hmm, so there we are again, it’s Friday night, and I’m sitting in fon tof the computer linign up the various papers I have to do before sunrise. Somehow I’ve ended up with another huge stack of computer related jobs that are not the least bit exciting. And that in the few months that the sun is actually out in this country. And of course, it’s all non-paying, and the current course of history (the no-votes in France and the Netherlands) have transformed my monthly Danish student stipend into a much smaller amount of Norwegian crowns. But oh well, I will survive that as well. And then I’m really not in it for the money, so as long as I survive in some way or another, who cares.

Well, then there are all these other issues one has to face as a 24 year old single male in a western country. Most of all, it’s probably self-confidence. How is one supposed to know whether one is on the right track when one has no person that tells you honetsly how they feel about your actions (= girlfriend)? The funny thing is that this self-confidence is probably one of the main ingredients in getting together with another person in the first place. But hey, maybe it’s just me. Who knows. I certainly don’t. And buddy, if you try to read on in te hope of finding details about my concrete situation, just forget it. Yes, this is pretty intimate stuff, but hey, I ain’t THAT stupid.

But also, I think the whole realtionship thing is vastly overstated. There’s like this idea out there that being together with another person is the “natural state” when one is twenty-X. At the same time, at least students don’t seem to live up to that ideal at all. And as far as I can tell, that’s probably even more true outside of Norway in the rest of Europe, as Norway is the one country that “manages” to keep it’s population stable. Why a government/elite/country needs to have polecies controlling people’s sex lifes, I will never understand nor approve of, but it’s still a fact.

It’s probably just an existentialist question of being able to say no to the pressure that soceity excerts upon the individual. However, at least I do fall in love, and wouldn’t it be kind of stupid NOT to follow one’s heart when it happens? It’s probably also the reason why none can come up with a manifest against relationships altogether, unless it’s about some kind of non-monogamic solution of course

At least for me, that is not a real solution. I mean, I can get how people can maximize the amount of sex they can get by having 5 or 10 partners or something, but I just have a hard time seeing how they can be rellay intimate with all of them at the same time. You noticed that? I said “at the same time”. That’s probably the main proof in all of this that I’m really connected to the times we live in: it’s all about “serial monogamic relationships.” Goen is the sixties and seventies free hippi love, and the conservative single monogamy is not compatible with today’s late capitalism, where one sub-mode of production does not even last the life time of a single person. Instead one is caught up in a whole series of monogamic relationships, that begin and end coordinated with periods of extraordinary stress in school or at work due to changes and reforms in the production cycle. Now I was trying to make up this example, but that just tuned stupid. And it’s rellay no point anyways. It’s not supposed to be understand as like some rigid scheme with various ertain reforms or certain technical use patterns shifting in the last few years, but rather an overall sense of everything changing all the time, and the certainty of what tomorrow will bring being gone, and with it taking the certainty that one’s partner will be the right one forever as well.

…And that brings me back to my first point – self confidence. Now obviously, within this profit-centered
framework of though, your potential partner has to evaluate whether you represent a plus or a minus compratively to
their status in nothing but the current situation. And as you can’t expect the relationship to last that long
anyways, it doesn’t matter so much if you “play” the “opponent” in this game for a while, just to make him or her
think that you’re more valuable. I think that is my main flaw. I just resent doing that. I think it’s awful to the
other one. “I like her, and I don’t want to pretend anything else either,” is what I’m thinking at that
exact moment.

But maybe I’m just rambling. Maybe it’s not a problem at all. I certainly hope so. And now I’ll go for another one
of my evening walks down
Akerselva. Oslo is relaly beautiful druing summe. You should come see it some time, if you haven’t already….