Money and friends and work.

It's been over a week since my last post. I've been quite busy during that time and will be for at least the next week, so I'm not sure I'll get a chance to post about things in detail.

As a brief recap of what's going on in my life, here it is:

Work's going fairly well. My current project is frustrating because work keeps getting added to it and changed (which is the source of the frustration), but things should still be handed in on time at the end of the week.

I'm just back from visiting a few mates for a long weekend. It was expensive, but great fun, and it's always good to catch up with friends.

The money thing's playing on my mind a little. I spent far too much this month and had to dip into my meagre savings to be able to afford the short trip away. I was also kinda hoping to buy a new iPod next month as my old one has died and I've really gotten used to having an mp3 player for work and going to the gym (my gym attendance has dropped to zero since my last one died), so I'm going to have to think long and hard about whether I can justify spending the cash (I could afford it, but can I justify it? The thing is, I probably can.) At the same time, I'm meant to be saving money to clear my credit cards and build up a deposit for a house. I am clearing the CC debt a bit, but not as fast as I should, but I've done nothing about the house deposit apart from stashing my bonus from last year (and just spent half of it at the weekend). This is going to require sitting down and re-evaluating my spending and saving habits.

Confession.

So, what is USHW's confession?

Another work's night out.

So here we are at some ungodly time of the morning. I woke up about half an hour ago and can't get back to sleep. I'll post this and see if I can't grab some kip.

Last night was a bit weird. Yet another work's do. On the plus side, Lickable Girl was there, despite the fact she's left our company and looking (in my opinion, though it seems to be a minority) mighty fine. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to talk to her – she spent all night (well, the few hours she was there) talking to her ex-colleagues. It was still nice to see her, though.

Pretty Blonde. Remember her from last month? Well, she was spotted too, but showing absolutely no interest at all in me, so I probably imagined whatever it was I saw at last month's thing. Shame… she is kinda cute and has a nice ass.

So our team went out for a few beers, but despite a few of us turning up early, we got fragmented again. It happens with our team all the time. It didn't really bother me until last night, but one of the guys was concerned and wanted to know why. It appears that half the team takes itself off because of a perception that I don't like one of the newer team members. I'm not entirely sure that it's an accurate perception, but it would be right to say that this new team member is, well, frustrating.

I'm sure he's a decent enough chap, but I find myself not wanting to talk to him because he has a habit of interrupting. If someone in the team asks me for advice or help, he interrupts when I'm about to speak. If I'm having a conversation with someone across the desk, he interrupts from twenty feet away. If he asks me to explain something to him, he interrupts me to repeat what I said in the previous sentence. I find this incredibly rude and off-putting when trying to talk to someone and so I try to limit the conversations I have with him. I'm sure he does this with other people, but I'm probably the only person who has distanced himself from the guy because of it.

I don't think it's enough to make half the team piss off and do their own thing on a night out, is it?

USHW

... and I've just noticed that USHW was online last night and I completely didn't see her. I just came in and shut down the PC and trundled off to bed.

Pity. I wanted to know what other questions she'd been expecting me to ask.

Hangover city.

I rolled in last night at some time... don't know what time. Probably half-past midnight or thereabouts, and I meant to blog this, but it's perhaps better that I didn't - alcohol and a foul mood are not good ingredients for a rational blog post.

E invited me down to hers yesterday for a BBQ. She shares a house with a friend of hers from school and it's the first time I've really met people that E knows (though to be fair, most of them were friends of friends of hers). That was fun, and it was great meeting new people (despite the fact that I'm not really that good at meeting new people).

Later in the evening, E suggested we headed into the town to try a bar. I knew, because E had told me, that she had been trying to arrange to meet up with the bloke she's kinda been seeing recently. I'm not sure what the exact situation is and how serious it is, but she seems quite keen. Either way, E was going to meet up with her bloke whether I was interested in going or not.

That's where the problem lies. Despite the fact she'd invited me to hers, she was quite prepared to let me sit in her friend's house and chat to people I'd only just met a few hours previously while she nipped off to shift a bloke or I could accompany her where I'd probably end up as a third wheel. For the first time since I've known her, E did something that I didn't like.

As it turns out, when we did meet up with her bloke (and all I can say on the subject right now is 'Wow'. I may post more later), E didn't just walk off and leave me as I had kinda expected her to, but I was included in the conversations as much as possible and when the bloke went off to chat to his mates etc., E and I struck up our own conversations. I was still kinda pissed at her original attitude about seeing this bloke, though.

It looms closer!

