What?

A bit of a weird dream last night. It featured KfW2 quite significantly. In the dream, she kept inviting me to social and work events but would never explain why. At these events, she wouldn't really spend any time with me.

Eventually I caved and pulled her to one side.

"What's going on? Are you OK?"

She hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"I just need to you be here, watching. I don't trust these people."

And then the dream switches to another social event with KfW2.

And it ended about there.

For some reason, it really shook me for reasons I don't fully understand. I know that, in the dream, KfW2 was really concerned about something and wanted my help, even if she was being vague about it. But is that it? As I said, I can't really put my finger on how it made me feel, just that I was feel off as a consequence. Illogically concerned and worried about her, even if it was just a dream.

Party On!

Quiet Girl pinged me today to let me know that she'd put her name down for the work event in 2 weeks. Still nothing from the fourth person in our shared chat. Stalky guy is going through some family stuff, so he doesn't know if he'll be there.

I don't think any of the other people we usually see at these events will be there. The Halloween weekend is bad for people with families and only QG, me and Stalky Guy are child-free.

QG's friend, the one who I'm increasingly convinced does have a crush on me won't be there. She's separated or divorced, but has a daughter, so I think she'll be doing Halloween with her kid.

It'll be interesting. I don't think it will be busy in general. The numbers attending these events has dwindled since Covid. Apparently last year, it was about 40 people. Back in the day a "theme" event like this would get nearly 300.

There are some nice pubs nearby so if the work party isn't that good, there are options, though I'm not sure QG would go to the pub with me if it were just the two of us. 

Plans.

As expected/predicted, an email came out about a work Halloween party. It's been years since I was last at one, but our regular monthly thing is less frequent now and I could do with a night out.

I asked who was going in my work chat with Stalky Guy and Quiet Girl.

"I'll go," said Quiet Girl, "but I'm not dressing up."

I knew this. QG is definitely not the "dressing up" sort, and I'm glad cos that means she'll be wearing her usual attire: jeans and a t-shirt and I get to surreptitiously admire her ass.

So that's three definite social engagements in the diary: I'm meeting Nerdy Girl on Friday for drinks, it's just over a week until I head out with D, FBS etc. and then just over two weeks until this work thing with QG.

Still outstanding: a night out with AM (and QC1 etc.) and a rescheduled night out with KfW2, but that's unlikely to be for at least 5 weeks. Oh, and a potential meet up with M.

Boys only.

As part of a social event a few weeks ago, I was chatting with both G and KfW2. KfW2 knew that G and I had known each other a while, but I don't think it ever registered with her how long. I'm pretty sure I've told her, but she'd forgotten.

We got talking about school. One of KfW2's friends is now a teacher at my old high school. However, for reasons they couldn't explain, they assumed it was an all-boys school. or they did until she started work and saw a girl in school uniform and the penny dropped. I've never made any secret of it when talking to KfW2, but I guess the subject of girls at school never came up.

I know that I've spoken here before about crushes on girls like E3, SJ and possibly others. I don't think I've ever shared a specific story about my school days or crushes on girls like SJ with KfW2. 

What I have done, though, is tell her about the time that E3 made her move on me at M's 40th birthday party. I'm pretty sure that I explained that E3 was a friend from school. However, that was 14 years ago. KfW2 not only knows about AM, one of my closest friends at school, but has actually met her.Some days, KfW2 can't remember getting out of bed in the morning, so no real surprise.

But yesterday's introspection and trip down memory lane reminded me of that conversation from a few weeks back.

A welcome distraction.

R2 popped into my head earlier. I was thinking about travel, again, and specifically New York. That's somewhere I've wanted to visit for some time. R2 used to live in New York: Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn specifically if I recall correctly.

But as soon as R2 popped into my head, then another memory surfaced: our interaction before she left. I thought she was attractive, and she often came for a chat if I was in the bar. Some of my female friends were convinced that she was interested, but I never saw any signs: she was simply being friendly. We did meet a couple of times, and we did a couple of lunches, but she was always moving to NY long before we became friendly.

And there was also this feeling that she would have eaten me alive. That's not strictly true, but there was probably a massive gulf in maturity, even with me in my early 20s. If anything romantic had happened, I don't think it would have lasted too long, and that was probably a consideration why I didn't really look too hard for any romantic interest from her.

She wasn't the only one where that happened: SJ from school, arguably the first person I really liked (I'd had crushes, done dates and had a girlfriend before SJ came along), but there was that gap in maturity that hung over my head.

