Signalling

There is something very disturbing about signals, non-signals and the interpretation of those...things.

Take Charles Ryder for example, a friend-ish recently gave him the 'come-on'? Or was it a 'come-on'? Clearly someone's lips nuzzling your neck is hardly difficult to interpret, but what if, the very next day, the Nuzzler pretends like it never happened? Ah my poor Mr. Ryder, being ridden every way but the one that's fun, here's to the lemon squares of perplexion...

Punjaban and Neo are still in Switzerland: the neutral land of chocolatey politeness, butterfly kisses and never-ending games of Tag (Heuer). So while 'The Chosen One' suns himself over spring break, Punjaban and I inhabit this veritable Spitsbergen: our dark hued jackets mirroring our very moods as we sip sticky lattes and examine and re-examine everything that happened in the past to the point where the lines between fantasy and reality, between the platonic, the Platonic and the planktonic begin to blur! We search for signals that Neo gave out, signals that Punjaban returned-were they received? Interpreted? How? Is cleavage a variable or a constant? It's like signal transduction! So Punjaban and I make corny biology jokes, sue us for being scientists! Sue us for caring, you inglorious bastards!

Signals, sadly, do not exist only between couples. Or at least between romantically linked ones. It is this other variety that has the potential of getting particularly nasty. The vibes between Dick Diver (who is more of a Virginia Woolf, now that I think with a coherent mind) and me are perfect examples. Throughout our sessions, I always catch myself wondering(!) down the following path, 'Does she like me?'---->'Oooh, she's trying to be politically correct!'---->'She despises me!'----> 'She likes me!' It doesn't take a genius to understand that these signals are accompanied with a lot of channel noise. Oh Dick Diver/Virginia Woolf, what do you really think of me? The fact that I like to think of myself as a Quentin Compson figure, does it not make you wonder if I have created a fetish out of snobbery? The fact that otherworldly things fashion me into a Richard II/Hamlet/Macbeth hybrid, what does that say about my state of mind? Give me a signal that can clear away the channel noise...

The nature of love, they say, is mutable. But that, I think, applies to the nature of human interaction as a whole. It's these crazy, crazy signals! Like those I receive from a certain academician to whom my heart I have lost. Signals that are inhibitory, at best. It is a doomed thing, is it not, to love an academician? And what love that too? A love so scarcely understood? A love based on this:
"You are forbidden to me and that is why I want you. Everyone fawns over me and my alleged precociousness but you read it as pretension. Did I mention how much that turns me on?"
Ah but if my prayers could such affection move...

Of course, I would be a bad friend if I didn't at least mention the Luna-Hamlet mess in this tangle of signals! It's like the myth of the Fisher King, really, with the ripe, fertile green Thanksgiving followed by a white, icy winter and no sign of a Grail Knight! Not that the spring is going to do us any good since all the Grail Knights are probably indulging in all that nastiness at Cancun.

Tut, I am upset now, I simply must do laundry and ponder about Negativity while snorting these lines of Sardonicism I have set forth...

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!