Reaching for the unattainable

Not many English majors can decide on a single book as their favorite — it's something of a faux pas to even try — but I can't stop returning to how much I connect with "One Hundred Years of Solitude." For the sake of being spoiler-free, I won't name the character in "Solitude" who became much more to me than a passing name and a personality.

She is one of those characters who behaves in a way that angers you, along with reminding you of yourself. She wants what she can't have. She is only able to fall in love when the man of interest is nowhere near ready to be with someone or already in a relationship.

One man begins to pursue her after facing his own painful rejection. She has been in love with him for years. When he asks her to marry him, she says, "Don't waste your time," and, "If you really love me so much, don't set foot in this house again."

She condemns him so flatly that he kills himself.

Years pass and she rejects another man, knowing well he is another rare opportunity for genuine, mutual love. She dies alone.

I've never motivated a man to cut his wrists and stick them in acid, to my knowledge, but I have driven men away. I've ended bad relationships, but some ended that were inherently good — only at odds with my fixation with the unattainable.

Setting aside that I am either innately self-obsessed or self-loathing, my main theory is that I don't necessarily want the unattainable so much as I want to be unattainable.

My "first love" ended up making the word "relationship" look like it needed a "t" at the end. I nearly put college second to him, at his request, before I had the timely epiphany that college trumps crazy.

Every relationship after that ended after a handful of months, whether it was with a keeper or a creeper.

Like the character in "Solitude," I'm drawn to what (and who) I can't have. I've never cheated and I've never tried to be a homewrecker, but I have had maddeningly strong attractions toward the occasional straight friend, gay friend or his boyfriend (or both of them).

I pursue none of these attractions. I know they're irrational, and I'm beginning to suspect that such fantastical whims are there to replace the pain that comes from being rational and facing fears.

Fear of failure, of being cheated on (again), and losing a friend (again). Fear of finding out someone wasn't a lifelong equal after all, just another woeful letdown.

Why face these fears, especially when it comes so naturally to gravitate toward the emotionally, sexually or monogamously unavailable?

There have been a couple of relationships where I knew I was with a keeper, but I couldn't bring myself to fall, feel or want to be in love.

I'd honestly rather not be drawn to the unattainable at all, out of fear that I'm being a bad friend, but I'm apparently wired to want the impossible.

My current plan is simply to graduate this semester, not worry about mental beaugage. Perhaps the aforementioned "first love" did such damage that I can't focus on anything romantically plausible until I've graduated.

At least if I end up dying alone, I'll have a degree, right?