No Promises

People ask me why I smoke.

Well, I picked up smoking because I was betrayed. Up until the age of 18, I had no idea what it meant to have your trust broken and your belief in another human shattered. Sure, I had faced disappointments before but losing out in a track and field meet or finding out that your Dad’s sister hated your guts for no apparent reason was not quite the same as being betrayed for the first time.

I had just returned from holiday in Europe after about a month. My then boyfriend had gone on holiday prior to my departure. He returned home after I had left my hols so altogether, we hadn’t seen each other for close to two months. Ten years ago, at 18, we couldn’t afford cellphones. Pagers were the in-thing at the time and neither of us had the luxury of having a laptop with remote access to the Internet to email each other either. If memory serves correct, I was still using a 56kbps dial-up at home on my first desktop. Either way, over those 2 months, contact and conversations between us were very few and far between.

When I returned home after my holiday, I shortly found out that the then boyfriend had cheated on me during my absence. Worst of all, I knew the girl too. We were mutual friends and all studying in the same faculty. My heart broke. My trust for him and our relationship no longer existed and for the first time in my life, I understood the meaning of the word betrayal. If you ask me why it was such a big deal well, quite simply, he was the first guy I ever fell in love with. I knew not of such emotion, feeling or happiness until we got together and he took all of that away with one impulsive decision.

The next few weeks following the revelation were intense. I didn’t eat. I subsisted on Vitasoy (for my foreign readers, Vitasoy is a soya bean based drink) and nothing much else. Then one day, for some reason I felt compelled to do something damaging. So I went to the nearest store, bought my first pack of cigarettes, a lighter and went down the street, lighting my very first cigarette, taking my first few drags, thinking that I would never trust another human with my heart ever again.

That tumultuous relationship lasted a lot longer afterwards. Over the course of 3 years, he cheated on me a total of 3 times, with 3 different girls. Yes, I was stupid, naïve and most tellingly, desperate enough to stick with him throughout all of that. Like they say, third time lucky eh?

Ten years on, I still smoke. I’m not a hardcore smoker by a mile but I haven’t made a conscious effort to try and quit either. Though I have forgiven my then boyfriend for whatever has happened in the past, my cigarettes remind me of how easy it is to have your emotions trampled on and flung out the window like confetti. Even when I was with D - probably the only other man whom I have ever had any real feelings for - I never felt any compulsion to give up smoking. Somehow, over the years, with my constantly growing and renewed cynicism, perhaps the only thing that has remained constant is the fact that I have no qualms about reaching for my cigarettes and lighting up.

I am in no way an advocate of the habit and I just want to make it clear that my decision to not kick the habit is purely a personal one. I can go without cigarettes for days but I have come to realise that my desire to step out and light up is usually fuelled by some sort of emotional or mental distress – work, friends, family, personal life etc. And because until today, I cannot forget the feeling of betrayal.

And that is why I smoke.

P.S. On the subject of D, I went home last night to discover that he had sent over an entire box of my personal belongings that I had left behind in his apartment, many, many, many months (we’re talking a year +++ here), ago when we split up. Frankly I had given up all hope on ever seeing those things again. Anyway, they have been returned after all this time, and I do not know the motivation behind the action because we are not on speaking terms. I am inclined to think that perhaps he has a new partner that he has asked to move in with him, or maybe he’s just finally decided to move on. Whatever the case, I hope he is well and I wish him nothing but joy and happiness in the future.

We're all lions. Well, not quite.

Remember the cowardly lion from the Wizard of Oz? I have this theory that at some point in all our lives, every one of us gets like that character. In fact, it probably happens quite often but we just never stop to think long enough about it.

Fear brings out the worst in people. Mankind's history is riddled with examples. People fear change. People fear the unknown. People fear that tomorrow will result in a lack of something. People fear loss. People fear rejection. People fear death. People fear bloody people.

Okay so those things all sound like big ticket items, none of which you think are relevant to you. Let me make it more bite-sized then.

When's the last time you stood up for something you believed in? Be it religion, be it a school of thought, be it an opinion of yours... just how many times have you stood up for something that had meaning to you? It doesn't have to be dramatic but if you disagree with someone at work and you believe that your opinion counts for something, do you stand up and say, "Sod all of this, I don't buy this bullshit and this is why" or do you just swallow your pride, nod mutely in total agreement with whoever is lording the alternative over your head and just go with the rest of the herd? Guilty of the latter? Sure you are. I am too. Hooray! Let's throw a party for the losers eh? :)

How about a different example. Like staying in relationship that you know is unhealthy and bad for you in the long run. Sure, you've been together a while and sure, it's all good on the outside but you know there's issues underneath. Your partner may have cheated on you and you decided to stay on even though you've been horribly hurt and you know things will never quite be the same. Or you know that your feelings for your partner are no longer the same and it's getting hard to pretend that everything is all fine and dandy but you just can't bring yourself to say it out loud and deal with the matter. Or you've been together so bloody long that you can't even recall how you even met but he/she doesn't want to take to the next level and you know that you want to do something about it because God knows, it plagues you even in your dreams but you choose to sit there like a deaf/dumb/blind statue all because you have no idea what the consequences will be and you're mighty frightened about any or all possibilities. Guilty? Oh yes, me too. Guilty of being too fearful to take action. Guilty of being too afraid to make a decision. Guilty of not being honest with oneself. Guilty of being so, so, scared that pissing in your pants seems like a less formidable option.

Right, how about I flip the picture around. Ever liked someone but never had the courage to tell the person? Why? Afraid of being rejected of course. Ever wanted to put your hand up and say, "I can do this. Let me do it", but you never raised your skinny arm up because you were afraid of having a bunch of people pointing and bellowing with laughter at your machismo? Ever thought of giving up the everyday grind and going to travel the world, living on a shoestring budget but chucked the idea because, "Oh my god...what if...you know...what if..?!" Yeah what bloody if, indeed.

I suppose 9 out of 10 people who read this will go, "You don't understand. We've been together so long and I love my partner. It's not easy." Sure. Of course it isn't. I'm not asking you to walk out on your relationship. All I'm saying is, grow some balls and deal with the situation. How will you know if there is anything worth salvaging if you're not even sticking one toe into the pond to test the water?

And then I suppose another 9 out of 10 people who read this will go, "You don't understand. I can't stand up during the meeting and say all these things because I'll lose my job and everyone will pelt me with their tuna sandwiches." Really? Do you really know that to happen or is that just a fantasy scenario that you conjured up on one of your more creative days? Again, my point is, if you don't try, how will you sodding know if people will really react that way?

Oh and of course the final 9 out of 10 people who read this will go, "You don't understand. I cannot go up to so-and-so-person-whom-I-care-about-immensely-but-have-never-spoken-more-than-three-words-to-in-the-past-5-years and tell her/him how I feel because...tsk, just look at him/her! I'm not good enough. He/She will never fancy moi!" Seriously, this warrants being clubbed on the head repeatedly with a full pencil case.

Whatever your reasons may be, big or small, valid or invalid, reasonable or just plain stupid, I am sure you have all those reasons in place because of some type of fear. And of course you're entitled to them, entitled to live with them too like a bag of spiders you lug around... and you can grant yourself an occasional peek into the spider-bag and freak out once in a while too. It's your choice and ultimately your life but just think of how different things might be if only you could deal with those spiders.

Courage dear hearts, courage. You owe it to no one but yourselves.

You're right.... but just not right now.

I'll never complain about being single.

You can attribute that attitude to my last serious relationship because ever since I got out of it, I feel like some sort freed blue bird who's high on smack, flying around doing any damn thing I please, whenever, wherever, however I like. Truth be told, there's a certain magic to be able to live your life whichever way you deem fit. The rebel in me thrives at not having to answer for my actions, not having to 'report strength' to anyone and being held responsible for whatever I do...well, because nobody else can be held responsible for my actions.

