Distractions.

There are so many beautiful women in the world. How do you settle on one choice? So many disparate elements floating and swirling around you that make your eyes twitch. The smallest of qualities become such appealing assets; A great laugh. A winning smile. An incredible shape. An infectious spirit. All of these things refract like shards of light in your peripheral, and though each one is alluring in their own right, they remain scattered and segregated amongst a throng of individuals, rarely collecting inside one perfect specimen.

And that's why we try to be adults and not indulge individuals for a piece instead of the whole. It's why we learn to draw lines between lovers and friends. Because even if that laugh, or that smile, that body or that charm pulls you forward, these things alone aren't enough to make you stay.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Which is a goddamn shame. I'm a bit of a collector. I tend to organize and recruit friends based on the level of interest they generate in me, avoiding the boring, the typical or the insensitive on the basis that life is short, and you might as well spend it with people who make you smile.

But if I had the power, I'd capture, distill and bottle those elements into a simmering confection of perfect chemicals -- and go swimming in it.

Alas, I don't have this power. I can be good. I can look and not touch. I can understand the difference between need and desire. I can choose to avoid the inevitable pitfalls of emotional involvement and only traverse that minefield with someone that matters, someone that's worth risking everything for.

And hope I'm grown up enough not to destroy everything.