thoughts vs. feelings

        I've been thinking about the validity of feelings. You may or may not know that I believe that feelings are all that's real. What I mean by that is that our perceptions are what's real. It doesn't matter what's actually out there. What we hold in our minds is what we perceive to be the real thing. It becomes the real thing. It seems like a pretty simple concept to me, but some people don't understand it. For more clarification, I guess you should read up on Plato or something.
        This isn't just about philosophy. It's about psychology too. The Schachter and Singer two-factor theory of emotion states that emotions aren't just about physical response. Your preconceptions will affect your emotions too. Your beliefs play a big part, and emotions, almost by definition, aren't rational. You don't feel an emotion just because you are supposed to.
        Why is this relevant? It's been sort of bugging me with this whole D nonsense starting up again. I can never be sure if he's using me. In fact, even if he is, I'm fairly certain he doesn't know it. It's been bugging me because if he knew it, he wouldn't tell me. Since even he doesn't know, then there's no way to know at all. Then I got to thinking, does it matter? Why does it matter what his initial creeping motivations were? Maybe he just wanted to try things again with me because I'm hot and he can't stand it. Maybe he wanted to try things again with me because everyone else is pairing up for prom and he feels lonely. Maybe he wanted to try things again with me because he didn't get into his safety school, which was his biggest chance at hope, so he just needed to lean on the only one who cared anymore.
        For now, he thinks he wants to go to prom and all that nonsense because he still loves me. He thinks he only didn't want to go with me before and liked other girls because he was only trying to convince himself that he was better off without me. He feels his thoughts through and through. These are just rationalizations, but I'm not sure that it matters anymore. Who says that just because you rationalized something, it's not true? It's true because you feel it. It's true because you know it. You know that you haven't rationalized even if you didn't. Everyone knows that their feelings are the truth.
-T.