex? What is it I�ve been looking for in the guys I�ve been dating/sexing? Should I even be dating when I know its going to be years before I�m ready to settle down. I tell myself that the reason I keep doing this is because it feels good to have someone to sleep with and because I am learning from these experiences. I am learning about myself and how I work and how men work and this is a good thing, right? But I�m afraid I�m becoming jaded in a sense -- I am afraid that with each person I date I am becoming less myself and more this persona - I am learning what things to say in conversation to draw men out or to flirt and I am learning what things sound awkward or not to say. In the end, will I be a more well-rounded Hillary who has learned how to handle herself with more grace and maturity in social situations? Or will I simply be a polished rock who has memorized the motions of how to flirt and is now incapable of reaching/recognizing intimacy?

What is it that I was seeking from Dan? Intimacy? Which he will never be able to offer me because he simply doesn�t ask me any questions. (Dan is such an enigma. Time spent with him is useless in learning anything about his personality and in establishing a closer rapport with him. But the sex really is very personal and hot and close? hmmmn) But maybe I can learn from this. Here is someone who is so smart, smart like me, but who doesnt act at all like I would and who is the antithesis of my chatty self. Maybe Dan will teach me patience and chillness and how to separate sex from love. And maybe at the end of all of this I will have touched him, and he will consider me a friend, and it will come in handy to know him. Or maybe he won�t ever want to see me again . . . I won�t know until I reach the other end of this but I�ve already come this far so I�m going to see this through . . .

What am I really looking for in life? other people to be around who are smart like me . . .