do you believe you can curse yourself?

eh, not an opportunity or at least one I wouldn't take. I think I've only ever been with someone (oh shit, wait, 4 people - different times) who were involved with someone else but I generally met them under weird circumstances, succumed to attraction or hated the other person involved in the relationship so didn't care about that person in the pair. and this dude - now married and happy in said marriage as far as I can figure. facebook and myspace = opportunities to find out stuff without asking.

should I start a poll about friends or romantic relationship "closure"? cause I don't believe in that, really. it's pretty hard to get past a lot of situations but, really, it's difficult to not let the neurons fire and remind you about someone who was part of your life for quite awhile or, sometimes, for just one 24 hour period.

there are still people from 15 years ago that I was friends with for all of a week I recall fondly, and someone I met in vegas for all of a few hours at a poker table I, in vain, hope will appear in my life again. person I'm talking about in this thread was my lesson in being strung along - not fun - so I don't like him really, and, as I said, have zero professional interest in him. but closure? not really. I want him to leave me alone, I want to see some folks again, and I hope I never see others again because, if I were an actress, what they did to me would be what I'd think about if I had to sob hysterically on cue. and there are folks I met last week I barely even remember, and not just for exhaustion and partying reasons. they had so little effect on me, even if I spent a lot of time with them, that they're totally meaningless in my brain.

closure, to me, says you take something memorable in your brain and seal it off, eventually cut off whatever you felt attached to that memory and are no longer affected by it - hurrah closure. but I don't buy it.

I do believe in evolving to cope, however, of the human mind and the ability to shift, cope and recover, if you will, from taking an emotional hit. you just learn to reprocess things and then the next one down the pike that does that to you should affect you less.

hypothetical:

you engage in a series of one-night stands with whichever gender pleases you (or all kazillion - whatever floats your boat).

very first time you do this, the person says they'll call you, and since you did have a decent conversation with them and lovely sex, you assume they speak truth. they never call, you feel hurt and a little used, maybe. guilt? whatever. in any case, your brain sorts it out.

next time, you have a one night stand and the scenario is similar. except the person does call. you're shocked. so you get together several times. but then you realize that the person sucks. and not well.

third time, well, the setup is similar. except this one doesn't call you. so you're a little hurt, but far less than the first time. and maybe this triggers a response in your body that makes you want to slow this down, or completely to just not take anyone seriously that you ever have a one night stand with again.

maybe I've been thinking way too much about cognition lately and questioning all sorts of reactions people have to events:

what hurt so and so enough to make them react with emotional violence to a simple question? how can this other person be so analyitical about certain types of relationships but hysterically violent emotionally about others? why are some people so terrified of change their brains short-circuit but they make the change anyway, knowing it's best, and others are equally terrified and refuse to change?

anyway, I guess I see a fundamental difference between the concept of "closure" and the concept of "neural retraining" - but then, some people never evolve and always end up in the same situations (sorta like people who were abused as children and never move past it - stay victims their whole life).

okay, must stop typing. I kinda want to move this thread to chicklynian, just for shits and giggles. thoughts on that one? or maybe, it would be more fun to just keep moving it from random forum to random forum. I clearly got way too much sleep.