A/N: To all my OLD readers... Please accept my apologies for not writing. Life was hectic. It still is but I'm trying to come back. Hence this post. Not sure where I'm going with this though or if I'm even going anywhere at all. Ideas and requests would be welcome. Miss you all LOTS.

What's another year?

Prologue

I've been waiting such a long time,
looking out for you
But you're not here
What's another year?

Johnny Logan

What's Another Year Lyrics

Ever wondered if there was something seriously wrong with you? Something that seems to just attract the wrong kind of attention regardless of what you do? In the end, does it really matter? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I think the notion of love, romance and happily ever after is a bunch of... Well, you fill in the rest. I'm twenty-seven, perpetually single and sick and tired of everyone expecting me to date someone. Apparently I'm supposed to be socially inept or something because I'm alone. I've even been told that there's something wrong with me, that I'm sick in the head because I no longer even want to find anyone. That hurts. Don't tell me I'm sick in the head until you've walked a mile in my shoes. I mean, I've been waiting and hoping for someone for ages and nothing, ever. I mean, how many people can say they managed to reach the age of twenty seven, never kissed, with the closest thing to a relationship being three failed months somewhere in the middle of it all? Not many. Or at least not many that I know but then again I may be hanging out with the wrong crowd.

Wait, it gets better. I've tried, really I have but every time I find someone I like they are dating someone else or unobtainable for some other random reason, most of which I don't even remember anymore mind you. The worst reason though is the one where they only want to be my friend and nothing more because I make a really cool friend and on occasion an even better ad hoc psychiatrist. Now there's a statement that will take me forever and a day to explain so let's just leave it here for now. So, now that we have established that the prospects I wished to attract were for one reason or another unobtainable to me, let us examine the prospects I have thus far actually managed to attract. Before I go further let me say that I said no to them all and I would do it again, even though my rejection sometimes led to more grief than I can even begin to explain. Let's just say, some people don't take to no very well and leave it at that.

Okay, back to my glorious list of prospects, in no particular order mind you. I have had a man ten years my senior after me. We had drastic religious and core belief differences. He was very devout catholic. Need I say I'm not? I'm not even Catholic at all. Lets just say that a few years after saying no to that great potential relationship, I found out he got engaged. Now comes the fun part. He took a Nun on holiday with him and left his fiancé behind even though she wanted to go with. Nice? Right? Tell your fiancé she can't come on holiday with you because you are taking a Nun. A couple of years after that, when his wife was pregnant he called me to tell me his missed me. Never have I had a more uncomfortable conversation in my life. I kept having to remind him that he's married now. No offense, I really didn't want to talk about us. There is no us and there never will be, the fact that I don't interfere with the sanctity of marriage aside of course.

Which brings me to another great prospect. The married men. Two of them, one of which has four kids to boot. What is it with married men and not being able to stick to monogamy? Sorry but I'm a monogamy kind of person and I'm not going there. Ever. Not to mention that one of those wonderful married men that likes me so much was also a drug addict. Yay me. When you're good, you're good right?

Hmm, lets see, that's three. Number four, a hacker that had no ambitions other than those of the not so legal kind. She was proud of the fact that she was failing university due to the fact that she never handed anything in. Is it just me or is that not really something to be all that proud of? Maybe it's just me but now she's with some flighty airhead with no IQ and I must say, the two of them deserve each other. What? Don't look at me that way. I never said everyone was the same gender, now did I? Yeah there was another drug addict in that bunch too. One Miss and one Mister. A pair. How nice.

Moving onto, Mr childish. I spent the entire time I knew him explaining to him like one would to a little child why something upset me, him included, mind you. Yes, he would be Mr failed attempt at three months. Needless to say, I didn't break up with him. he broke up with me. We were in the middle of an argument. He stood me up the evening prior and saw nothing wrong with the fact that he left me waiting for him for five hours while he spent the evening partying without bothering to tell me he's not coming. Apparently I was being immature to be upset with him over this. That aside he wanted to talk and sent me an SMS. I couldn't read the SMS at the time so I didn't immediately respond. Needless to say I received a second SMS fifteen minutes later breaking up with me because I didn't reply to the first SMS or come running within those fifteen minutes. I received the first and headed out to meet him while reading the second. That stopped me dead. The next day he wanted to get back together. Who was he kidding? I was tired of feeling like his parental unit and tired of feeling inadequate. He had a long list of things I had to change about myself on the way to meet his parents which he chose to share with me while I was stressing about said meeting. If we weren't so far from my home that day, I would have gotten out of his car and walked home.

Now we move onto one of the biggest mistakes of my life: Mr Transference. No, I did not date him. We are friends. Have been for years but he is convinced he is in love with me and as a consequence is making my life miserable. He won't let anyone near me, even though I have told him time and time again that I am not in love with him and never will be. He refuses to take no for an answer and tries to live his life to please me while at the same time doing his best to isolate me. I helped him through a difficult time and every time we have a serious level of conflict over this he has this subtle way of showing me he may be regressing back into his clinical depression making me feel it’s my fault. Not to even mention the mild sexual harassment. He helped me with a lot of things too and I can’t find it in me to kick him completely out of my life because he has been a good friend, despite this obsession he clings to that I will change my mind and be his.

A third miss, and yes, the pun is entirely intended, is psychologically imbalanced. Always swaying from one extreme to another and let me tell you one thing, some of those extremes are not pleasant at all. I can't even begin to list her issues because there are far too many and we don't have enough time to even touch the surface of even one of them. Drugs, alcohol, suicide attempts, you name it, its probably been done. It's the suicide attempts that scare me the most. Even though I refuse to go the romance route, we're friends, with complications, true, but I never want to lose her. I fear the day I will receive a call telling me she killed herself anyway and so we reach the most glorious of my achievements in love: Mr Mass Murderer. Just hear me break into song, maybe one of those sappy love songs everyone seems to love.

And that's just my LOVE LIFE!