THINGS THAT I HAVE LEARNED SO FAR FROM SHERLOCK FANFICTION THAT I SHOULD PROBABLY WRITE DOWN BEFORE I FORGET

1. Communication problems do not stop when you fall in love. You will spend the rest of your life trying, and failing, to understand your other half.

2. You can be sexy and hideous at the same time.

3. In fact, you can't be anything else. You are sexy and hideous, beautiful and wretched, at the same time. You always will be. Acquiring the love of someone else will do absolutely nothing to change it.

4. A true lover will love you with your flaws. This is a great deal better than loving you in spite of your flaws. There is no in spite. Your lover either loves you or doesn't, you, all of you, and the wretched, ugly parts are just as much you as the lovely parts are.

5. Happiness isn't very important when you have a cause.

6. You are marvellous. There's no point in pretending otherwise. For every time you think, "How can s/he love me, given that I am so pathetic?" there should be a time you think, "Goddamn I'm fine." Humility is far overrated as a virtue; vanity is far overrated as a vice.

7. The only thing worth pursuing, really, the only thing that matters--if anything should matter to a species like ours (and of course there is no way to tell)--is the transcendent: giving to something bigger, better, than yourself. That's what drugs are for, that's what religion is for, that's what sex is for, that's what love is for. [It is my personal opinion that the greatest of these is love.]

8. Ironically, it's when you pursue being a part of something better than yourself that you become more yourself than you are under any other circumstances.

9. All kisses after the first kiss are the second kiss. Kisses never get old, never get boring, when they are with a beloved; they are always new, always miraculous.

10. Acquiring love will not fix all your problems. Your problems will go nowhere, and they will still, occasionally, eat you alive. But a) not as often, and b) you will have someone sitting with you while they do, and that's infinitely better than the alternative.

11. Be exquisitely careful. You are dangerous.

12. Human bodies are gross. You should not expect your lover's to be any different, and your lover has no right to look down on you because yours is. See Nos. 4 and 16.

13. Making yourself a better person has nothing whatsoever to do with making yourself a more normal or more socially acceptable person. In many instances making yourself a better person will result in your being more broken, more crazy, more desperate, and far, far less successful, happy, temperate, or likeable. Don't try to make yourself a better person if those things are the goals you're focussing on.

14. You will fail. Often, and badly. It's the human condition. It's not a problem. There's no point in being particularly upset about it.

15. Savor, hoard, and hold on to information. You never know what's going to come in handy and in what way. You need to know everything. There is nothing that is not worth knowing.

16. Stop judging. Start thinking of things as interesting. Things can be horrible and still be worth knowing. Hell, things can be horrible and still be fascinating.

17. There is nothing that is not worth knowing.

 18. Knowledge can sometimes be extraordinarily expensive. The only thing that makes it worth it is to make it useful to you.

19. There only needs to be one. Absolutely everyone else in the world can make you feel like an alien or bore you to tears, and it will still be fine..

20. Don't try to hide the bad or weak parts of yourself from your partner. Trying to hide them probably won't work anyway, and it will make you look dishonest. Re-read No. 4, and show a little respect for your partner's ability to compass you.

21. There is no top or bottom; there is no dom/me or sub: you both demand and you both concede.

22. There will be times when you can't feel anything anymore, including love. When these times come, do the following: 1) continue behaving toward your partner as you think you would if you did still feel love; 2) whatever, anything, you have to do to get back to yourself. It is also probably be a good idea to tell your partner what's going on and why you now find it necessary to behave like a lunatic.