Friday, Feb. 13, 2004 | 12:26 PM

Skip this if you�re not interested in reading about my boring psychodrama.

I had a bit of a revelation this morning. I thought about all the men I�ve ever been romantically involved with, and all the things that they have in common. And here�s the list:

Intelligent to the point of brilliance, talented, excellent sense of humor, obsessed with either music or movies (or both), insecure, needy, appearing to be fiercely independent but looking to be constantly mothered, big hearted but in some way emotionally disconnected and afraid of intimacy, flirtatious, kind to strangers, children, animals, and anyone in need, indecisive, passionate about ideas, vacillating between idealization of home and family and idealization of total independence, blaming others for their own problems, tendency to be misunderstood by other people, having a wellspring of creative and/or emotional potential that they somehow are unwilling or incapable of tapping, a deep well hidden reservoir of hurt existing within them, paranoia, inability to be alone for any real length of time, bookish, embodying at once an air of social and cultural elitism/hipsterdom yet maintaining a grounded blue collar every man quality, erratic behavior, intellectually and/or politically eccentric but personally quite traditional, needing to be liked, passive aggressive, intense work ethic, childhood �issues� that never got dealt with, being beautiful and vulnerable souls with a great deal to give to the world.

And then here are the similarities between my relationships with all of them.

Intellectually/emotionally fascinated by me to the extent of near hero worship but somehow incapable of deciding what exactly I mean to them in any concrete way, loving me more when I am not around and/or pursuing other lovers than when I am actually with them, inappropriate intensity and or non-categorizable relationship [e.g. �What exactly are we to each other?] occasional confessions of love and desire peppered throughout long periods of treating me like I don�t exist, freaking out when I admit that I love and/or need them, I become their therapist and/or barometer as to how they are doing in the world, much joy derived from the shared passions for film/music/comedy and creating something together (music usually), marathon conversations about everything under the sun, not being able to give me what it is I really �need� (whatever the fuck that is), vacillating between thinking I�m beautiful beyond all reason and totally repulsive, having to constantly vie and compete for their affections, being generous beyond the call of duty in some respects and yet terribly selfish in others, feeling like there�s something I have to hide or change about myself in order to have them in my life. And finally, the relationship ending (or if not the relationship itself but some aspect of the relationship� most likely the romantic portion) in some brutally hurtful way where I feel utterly worthless and abandoned.

Gee. Who�s the first man I ever met that embodies all those qualities? What�s the first relationship I ever had that played out like that?

You got it.

Daddy.

I know how perfectly obvious this is, and I�ve thought about it before, but now I�m really thinking about it �cause I don�t wanna keep doing this bullshit over and over again, you know?

My father died when I was 12. I worshipped him. We had a very strange relationship (see above.) One day without warning he was just dead. Gone. I never got to resolve any of it. Something that hit me this morning just as I was waking up is that I am picking Daddy over and over again and showering him with love and adoration and trying to �fix� him and take care of him, because I think I feel like the reason my father died was that I failed him�that I couldn�t make him OK, and that the reason he couldn�t give me what I needed was because I wasn�t worth it or didn�t deserve it. And thus it�s my fault he left. It�s the central huge hurt of my life.

But the thing is, nobody could have fixed daddy. And unfortunately, daddy died before I could figure that out. These �projects�� these beautiful boys with beautiful souls who have just one teeny tiny terrible fracture along their psyches�I�m not going to be able to fix them and get what I need from them either. I stare into them and see all of the beautiful glorious potential�and that potential is very real. But that�s all it is. And it�s somehow pathological and dishonest to try to �fix� someone. I am genuinely concerned and I do genuinely care and love without consideration, but alongside of that there is my own little agenda-- I�ll heal you and make you OK and then you�ll love me fully the way that I love you and then I�ll be OK. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. It has to stop. People aren�t cars that can be bought and refurbished. You can�t go messing around with their psyches and their souls.

There�s a disconnect here�I�m trying to put it all together. Puzzle pieces. This oscillation. Anonymous sex versus heavy intense romantically charged yet undefined friendships.

Breathe. Just breathe.

It is after all almost Valentines Day.

I�m not saying that the men I�ve loved are all the same person�they are all actually quite dissimilar from each other in many respects, but there�s a few running themes here that cannot be ignored. The question is, how to fucking change it?