Keepin' it real with relationships

And another one bites the dust.\nCarson Daly & Tara Reid. Meg Ryan & Dennis Quaid. Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman. Benjamin Bratt & Julia Roberts. Meg Ryan, again, & Russell Crowe. Lucky guys & myself. The relationship saga continues as the rich and famous just can't seem to hold it together, and the young and restless here in the Midwest can't seem to find anything that works.\nMy mother once told me that the guys worth keeping didn't like girls that called them, smoked cigarettes or were drunk at least once a week. At the rate I was headed (and still am heading) there was no chance for me to ever find anyone real she told me, all of this at the age of 16.\nTo this day, the mother seems to be right. Whether it is the distance or the age or the other girl already baring the title of "girlfriend," nothing seems to work out for me. Sounds like a personal problem, right? Well maybe, but it just seems like so much of what entertains us in both music and television and so much of what we spend our lives doing revolves around relationships and being with someone, if only for one night or for the rest of our lives.\nRelationships. I could probably use my space every week just to talk about them and why I can't manage to find one that works while I don't even know that if I found one if I would want one. It is almost pathetic how much my daily life involves the constant quest for that guy, the one that makes me feel like no one else before or if that guy is nowhere around, just one for a few days or maybe a few months.\nIn middle school my first serious boyfriend, Evan, used to hang out with two of my best friends more than me. My mother didn't like him because his zip code was different than mine and he wore baggy pants, and I never got to spend the time with him that was crucial in 6th grade relationships. I became convinced that he was cheating on me with one or both of them. I became so psychotic about this idea that I blamed the girls, as girls always do, and wrecked two friendships over a guy that I would never be with today.\nAnd so it began. The constant game of chase, where getting the guy is the fun, keeping the guy is okay and losing the guy at the end doesn't end up being as big of a deal as it seems at the time.\nThe game has not changed, even as I have changed. Some relationships have been longer than others, some only for one night. At times it is hard to know which ones are better, the ones that are exciting and passionate even if only for hours or those that are drawn out and meaningful, even if they end in temporary heartbreak. It is a tough call. I don't know if I know the answer.\nI have friends who are in love, friends that are single and looking and friends who enjoy the single life and would probably like to live the life if randomness without ever tying down if that was possible. But I guess you can't be young forever and if you aren't George Clooney and the most eligible, being single at forty isn't the best or easiest idea.\nThe truth is that even at my young age, I get lonely. When I am fighting with my parents and can't call them and there are no friends around, it is easy to want something more than just a casual relationship.\nIn sitting here thinking about all of this as I watch movie after movie about love and relationships in all of their shapes and forms, I just realize that I want to find something real with someone real.\nI don't really care if it lasts a day or a year, as long as I find someone that teaches me something or makes me feel something stronger than sexual desire or an average level of "like."\nI guess this is what everyone wants. Everyone wants to find what they are looking for and before they find it to at least have the knowledge to know what they want so they can pick the right person. Everyone is scared of mistakes. Mistakes leave people heartbroken. Mistakes can end in divorce. Mistakes can waste the best years of college, the warmest summer days.\nBut mistakes also build the idea of the perfect person. They teach people what they want and what they want to stay away from and perhaps in the end they are worth it, even if years pass or divorces are messy. Everything does happen for a reason, right?\nI don't know. I guess the reason why I am writing this column is just so that people like me, who fall in love with the guys they can't or shouldn't have and can't love the guys that love them, know that there is someone out there who is feeling their pain big time.\nI have been told that I write columns about the average and often superficial parts of life, some liken me to Sarah Jessica Parker on "Sex in the City," I only wish I could write as often as she does and afford Prada. I don't really go into the foreign affairs or my opinions about George W. (if you must know-I love him).\nI write about what really interests me in my college life that doesn't really have any direct correlation with world affairs, but that might be another column. My space is filled with stories about beer, guys and friends, the big three of the college years, I think (partying included with the beer). Everything else is elementary when there are kegs to tap and dudes to fall in love with or just spend the night with.\nSo what wise, brave, strong insight do I have on finding someone worthwhile or not even bothering? I am not sure. I guess just that everything will work out in the end.