Grrrrrr...

I got an unexpected "Friend request" on Facebook today, but it was who I'd hoped it would be (V, obviously), but rather some loser I've never spoken to in my life. Grrrr...

Another weekend down...

I was at a wedding at the weekend. To be honest, despite the fact that it was a friend's wedding, I wasn't entirely sure about going. My friend, BW, has a habit of pissing me (and others) off. It's not that he does it on purpose, but he's prone to doing extremely weird things that most normal people wouldn't do. He also has a habit of being quite selfish and demanding without putting in the work himself.

So, despite the expense and time involved, I decided to head across with FP. It turned out to be a great night. I met up with some old friends and met the new girlfriends, both of whom were lovely. I wish I'd taken more photos, but apart from that, there wasn't much wrong. The wedding itself was a little weird, which we were expecting because of BW's decision making. As a brief example, he named his brother as his best man, but the best man's speech contained about three short stories relating to the groom and the rest of the fifteen minute plus speech was all waffle. BW's brother was never in a position to offer the kind of speech and stories that a close friend could have.

I was kinda hoping to be able to grab some time with F on my way home as I was flying from an airport close to where she lives, but it wasn't to be. It actually turned out that she was about 20 minutes drive away from me for the entire weekend. D'oh.

:S [It's a smilie...]

The problem I have with E is that she's hard to read. The main issue is the lack of physical contact which means that it can be hard to gauge how close we are. I have a similar problem with QC2, but strangely, while we're not as close as E and I are, I know exactly where QC2 and I stand.

I know that we're not tactile (I hug and kiss loads of my platonic female friends, but not QC2... or E to a certain extent) and most of the time, QC2 and I only skim the surfaces of our private lives (though admittedly, E and I do share a little more than that), though I do have a good idea of where QC2 and I stand, it's harder to tell the same about E and myself.

Tonight, we met as planned. I had a fantastic night, as I usually do with E, but when we called it quits at the end of the night, that was it. It was pretty much exactly like our parting last year (see this post) which was left just as if I would see her tomorrow as a normal routine.

When she first came home and we met up, she was very open - a huge hug and she tilted her head sideways, almost demanding a platonic kiss (I obliged), but tonight was nearly the opposite. Not closed off entirely, but certainly not expecting anything or open to any physical signs of affection. Girls are weird. Perhaps it's just E?

It's no wonder I'm single... I don't understand women at all!

Yay!

I was in contact with E today and we've provisionally arranged to meet tomorrow. She'll get back to me tomorrow about the exact time, though I'm hoping for a time quite close to 5 PM which will give us time to grab something to eat and hit the pub.

She first suggested a later time, because she's busy during the day, but I want to maximise the time we have before she returns home at the end of the week.

I should try and get hold of QC2 because, after our prolonged email chat at the start of September, things went quiet until she completed her college work, which should be done by now.

Misc.

Over the past few days, things have been up and down, socially speaking. Friday, I managed to get out for a few drinks with FP after a terrible day at work involving a new guy. It's not that he doesn't know his stuff, but rather he's clueless about doing stuff himself and requires constant attention.

There were plans for beers last night, but these were cancelled when FP decided he'd had too heavy a night on Friday, not getting back to his place until nearly dawn.

Next week is a short work week for me. I'm off from Friday until the Tuesday to go to a wedding out of town (BW's). It's near to where F lives, so I might be able to catch her for a quick drink on Sunday if things go according to plan. I'll probably hold off on contacting her about it until things become clearer as I hate making semi-arrangements and then cancelling them. I'll be travelling with others, so they'll have to be considered too. It'll probably be last minute, but we'll see.

E's not been in contact since out last night out, which is strange as I had thought for sure she'd be interested in meeting again. I've left a couple of text messages, so I'm in no doubt she'll get back to me soon. She returns home on the 29th, I think, so there's not much time to see her and there's a couple of things I'd like to chat to her about, too. I can do that via email though, it's nothing so important that face to face contact is required.

I've been redecorating!

Can't you tell?

I've been after a snazzy three column layout for my blog for ages. With so much information to display, having only two columns centralised in the middle was a drastic waste of screen space, especially with labels, previous posts, favourite links etc.

I've only just uploaded this new one, so I've not yet added some stuff (links and whatnot), but I kind of like this one and can't see any need to do anything major on it.

