What do I want in a relationship? For it to be real, and beautiful, and lasting.

So I'm reading about this guy, who is now living my life - sleeping with the same girl as me, sharing the same breakfast on the same couch, feeling the same love and the same happiness, enjoying the same books and cd's that I introduced her to. Now I am sure I'm not the first man to be jilted, nor the first to experience this unsettling convergence. It must have happened innumerous times throughout history. What number am I? Just 148,452,855? Yet I feel anger and pain at reading his words... it is immediate and consuming. But I check myself and ask why? Beyond envy, beyond bitter recriminations, or moral judgements, why does this upset me?

I used to be uncomfortable whenever my girlfriend wanted to borrow a CD or movie that an ex had given me or shared with me. Hermann Hesse, reflecting back on the key romances in his life, wrote about how each girl gave something only she could give. I've always felt these differences were important, otherwise why bother? I treasure each of my past relationships, and I observe those boundaries by not blurring experiences. If I had been to a special place with an ex, I would avoid taking another girl there. Like who wants to go to overseas with someone who's just been there with their ex? It's not about being first, it's about wanting to experience things on the same level. To share the same discoveries and relive the memories with the same vividness. It's these little things that build the bonds that last, that help a couple grow together, whereas walking in someone else's boots only leads to jealousy and doubt.

Next time you're snuggling up to your boy or your girl, imagine them being the exact same way with someone else. It's just wrong. In the story of your life you want to be the main character, not an understudy or stand-in for someone else. Likewise, I wouldn't like to know that my girlfriend had been the exact same way with another guy. It would cheapen our relationship. Our special experiences become just one of many... a commodity. So this is not insecurity speaking, but a desire for meaning.

It really pisses me off that J has pretty much gotten away with this betrayal. My friends are still his friends. He's happy and I'm feeling blue. I've lost a year of my life... and maybe more. I've been trying to move on, by seeing new people and throwing myself into my work, but I feel hardened and incapable of love with a capital L. D says I'm too cynical. But it's not by choice. My heart is closed... once bitten, twice shy. Sometimes I feel like walking away from all the troubles in my life. Go overseas and start a new life, start afresh. But I'm scared to leave what I know, and I find myself dependent on the same friends to lift me up and away from the downward spiral. No doubt I am stronger as an individual, having lived through this suffering, and having learned from my mistakes, but I think I preferred blissful ignorance to this bleak, unforgiving distrust. I may have gained realism but at the expense of my idealism. A year on, and it seems I'm not ready to fall in love without already anticipating, and thereby internalising, its failure. It may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And how to overcome this, I still don't know.

To move on is to accept without reacting. To react, is to not move on. Why do I find it hard to let go? To not react? Perhaps it is primal instinct… an urge to defend myself, to protect what I have cultivated and nurtured. Perhaps it’s just morality… injustice must not be ignored and unpunished. Because, if you accept injustice as the way of the world, you accept the strong taking from the weak, and discount the suffering of all those who are forced to give to an oppressor. If this be true, I will become either a nihilist or a ruthless egotist who acts with impunity because he believes it is natural to take what one can, and ignores what other people think because he believes in himself above all else.

No, despite my cynicism, I still believe in a balance between selfishness and mutual obligation. This balance underwrites humanity. For every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. A sense of natural justice is therefore not unreasonable.

Sometimes you gotta dig deep, when problems come near
Don't fear, things get severe for everybody, everywhere.
Why do bad things happen, to good people?
Seems life is just a constant battle between good and evil
The situation that I'm facing, is mad amazing
To think such problems can arise from minor confrontations
Now I'm contemplating in my bedroom pacing
Dark clouds over my head, my heart's racing
See when you're shining, some chumps will wanna dull ya
Always selfish jealous punks, will wanna pull ya
But just as you'll receive what is coming to you
Everybody else is gonna get theirs too
I ain't no saint, therefore I cannot dispute
That everyone must meet their moment of truth.