We are but cogs in a wheel moving in an ever-fastidious cycle towards déjà vu. Evolving only toward a repetition of journeys encompassing our lives, leaving us bound to repeat and deny until we find that we've missed our chance to escape the endless metronome of seamless starts and disappointing ends. We hear about destiny, chance, and fate, but what of our hand in it all? Where do we submit our request to change course? When are we given the opportunity to take fate by the hand, changing its direction, breaking the cycle, and thus reshaping our destiny?

Within the wonderful world of love, we too are bound to repeat mistakes; thus finding ourselves in a cycle of failed relationships that never seem to progress toward something lasting and truly positive in nature.

You'd think that after enough turns at the merry-go-round of dating disaster, you’d learn just where you stepped off course. Alas, you still find yourself with the same psycho girl who wants you to change your hair style and ditch your "so called by her" loser friends, thus clenching her nails deeply under your skin until she makes you hers, whether you want to be or not. Yes, she's also the girl who hates your Spike Lee films, despises your favorite food, and can't understand how in the world you find Jeff Buckley easy on the ears. More fundamentally, she doesn't understand you the way your friends do, and her forty five minute dissertation on the life lessons learned from Dawson’s Creek leave you wondering what you ever found appealing in her. Where oh where is your dream girl hiding, and how do you keep ending up with her evil stepsister instead?

When I was fifteen my best friend and I drafted The List. The List was simply that, a list of all the qualities we wished for our future beau to possess. Mine was quite simplistic and altogether superficial, noting the want of dark hair, blue eyes, and six feet in height. I hadn't thought about the list until it recently fell out from the confines of a high school scrapbook where I would house a collection of gum wrappers, napkins, and sugar packets that for some reason or another must have seemed important to keep at the time.

Thinking back to the moment I made the list, I have to laugh now, as I realize the way in which it has culminated into something quite complicated and specific now that I'm in my 20's. Over time this list, whether I noted it down on paper or not, had been ever evolving, becoming a more complicated set of ideals with every failed relationship I stepped out of.

Having said that, I must admit that I too have found myself within various downtrodden relationship cycles, leaving me in need of change, or wishing my boyfriend would change in order for us to fit together “naturally.” I've watched both male and female friends do the same, always wondering how they continue to find the same "type" of partners. Many times I've heard friends proclaim, "why is he/she trying to change me?" They do this without questioning what it takes to find a relationship where they feel comfortable with being themselves.

Now don't get me wrong, there will always be some sort of minor shifting in likes/personalities when two individuals come together to form a pair. But I'm talking about those fundamental things which you may not now even realize you want out of a relationship. Do we ever stop within the cycle and question just what it is that we're missing but haven't yet found? Is our only concern finding that next time filler? Do we simply jump without hesitation into another relationship without taking time out to narrow down our search requirements? In taking time out to reflect, perhaps we can then nail down and eliminate those traits which set off the psycho radar and fill in the void with that which will enable us to find the person who truly fits us.

It's often hard not to give into the urge to simply fall into a relationship with the next person who catches your eye. It surely helps to get you over the fact that you've yet again leapt over the relational threshold proclaiming "life is beautiful" and left slamming the exit door shouting "life sucks". It helps mend the wounds by simply harboring the grief in a time capsule to be exposed again when you least expect it. To jump into something without first trying to establish just what went wrong in your past, only leaves you doomed to either repeat your mistakes once more, or find another terror in the guise of a seemingly sweet, good natured girl.

Isn't it worth the possible loneliness found in living a period of your life single in order to gain perspective on those things about you which you'd want the person you're with to share or at least understand? To keep us from wandering once more into something superficial and fleeting (given that's not what you're looking for), perhaps it takes coming to understand that it may be more important to feel well suited in cerebral and emotional conjunction rather than occupied in physical state? In keeping yourself entertained by simply jumping from one relationship to the next, are you really seeking refuge from loneliness? Aren't you in fact still lonely if the person you're occupying your time with doesn't really see you because she is too busy trying to mold you into her very own Ken doll?

We don't all have to go so far as to draw up a list, but the least we can do is stop dead in our tracks to reflect upon the past, rather than covering up its remnants by kicking up dust as we run for our new tomorrow. How have you once again found yourself staring bewildered into the eyes of a girl who either can't get over her past, has stalker tendencies, perhaps belongs in a loony bin, or is all together emotionally unavailable? Perhaps you always go for the girl seeking refuge herself, the girl in need of help, the damsel in distress who leaves you feeling needed because you spend all of your time coming up with ways in which to solve her problems. Sure this may leave you feeling heroic, but are your needs being met in between her crises of the day, or have you become so preoccupied with the damsel that you’ve forgotten that you even have needs?

The wonderful thing about life is that the repetition of it all makes for the chance to change course with the next revolution of the merry-go-round. You can choose to spend the next ride either vexing fate because it has once again stuck you in a relationship that leaves you feeling less than hopeful, or you can choose to map out your own destiny. The future lies within our very grasp, and it is through the recognition of our down falls and the determination to make a change, that we trick fate into throwing us a better hand, or at least a better catch the next time around.