But therein lies a problem. I know I am not getting any younger. I am creeping up to my 29th birthday. Most people my age are either married, going to get married or already married with a house and a kid. Me? Well, all I have right now is a job and half a dog to be responsible for. Despite my carefree ways, I do get the occasional bout of niggling worry that I've somehow missed the boat. Now, I usually banish that train of thought with a vehement "Get ye behind me Satan" command and go on my merry way but I suppose it would do me good to pause and think about this for a while. So why not think about it today eh?

It's been more than a year now and though I have dated other people in between, I can't say any of those little dalliances meant much to begin with. It's been 6 months, well going 7 now, since I dated anyone proper and I can quite frankly tell you that I am not bothered about the 'single, not looking, can't be arsed' status quo. The irony is that, I do have options. There are guys who are clearly interested. And as far as I can tell, there's at least one who is decent, kind, and not a total shithead. In simple terms, he'd make a good boyfriend. BUT... yes, there has to be a resounding 'but' here... I don't feel inclined to pursue it. I just don't. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the guy. He's smart. He has a freaking PhD for crying out loud. He's not bad looking, far from it in fact. Considering that his parents are dentists, he even has nice teeth. :D He has a job and he's working at making a name for himself. He talks to me regularly and treats me with respect and doesn't demand time or attention from me so all in all, he's got a lot of things going for him. So I suppose I should ask myself the question, "Christ alive woman, what the fuck is wrong with you and why are you waiting?"

Fantastic question. Stellar question. Million-fucking-dollar question. A question that I have asked myself a lot lately. A question that deserves a properly thought-out answer. A question that I can't really answer, to be honest.

The truth is, I don't know why I am holding back. My friends who are in the know of this said person and my lack of reciprocation have also asked me the same question. They've just stopped short of grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking sense into me. But I don't have a clear-cut answer. I like this guy in question. I could see us together but at the same time, I just don't feel like going that far. I don't want to put the both of us in a 'relationship' situation. Part of me is afraid of losing a friend. My friends in the know have told me that this is an unwarranted concern. In fact, the exact statement was, "You have enough close friends to take you through this lifetime. You should just go for it." Mind you, this was said in a bar in Hanoi when we had each consumed at least 5 beers each but it was all shared with feeling and sincerity, hence I have no reason to doubt the intentions behind the sentiment.

Still, I don't want to go after this opportunity even though I have no doubt that it would be a decent run. A large part of me feels like I am just not ready to commit to anyone. Another part of me lives in some inane fairytale land that says that getting together should not take so long. Forgive me for saying this but I think every girl wants to be swept off her feet. The fact that I have known this guy for an extended period of time and that we've ended up good friends, makes me think there's no magic between us. Okay, I suppose that's a load of bat wank considering how I ended up with the last 3 guys but still, I am female and I still want my fairytale start and ending. Halt! Before you judge, the realist in me is far too loud and proud to subscribe to that theory in full. I know that a lot of people end up together after being friends for years. I am, admittedly, a walking bag of contradictions. I am just being an indecisive piece of shite when it comes to this particular situation.

Believe me, this is something I am wrangling with quite seriously. I am sitting here with a list of reasons as to why I should give this feller half a chance. And to counter that list I have a list of reasons as to why I should just say "Oh hell, let's just see where the hell this goes", and the latter list is winning by a mile. Yet I want to keep my options open. Not that any of the other options can offer me much more. After all, most of the men I meet are either weird, priapic, insane or just have one goal - to see me in a state of total undress (nothing great to look at either).

So I don't know what to do and there's a chance that I could see a really fantastic feller ending up with some trollop that will piss me off to no end but I can't blame him for not wanting to wait around for an indecisive monkey like moi. I guess it will be a risk I will have to take but then again, time will tell I suppose.

In any case, I wrote this entire post with one song on repeat. I don't know what about it that makes me want to listen to it over and over again. Perhaps it's the harps, Florence's voice or maybe it's just an awesome tune. Either way, have a listen if you will.

Screw It

I seem to be running thin on patience these days. Actually I have been pushed around a fair bit these past few months and there has been more than one person at any given point, giving me grief of some description or another. It is rather rare for me to lose my head. In fact, those closest to me will tell you that me losing my head is a once-in-six-years sort of affair so when it does actually happen, you should declare it a public holiday.

Anyway, given that I seem to be attracting all manner of rubbish these days and most of my time is spent frustratedly trying prevent things from blowing up at work, I have neglected my friends, my personal time and time with the family as well. The only thing that has kept me going is the visits to the gym and well, my dog. The dog is a new addition to the family. He's just a puppy and his energy is boundless but over the past few months he's helped my mental stability by just being, well...a puppy. He's serves as the best distraction I have ever had in years which makes me wonder why I never pushed harder to get a dog earlier. I grew up with two big dogs as a kid so having pets would have been the ideal way to deal with life's bullshit but I suppose like many things in my life, I chose not to push the matter of getting another pet. Mind you, I don't think I can say the same about having a pet terrapin. And yes, I have had a couple of those as pets before as well. :)

Either way, work remains hellish. My friends continue to rally around me. I am not seeing anyone and at this point in time, I still don't have any desire to pursue a relationship with just any Tom, Dick or Harry so I've kind of left that part of my life untouched. It boggles me somewhat that more than a year has passed since my decision to walk away from the relationship with D. Though I do miss the good times and familiarity of being with someone for that long, I do not regret my decision. I suppose if it happens again in future, then well, I guess I will be better prepared for it and I will be wiser about my decisions. In the meantime though, I shall carry on being as happy as clam, doing whatever it is I want to do and give in to 'reasonable' whims and fancies whenever I want. How bloody ironic is that?

The end of the year is fast closing in on me and I want to make this a year worth remembering so here's to saying C'est la vie for the next 4 months and making the most of it. And yeah, I will try to write more. I promise. :)

Laws of Huh?

So yesterday saw me hanging out with G-doll over lunch and a couple of drinks after. After she got over the horror that she was sprouting gray hairs, we proceeded to fill each other in on what has been going on in our madcap lives over the past few months. I showed her the entire AJ fiasco on my iPhone to which she shook her head in total confusion. Yeah, that's about the same reaction everybody has had thus far apart from my darling brother who went, "Did he hit his head whilst falling over and twisting his ankle by any chance?" The honest answer to that is, I have no freaking idea.

And so I was telling G-doll how I was once again trying to lie low and avoid all weirdos and weird happenings so that I can restore normalcy into my otherwise comical life and how I happen to be failing miserably on that front. Much of this has to do with the re-appearance of dear Tomski. Yes, after two months of silence the man decides to pop up on MSN whilst I am at work and scare the beejeezus out of me.

Now given that his last attempt at conversation was to try to get me to sleep with him in the middle of some random night, and I politely declined and told him to go give himself a handjob, he went silent thereafter. Silent = disappearing off MSN, no more texts, zero contact. So when I got back to work after my trip and he popped up online, I almost fell off my chair in fright. For the sake of maintaining privacy, I don't keep logs of my online conversations on my work laptop, hence I can't stick screenshots of the convo here. In summary, he referred to me as "his old friend" (WHAT have you been smoking mate?), and then proceeded to ask me if I had "coupled up yet" (Is THAT what they call it these days?) and then went on to ask me if I can help with writing copy for his company website. All this after asking me if I was a "real PR person".

*slaps forehead*

And so the plan was to meet up with him and his business partner over the weekend to talk stuff through and figure out what needs to be put up on the site.



Ah, so the man is capable of being normal. Who would have thunk it?



Hang on a second. What was that clause for? I admit, I burst out laughing when I saw that 'disclaimer'. Anyway...





Ah, all business on Sunday until...3:05 am on Wednesday morning. (What? What?? WHAT???)Pray tell, why would I even WANT to awake at that time of the day? So yes, I was fasto in my bed and oblivious to the rest of the world. His response to my silence was amazing.



