Before I begin, a short account of who I am: Man. 28 years old. 6’4”, 230lbs. Diabetic. Libra. Some would say I can talk a good game, but that is up for debate. I work in sales for a top player in the international freight forwarding game. I live in Downtown Montreal; a bustling melting pot of cultures, temperatures and women. This brings us to the topic at hand. Woman; Woah man! I love women; the smart ones, the silly ones, the sexy ones, the subdued ones. Women are a driving force in many of the choices men make in their lives and yes, I am a man. Hear me roar. I have had a couple of passionate relationships in my time, and a few not-so-great ones. But I am not complaining. We learn more from the bad ones than the good, I’d imagine. 

I am now in the tail end of my twenties. I am not freaking out about turning thirty soon. I plan on sipping whiskey by a bamboo bungalow in my twilight surrounded by local flavor. Cold Lampin. However, this is inevitably the age where men and women start to think about the choices they’ve made, past loves lost, and where the future will bring them. I am not worried about being alone; I do not fare too badly with the fairer sex. I am sure by the end of this rant I will seem like a bragadocious ass, but don’t hate me if I have deluded myself into a state of self-contentment. 

Back to the point at hand; lately I have been seeing a few girls. I’m not a cheater. When I have a girlfriend I am loyal, but I do not throw commitment around lightly. This has bitten me in the ass more than once, but I think it only fair to take one’s time in the game of love. 

My last girlfriend, who I basically refused to call my girlfriend, was maybe the best one yet. She was beautiful. The kind of beauty to make you wish you’d go blind so she would be the last thing you’d ever lay eyes on. She was smart, sweet as honey, amazingly fun to be around and so sexy necks would break as she walked past.        

This girl was in love with me and gave me her whole heart but I wouldn’t give mine in turn. I had two reasons for this:

  • First, my previous amour and I broke up without closure. She moved to London and I to Seoul. I was not sure if my feelings for her had dissipated enough for me to plunge headlong into another girl.
  • Secondly, she was young.

Eight years my younger, to be exact. Mind you, this girl could hang with my friends and had a certain maturity that I still lack, but I felt she hadn’t really lived yet: she wasn’t done school, she hadn’t traveled the world as I had and she hadn’t made those self discoveries that most of us have by the time we hit 28. Looking back on it now, I wish I could be beside her through all of that good stuff, but I know that your early twenties is not the time for a young person to be bound by a relationship. I wasn’t when I struck out in the world and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself for denying that freedom to someone I loved. This having been said, I became ever more distant with her and eventually lost her to my asinine ways. So it goes.

Nowadays I’m pulling in more than my fair share of girls, though I still find myself left indecisive and unfulfilled. This blog is sure to throw a metaphorical cog in the machine that is my game, but what the hell. For the next couple months at least, it won’t matter. I’m not sure if what I have been up to would be considered womanizing. I have made no official commitments to anyone, though I do skirt the issue at times. It sometimes makes me feel like shit. Conversely, sometimes it makes me feel like The Shit. But the former outweighs the latter in this case and I want to tame my errant ways and try to see what I can do without the physical pleasures that I find in women. I want to test my will and try to learn, without the pink haze of sex clouding my vision, what relationships with women mean to me. This is why, for the next 40 days and 40 nights (do I need to change that to avoid copyright issues or something?) I will embark on a journey of inner discovery and self mastery. I will not touch a female (in a sexual sense) nor myself (this will be the truly difficult part) for the next forty days. For your pleasure and mine I have attached the track 40 Day Dream, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, as a coup de grace for my endeavor. In his words: nobody better pinch me, bitch I swear, I’ll go crazy. 

Follow me on this journey of ricockulous pain and self imposed misfortune. Let me know what you think of this whole cinematically inspired adventure as well as what you may think of me. Either way, it should be good for a laugh. God help me, I will need it. I’m gonna go rub one out now before the clock starts. 

~N.M.