You stated your case time and again...

This evening as Aaron and I sat talking, he asked a question that I felt needed to be answered. Thanks to Jessica and her increased interest in Bible verses, I had my computer next to me. My personal deity (i.e.-Google) was on hand to answer any question I threw at it.

So I started typing in my Google toolbar "how do you..."

I love the suggested queries that Google provides me with when I type in questions. I stopped in the middle of my question to see what was offered.

1) How do you tell if you're pregnant
2) How do you get to northend [editor's note: where?]
3) How do you get pregnant [editor's note: people on Google seem really concerned about pregnancy.]
4) How do you tell if a girl likes you

The last one (which was actually second, I think, on the list of options) was most intriguing to me. I mean, who Googles that question? On second thought, though, I figure a lot of people must have. Relationships are so weird and so uncomfortable to so many people that the only place they feel they can turn for a straight answer is the Internet. Think about it, your friends either tell you what they know you want to hear to make you feel better or what they know you don't want to hear to prepare you for the worst.

But how do they know? They don't, most of the time. So you ask Google. Because those anonymous sources on the Web are just that. They have no vested interest in your feelings. And when you ask an open question like "how do you tell..." the answers are so vast and varied that you will almost always see something that makes sense to you.

It isn't like asking a specific yes or no. "He calls me names in front of our friends but is nice in private. Good or bad?" Because guess what, depending on where they are coming from, people have different answers for this question.

And the people on the "how do you tell..." website certainly told their answers based on where they were coming from. But there was a surprising amount of overlap.

What stuck me most was how much I was, in fact, struck. The answers people provided made me laugh. Some seemed so juvenile (especially the one that wuz typed jus lyk thiz) and some seemed so wrong. But some seemed so insightful. And so reminiscent of the things that I tried to convince myself. We have all tried to convince ourselves that somebody liked us, I think. I also believe we've all tried to convince ourselves that somebody didn't like us.

It made me think about past mistakes. Past triumphs. Past lots of things. And also, of the future.

Yeah, a lot of it is utter rubbish and only good for a laugh. But I think that isn't the only thing it's good for... You tell me.