Oh my gawwwwwwd... he called me LAME at 3:46 in the morning. Bloody bastard. I woke up the next morning and saw the messages and scratched my head in astonishment. Through simple deduction I came up with this equation:

Drunk man + weird text message asking if one is awake in the middle of the night = Booty call

Now given that I know EXACTLY what his intentions were, I chose to feign ignorance. Given my line of work, feigning ignorance is part and parcel of life. Sometimes it's best to pretend that you're a stupid ignoramus because you actually can get more out of people that way. Before you think that I am a conniving, evil, self-serving PR person who goes all out to pretend to be something she is not with everyone, let me clarify that this side of me usually only exists in the work-sphere. I drop the PR mask when I am out of work and I am 100% myself around friends and loved ones. I admit I do pull the mask back on when dealing with total knobs outside of work at times but that's only because they're knobs. If I sound a tad defensive here, it's only because people have a bad habit of thinking that just because of my job, everything I say or do is loaded with a hidden meaning or agenda. That, ladies and gentlemen, is absolute bloody bollocks. I'm as straightforward as straightforward can be. I wouldn't be here writing about the inane things that take place in my life if I wanted to pretend to be something else.

Right, where was I? Ah yes, feigning ignorance about Tomski's middle-of-the-night weirdness. Well, as you've seen from my response, that is exactly what I did. I wanted to see how he would respond to that message. He obviously ducked the whole thing by avoiding the entire subject for a whole day. Okay fine, be a coward, you little shmuck... because I am a lot smarter than you give me credit for. :P



The conversation stopped there. Perhaps he was on to the fact that I was prodding to see what he would say and he was embarrassed. Or maybe he finally realized that I am not some random skank who will jump into bed with him just because he's tired of wanking. Fine Tomski, we had one random romp many months ago, but that doesn't mean I want you to feature regularly in my (currently non-existent), sex-life. I don't mind the idea of a fuck buddy at this point in time, but if I may be so honest, he's not quite what I'm looking for. I have this whole other theory about finding the 'proper' FB but that's a another post for a different day.

In any case, G-doll was privy to this little entertaining exchange yesterday and suggested that all this weirdness could probably be attributed to the 'Law of Attraction'. I was slightly appalled by this suggestion. The stupid philosophy states that "like attracts like" - that not only do we attract circumstances, material objects and people to us according to our actions, but also according to the thoughts we consistently hold in mind.

ARGH.

Given that I am trying to fly under the bloody radar and just be bloody normal for awhile, the whole "like attracts like" concept simply cannot be true. I am not looking for weirdness. I'm looking for normal! I'm not looking for weird men. I'm looking for sane, normal, non-fuckwitted ones! And given that I have been a very good girl lately and stayed home as much as possible (okay, that's arguable really), how is it that all these mad people insist on popping up out of the middle of nowhere and tormenting me? Just in case you're wondering why I picked the plural form there, I will tell you that Tomski is not the only one who has made a weird re-appearance. Remember darling Nik aka Darth Wanker? Yes, that one. The one who went missing in a carpark... *rolls eyes* Well, he's suddenly decided that he's still keen despite my repeated attempts to shrug him off. He decided to pop up on Facebook and start a conversation that left me wanting to curl up in fetal position and cry. Anyway I have managed to avoid him for the time being. Let's hope it stays that way.

Sigh.
If there is a god, I would humbly like to request that he stop all this weird nonsense and send me someone awesome and normal...

Like Ian Somerhalder. :)



Now that's not much to ask for is it?

Oooh La

Yeah the title of the post is after a song by The Kooks. Am on a bit of a bender since the latest weekend listening to and YouTubing Luke Pritchard and gang to the point where I can probably can sing 'Tick of Time' backwards. (If you haven't already realised that I have weird moments, then this is proof.)

So apart from mulling over the bizarre end of my latest whirlwind romance with AJ and getting hit on by an aircon repairman from China en route to work this morning, I had a good think about how friends or rather people grow up and get to certain points in life sooner or later. The thing is, the point(s) never changes. Whether it's about sorting your life out and getting a proper job and climbing the career ladder, or choosing to stop playing the field and settling down with a semi-respectable human or just learning how to make your own bed, the milestones so to speak, generally remain the same for most people. It's the amount of time it takes and the shit in between that happens that varies with individuals.

Whilst in Europe I exchanged a couple of emails with a mate of mine who lives in New Zealand. I've known Spazz for eons now and we once had a little relationship that was short-lived because we knew that we were designed to be nothing more than mates. Before he moved back to New Zealand Spazz and I used to catch up regularly and exchange notes on our equally sordid love lives over kebabs and bottles of wine. He even met my last serious ex D a few times and it was all cool. I miss having him around because he travels a god awful lot with his job and emails are sometimes sporadic and sometimes there's no contact for months. But when we do write or get in touch, we just pick up where we left off. Nice to know that distance never conquers some things.

Anyway, I got a mail out of the blue when I was in Europe.

From Spazz
>>>> On 21-Mar-2011, at 4:00 PM, @gmail.com> wrote:
So...........how mad are wid me?
Are you ok doll?

From me
>>> On 22/03/2011, @gmail.com> wrote:
Geezer! Where the feck have you been?!?

I'm all right. Am actually at Chamonix at the moment traveling with a
mate across europe. Heading towards Rome tmrw afternoon. How the hell are u mister?

From Spazz
>> On 22-Mar-2011, at 5:30 PM, @gmail.com> wrote:
Oh wow living the good life aye? Awesome and well done.

I am doing fab. Currently in sydney for another week. So yeh I have settled down. Ahem. Yep i m off the market doll. I knw u are jus severely dissapointed rite? Lol.

Had to be done and its awesum. No majic weirdness. Just awesumness. Lol.

Wots new with you?

From me
> On 23/03/2011, @gmail.com> wrote:
Settled down eh? Did you get married without telling me then??!! Lol.

Well am all for awesomeness mate you know that! What's new with me? Well on vacation at the moment. Just happily exploring the world with a friend. There's a bf back home and he's cool. Time will tell I guess. I've kinda chilled out a whole lot after splitting up with D. Been out with a few people since but nothing special. Have got a good feeling about the current one but hey, I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens. Not gonna be surprised if he turns out to be a complete fuckwit either. ;)

Good to know you're all settled mate. That's pretty awesome news really!! So when do I get to meet her? Or him?! Or did you fall in love with a sheep!!? Lol... ;)

Take care geez, it's always good to hear from you. X :)

From Spazz
>On Tuesday, March 22, 2011, @gmail.com> wrote:
Thx for the updation hun.

I am glad u are all free and cozy. I enjoyed all of that and it got bit addictive.

But life is all about changes and chances and I am embracing that fullly now.

Maybe u will get to meet her. Who knows. She is very tradional and I luv that. I had been with too many skanks I guess. I am relishing the KISS principle now. Keep It Simple Stoopid.

You are a very kool mate. Always a special pleasure meeting and chatting with u. We clicked day1.

Jus be ureself doll I luv the way u are

____________________________________________________________________

Okay so Spazz's spelling leaves something to be desired but like I said, we always carry on wherever we last left off. And it's nice to know that he's finally found someone to slow things down with and take it easy with in pure awesomeness. :) Truth be told, some of the antics that Spazz used to get up to and the women he used to get involved with used to worry the life out of me. I was always waiting for him to sit at the table one day and tell me he'd banged some random woman up or was involved in breaking someone's marriage up. I wouldn't put it past him. He is and always has been capable of doing all those things so it's a bit of a shock to the system to hear that he's changed his ways and decided to stick with one and just the one.

Before you think that this is me thinking that I wish things has been different between Spazz and myself, then let me stop you right there and tell you that's just all wrong. Like I said before, we're mates and though I love Spazz dearly, I don't have any desire to pursue anything other than the solid friendship we've built together over the years. I suppose the point I am trying to make through all of this is that we're all essentially the same. Yeah, Spazz has acted like a right bastard during some occasions in the past and treated some people really poorly and I am pretty sure at some point in time some girl somewhere who got her heart broken by him must have sat and swore and called him every vile name that exists in the book meant for dickheads. I'm just saying that just because he was an arsehole once or many upon a time, it doesn't mean he is incapable of changing his ways.

It takes a lot of courage and maturity for someone to Spazz to stop dicking about and stick to one person. Then again, it could really be about the idiot falling in love. Finally!!! It's about bloody time mate!

