There are places I would love to go and meet others if I could find them to go and meet. One of the troubles with the career change I've had recently is that it keeps me somewhat on the go, I travel a lot from place to place and have about two days off which mostly are not weekend days. As such my exploration around where I am is mostly for essentials, food, travel stuff and supplies to clean clothes and dishes, etc.

This is a city I have had a joy exploring a small fraction of but have found so little in terms of places to meet people, just bookstores mostly. Despite what some say too the subway is not a place to meet interesting people, to see interesting people yes, to meet them no. Remember too, I long for a relationship but dislike large crowds, small places don't make me claustrophobic but large crowds do at times when they are simply everywhere I go.

I do realize that saying there isn't time to find other places though or meet me is an excuse too I know it is... but for me it is mentally hard to try and start something I've never had, a relationship, when I am traveling a large amount of time; it is important to remember for me most ideas about relationships have become very romanticized over the years I have been alone. Even if I know that, even if logically this is a concept that I can analyze, a part of me clings to the ethereal mists that are dreams, that are my hopes and concepts of what is romance versus reality. It is another excuse but also the truth to say that in a way things are so romanticized in my mind anymore not only would whoever she is have to be the most patient woman on earth but she would have to be one of the most understanding about that fact I seek reality but cling to romanticized concepts of dreams.

Dreams themselves too are interesting things, when dreams start to fade or when we realize they are not based in reality, might never be or the time has passed for them to be I think a certain innocence is lost and loneliness increases. People, at least those I've known including myself, then tend to cling to a past that might not have been all they remember it being but one that was perhaps more innocent for them and the world and as such more full of hope then the present one offers.

At times like these I at least hide in music, hide in stories I know but loved as a child, hide in memories, and basically try to do the worst thing for me, hide in isolation. See I know it is bad for me and yet I still hide. Why? To that I have no answer.

Now though it is a good time, though bitterly cold outside, to see some places that people like me also seeking many things including a way out of the shadows loneliness creates, shadows that might only be dispelled by a relationship, might be located. Oh just on a last note, despite how it sounds I know relationships are a lot of work, they are give and take, they are compromise, and they are anything but a panacea to loneliness; they are however a major step out of the shadows of loneliness and ironically for being filled with many things which are not 'innoncent', a step back towards innocence.