I don't think I really found myself or at least was comfortable with myself until I was mid-20s, which probably explains why I never dated anyone seriously until then. CAB came close, but I always knew she was leaving town, too.

So, yeah, some fond memories of R2 today and a little bit of introspection.

Zzzz.

I'm back at work tomorrow after a few weeks of not being in the office. I'm not really looking forward to it, but not for any kind of mental health or stress reasons, just fatigue. And fatigue because of my neighbour's TV habits. I think it must be now about 4 or 5 nights in a row where she's watching TV until well after 1 AM, with the volume being quite loud.

Luckily, my work are not bothered about my start time, so if I need an extra hour in bed, I can take that. 

Wrong end of the stick.

It was one of those frustrating meetings with CC: I tried to explain a minor dilemma, CC completely misunderstands what I am saying, decrees herself to be the expert and wonders why I am frustrated when she keeps mentioning something that has nothing to do with the problem I'm solving.

I have a potential issue with income tax, but CC keeps talking about capital gains tax. That's not exactly the issue, but that was the kind of conversation that we had. Every time I said that it wasn't a capital gains tax issue, she looks confused and tells me I'm wrong.

I've done the research. I know the problem in broad strokes. I know that my problem is minor, something that can be reduced with a bit of creative accounting but unlikely to be avoided.

And yet, CC still sees it all in black and white and still gets the wrong idea.

These types of meetings are less frequent than they used to be. I don't know if it's luck in avoiding topics where CC thinks she's an expert or I'm subconsciously avoiding them or if we're just better at talking about them, but there was definite frustration on both side this morning.

Tea for two.

CC's just messaged asking if I wanted to go for dinner tonight. I've already eaten, so the answer was "no", but I suggested we do breakfast tomorrow. I say "breakfast" but by the time CC gets her ass out of bed, it'll be nearly lunchtime, so it's brunch.

But the initial question about dinner reminded me of a conversation with QC2 where she asked me why I never met her for dinner, only drinks. Women meet for casual dinner, men do drinks, she explained. I didn't have an answer for her. I thought casual meet ups for friends meant something cheap like drinks whereas dinner was more expensive. She never pushed it, as far as I can recall. If she'd suggested we do dinner the next time instead of drinks, I'd have gladly gone with it.

I'm struggling to recall if I did dinner with platonic friends until I met KfW2. I know that I did lunches with plenty of people: FA1, AM, QC1 and others, but dinner was something I simply never considered. I think it was more the dinner aspect. I wasn't a fan of eating out when I was younger, so dinner as a social activity just wasn't on my radar.

So, yeah, interesting random thought. 

Happy talk.

I meant to call KfW2 yesterday to suggest we meet for coffee today. She doesn't work on Fridays and I am taking personal time this week.

I forgot though, and called her this morning. She didn't pick up.

It was almost inevitable that the phone rang as I was just about to step into the shower. I literally had one foot in when the phone went. In total there were three calls, as she kept needing to hang up to do something: put petrol in her car, call her daughter and pick up her daughter. But in total, these three calls totalled nearly an hour.

I would far rather have done the chat over a coffee, but that's entirely on me. I'm pretty sure she'd have agreed to meet if I'd called yesterday.

Promises, promises.

As a result of the family stuff over the past few weeks, I've been speaking to quite a few people. The two that are of specific interest to this post, are AM and Mrs FC. Both have promised that we'll see each other soon. A night out will be arranged, they promised.

AM made a similar promise a few years ago and that never panned out. I've posted over the past few months about the long-silent WhatsApp chat. She can talk a good game, I'll give her that.

I have more faith in Mrs FC coming through, but still not massively.

And I wonder if the guilt aspect has anything to do with it. I have prompted The Crowd to meet up over the past few months and gotten no traction. There was the night out with AM that I posted about that took far too much work to arrange. But then AM was complaining about trying to arrange nights out and getting no reply. I spent 20 years doing that before I took a back seat. And even now, AM has to get her own way when we do arrange something.

But let's see? I'll try and be positive, but history suggests otherwise.

Urgh.

I was probably pushing my luck a bit with the sleep thing: I've had weeks of great sleep. So I was pissed when I dropped off to sleep quickly last night, but woke less than an hour later because my (elderly) neighbour was watching TV until well after 1 AM.

I didn't get to sleep until after 3 AM. 

And I'm feeling it today.