In any case, I am happy for him. Yeah my personal life isn't the greatest but it's nice when things go well for my friends because in some weird, obscure way, I share their joy too. :)

Oh and if you have never heard of The Kooks, please go throw yourself under the next passing bus.

Another Moment in Another World

Well this one's not going to be one of my epic posts because I am using the hotel's laptop and the entire thing works on some OS that I have never heard of and what is even better is that the keyboard is tailored for the Spanish language so everything is a bit of weird mess.

In any case, I bring greetings from the wonderful city of Barcalona, Spain - Ola! This is my first visit to the country and I am glad to have had the opportunity to have seen the sights that I have done thus far. I consider myself fortunate given the amount of travelling I have done over the course of my life and am still thankful that I've managed to get my arse back to Europe for the second time and trooped all over it as I have done in the past 9 days.

This trip was meant in many ways to be one that allowed me to do some much-needed soul searching. As I've made my way across 4 countries, I've had many moments of quiet, some of discontent, and yet some others that have left me thinking that I really need to stop being such a selfish little shit.

The injection of culture has opened my heart and brain to a lot more in the past few days than I can care to explain. Life hasn't been completely smooth sailing for me in recent years and I have come to realise that those experiences have left me close-minded, cynical in a simplistic sense, and undoubtedly jaded. Seeing different sights, taking in the air of different cities, walking down the streets where everyone speaks a language different from my own has made me realise that I may have become too caught up with my own little issues and lived in my own little bubble far too comfortably in in the past year or so. In short, there is a whole other world out there that is a lot bigger, greater and far more fascinating that all the trivialities that may plague my little 'world' and I should henceforth, learn to stop and smell the bloody roses (coffee more likely), whenever I can.

Of course I have missed home and my loved ones over the course of this trip. There have been times where I have wanted in the most desperate sense of the word to have someone to share a sight/smell/laugh with and turned around to find nothing but empty space or another tourist next to me. Don't get me wrong. I am travelling with a mate from school and though we get along in the basic sense, there are fundamental personality differences between us which make us diametric opposites. Also, after bunking with each other and sharing pretty much every meal with each other, you eventually reach a point where you want to throttle the other person even though they haven't done anything to annoy you. This is cabin fever at its worst.

Hence, there have been moments that have left me thoroughly homesick and others that have left me gaping in awe like a twit. Either way, such is life and this is apparently the life I was meant to live so I shall not whinge so. :)

I have tried as much as possible, with the aid of technology and that awesome thing known as Wi-fi to keep in touch with people back home. There's been a lot of Facebook time on this trip - private messaging and wall posts - to satisfy the curious minds that exist and also to let folks know that I'm okay and have not been kidnapped by pirates and sold into the sex trade off the coast of Algeria or something.

Have also been in touch with AJ quite a fair bit over the trip. No, this AJ is not my boss so stop freaking out please. This is the one that loaned me the iPad for the trip. Alas, I don't know if it's the distance or me just getting a perspective on everything that has put me a little on edge everytime I talk/text/write to him. Frankly I don't think there's an issue. I probably am making a mountain out of a molehill as usual and am probably overthinking everything as well. To be fair to him, he has done everything within his power to make me feel reasonably human. This includes sending me emails, random texts telling me what he's been up to at home and even a few phone calls just to make sure I'm okay whenever my moods have plummeted. I on the other hand have been acting like a royal pain in the arse by being short and bratty with him. I am attributing this idiotic behaviour to the fact that the distance is getting the better of me. I miss him tremendously and the fact that I can hear him and not see him or touch him is pissing me off. There's also the other issue that I really, really want him to see and experience the things that I have done on this trip and him not being around happens to grate a little too much. Of course the sensible thing to do would be to talk/text/write in a less bratty and idiosyncratic manner because he's being a decent person about everything. Alas, that is easier said than done. My emotions seem to get the better of me even when I really don't want them to. Annoying? Hell yes. That's me in a nutshell.

Well I have 4 more days to go and then I head home from Madrid. Tomorrow morning will see an early start as I have to travel to Granada. I really should make the most of the remaining peace and quiet that I have on this trip and stop being a dickhead.

So here's to finding the little missing piece over the next few days through the wonders that Spain has to offer.

Cooler Than You

And so I once dated an asshole called Spooner
Should have checked the stars because he turned out to be a loser
It started off fun - dinner, drinks and snogs
Didn't realize til later that he was just a frog

Football is his thing, a die-hard fan of the Hammers
Used to ask me to stay the weekend and told me to bring my jammers
Listens to rap, hip-hop and drum and bass
Seems like the white boy is trying to make up for a horrific face
'Word up motherfucker!' is his favourite refrain
Yeah, the Wigga clearly has something missing in the brain

Used to drink beer, smoke fags and cheeky spliffs on weekends
I played along thinking that it'd do me good to move any way the wind bends
That was until I found out about the mystery trip
The one that involved Horseface's 'lovely' tits and made me flip
Split up shortly after, "Don't know what I want" he said
Bothered me for a while but then it's no loss because he was crap in bed

Heard through the grapevine that he hits on waitresses now
The man is so desperate that I'm sure he'll even shag a cow
Got wind that he thinks the women in my country aren't very interesting
He obviously hasn't heard himself talk - I'll tell you he's fucking boring
I guess he thinks he's just too cool for skool
What he doesn't know is that he's just a big, old fool

So I'm taking bets to say he'll never settle down
Probably run to Phuket someday and marry one of the locals for a pound
Or maybe he'll scoot back to home to wonderous Essex
Where the girls are about as bright and interesting as a jar of wax

Oh Faith

Two posts in two days. The universe is telling me something. Maybe it needs to update its communication portals because I seem to be missing memos one too many times.

So yesterday was a bit of a bizarre day. I wrote to Spooner, asking for my stuff for the FOURTH time now. It's been seven weeks and the man is still holding on to my clothes and other bits and pieces. I was rather sarcastic with my last line citing that it was bad manners to bring other women home when my things were still lying around. The reply that came back ticked me off big time.

"Yes, it is bad manners. :) Sorry, will have it packed and sent soon."

Christ alive, you mean my things are all exactly where I left them??!!

Honestly, it was this inference that set me off. Firstly, he's back on a dating website chatting up other women. I am on the same site. That's where we met, hence I know that he's back in action. Secondly, if you are looking to meet new people, should you not have the decency to close the previous chapter of your life and return your ex her things, without having to be asked repeatedly?

Apparently such simple logic eludes him. And this resulted in me going into full-swing rant mode and venting at anyone who was willing to offer half a ear. This includes ranting at my colleagues, my gay friend, my brother and a new person that I just met for the first time last weekend.

Digression:
New person in question will be called erm... Hendricus (don't ask). First meeting last Saturday. Interesting to say the least. A teacher, bald, funny and pretty cool. Looking forward to meeting him again. :) He made the mistake of texting me yesterday when I was in full-swing rantation and I didn't spare him either. Fortunately, like the rest of the world, he thinks that I have every right to demand for my things and that Spooner's behaviour just screams, "TWAT".

So I went home after work and on the train, received a text from Tomski. Tomski is the guy I mentioned two posts earlier - the one who is a nice guy but still obsessing over his ex. I'm going to post the text message convo here and let you figure out what exactly transpired.



*GASP*

Propositioned for a casual liasion! Well, well, well, it's been a while since that's happened. And though it is flattering and part of me is cheeky enough to consider the option, (can't blame me... some sex is better than no sex but not necessarily better than bad sex), I am wary of getting into anything with Tomski because I half worry that he might start bawling his eyes out in front of me because he isn't over his ex. As I told a mate of mine, "I only carry THAT much tissue paper with me".

Went home and ranted to my brother about Spooner and Tomski and everything in between. Poor feller was braindead from work and didn't say much. He did however send me an email this morning, offering some thoughts and counsel which I thought was pretty sweet. He's a funny boy. :)

In any case, I won't be getting my stuff back so quickly it seems because Spooner is off to Phuket (again!) and will not be back until next Monday. Why doesn't he just stay there and marry one of the locals? Spare the rest of the women in my country the horrors of your abject, relentless stupidity please!

