I dunno LOL.

MfW has a girl in tonight. He's seen her before - they're ex-work colleagues but work in different towns so I've no idea how they know each other. Regardless, for the past few weeks, they've been seeing each other regularly - he goes off to hers, she comes up to ours. I don't know if it's serious or just fuck buddies, but it is regular.

I thought they might have gone to the pub tonight, leaving me in front of the telly with a few beers, but no. MfW is cooking! Bear in mind that all he eats is stuff you can throw in the microwave/oven, I thought that cooking for a bird he's trying to impress might be a risky venture.

Then I saw what he was "cooking". A pre-made Tesco chicken dinner thing (for two) with a large portion of thick-cut Tesco oven chips. Bang everything in the oven for 35 minutes and you're done.

He's a 31 year old man and I've never seen him cook anything properly in the many years I've known him. Certainly with his last serious girlfriend, he never cooked beyond maybe frying a steak and throwing some Tesco ready-made mash in the microwave.

UF is the same, actually, though he and his now fiancé actually go out to cafés and restaurants. MfW is a man who earns almost £12000 more than me per year and yet skimps on absolutely everything where he can. However, he hates thinking that he's lost out.

For example, when we moved into this place, we divided the rent in relation to the size of the bedrooms. The master room (with ensuite) is significantly more than the middle sized room which is slightly more than the smaller room. MfW challenged the rate for the larger room, but still wanted it. I said that I was prepared to take the largest room and was also prepared to pay the extra amount due to the larger size and en-suite... and yet MfW still insisted that he wanted the room. I think he felt that he was being manoeuvred out of it.

UF automatically declared a preference for the smallest room (and hence the cheapest rent). MfW and I ended up tossing a coin because MfW refused to back down - he continually said that it was too expensive, but wouldn't just admit defeat. I honestly think he sees it as a sign of weakness or something. When I voiced a theory that UF will move out next summer (he's getting married late next year) when our lease is due for renewal, MfW quickly said that he'd move into UF's room. He hates the fact that UF is paying approximately £40 less than him per month - he still thinks that he's "losing" and that it's all a big competition.

Personally, I'd love the master room. I've no qualms about taking it and paying the current price for it - I could put a larger room and en-suite to very good use... plus having to use the communal bathroom might mean he's a bit more aware about having to do some housework around the place.

I still don't understand how a man who wants a flashy place where he can impress girls won't do any housework and lives like a student, despite being a professional and earning an extremely good salary for the area.

Hmmm. That kinda turned into a bit of an anti-MfW post. Ah, fuck it. I'm away for a beer.

Sigh.

I was meant to be heading out with DSC this weekend and it took a lot of persuasion to get her out. She's miserable at the moment and her boyfriend being a useless muppet isn't helping her. Apart from meeting her a few times this year for lunch, shopping trips and whatnot, I can't recall hearing her say that she's been out with her friends. This is a girl who used to love getting dressed up and coming out for a few drinks and a bit of a dance.

I got a text today - she's crying off. Admittedly there are reasons for her crying off - medical ones - but she has this habit of deciding she's not in the mood to go out and then just cancelling, even though we're still three full days away and the medical thing in itself is not stopping her from going out.

Often, I think she'd be better off seeing through the social engagements rather than moping in the house (alone) or arguing with her boyfriend because he a) doesn't understand b) doesn't care and probably c) will be at the pub with his mates.

I think I am still angry, because I expected her to cry off anyway, but also because I don't think she helps herself and sometimes I think she likes to be unhappy. Staying in when her partner is away to the pub gives her something to complain about...

No title necessary.

Recently, my blog hit the 4000 post mark in just over seven and a half years. That's roughly 533 visits per week or just over ten per day. On average, that is. Or is it? I can't remember if that's just from when the counter was started or if it's the entire thing. I prefer to think of it as the entire thing because I am currently too lazy to look at the settings and confirm it one way or the other.

Still, not too many comments though, which is kinda disappointing. Maybe I should just shut down the commenting function and be done with it?

