h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"I think you’re a really nice guy, but..."
—which leads, in this case, not to the terribly hackneyed, apathy-inducing depression of the rejected, but instead to a quietly wandering speculation on the nature of...well, things. The sine curve, at the moment, is very distinctly below the x-axis, and while it is far closer to “mildly disappointed” than “hysterically disconsolate,” I cannot help wondering why—every time I cease to be able to find meaning and satisfaction in intellectual or physical pursuits—I turn to a sort of amorphous desire for a formless companion who places her head on my chest and looks up at the stars with me, and forges, through sheer force of will (but of course, without the slightest effort), a timeless bubble amid the chaotic disequilibrium that, though entertaining and vibrant and challenging, is undeniably wearying, monotonous, and daunting in its seeming infinity. The shifting landscape offers no respite, and I would not long for one so badly if only I could create—in the space between her breath and mine—a slip, a discontinuity in the stream of neverending meetings and minutes, a break, a hiccup in the unceasing babble of formulae and surface areas, an infinitesimal fold in the fabric of everything through which I could escape—if only for a moment—to take a breath, and live again. And then, the grinding, grinding, grinding through which I grind myself again and again would not exact so harsh a toll on my wavering belief that there is some point to all of this, and I could stagger on, in my world of puppets dangling from invisible strings, sanity balanced on the unending edge of a knife.

Instead, there is nothing.

It’s not _her_ I want; it's who she _is_.