On a different note, given all the shit I have been through in the last year, I have decided to mark my upcoming 28th birthday with something symbolic. I have decided to get a tattoo. Nothing fancy, just the Chinese character for the word 'Faith'. Looking back on the past ten years of my life, having to deal with death, loss, pain, disappointments and all the curve balls that have been flung my way, I could use a reminder that I need to keep believing that there is a lot more left for me to experience and that there's always hope. :)

Happy CNY people!

Honestly Now

People are no longer honest these days.

No, I'm not calling the whole word a bunch of conniving liars. I'm just saying that people have become too good at packaging the truth to suit different situations. I would know this all too well because my job requires me to package information all the time. No, we don't lie outright but sometimes the reality of the situation is not altogether pleasant, hence the need to package it so that we highlight the best aspects and hope that people don't go dig up the not-so-nice aspects and feel like they've been taken for a ride. Believe me, the packaging is everything.

The downside of being trained to do this professionally is that I read people and conversations better than most. Now, this can be both bane and boon. At times you thank your brains and the stars for your ability to see through the multiple layers of bullshit that people try to fling at you and deal with the morons appropriately. On the flipside, sometimes when you realize that someone's trying to pull wool over your eyes, you get angry and more often than not, disappointed that the person in question would try to blindside you. The worst part about this though is the fact that you constantly anticipate that someone is going to disappoint you and you wait on tenterhooks for that moment to arrive. It means you second-guess when there is no reason to. It means your glass is always half empty. It's absolute bollocks but you just can't help but do it because your belief in human behaviour translates to one simple thing alone - people are not meant to be trusted.

Okay I confess. I have battled with trust issues for just about forever. It's natural for me to expect the worst all the time because it's easier to say, "I knew it", when something goes awry as opposed to going, "I never thought this would happen to me." Preempting the worse-case scenario is a defence mechanism through and through and I try very hard to not build entire forts around myself. Easier said than done which is why I struggle with letting people into my life. It also explains why I come across as someone who is cold, aloof and with a hard exterior that cannot be cracked. In reality, I am a giant softie but my pragmatic approach to dealing with people usually gets the better of me.

I sometimes wish that people would just be honest. Honesty is a liberating virtue. When you have nothing to hide your mind is relaxed and your conscience is free. However people have become almost too good at packaging the truth. Take for example the fact that Spooner told me that one of his best mates used to date a girl for 5 years and then moved overseas to work. Things fell apart when the ex-girlfriend realized that he was two-timing her with another girl in the country he was working in. Yeah, he told me that his best mate was a bit of a bastard for doing it and I reacted with the appropriate amount of shock. What he did not tell me was that the best mate had got the other girl pregnant overseas. How I found out is not important but believe me, the source is extremely reliable. It was as good as hearing it from the woman herself. :P

This is what I mean by packaging the truth. Yes, the story is true but it was not the whole truth. A key detail was left out on purpose. Why? Self-censorship is one thing but telling you three-quarters of the truth and then leaving the rest hidden is just bizarre. It makes you wonder if everything you've ever been told has more to it than meets the eye. Of course it's natural to want to paint yourself and your friends in the most flattering light but just how far do you go?

Again, this is not about fabricating facts. This is about putting a select amount of truth into a box, wrapping it up in shiny paper and finishing it off with pretty little ribbon on the top. Presenting the selected truth in this manner makes it easier to accept and the chances of you doubting any of it is less likely as well. I know a lot of people who do this and pardon me for saying this, but I think it's utterly fucked up. How can you go through your life doing that? And my other question is, just how much effort do you go through trying to put all your little half-truths into boxes to suit different people and scenarios? It must take a colossal effort to do that all the time and even more energy to remember what version of the truth you told to which person. The irony is that if you ever get caught out by someone, they're not going to care if you told them 89% of the truth or not because you're just going to be branded a liar either way.

Put it this way, there's no such thing as a big lie and little lie. And there's only so far you can go with packaging truths until you run out of boxes, wrappers and ribbons and they come back to bite you in the arse. Hard.

Reflections and Renewals

Hello. And Happy New Year. :)

And so I put behind me another year, another 365 days of meaningful and meaningless moments, 12 months of ups, downs and in-betweens. No, it wasn't all bad. It wasn't prefect either but life was never meant to be. And to be honest, if I led a perfect idyllic life, I might go stir crazy. ;)

Unlike other years past, I am happy to say that I am not spending the start of 2011 feeling mopey and miserable. The past year has been interesting to say the least. Change featured significantly in many areas of my life and though not all of it was easy to accept and deal with, there have been lessons which I am thankful for. One can only hope that those lessons serve me well in times to come.

There is plenty to be thankful for. I got a new job in an industry that I think fits me, my capabilities and my personality. For the first time in my entire working life, I feel like I'm in a place where I can grow and learn and truly apply myself as a trained professional. The past 8 months have been challenging and there were moments early on where quitting felt like a very appealing prospect. Thankfully I have never been one who gives up easily under pressure and I'm still giving it all I have. Another huge (tremendous!), blessing has been in the form of colleagues who have turned out to be a fantastic bunch of friends. Finding like-minded individuals in a workplace is tough as it is but I can safely say that the beer-guzzling, chainsmoking, crazy, fun-loving reprobates (kidding!) that I work with are a life-support system that I am truly grateful for. It's great to know that we're not just people who happen to work together but we're mates. And mates are rare finds. So thank you guys for being you. :)

On the personal front, things have not been particularly smooth sailing. One long-term relationship came to an end after many sleepless nights of tossing, procrastinating and hours of "What do I do?" self-questioning. In the end I bit the bullet and ended things. Looking back on it now, I have no regrets. I grew, matured and loved fiercely over 3.5 years and I am thankful for all the good times and happy moments which I will always hold close to my heart. There was happiness in the past and I am sure there will be happiness in the future, for both of us.

And then there was the whirlwind romance with the crazy Englishman (whom, I guiltily admit, still find very attractive). Though it was short-lived, it was all fun and it also made me realize that I shouldn't shortchange myself when it comes to matters of the heart. No one should.

Travel opportunities were few last year but good nonetheless. I made it to Ho Chi Minh City, Bintan, Bali and Langkawi. Next year there will be some massive travels on the cards. Watch out Europe, because I'm coming over in March to drink all your beer. :)

Health was something I wrangled with in 2009. Thankfully in 2010, I was none worse for wear apart from a couple of stubborn infections. I have progressively kept up an exercise regime and intend to keep doing so and up the ante in 2011. If a healthy body leads to a healthy mind, then well, I'm all over it. Besides, all that beer and pizza I consume needs to get out of my system somehow. :P

My family, as always have left me perplexed and perturbed with their weirdness at times but I am eternally thankful for their existence, their silent show of unwavering support and unconditional love. My brother and I have grown closer, thanks to adulthood. My lovely cousins have brought me much joy in 2010 and I hope they continue to do so even as they grow up and become adults in their own right. I pray for more opportunities to bond and hope that laughter, grace and love will continue to flourish in my household.

Friends! I cannot forget my friends! Every special one who has in some manner brought laughter, a listening ear, a shoulder or two to cry on and been a pillar of support during lesser sane moments, thank you, oh thank you so very much. I am, in many ways indebted to all of you for keeping me grounded and in check. Trust me, I have no idea what I would do with myself if it weren't for my friends. So here's to many more days of friendship and maybe I can try repaying my 'friend-debt' in time to come.
And for the few who have fallen by the wayside during the course of the year, I'm sorry if I didn't live up to your expectations of being a friend. No one said that being a friend would be simple and uncomplicated. In any case, it was nice knowing you and I wish you well.

