Hello Arbus,

I finally got around to replying to this email:

> im sorry to read about your breakup. i dont know if this is
> a hard thing for you or not, but im thinking of you anyway.
>
> just wanted to say that.

Thank you for your concern. In all honesty, it's not devestating. It was hard to say for a long time where exactly this relationship was going to go. Gloria and I loved each other very much, and still do. I have never been with somebody with whom I could share and enjoy so many of my life's pleasures, watching her having equal enthusiasm for these things none the less, and who was so intelligent and rational-minded on top of that. We never had a fight in our near 3 years together, aside from one or two debating rants on impersonal things like feminist politics. She never gave me any guilt-trips or head games. In no way do I view this relationship as a mistake or failure. In fact, as far back as high school I realized that if you view every ending relationship as a "failure", then you never have more than one "success" in your entire love life, which I think is a pretty crappy way to look at things.

Like any long-term couple, we did discuss things like getting married or moving in together. But we came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be the right thing to do. Kids were never an issue; we're both firmly childfree people. I like the general idea of marriage and was the one to bring it up first. The polygamous thing was never an issue, and still wouldn't have been even after a marriage. The thing is, I'd only want to get married to somebody after moving in with them. And as for the moving-in issue, we both agreed that moving in together would be at best impractical and at worst a nightmare. She has her pets and in-home shop to run, I like being close to my work like I am now, and most importantly we have very different living standards and habits of cleanliness. We knew that we'd drive each other nuts as roommates.

Granted these ideas (marriage/moving/spawning) are the things that family members and the status quo expect long-term couples to do, but to do them out of such pressure is beyond bogus, and in fact immoral in my opinion. The reason for the break-up had nothing to do with these things. It came down to the fact that Gloria had a personal situation she has to pull herself out of (and I've already helped her out in the past; she owes me money which she's also determined to pay me back, and even signed a contract for it when I made the loan), and she doesn't like the idea of being committed to somebody that she'd rarely get to be with.

Though like I said, I had some doubts about this whole thing even before the announced break-up. I was ready to meet some new people. I want to go out on the town more and get away from home more in general. I want to go back to meeting women who take more pride in their appearance, not to mention shave their legs regularly. Somebody who's not on mental medication. Somebody who can read a map. Somebody who's going to be able to stay up with me at a party and not reach some sort of mental stimulus limit after 2 hours. And while the religious differences of Gloria & I were thankfully never an issue, I'd eventually like to be seeing my own kind, as every religious person prefers. Of course we Satanists are a damn small minority, and even if I meet one who's single, there's no guarentee that we'd want to be with each other, but it would be worth it.

BTW, did you realize that last November marked 10 years since you and I met? Seems weird.