10/23/25
I've been thinking a lot this year about the nature of love and relationships, and why I personally have chosen to dedicate a significant portion of my life thus far in attempting to find a romantic partner. There is the obvious answer that I am a young man of 24 (almost 25), and feel the base natural desire to reproduce and bear offspring that it seems all animals possess in one form or another. But that explanation only partially satsifies me, and does not account for the conscious efforts on my part which are beyond natural instincts.
So why, then? Why go through all of this effort? Loneliness is another key factor I've since identified. I have often had feelings of loneliness, even long before I moved out of my parent's place and into an apartment by myself. And it is with those feelings in mind that I should naturally desire a partner to keep me company whenever I am feeling lonely. But even so, that does not fully explain why I have gone through all of the trouble that I have.
I could blame societal pressure to settle down and have children as soon as humanly possible, but truthfully I don't believe this to be enough of a factor to actually influence my own decision-making process. Especially so in this day and age, when so many are choosing to openly delay or abstain from such things altogether. No, I believe the main reason I chose to so heavily pursue what I felt at the time were "deep, romantic relationships" (which, in reality, never lasted more than a few months at most) was simply because I had convinced myself that this was what I wanted most, when truthfully all I actually wanted was a few good friends to spend time with on a more-or-less regular basis.
At this point, you may be asking yourself, "How did this happen?". It's a good question, and one I've been pondering for the better part of a year now, at least. I suppose when one is young and inexperienced with love and relationships, one perceives friendship and romance much closer than they really are. Or at least, I believe that to be my first principle mistake. From high school until a few months ago, I was under some impression that the only way to have someone in one's life that they could love deeply and still be friends with was to be in a romantic partnership with them. This may perhaps be true for others, but it is no longer true for me. I feel I have seen and experienced enough now to understand that there is a vasy gray area between romantic and platonic love. And that just because you experience one does not necessarily mean you need experience the other, and to the same degree, and vice versa.
This brings me to the subject of marriage. What makes a "successful" marriage (subjectively loaded as that term is) has been the subject of much scrutiny and debate over the milennia, and is a subject I doubt will receive any meaningful resolution for humanity in the centuries to come. That being said, I will posit that, having observed many marriages in my relatively short life, as well as having talked to many people who are or have been in marriages to varying degrees of satisfaction, it would seem a high level of both romantic and platonic love (as well as a high level of communication, trust, and shared interests) are required to be present in order for the lifelong partnership that is marriage to be long-lasting and fruitful for both parties involved. And if any of these elements should not be present in one or both parties involved in said marriage, then it would seem to me that there is little point getting married in the first place for the vast majority of people living in the United States, at least.
As always, there are exceptions. Some people marry to increase their social status, or attain legal citizen status in a given country. Some people seem to marry just because they can. But for the vast majority of people living in this country, I would be willing to bet that love and long-term satisfaction are very high on the priority list for what most people want out of a formal marriage, when you get right down to it. Because though we are conscious beings capable of selfless action, when it comes to a long-term commitment like marriage that requires a significant amount of one's time and resources, it is my belief that most people will ultimately act in their own self-interests sooner or later.
I feel the way I've presented myself in this post thus far has made me look like an unromantic cynic who denies the very existence of love as a matter of the soul, of passion and lust and beauty and all of the great and wonderful things that make life worth living to begin with. Please understand that I do not deny that love is all of these things and more. In a way, love is the ultimate expression of the human condition, a defiance against the very notion of entropy itself. I adore love, if not revere it. Which is why I spend so much of my time thinking about it. Love has been beaten to death time and time again as a topic of discussion among poets, philosophers, and all manner of peoples all throughout history. And I imagine it shall remain that way until such time that there are no humans left to wonder about it. But in the meantime, it should seem to me that unless one is of a particularly high degree of emotional and mental maturity, one that I believe is rarely (if ever) present in anyone not at least approaching middle-age, marriage is not a realistic or worthwhile prospect for one to pursue.
Note that I do not share this sentiment about love, which I believe is a driving force for many people's continued pursuits on this Earth, myself included. But I believe love is so much bigger and more nuanced than any one of us realizes. Love can be platonic or romantic, yes. But it can also be present in just about everything we do. Is not holding open the door for someone a gesture towards a kind of love of community, however small? Is not the acknowledgement and consoling of another person's feelings during a time of struggle, be it struggle in one's own life or another's, not a kind of love of shared identity and humanity? I believe love can show up in so many of our day-to-day actions, that one begins to wonder why anyone should place such an emphasis on one specific kind of love at all, instead of acknowledging the love that already exists in abundance in so many of our lives.
That all being said, please let it be known that should two people decide to get married because they feel they are truly, deeply intertwined as two souls can be that I should be the last one to actively try to stop their formal union. I would simply ask that they reflect on their reasoning long and hard before making such a commitment, as I do believe a union done without a deep understanding of both one's self and their partner can lead to a great deal more misery for all involved than any joy that may result in the short-term. This is obviously more true the younger the people are getting married, as young people tend to be much more volatile in personality and temper than older people. In fact, I would go so far as to say that excepting in the few special cases where marriage is the obvious conclusion based on long-term compatibility and understanding of all involved, most people not in their mid-to-late 30s at the earliest should not be married. Marriage should be an afterthought, in my opinion. It should be the final, obvious conclusion to a long and winding path which has already resulted in two lives merging into one, both harmoniously and consistently. It should not be based on potential for one or both parties to get their shit together, for lack of a better expression, but in the reality of who they are right now.
