traveling pants

is it weird that i relate and identify so much with fictional characters from books, movies, and tv? does anyone else do this?

the author of the traveling pants series personified all my conflicting parts in her four main characters. i can relate to each one in different ways.

in tibby i see the darker side of my life and the part of me that doesn't care what people think.

i see in bridget the part of me that loved(s) to run. when i run i get in a zone where all my thoughts are organized. i feel like if i run hard enough, if i push myself faster, that nothing can touch me, nothing can hurt me. i also see the part of me that craves physical intimacy. [single minded to the point of distraction.]

carmen's my physical self. bigger than a number of girls, she doesn't feel comfortable with herself most of the time. she's also the writer. she's the one with unexpressed anger.

but it's lena that i connect with closest to my heart. she's the one who doesn't really know who she is, where she's going, or what she wants to do. in the movie lena is afraid. she puts walls up without knowing why. she doesn't have unconditional faith. she has everything, she has lost nothing, but she can't open herself to love, as much as she might want to.

when it comes to the females of the population i'm good. i open up fairly easily and it's not too hard for me to trust them. but put a guy in the mix and i'm not really the same person. it takes me a long time to get emotionally involved with a guy, and that's just when we're trying to be friends. the one guy i ever really wanted to open up to didn't want anything to do with me. looking back on the "men" that i've tried to be romantically involved with, i've never truly been interested in any of them. my interest was always sparked by someone else, either by continuously pointing them out or by claiming that he was already crushing on me. there's only one guy that i'd say my interest is personally founded in and he's the same one who doesn't want anything to do with me.

i wasn't even remotely attracted to the guy i went on my first date with . i said yes to him just to get it over with. and it wasn't even a good date!

i mean when the guy comes along, am i even going to be open enough to let him close? i want to be.

and is this an underlying reason why i chose a women's college?