And so I look forward positively and with much excitement to what 2011 will bring. May it be a year of all possibilities. :)

All possibilities are landing at my feet,
There's nothing I can see,
But possibilities.
All Possibilities - Badly Drawn Boy

The Lit Connection

This the book I am reading right now and while prepping myself for another tedious and emotionally retarded day this morning, I came across an absolute jewel of a paragraph within the book. It pretty much sums up my thoughts, sentiments and attitude towards a particular English person right now and I am stoked at the idea of it coming from another Englishman, Stephen Fry.

Fry is quoting E M Forster in order to express his thoughts on the typical middle-class Englishmen who attends public school and thereafter is unleashed into the world of adulthood to torment the 'lesser mortals'. Fry's own opinion at the very end is so fucking perfect that I could weep with joy.

Excerpt:

This is how Forster finishes.

... the English character is incomplete in a way that is particularly annoying to the foreign observer. It has a bad surface - self-complacent, unsympathetic, and reserved. There is plenty of emotion further down, but it never gets used. There is plenty of brain power, but it is more often used to confirm prejudices than to dispel them. With such an equipment the Englishman cannot be popular. Only I would repeat: there is little vice in him and no real coldness. It is the machinery that is wrong.

I hope and believe myself that in the next twenty years [this was written in 1920] we shall see a great change, and the national character will alter into something which is less unique but more loveable. The supremacy of the middle-classes us probably ending. What new element the working classes will introduce one cannot say, but at all events they will not have been educated at public schools...

The nations must understand one another, and quickly; and without the interposition of their governments, fot the shrinkage of the globe is throwing us into one another's arms. To that understanding these notes are a feeble contribution - notes on the English character as it has struck a novelist.

Fry's response to this is as follows:

Well, have we seen 'a great change'? Has the supremacy of the middle-classes ended? In a pig's arse has it ended. Even today, mutatis mutandis, the character of the English is defined by the character of its (still rising) middle-classes and even today, the character of those middle-classes is defined by the character of the (still disproportionately) poweful public-school product. The schools of course have changed, to the extent that public schoolboys wear baseball caps and expensive Nike footwear, listen to rap music, raise the pitch of their voices at the end of sentences in that bizarre Australian Question Intonation picked up from the TV soaps, and say 'Cool' and 'Slamming' a lot. That is nauseating certainly, embarrassing obviously, but fundamentally it alters nothing. No one can seriously suggest that the average English public schoolboy emerges from his school with a South Central Los Angeles sensibility, or the outlook, soul and character of an unemployed working-class spot welder. The body is probably even better developed, the brain is fairly developed but the heart just as undeveloped.

Thank you, oh thank you Stephen Fry for so eloquently putting into words all that I stupidly struggle to express. I heart you.

Man Overboard

If I ever get to meet God or whichever chief kahuna who runs the earth operations, I'd request for a do-over and ask to be sent back down as a man. Not just any man. I don't want to be sent back as a wee babe of a boy and have to go through the horrors of puberty and learning why there is a rush of blood to a certain appendage on really cold days. I'd like to come back as a grown male between the ages of 32 to 39, preferably single, preferably with a decent job and not living with my mother and preferably pumped full of idiotic testosterone.

The male psyche has always held immense fascination for me. Not because I grew up in a house full of boys. On the contrary, I grew up in a household dominated by females with my dad and brother being the only exceptions and trust me, too much estrogen in a confined space for extended periods of time can be a diabolical thing. If you think one pms-ing female is hard to deal with, try living with 4 pms-ing females aged between 12 and 40 and you'd get a slight inkling of what it was like in my house. Given the extreme female conditions that I grew up in, boys or members of the opposite gender have always been a bit of an enigma. Thankfully I grew up and realized that there wasn't much that was enigmatic about men in general. Most of them, for lack of a better word, are twats. In any case, prior to the time where cynicism became part of life, I used to scratch my head and wonder what made males and females so different. Being the elder of two children, when my brother came along, I used to spend hours staring at him whilst he slept the sleep of the innocent or watch him play or do whatever it was that little baby boys do. Essentially this meant observing him poop, pee, puke, and wail like a banshee whenever he wanted something. I learnt very early on that this creature, my brother (whom I love very dearly even today), was a different species from me. It didn't help that my parents hammered home the point that he was a) not a toy, b) not a girl and c) not to be flung about like my little BMX training bicycle. So at the tender age of 4 I learnt a life-altering lesson. Boys are different.

Before I carry on, I think I need to clarify that I will be using the terms, 'boy', 'bloke', 'men', 'man', 'feller', 'guy', 'cockwit' and quite possibly 'fuckwit' interchangeably throughout this post to refer to the males species. So when I make reference to a 'boy', it does not meant that I specifically refer to a wee lad. What I am actually referring to is basically, that of the male gender.

And so it was that at that young, pure and impressionable age I was exposed and privy to the appalling truth that there existed in this world a species different from myself. What I did not understand or was not told is that there would be no instructions given on how to co-exist in a world with this weird species. Even worse was the fact that though I knew that the male species was appalling different, nobody could explain to me WHY this was so. And so I went out into the world and learnt many a horrific but probably necessary lesson.

I make no excuses for my relationship histories with men. To be fair, I have gone out with what I think is more than my fair share of men. I don't know what the national average is (in any case, all the women will lie in that survey for sure), but I can quite frankly tell you that I have dated and bedded enough guys to have a pretty decent understanding of how most of them work. How many exactly? I can't answer that question not because of any inhibitions but if you want the truth, I can't bloody remember. (Yes, great impressions they made, as you can tell.) If I had to give an estimate, I would say that the number is somewhere in the 20s. Now, I'm not bragging about this but I went through a slew of guys in my early 20s and honestly, a lot of it is a big blur now. Part of me wishes I could remember but there's another part that says that maybe it's better that I don't.

Having done my field research, I tend to categorize men into three groups.

1. Hopeless
2. Semi-hopeless but with potential
3. Hopeful but may drive you to the edge of the cliff as a result of sheer boredom

You know how all those newly-wed women always coo and gush about how fantastic their new husbands are? Well let me tell you that they didn't marry the perfect man. They settled for the one in category no. 3. So don't bloody believe it when they squeal, "Oooh he's just so perfect!" Sorry girls and boys, there ain't no such thing as perfect. You have a higher chance of finding a bra that fits you perfectly than a man. Show me a perfect man and I'll show you that all you really got is a fuck-nosed wanker.

Me, cynical? You've got to be kidding.

Needless to say most of the guys I've dated were hopeless from start to finish. I don't know about other women but you kinda know very early on whether a guy is worth the effort or not. The problem is that women tend to be too nice at times and always want to give the cockwit the benefit of the doubt and a few more chances than really necessary. Ironically, it is because of this very mentality that many women stop dating a guy or get dumped by a guy and then come away and tell their girlfriends in a self-righteous huff that 'He was SUCH a waste of my time.' But surely sweetheart, you must have realized this earlier when he sent you a series of texts after your first date saying you were his soulmate because you both share a great love for penne pasta?

So yes, the hopeless exist. And they exist for good reason. They provide one with the experience required to deal effectively with those that fall under category 2 and particularly category 3.

Yes, men who fall into category 3 exist. They are closest thing you're gonna get to Mr. Perfect by about 3 football pitches off. Why? Again this is not me being cynical for the sake of being a cynic. Throughout my dating history, I can safely say that I have come across a grand total of 2 guys who fall under category 3. One of them I knew at a young age and we had a weird online relationship that spanned several years. He was in no way, mine or a boyfriend per se. What we did have though was a surreal chemistry that kept us very close even though we were miles apart. There was no need to think too hard or compete or impress. The conversations were natural, his personality clicked with mine and we both knew that it was a strange connection to have but we never denied it either. We're still friends today even though he's married to someone else but funnily enough, I don't have a problem with that. :)

The second no. 3-esque feller is my ex-boyfriend. After 6 years of mucking around I finally met someone who, at that point in time, felt worth the effort. To be honest, I was completely skeptical about him in the initial stages but he disarmed me by simply being himself. He was honest, he made an effort and he didn't leave me paranoid and waiting for him to run off with another girl. It took all of 3 months to realize that I had fallen in love with him (and miraculously, he felt the same way too) and we spent 3.5 years together until I came to the point where I discovered that though I very much loved him, I could not be with him because I was no longer as happy and fulfilled as I should have been. Leaving him was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made in all my years. I do ponder that decision from time to time and prod around my emotional landscape to see if there's any regret. Though I am sad at the fact that the relationship ended, I cannot claim to regret my decision because deep down in my heart I think I made the right move.

