An intriguing, albeit entirely hypothetical, situation.

Last night, when talking with my friend Dena, I told her that I wasn't a relationship person. The evidence I gave her to support this was simple, that I've never been in a long-term relationship and all my short-term commitments have been epic disasters due in part to my own obsessiveness and to the faults of the people that I choose.

She looked at my evidence and told me that I'm a different man than I was at 22, when I last had a real possibility for a relationship. She asked me why I ended things with Greg in Augusta then, and I gave her the reasons. The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to be by myself to work through my own issues. The more he needed me, the less I wanted him.

Greg was really nice, but why did I find him so annoying? He decided that the Bryan Adams-Barbra Streisand duet, "I Finally Found Someone," was 'our song.' And he shaved his chest. ("It's like fucking sandpaper," my friend Steve said when he heard of my predicament.) And he said Miss Piggy was his favorite actress. ("But she's a puppet voiced by a man," I argued.) At age 31, he lived with his mother. He once bought "coal from the TITANIC" over the Internet, which led me to laugh at him. ("It comes with a certificate of authenticity," he said.) And he cooed like a baby when we saw "Babe: Pig in the City," asking me if talking, domesticated ducks could really fly like that. (That was the last straw. We broke up soon after. He later cried, "I never should've taken you to 'Babe.' It ruined our relationship.")

I told Dena most of this last night. At the mention of the Miss Piggy thing, she told me that I didn't need to say anything more about Greg.

Dena told me, though, that she wouldn't go so far as to say that a relationship wouldn't be in my future or conclude that I wasn't meant for long-term love.

There are things I would like to learn about myself and romantic love that I can only learn through a relationship. There are situations I'd like to be in with one.

I don't know why this is the topic of the week, apparently, but it's intriguing.

I have no prospects. I don't want to think that I actually need a relationship. I don't know how one would fit into my already-packed life. (I can't even find the time to do laundry, after all.)

But I'm interested in seeing if I'm different now. Different from five years ago. Different from who I was when I was even dating Ryan the teen a couple years ago.

It's strange, but I have some hope that things are different about me.

But I can't think about that. There's too much else to do.