I have gone through several diffrent stages concerning girls.
I had a string of girlfriends through high school and college and none of them were much of anything. If anything, it was just someone to pass the time with, someone to fool around with, or just someone to be with for the sake of having someone to be with.
That being said I do have a woman in my life right now. I'm engaged to a girl I worked with while I was in Korea and things couldn't be better. Well they could be better but not in a relationship manner. Our relationship is great, it's strong and vibrant. The only part that sucks about it is we're in the process of waiting for the visa paperwork to come through so she can emigrate to the states. It really figures, the government screws over citizens who try to do things properly by making them jump through a dozen flaming hoops of doom while those who come here illegally aren't punished. But that's government for you.
All in all I enjoy having a partner in life. Someone who has similar likes and dislikes and who understands what I'm going to say or do before I say or do it and vice versa. It's important to find someone you fit with, someone who gets you and who you get. It's always better to share your life, your hopes and dreams, and goals with someone then to go it alone. It's even better when that someone understands you and actively helps you achieve your goals because they are the same as their own.
Girls are a very magical and wonderful thing. They have such potential in the minds of men to both build and destroy all manner of other relationships. They can bring out our worst traits or our best. They can make us better people or they can take us down a road of despair and misery and I wouldn't have it any other way. Relationships, both good and bad, have a way of making us stronger and a way of teaching us lessons about ourselves that we would not normally be able to learn. The same is doubly true if you have ever or are living with your girl.
In one of the Dialogues Socrates tells a story about the rolly pollys. He says that the first creatures the Gods created were large, round beings called rolly pollys. These creatures decided to become Gods themselves and so they started rolling their way up Mt Olympus. The Gods, once they realized what the creatures were trying to do, split the creatures in half. However the split wasn't perfect, one of the halves had a little bit more flesh then the other. That was the birth of men and women and the rest of our lives all we are doing is trying to fit the two halves together again in order to once again become a single entity.
The story wasn't part of the accepted Greek religious authority and it was really only used to illustrate why men ran around trying out so many diffrent women but ultimately the story is quite touching. We really are just running around looking for the person that completes us.