Damn this is a long post. Had to stop for a pee and a fag. Bugger me for being a prolific writer. Hur. Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, the semi-hopeless but with potential candidates. Personally, I think a lot of women will encounter this lot quite a fair bit. They're usually charming and seem quite harmless, though the latter part is something that can only be determined with time. The current bloke I am dating falls into this category. Yes, it's the same one that I have mentioned before. I haven't quite made up my mind about him yet and I think that sentiment is mutual.

I must say that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with this one. Or at least I can't seem to find any major flaws as yet apart from the endless procrastinating and rudimentary insensitivity which seems to be rearing its ugly head more often than not. He's a man's man. You know the deal. Bros before hos and all that shit. I can deal with this although sometimes it strains the dating experience. For example, just this afternoon after convincing himself that going out to get lunch to feed his raging hangover would be a good idea, he got a phone call from a friend based overseas whilst walking up the hill back to his place. Now, I think I need to give you a bit of background here. He has/had a nightmare hangover because he was out at an Xmas party for his football club yesterday and stumbled in at 4am. I was not invited to attend this party even though I was informed about it more than a month ago. In fact, I was disallowed from attending this party. Why this is so, I have no idea. I did not bother to ask. When you get to my age, you learn to pick your fucking battles. So he enjoyed the party, came home in the wee hours of the morning, crashed in the bed next to me and stank up the whole room with alcoholic fumes emanating from his drunk body. I did the coffee run in the morning, convinced him to take a shower and we went out for lunch. Friend calls and he has a conversation that lasts about 15 minutes. Post phone call and he tells me that said friend who rang was planning to arrange a group trip with a number of other lads to watch the rugby 7s next year in Las Vegas. I know he got all excited about this over the call because he mentioned to the friend that he would have to go to the states next year and that he would love to take some time off and join in the fun. Well, that's all well and good right? Totally cool? Ha! I fucking wish.

"So my mate is planning this thing to watch the rugby 7s in Vegas next year. I have to go to the States for work anyway and I thought I might make a weekend out of it. Problem is it's in February. And your birthday is in February. Wait, what date is your birthday?"

At that very moment, I wished I was Zeus so that I could call down a mega lightning bolt that would have fried his ass on the sofa.

"I've told you when my birthday is. Several times. The last was yesterday morning." (At this point I stormed out to the balcony to have a cigarette because I didn't trust myself to not grab his head and smash it against the nearest wall.)

One would have thought he would have used the 10 minutes to good use to come up with an apology but when I returned from my fag break, he was sitting on the sofa, Blackberry poised in his hand, "What date is it? You told me February, you never mentioned the date."

For fuck's sake.

You would think if you've been dating someone for 4 months, the least you could do is remember their birthday right? I'm not asking you to marry me. Just remember my bloody birthday! I remembered yours! ARRRRRRRRRGH. And I promise you, I have mentioned my date of birth several times.

I conceded this one. I gave him the date, watched him tap it into his Blackberry (cue more internal growling) and proceeded to ignore him by reading my book. I pointedly chose to ignore him for the next 20 minutes whilst he surfed the football highlights on his laptop. He did not even try to make oblique amends. He just squeezed my knee, stroked my leg absent-mindedly with one hand and then went, "What's wrong?" whenever he asked me something and I gave a curt retort.

Hopeless? Oh yes sir.

Ladies and gentleman, I present to you, the typical category no.2 male. Nothing wrong with him. Seems normal. Stable job, okay personality, slightly weird, got loads of friends, insane interest in testosterone-filled sporting activity, a great kisser and a decent shag. The problem with this sub-species is that though they have many hopeless moments, they tend to counteract their hopelessness with actions that leave you stumped. For example, they send you really sweet text messages out of the blue, or they give you the spare key to the apartment and they are quite happy to spend their weekends with you, doing whatever the hell you want. On the contrary, they do not tell you about their holiday plans (I am IRATE about this because I cannot understand WHY he's still not telling me that he's going to be gone for Xmas and New Year's - what IS he waiting for really?), they do not remember your birthday, they do not refer to you as the 'girlfriend'. Yes, I am still just after 4 months.

All this weird behaviour leaves me bewildered and quite frankly, exhausted. On one side, I desperately want to trust him and allow myself to open myself up to him. On the other hand, all this peek-a-boo situations leave me insecure and half-hearted and to be honest, I feel like I am just waiting for him to say, "Was nice knowing you, goodbye and good luck." Please don't tell me that I need to stop looking at the glass as half empty. I'm not. What I'm saying is that I don't enjoy, don't want to be and really don't need to be mind-fucked.

So you see, I really want to get a do-over as man because I want to understand what the hell is going on in a male brain. I suppose I am prepared to be disappointed because the likelihood of anything noteworthy to be found floating in a man's brain might prove to be near impossible. However, it would still serve me well to get to know the inner mechanics of this weird species.

Plus I'd have the joy of scratching my balls every morning.

Pop Goes the Bubble

Yeah I haven't written. And it's not because I've fallen off the wagon and decided that the wayside is a comfy spot. It's more like my writing demon has been stuffed with tissues and forced to shut up. Well, not forced exactly. It's just me, myself and I who decided to exercise totalitarian control over my writing demon and pressed the mute button. Temporarily of course.

Having been an on and off blogger since the age of 18, writing has served me well. It's the one outlet I've had the chance to completely abandon myself to. Sure, during the more-angst ridden years (some may argue that the correlation between angst and age is non-existent but...), I ranted, vented and went stark raving mad on my blog(s) because I could, I wanted to and in many a frustrating moment, I had to. There was also a slightly insane foray into poetry. Let's just say that I am a dead poet's society type of poet. Hence trying to find a word to rhyme with 'bastard' at 3:28 in the morning is not exactly cathartic. I stopped the poetry but I've never really stopped writing and for the sake of my own sanity, I hope I never get to the point where I throw my pen down and call it quits.

The only issue I have with writing as the years passed is the need to censor. Ten years ago (yes, I'm not THAT young), I had no qualms about letting my emotions go into free fall on a screen or on a piece of paper. In fact, the more I did it, the more I wanted to let it all out. It got to the point of almost being addictive. Even now, as I bang out this entry, I hardly stop to think about what I'm saying. It's pure, unadulterated relief to be able to open the dam and let everything pour out through my fingertips. Fortunately for me, I am a reasonably rapid typist who employs more than two fingers.

Alas, having grown older, I've come to value my privacy even more. I am, by nature a quiet creature. I hate loud noises, I hate loud people and I just hate situations where the ambient sound around me does not allow me to hear my own thoughts. Having said that, this means that I'm a quiet individual who prefers to keep a lot to myself. You could say that I live pretty much in my head. Those who know me in person would probably beg to differ. I'm quite well known for spouting my mouth and being generally sociable. This is not something I disagree with. I like being around people. People interest me. I like to be able to have a conversation and learn new things about people and expand my myopic view about well, everything. However, just because one is a sociable, it does not mean that the individual will necessarily be open about themselves. You can be very sociable and put entire groups of people at ease in any social situation without having to reveal fuck all about yourself what you're feeling or thinking. Don't believe me? Try it out at the next party you attend. Start a conversation with a couple of people. Ask questions. Talk about the latest video your friend posted on Facebook. Drive the conversation and then note how many things you actually reveal about yourself. You'd be surprised at just how little you give away. Not recommended for narcissists though.

