I.

I stumble through the doorway to the sound of the alarm system. It's supposed to be reassuring, telling me no-one's broken in and stolen my shit while I've been out, but what it's really telling me is: no-one cares that you've been anywhere.

In my scripts I fantasize about girls waiting for boys at doorsteps and calling to them from windows; in reality, girls are whisked away by persistent yet indifferent bad boys who hint at things without saying too much, who don't appear to want anything, but have yet to discover how badly they need a geeky young girl to drown in their world.

I sit here waiting for some girl, any girl, to impress me, to make an effort, to show the slightest indication that she wants something from me, but is there such a girl? A girl prepared to put herself out there for me? And if there is, could I handle her? Would I even want someone like that?

I suppose there is no perfect encounter. It all just happens randomly; any intervention, any engineering and the illusion is gone. Nobody wants to feel like they planned to fall in love, they want it to just happen.

I wonder if I'm a hard man to please. I mean, I'd like to think that anyone with heart could make the grade, but I have the feeling that I'm far more brutal and exacting than that.

I suppose that should, in a way, please me. I have high standards; I'm not easily swayed. But really, it just makes me that much more miserable in the end.