I think I just pulled a muscle by coughing while moving. Mind you, a muscle in my hip. Maybe I'm getting old.

Last night was, of course, absolutely amazing. Senior night was a blast, followed by a major amount of ridiculousness at the toga party, followed by another good night with Max. Which is a pretty good segue into my topic(s) for today.

I care about Max. Way more than I should, and I know that. I think part of it is, of course, the fact that I am a complete basket-case about my emotions and can't be alone and thus need companionship at all times. I know that too, actually. It's just incredibly frustrating to feel like my only options are caring and getting hurt, or not caring and being used and still getting hurt when all is said and done. I don't know exactly why I care about Max. I feel comfortable with him and he makes me happy, sure, but I also feel like I'm at this point in my life where it's all about self-fulfillment, and the quicker, the better. And I am not healthy because of it.

Actually, I'm just not very healthy in general right now. I am pretty sure that I have a strong dependence on alcohol as the result of four intense weeks of partying. My brain never quite works right, as a matter of fact, I almost always feel a little out-of-body, a little disconnected. I think I may need to stop drinking, and that's kind of lame as I have about a million opportunities, nearly every night for the next week, to go out and drink and have a good time. But I think I have totally lost sight of the fact that it is entirely possible to have a lot of fun without drinking. It is definitely time for time off. A long time.

I am so far off the point of this entry now... Back to the point.

The point is that I have set myself up to be hurt. And it was pretty inevitable. Maybe I even wanted it, because I'm pretty sure I like to be emotionally hurting as often as I can.

I mean, let's face it: the talk with Ian was a terrible idea. For both us. I am pretty sure I wasn't misreading the signs last night that we both wanted to be together, and so what did we do? We ran to the proxies we have for one another. That's really not acceptable, on any level. I let my defenses down so that I could get hurt. And with Max, let's face it, there's no winning. Not that it's a game, I'm just saying there's nothing I can do but lose with him.

First, it's near impossible to tell how he actually feels about what's going on. I mean, he's hooking up with other people (then again, so am I, though I don't mean to be). I'm not willing to make any judgment calls on what he is thinking because he is an incredibly guarded person. I don't know where it comes from, nor am I a proponent of emotional walls that keep other people out. As someone who nearly-literally cannot keep her emotions to herself, I think it has to be the case that there is a happy medium. And I feel like Max and I sit on opposite sides of that fence, and he knows that. Nonetheless, it puts him in a place of knowing pretty well how I feel, and me in a place of complete darkness.

Second, there's Mo. Mo is the girl that Ian was dating at the end of last semester. The girl he would have continued to date (I'm pretty sure) had she not gone abroad. And she comes back this week, to visit before the end of the semester. And Max and her also had something going on. I have an inferiority complex so big about her that it's maddening. Both of the men I care the most about choose her, no questions asked, when looking between her and me. She's prettier, more emotionally stable, and basically draws all of the attention that I want. And I know that I am a perfectly awesome person. I like myself, really I do, but other people like her more. And yeah, yeah, I know I set myself up for this by dating Ian again knowing he had a history with her, and by hooking up with Max knowing he had a history with her too. It's all part of the big fat emotional masochism problem.

I genuinely want to be happy. I am pretty sure that is what I am looking for with these men. But I know it won't come from anyone else. So how do I get my feet up under myself?