Do you like yourself enough to date?

      She sat down at her desk and looked at the black notebook that sat in front of her mocking her. She hadn’t written anything worth reading in weeks and it was really beginning to get to her.
         “You’re not a real writer,” she thought to herself as she sighed and looked out the window.
         A man wearing a long, well tailored, dark brown trench walked past carrying a bunch of roses. He walked quickly, as though something was chasing him and he looked down at the ground. “Must be running from his guilt,” she smiled and looked back at her desk. She picked up her pen and pulled her legs onto the seat of the chair. She rested her chin on her knees as she meditatively sucked on the end of her pen. She never actually bit her pens but she did suck on them and she wasn’t sure if that was just as bad or worse. “Hello, my name is Ren and I might have an oral fixation,” she smiled again.
         Looking back out of the window, continuing to suck on the end of her pen, she noticed a man and a woman walking down the street now. They were one of those couples that you had to look twice at to realize which one was the boy and which was the girl. She watched them walk a little and stop to kiss and then walk a little more. She felt a bit like a voyeur as she watched their private, intimate moment, that didn’t stop her from watching. She felt a twinge of jealousy spring up in her and she allowed it to come and pass. She stood up and walked over to her bed which was being occupied by her cat. She picked her up as she sat on the bed and began petting her.
         “I wonder,” She said out loud, “what is it that people are really looking for in a romantic relationship?” She looked down at her cat that couldn’t care less what she was saying just as long as the petting didn’t stop. That didn’t matter though, “I mean...people say that you shouldn’t date yourself because most people really don’t like themselves. But, then, doesn’t that mean you shouldn’t be dating anyone?” Her cat yawned and stretched out a bit so she had more surface area to pet. “I think I would rather like to date myself. I understand myself and I know almost every move I’m going to make. Wouldn’t that be a benefit in a relationship with someone else? To be able to understand they way they work?” She laid the cat on the bed and picked up her recorder, switching it on.
         She continued, “I’m not saying I want to date a clone of myself because then there is no point in being with someone else,” she paused, “except maybe the sex would be more fun,” she smiled. “But, seriously, one of the hardest things with relationships is not being able to understand how the other person thinks. Maybe it’s just me but I’ve spent plenty of time figuring out my own movements and actions and understanding why and at this point in my life I am searching for a kindred spirit and I do not want to waste time figuring them out.” She looked over to her cat, who was now staring at her, willing her to come back and finish the petting job she had begun.
         She picked up her cat and continued talking, “I’m not saying that it is a complete waste of time, I just like knowing what I’m getting myself into. Learning about someone else can be fun, definitely. But I don’t want to have to learn to understand why he feels the need to lie about something simple and petty. Or why he cannot express what’s going on inside of his head.”
         She walked back to her desk. Sitting down she looked out of the window again, “if I didn’t want to have the excitement of learning about someone else then I really would want to date my own clone.” She clicked off the recorder and leaned forward on her desk studying the world outside of her window.