What do you think?

Yin and yang.

So after the day with E, the subsequent relaxing recovery day, today was back to work.

It was quite good, actually. Sarah Silverman co-worker came over for a chat, interrogating me about my absence. Like plenty of women, when she heard I was out and about with E, her gossip radar picked up and when she asked if we were an item (or had any history of being an item or any intentions of being an item) I, of course, answered in the negative.

Either way, it's nice to actually sit down and chat to SSCW (as she will be known from now on) and I wish it was something we could do more often. I think she likes me, as opposed to being someone she works with, because the people she sits around aren't the type for conversations, instead burying themselves in their work. With me, she gets a bit of banter and I think she enjoys that.

While out and about at lunchtime, I spotted Pretty Blonde. It's been months since I realised she'd left our employer, but possibly longer since she had actually left. It was the same old story, mind you. Eye contact, something that might have been a spark of interest ( it could just as easily been recognition), though I was with a co-worker, so no chance of striking up a conversation. My stance remains... if I see her in a bar when I'm out with mates rather than co-workers, I'll talk to her. Actually, I guess the same would apply to Lickable Girl, too.

A very pleasant day

Despite the fact that E wasn't feeling particularly well, we still managed to have a great day. Well, I did. Obviously, I can't speak for E, but I'm guessing she did.

We met for lunch and spent the afternoon in a couple of bars, having a chat, a couple of drinks and playing some pool. To end the afternoon, we hit a few travel agents, getting quotes for flights with the plan that I might go visit E next year. Things were looking good on that front, too. E wants to take some time off to see a bit of the country and I wanted E to accompany me when travelling because I don't really like travelling alone. These kinds of experiences are best shared, I feel. So, a tentative agreement was put in place regarding that. Finer details will still need to be hammered out (specific dates, how much time E will take off from work etc.) and they probably can't be finalised until she returns home next month.

I can start having a look at various things though, which might be good for me in general by giving me something to do in my spare time (research) and also give me something to plan for (incentive to sort out the last of my finance stuff) and something to look forward to (general morale/mood boosting).

I suggested we might perhaps see each other again before she goes home, E's time and commitments permitting, od course. She was very keen to do so, which is good and again rams home how poor a friend FA2 is, despite her claims to the contrary.

The only potential spanner in the works is that I might be sent abroad by work again as they're introducing a few new policies, one of which is to present a more personal fce to our clients. That will require a permanent presence at our client's HQ and will probably require rotation of staff from our department to be on site as much as possible throughout the year.

That's not a huge disaster though as I am fairly flexible, as is E. As long as work tells me early enough (they have a habit of leaving it until the last minute and the last time this happened, I was given less than a week's notice, three days after joining the company).

Girls (and not in a good way!)

E coming home this week brings up an interesting parallel with the break down of my relationship with FA2.

The thing with FA2 is that when she was coming home, we were essentially over as a couple. She'd been shacked up with some bloke for a few months having assumed our relationship was over, whereas I had assumed we were still an item, having missed the signs that things had changed. I managed to stumble upon this by accident a few months before her scheduled return. Pity she never told me... I missed out on a guaranteed fuck with FBS because I thought we were still together and FBS has pretty much laid it out on a plate.

So, we chatted about this on the phone, and from what I could tell, she had a lot of thinking to do and we had a lot of talking to do. I had thought, from this, that we'd spend some time together when she came home to sort things out, not just once, but probably a couple of times. In fact, I did ask for this, but met with point blank refusal each time.

When she did come home, I saw her for about four hours one night where we did do a lot of talking and were later joined by a few friends. She ended up kissing me (she initiated it all) before disappearing an hour or so later, then fell off the map for the next three weeks that she was in the UK, also failing to appear at various mutual friends houses and generally being incommunicado and then trotting off back to the other side of the planet.

We did meet a few years after that and were on friendly terms, putting the angsty stuff behind us.

Note also that FA2 was back in the UK this year for a couple of months and was even in her home city, yet what did I get? A night out with a couple of drinks? Nope. A long phone call with a good chat? Nope. An email, swapping news? Nope. I got fuck all squared. That's FA2 for you.

Compare this to E, a friend, who's home for a shorter period of time than FA2 was, but not only asked to spend some time with me, actually went out of her way to make sure we got a lot of time to spend together. We've only got one day together, but it's the entire day!