Like magnets pushing apart

Is how Cattenberg and I decided is a good way to characterise why we don't work. Rather than the opposite ends of magnets, we are similarly polarised, and that is why we are fantastic friends and parents, but cannot be.

Truth is, we're both quite awesome. But we are both inherently similar, and this causes problems. Both of us are pretty laid back. A good trait. But when you combine two people quite so laid back, nothing ever gets done. Each enables the inertia of the other. In small doses I like the version of Woodcat that can happily waste an hour, a day, a week in idleness. In the long run she is not who I want to be. On my own, or in the company of those who challenge me, I will achieve, albeit intermittently, I will create, even more intermittently, and I will read voraciously. Occasionally I'll exercise. I'll eat well, most of the time, save when I hate myself, and then chocolate ice cream is my weapon of choice. But in the company of someone quite so very much like me I slide into perpetual inactivity, nightly TV marathons and massive pizza consumption. I get sluggish, I don't create, I don't do. I sound like I'm trying to excuse blame here. I'm not. But I am self aware enough to realise that it takes a certain type of special someone, someone almost unbelievably similar to myself, for all these characteristics to become quite so dominant. And Cattenberg is the same. He used to write. He used to go and stand on a stage and crack jokes. Some of them were funny and everything. Now he eats pizza and doesn't write. Somehow we, by feeling so comfortable around each others similarity to our respective selves, became the versions of ourselves that we find abhorrent, uncomfortable.

I hope that Cattenberg meets someone who challenges him. And if I ever get around to that sort of thing, I'd need someone who challenges me too. Creatively, actively, someone who is determined, passionate about their interests and engaged in their life. People who hold onto themselves and their creativity. People who will let a day slide. Because letting a day slide is awesome. But not three years. Because three years is terrifying. A promise to myself, and advice to Cattenberg, let's never date people so much like ourselves ever again.