God Damn you, the internet.

So the internet, it makes stalking pretty natural.

God, that sounds terrible.

Not just for the person you like. For everyone. The endless proliferation of status updates, tweets, the face-space and the my-book (plus that ol' blogsphere.) So it's sort of involuntary. Sort of because if I just didn't sign in to facebook, I wouldn't see her status updates. Or her comments. I wouldn't have to worry about the automatic heartbeat-skipping that happens when her name pops up on the "online friends" list, now more indicative of the ulcer-inducing panic of "Holy god my first instinct is still to talk to her but I know I shouldn't because it's just going to make things worse again" fear-panic-paranoia-spasm than the traditional romantical heart skipping of yore.

Better yet I could delete her. And her family. And all her friends. (Deletion here meaning to remove from a list upon a social network, not assasination.) Then I could go on and not have to sweat it about seeing her, or the ravenous need to still check her comments thread, because I can't turn off a year and a half of caring and inside jokes and tracking outings and friends and basically just trying to participate in her life. But after the fact the compulsion, no matter how ingrained, is just creepy and torturous.

One thing I will say about my relationship skillset is that I remember every goddamn thing and am constantly trying to revisit, homage, celebrate or reference it. Also I have what I see as a Holmesian knack for seeing relations in details that is somewhere between fascinatingly insightful and conspiracy theorist. "Did you put that song on that mixtape because of that one time it was playing when you visited me at work and you danced fancily to it?" "What? No. It's just a good song. What time? What are you talking about?"

Alright, yes. Deleting everyone is an option. Not one I really want to embrace, though. Because I'm on good terms with basically every ex ever, and all my exes have been, at one time or another, invaluable advice givers/moral support. My reasoning is that I'm a very enjoyable character to have around, just a pain to endure as a boyfriend. So I don't want to burn any bridges. Especially not with someone who knows me as well or better than either of my best friends does. It's just wasteful, to get to know that much of someone and then toss it in the incinerator. It might be an easier break that way, but it's not my style.

Too much Captain America, not enough Wolverine.