Following on from my reminiscing, regret and certain amount of frustration about CAB, my mind turned today to the 'near misses' i.e. girls and women that could have had potential, but for a slight difference in fortune.

Two spring to mind immediately, for different reasons. The first happened years ago - probably fourteen, at least. Having managed to swing a few summer jobs for a couple of friends, one of whom was AM (who were dating each other at the time), they spent the summer working in a department beside mine with other university students. Sadly for them, their work was cut short and they were released with a few weeks left before uni started again, but AM invited me out for a drink one lunchtime with her new friends, one was a girl called B. On the bus on the way home a few weeks later, having bumped into AM who had just finished her last day, she proceeded to tell me that B had confided in her that she thought I was great. Why AM never said anything is beyond me, especially as she knew (and still does) that I am bloody useless at meeting women. AM never got B's contact detail, so following up on that was never on the cards.

More recently, G and myself went out on the lash on Saturday night to a local bar that I'd never been in before. Towards the end of the night, we were both fairly inebriated and, as I am prone to do when out with G, I am a lot more forward and less shy. We managed to get talking to a couple of girls standing nearby – a blonde and a brunette. They were good fun and we spent the rest of the evening chatting away. It turned out that the blonde lived within walking distance of where G and I live, so we decided to share a taxi. The girls invited us back for a drink, which we accepted.

It soon became apparent that further shenanigans were on the cards, should we want. I'm not sure G did, but the brunette had certainly caught my eye and for once, I was fairly sure that the feeling was reciprocated. Anyway, finally getting the girl on her own (and I can't even remember this girl's name, sadly), we proceeded to swap saliva for the briefest of times before the blonde threw one almighty (and loud) hissy fit. It turned out that once myself and this girl had disappeared, G had decide that he was going to go home (at this stage, it was nearly 5am) and the blonde was not impressed (despite the fact that nothing had happened and G had not done anything ungentlemanly).

I was gutted. I was just about to ask the brunette if she fancied a drink (the blonde had no booze left and I had an empty house and a fridge full of booze having had a BBQ that day) when she decided she had to see what was up. Less than thirty seconds later, I decided I should probably leave. The brunette gave me a very nice send off and I trundled back to mine, the rage of an angry blonde still ringing in my ears. Waking up the next morning, hungover, I realised that the brunettes send off (nothing more than an excellent snog) had clouded my mind and I'd completely forgotten to get her phone number. Bollocks.

The mid-life crisis looms.

Today has seen me in a very 'High Fidelity' mood, contemplating ex-girlfriends which is never a good thing to do at work. Specifically, I've been thinking about CAB, a girl I dated very briefly about 12 years ago. CAB was fun, she was sexy (ticked a lot of boxes of my 'type') and we had fun together. Sadly, not the kind of fun I wanted to have with her, though not for the lack of trying of both parties, although mainly me.

Circumstances made it difficult to get the kind of alone time we both wanted – for starters, we both lived at home at the time. CAB wasn't a huge earner, either, being on a government scheme after her graduation, so weekends away weren't on the cards. They were suggested, but CAB didn't want to feel like I was paying her way – a sentiment I understood at the time, but only really related with when I was dating FA2 and I found myself in CAB's situation.

I'm not sure where it would have gone if things had been different. Shortly after we started dating in March, CAB announced that she was going to go off and do a Masters or a PhD which would have meant leaving in the summer.

I called it off long before then, though. Things got very routine, very quickly. Every week, it was the same thing. We'd meet up on a Wednesday after work, get drunk in bars around our hometown and then get an early-ish bus home. The weekends would be similar, though we'd often be out with friends.

They were fun, but it seemed as if the relationship wasn't actually going anywhere. I've no doubt that CAB could tell you exactly why, she was a psychologist, but I've still no idea. Perhaps CAB's lack of money, coupled with our inability to get horizontal and naked meant that the relationship, even in its early stages, was going to remain stagnant.

Even with the odd fumble when we found some privacy in an environment that allowed such things (and granted, CAB did look magnificent naked – not something I can say about every woman I've undressed), the lack of sex was very frustrating to me (and I think to CAB, though she never actually said anything).

I do wonder what she's up to these days. I do have an idea, as I see her name attached to some important looking documents on the internet, though I am reticent about getting in contact. I do still wonder about what she's like in the sack, though. Maybe I should have just gone along with it for a few more months, until she left, and then called it quits then.

QnA

Well, thanks to the marvels of the internet, USHW has provided me with a list of what the acronyms mean. They all make perfect sense, and now I'm thinking of that arse. Mmmmm...

Still, the questions do not end. What questions was USHW expecting me to ask?