I worry that a number of my friends currently are pursuing paths to marriage with someone without fully realizing what they are getting themselves into. Most of them are young, early-to-mid 20s like myself. And most of them are also young men like me, intending to marry young women. This concerns me as I see these friends of mine like brothers, and so treat them as such. And to see my brothers throwing themselves into a commitment that will almost certainly impact the rest of their lives in just about every way possible is distressing, to say the least. To be clear, I could be completely wrong in my assessment, and I acknowledge this. I do not even necessarily feel their engagements are a negative thing, as I do enjoy the companies of everyone involved, and do see some degree of compatibility between those in engagement with each other, even as I sit outside the given relationships looking in. I just don't know if I can say with confidence, given my limited insight into the relationships and my inability to know what other people are thinking at any given moment, that these people are truly "marriage material" for each other, if you'll pardon the phrase.
And I'm not saying they aren't. I simply do not know.
10/22/25
2:49am. I just got back home from work not too long ago. It was hard. Lots of difficult orders to process, and didn't get nearly as many pieces done as I would have liked. Almost had 3 runs damaged, but thankfully they were deemed passable by management. Will have to finish the order tomorrow first thing. In the meantime, I've consoled myself after the fact by buying myself some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream from the nearest convenience store. My favorite. Some days are like that, I suppose. It's like I always say, "Some days you bite the shark, and other days the shark bites you". Ah well.
In other news, I just finished listening to an audiobook version of Bram Stoker's Dracula during my shift. It was the first time I've heard the story of the original novel. Surprise surprise, I loved it. Classic, gothic horror combined with questions on the nature of life, death, and the struggle between the two present in our relationships with others. I'll have to sleep on it before I give a more thoughtful examination of the novel. I'm hoping to listen to more audiobooks of classic literature, especially with how prevalent readings of classic works are on YouTube currently. I'll link the YouTube channel that did the reading of Dracula I listened to at the end of this paragraph. Would highly recommend his work. Felt more like a radio play than merely a straightforward reading, with highlights including his voices for Van Helsing and Count Dracula himself. I'm looking forward to listening to his reading of Frankenstein. The reader's name is Tony Walker btw. Check him out if you haven't already: https://www.youtube.com/@ClassicGhost/featured
Anyway, I best be getting to bed now. Like I said, I'll try and articulate my thoughts more thoroughly once I've had a good night's rest. Talk to you soon. Good night <3
10/21/25
This is my first post (hopefully the first of many)! I've decided to start this blog as an experiment in documenting my life and thoughts. I'm 24 years old, about to turn 25. So it felt like a good time to try something like this.
I'm getting ready for work now. I work at a local factory here in town. I like my job. The people are nice, the benefits are great, and the hours are steady and usually go by fairly quickly. I've been working at this job for coming up on a year and a half now, and I have no intentions of leaving it anytime soon.
I guess some people would ask, "Why even make a blog? What do you have to say that's so worth documenting that you have to devote an entire website to it?". Well, first of all, ouch. Second of all, I would say I have plenty of things in my life and in my head worth talking about and sharing. I've always been the type to quietly meditate for long periods of time on just about anything and everything. In other words, I am a chronic overthinker lol. But in all seriousness, I think we all want to be remembered in one way or another. And keeping a journal/diary/blog like this is a great way to organize one's thoughts in a way that can be looked back on later, either by myself or others.
I suppose there are other reasons why starting a blog is a good idea. For one, it gives me a place to put all of the cool shit I find on the Internet haha. Be it Neocities, YouTube, Discord, or wherever else: All of the cool stuff I get, be it from myself or others, will be hosted here, probably under the "Links/Resources" tab in the sidebar. It's also just a good way to entertain myself. I moved out of my parent's place back in May of this year into a small one-bedroom apartment by myself. It's an older place, and the carpet is very well worn. But it suits my needs for the time being, and it's home.
That being said, I've never lived apart from my family before. I'm still getting used to being alone here most of the time. The apartment is a duplex, and I live in the upper unit. They've only just started doing showings for the apartment below me. They must have spent a good 4 months renovating that place after the previous occupants left. I hope whoever does eventually move in downstairs are friendlier than the people who were there when I moved in. They seemed really dodgy when I went to introduce myself, and there were only here for about a month after I moved in before just up and leaving suddenly one day. C'est la vie, I suppose.
Anyway, I should probably finish getting ready for work lol. I've just had the idea for this blog for a while now, and today I decided I was going to do it, come hell or high water hahaha. I wish I could promise that every entry moving forward will be less rambling than this one. But alas, I cannot. In fact, they might be even MORE rambly than this one *smiling devil emoji*! So look forward to that, I suppose haha. Alright, g2g for real. Ttyl, ok? Luv u, xoxo. -Rudy <3