In any case, I've been silent for a while not because I haven't got anything to say but more like I'm trying to figure out where the boundaries are. There's a lot of stuff floating around my head which is slowly driving me crazy but because I am now a responsible adult (fml!) I have come to realize that I can't always be spilling all as and when I want to, even though at times, I truly and desperately want to. You could say it's about like dating in your late twenties (oh yes, I speaketh from that fucked-up thing called experience). The older you get, the harder it becomes to meet new people that you actually want to go out with. And if that weren't bad enough, when you finally meet someone and start dating you run into a whole gamut of nightmares that make Freddy Kruegar seem like something from The Muppets. Let's face it. Dating becomes an uphill battle the older you get. There's enough emotional baggage on both sides to fill up and entire cargo plane and because of all that excess shit lying around, people have a tendency to develop weird trust issues. You just don't find yourself wanting to open up another adult. Weirdly enough, it's a bit reminiscent of being a teenager when you were pimply, and your raging hormones got the better of you. At least back then you knew for sure that you simply don't open up to adults. Because they are spawn of Satan. Well no, not really. More like, because adults just didn't 'get it' and by default, you didn't trust them because trusting them was akin to dropping yourself into a giant vat of boiling oil. Fast forward 15 years and into the dating world and you're confronted with the same effing beast from hell. Oh hello, we meet again, but this time I'm disguised as this thing you silly humans love to call 'trust'. And yeah, I'm as shitty as you remembered me to be.


Can you tell that I'm having a trust crisis?

I take no pleasure in saying this but trust is the be all and end all of most relationships. Unless you lied to your parents. Then yeah, they'll be disappointed but hey, they're your parents. You could be a child molester, a terrorist or Mel Raido from He Kills Coppers and they'd still bloody forgive you and trust you because you're their offspring. Unfortunately in most other human-human relationships, trust is a foundation ingredient and if it's laid too thin in the early stages, you are bound to realize at some point that the ground beneath your feet is shifting and you're falling off a precipice and about to hit your head. Hard.

The thing with the trust demon is that it doesn't work alone. It's got a band of mini horrors that it runs around with. Paranoia, lies, loaded questions, evasive answers and several other minions muck about at the trust demon's beck and call. At any point in time you've got about three of these little devils hanging around making you feel like total shit with the trust demon sitting on an armchair, sipping on a Mount Gay mojito and pulling the strings that make you want to go insane.

But let's not just blame the bloody demons. Let's allocate some blame to the damned humans themselves. The world would be a much easier and nicer place to live in if we all just opened up to people and were honest with each other. But that's a bit like asking for the sun to shine out of your arse so it rarely happens and you end up second-guessing, mistrusting and if you're really lucky, fucking up a really good thing. (Note: Fuck-up can be due to false accusation OR being lied to the face. Prior tests have revealed that the lying-to-the-face phenomenon tends to top the charts with a ratio of 10:2.)

Unfortunately, the trust demon usually cannot be banished by one person alone. The pesky thing requires combined efforts which means that all parties involved need to sit down with equal resolve and send it packing back to hell. But for this to take place, all parties first need to be aware that a trust issue exists. If one party or (several parties) are not privy to the existence of the issue then you might as well stab yourself with a fucking spoon because nothing, and I mean this in all seriousness, nothing is more frustrating that having a totally oblivious party.

Well, I suppose I could play the oblivious card too. For how long? No clue but being oblivious seems to be an easy option compared to all the others. Time for a fag, a decent coffee and most of all, time to give the cosmos the finger.

Categorize Me

Gah! It's been more than a month. If my last post was anything to go by, I really have no sense of where all my time goes. Depressing, but such is life.

And so my life has been really hectic and exciting (hur!). I'm still working too hard, spending too much money, drinking too much, smoking excessively and whiling my time away with Spooner. Yes, he's still around, thankfully. :)

It's closing in on the third month since we first started going out. One part of me of is ridiculously excited about this prospect because cynical me never imagined that he'd like me enough to stick around. The other part is bewildered and confused and well, cynical, and thus wondering 'Why the hell is he still here?' (Please don't psychoanalyze and tell me that this is a confidence issue because I really am just plain cynical.)

Either way it's an interesting situation to be in. We sort of know each other better now but not well enough to be blurting out our deepest and darkest secrets to each other. Though, to be honest, I am the obviously reticent half of this couple (for lack of a better word, I swear!) Spooner has been pretty transparent about most things. Contrarily, he has yet to meet any of my friends/colleagues. May I clarify that this is in no way my fault. I invited him out for a drink with my work mates last Thursday, but guess what, football took priority so he didn't join me. (See! I am trying!) Am in two minds about his decision to prioritize footy above yours truly though. Firstly, I can totally get the need to kick a ball around a field like a chipmunk on speed and vent off excessive testosterone. Pent-up testosterone is a recipe for disaster so I will usually not stand in the way of one to go work it off. On the flipside, for someone who has been bugging me about meeting my friends, when I finally extend an invitation (albeit grudgingly), his stoic and immediate response was, "Have to check if I am playing footy on that day. If yes, then I have to play. Sorry, it HAS to be done."

......

So seriously, if I lie in wait in his bed with really sexy lingerie, is he going to go, "Not now babe. West Ham are playing Chelsea!" (?)

I suppose I should not be surprised considering that the first thing the man does on a Sunday morning is grab is MacBook Pro and look up the football scores from the night before and goes on to watch the commentary and manager's comments with the volume turned up while I try my hardest to fight the urge to whack him over the head with a pillow because I'm trying to sleep.

Aye, what have I got myself into?

However, the more pressing issue is this. The fact that people around me have started referring to him as my *cringe*... as my....*whispers* boyfriend. Now, I am not afraid of the word but I'm going to put my foot down here and stamp all over the place and declare that he is NOT my boyfriend. (Christ, it sounds like a dirty word!)

Now before you all descend on me with the wrath of a giant thesaurus, please let me explain where I am coming from. I've had different people throw different questions at me trying to prove that he is indeed my boyfriend and I fully understand where these people are coming from. For example, 'Are you dating exclusively?' Yes. 'How long have you guys been seeing each other?' About three months. 'Do you stay over at his place?' Huh? Relevance people, relevance! But okay, yes, I do. 'Has he bought you anything aside from food and drink?' (This one was mind-boggling.) Yes he has! He bought me a really expensive hair-tie because he.felt.like.buying.me.something.

Somehow the people who have asked me the above questions and those of similar nature have all landed/flopped on the same conclusion. Verdict: He is your boyfriend lah!

*insert violent protest here*

For the sake of arguing, thesarus.com defines 'boyfriend' as male acquaintance or romantic companion. Logically, the 'male acquaintance' portion is somewhat wishy-washy because that would mean I have a long list of boyfriends which may imply that I am some sort of harlot. 'Romantic companion' is also negligible as it would involve 'romance'. And uhm... 'romance' is a bit of a dodgy noun on its own. :P

Synonyms for the dirty B word include admirer, beau, companion, confidant, date, escort, fiance, flame, follower (uh?), friend, intimate, partner, soul mate, steady (ha!), suitor, swain (wazzat? A piggy?), sweetheart, and young man.

Using the above as a benchmark, I'm going to embark on the time-tested process of elimination.

Hence, in my head, Spooner is:
admirer, beau, companion, confidant, date, escort, fiance, flame, follower, friend, intimate, partner, soul mate, steady, suitor, swain, sweetheart, and young man. (Sorry, he ain't a spring chicken.)

Mathematically, this means that he only fulfills 22.2% of the 'boyfriend' criteria and thus, cannot be labeled as one! :D

I'm not just being weird and insane about calling him my 'boyfriend'. Truth is, I am not ready. I associate that word with a lot of things and to be fair, I do not think Spooner and I have reached that level of trust and companionship where I'd gladly nod, smile and say, 'Yeah, he's my boyfriend.' As such, he currently hovers between status quos, thanks to my high, exacting and some may say, slightly loopy standards. Don't get me wrong, I like his company, the weird things he says, the funny gait in his walk and even the fact that he 'sweats like a rapist' and has a penchant for freaking normal people out by taking the piss. But that's just not enough reason. What am I waiting for then, you ask? I haven't got a clue to be honest but if you'll excuse the cliche, I suppose I'll know when I know.

And honestly, there's no need to put anyone in boxes, just yet. :)