Expectations and Reality

I have two older brothers. The oldest is turning 29 in January and he's been married since 2007, has 2 kids, yadda yadda yadda. My next oldest brother is 26, and has just entered into a serious relationship. The biggest problem I'm now realizing with this is that I'm next in line, and thus, getting all the "Why aren't you married yet?" questions. Other questions include, but are not limited to; "Why don't your relationships work out?","What do you think is preventing you from dating more?","Do you think if you lost some weight more girls might be interested in you?" (I've seriously been asked that). Given, most of these questions come from my mother, but still. Today after my brother mentioned the seriousness of his current relationship, the prodding increased even further; "You know, I had TWO kids by the time I was your age. (I'm 24 now, by the way) To which my response was, "Well Ethan (my oldest brother) didn't have kids when he was my age!". Then the return was, "Well at least he was MARRIED!" (FYI, this is my mother getting on my case. She tends to be the biggest antagonist in this topic)
*sigh*
This is probably one of my biggest complaints about living in Utah. Gotta get married. Gotta get married. UGH. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not against it happening whatsoever, it's just the PRESSURE is awful. (Yeah, I'm loving the 'Shift' button tonight) And it's not helping that I'm now at the front of the line in my siblings.
Dating is just tough these days, so topics like this tend to be a sensitive subject around me. It's really easy for me to be on the defensive when it comes up. I haven't been on a date since April, so I'm obviously in some sort of dry spell that won't go away. Given, a good part of the blame is on me for this sort of thing to be happening for a couple reasons.
For one, I'm a BIG over-thinker when it comes to dating. (I'm doing it right now for this blog too, heh heh) I just analyze everything that happens and in the end it just bites me in the butt and nothing works out. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. My mind just does it automatically and I'm struggling to find the "SHUT OFF" button. It's really weird because this only really started happening in the last year or so. I'm not entirely sure what sparked it off either. *shrugs*
Secondly, I tend to be really bitter about dating. This is another thing I'm actively working to fix, but it's an attitude that struggles to go away. I've posted several blogs on the "games" of dating, and that's the main reason. It also goes a bit with the first reason, in that I'm bitter due to past experiences in dating, so I'll over-think things so I can avoid being hurt. So in my mind it's either; A: Don't think about it at all, put myself out there, and get hurt or B: Over-think just about everything that happens, and basically talk myself out of every potential person to date, etc.
So...I'm in a lose-lose situation. It's rough. Hopefully with my upcoming move some things will change and I'll get it fixed. Here's hoping!

...

Crap, I'm pretty sure I just did a post about how I didn't want to complain in this blog. Whoops! Time for some positive stuff. Umm...yes, I'm moving up to South Ogden on Dec. 1st. That should be fun. And...my Dads cousin (I'm not sure what you'd call that relationship) gave me a telescope today! It's not as nice as the one I'm saving up to buy, but it should work for now and keep me somewhat satisfied until I bust out the big guns at the beginning of next year.

Anyway, sorry about the intense-ness about dating and marriage and stuff. It was just on my mind when I got home due to the events of the day and I had to get it off my chest a bit despite my thought process jumping around a bunch. I hope you don't mind.

You don't mind, do you? Of course you don't, you're the Internet.

Random Return

You know, it's almost laughable how often I return to this blog and think about how badly I want to write in it. Problem is all I want to do is whine and complain and what not, and we all know that nobody wants to read that. I mean, there can't be that many people out there that sit down and think, "You know, I really want to read about someone else's problems right now. It would really hit the spot." Then again, people do that every day if you think about it. That's the point of the news, right? If it isn't the news it has to be something like Twilight.
Ugh...Twilight. Whoever wrote those books should be publicly stoned. My apologies to Stephenie Meyer if she ever reads this blog. (She won't)
One thing I've started doing (That I'm not entirely sure is healthy) is asking girls (that I may or may not be interested in) if they like Twilight. This is a self-destructive behavior I think. More often than not (the percentage may surprise you) I end up disappointed, and just a little bit of interest is lost. Other such follow up inquiries may include; Justin Bieber, country music, Rebecca Black, and/or True Blood/Vampire Diaries (Also known as the Twilight Children). Anyway, because such questions are asked to these ladies, more and more interest is lost. Yes it's judging a bit, but hey, I need to check compatibility, right? I mean, isn't that all that dating is? The reason you go on dates is to judge and see if a person is suitable/worthy for yourself. (That's why people warn against settling...it's like a lawsuit) Perhaps this is the reason that I haven't been on a date, cuddled, kissed, etc., a girl for the better part of this year. I really need to do something about this...
Hold on, I'm already contradicting my opening paragraph with the current tone...moving on.
So this month marks the three year mark of me being home from my mission. I'm not going to lie, it's not as weird as I thought it would be. Sure it feels like I just got home, but at the same time, it feels like I just graduated too. It also feels like I just moved back up north from Provo. (Which I did in June, by the way.) (You like how I just put that tidbit of information in here all subtly like that? I thought it was clever) So where I'm feeling like I just barely did all of those things, it just turns into this big mush pile of things that were recent but not really recent at all. Does that makes sense? That's okay, it doesn't quite make it there for me either.
So I just got over this really interesting head cold. (Silence, this isn't whining) I must say it was quite possibly the most interesting illness I have ever had. Never before have I had so many different side effects. Truly it was unusual. You know how they say no cold is the same as another? Isn't that why they've never been able to cure it? Well if that's the case I should name mine. It could be like finding a comet or something like that. (If you discover it, you get to name it) I will call it; Ridiculitis, mostly because of how ridiculous it made me. It seriously must have been nested in my brain pressing buttons in there that shouldn't be pushed. It gave me thoughts that I temporarily had psychic powers, I couldn't remember what my roommate looked like, I suddenly had awesome dance moves (True story), I started sleep walking again (I used to before the mission, but there must have been something about England that made it go away), my eyes wouldn't focus, and I was just generally not myself. Given, at least half of the reason these things happened would be due to the extra strength cold medicine I was taken, but I'm convinced that the Ridiculitis took hold of it once I had taken the pills and used the medicine for it's own uses rather than allow it to battle it away. I'm almost (Almost) (Yes, there needed to be two "almost"s but one in a parentheses for no apparent reason) miss it because of how much of an adventure it was, but oh well. Maybe it will drop by to it's now built summer home in my head next year. *shrugs*
Well that is all I have to say tonight. Sometimes when you have those really weird nights full of weird conversations with people (Girls) and all sorts of weird happenings you just need to let it out by saying a bunch of random stuff and posting it on the internet. (Didn't you know? This practice has been in place for several hundred years now. Don't ask me how, but it has been)