i took the road less travelled by, and figured out there was a reason no one else used it

As is probably true of most people, I don't necessarily make the most brilliant interpersonal decisions ever. I'm not just referring to being awkward, or hitting on people who turn out to not be so attractive outside of a drunken haze (which is luckily immaterial when they aren't interested anyway) — I mean making inaccurate judgements about who should and shouldn't be in your life, and where investing your time and energy in certain relationships will get you.

Some time ago, I had a ridiculous crush on a person who I basically assumed would never be interested in me, as a friend or otherwise. I thought I had ample justification for this back then, although it doesn't hold up very well now. The assumption of disinterest didn't change how I felt about him, because I was being really dense, so I just continued to stare at the guy in a somewhat creepy fashion while making no attempt to get to know him better. In fact, I put a lot of effort into ignoring him whenever I was directly confronted (to the point that I was pretending to have no peripheral vision). This led to a lot of complaining to my friends about a situation I was making absolutely no effort to change, so, uh, sorry if you were involved there.

The next time I was interested in someone, I adopted a completely different strategy (although with a roughly equal amount of complaining). I assumed that we could at least be friends and spent months actively trying to make it happen, putting in (what was for me, at least) an exhausting amount of work and overanalysis and social skills while trying to build some kind of relationship. It's pretty much been an abject failure. Despite all my effort, it still feels like trying to avoid being hit by a car while walking across a freeway with traffic laws I don't understand and drivers who don't even swear at me in my own language. So when I recently ran into the person I'd never made a real effort to get to know and had a much easier time talking to him, discovering that we get along much better and somehow had ended up with a better basis for a friendship, I kind of wanted to put my head through a sheet of plywood.

What would have happened if I'd put as much effort into the first situation as I did into the second? What made one look so much more promising than the other when it really, really wasn't? And, even more revolutionary, what if I'd taken all the time and energy I used up by being a dumb emo kid in both cases and put it towards something productive, like school or writing or music? The mind boggles — or, would boggle, if it were not already busy obsessively moping.

Something about the phrase "Convertible Catholics" is really funny . . .
There's an interesting article at Beliefnet regarding the twelve religious tribes of American politics. It comes to the conclusion that "the Religious Right and the Religious Left are almost exactly the same size, [but] the former has had a much greater impact for the past 25 years largely because of superior organization and drive." Also for those interested in the US election, there is Electoral-Vote.Com, which tracks the electoral vote state-by-state and updates whenever new polling information is available. Following this site too closely may lead to heart problems. Bizarre fact: currently, the highest percentage of Nader supporters can be found in Alaska (5%). ARE YOU PEOPLE FROZEN STUPID?