Ho hum

Last night was ummm... not as good as I'd hoped it was going to be. It started off well, KfW2's friend (let's call her CC) arrived at mine wearing a very nice dress with a plunging neckline, coupled with a Wonderbra so the goods were very much on display (and she's not a, well, small girl). Eye contact with her was difficult! KfW2 arrived at her usual time (45 mins after she says she will), but the four of us enjoyed a few hours at mine, chatting and having a laugh. Even KfW2 voiced her opinion that she was having enough fun at mine without having to go out to a club, but sadly the decision was not ours to make.

We left and went to the club. The problem I have with this club is pretty much the music - the actual interior is great, but the music is, IMO, really not my scene. Last night's, as an example, was far too dancey for starters, and that was after KfW2's friend had said that the DJ who was on was playing a wider (less dancey) mix of music than usual.

KfW2's busty young friend was after a man and took herself off after snagging one, KfW2 was out with her fiancé so they went off for a dance and a snog as you do and I was left as a kind of third wheel on my own. I don't even recall that there was that much totty about to perv at or chat to. It's at times like this that having a girlfriend would be great - especially when KfW2 makes her relationship with her fiancé look easy, fun and worthwhile (unlike DSC's car crash of a relationship that's enough to put anyone off a relationship)

KfW2's friend returned after a bit because there was something wrong with the one she'd chosen. It appears she's even more choosy than I am! So, with the four of us all together again, the night got better, and the DJ played music that was more in tune with my tastes.

We left late-ish, but before the end and came back to mine for a few more drinks before I called taxis and everyone went home. I had the hangover from hell today (I blame the cigarettes more than the booze), but recovered mid-afternoon.

KfW2 keeps asking if I had a good time. I say I did. I did mostly, apart from that middle period which was only about half an hour, but I'm not sure she believes me.

The weekend appraches

Tonight is a chilling night. Tomorrow, I'm out with KfW2 and a few others to a club. We're meeting at mine, having a few drinks then moving on. With my new found sense of optimism from last Friday night, I have decided that it will be fun. Maybe not as... ummm... productive as last Friday night, but fun nonetheless. I'll probably have to pop down to Tesco tomorrow and get a few things in. Can't be a bad host!

I also popped round to see M and MM last night and their new baby. A good couple of hours entertainment and chat and catching up. No opportunity, I thought, of mentioning MMBF until the end as I was walking out the door and asked MM to pass on my best to her, which resulted in a weird, knowing smile from MM. I didn't follow it up as it was already late and MM was taking the infant off for a feed.

Also made arrangements for the next weekend to head out with DSC on a proper Saturday night out, though she's promising to stay sober (her utterly useless boyfriend has made his own arrangements for the next five weekends and DSC's complaints that he never takes her out are falling on deaf ears). DSC's cute friend with the great rack has all but disappeared and bar the odd post on Facebook, doesn't figure any more so won't be out. Oh and has recently changed her relationship status too changing whatever outside chance I had of a shag into zero.

Grrr...

I had planned to take a night class this year, partly because there are a few things I'd like to be able to do (better) and it's a good excuse to get out of the house for a few hours per week and perhaps meet some new people.

I spent last week trying to get the hold of someone who could tell me more about the course that I was specifically looking for and after a few days to-ing and fro-ing, I had all the details I needed and just needed to enrol.

Except, trying to get information on enrolment was impossible. The website contradicted the email... a brochure on the website contradicted both the website and the email I'd received.

Eventually, after trying to enrol over the phone (I called well over thirty times in three or four days), I took an hour out of work and went to do it personally. The course was full. It had been empty all summer and even when the tutor was emailling me, all places were unfilled, but in the five days since I had been trying to enroll, the course had been maxed out.

To say I was angry was an understatement. I really, really fucking hate academia.

Sunday blues.

FP cried off last night and GM had already made plans. That's probably a blessing in disguise. I sat in, had a few beers and watched rubbish on the telly. Today, I've been busy-ish. I've done some research for my fitness plan/goals, I've researched a course I want to do at night class this year and I've gotten some stuff done around the house. Not bad for a Sunday. I tried to get S out to the cinema, but he's playing hard to get.

I dread to think the state I'd have been in if I'd gone out and had a load more pints. I'm tired today... still need to catch up on sleep from Friday night, but my head's clear enough that I can do stuff.

Well, I never!

Hmmm... it's interesting where things take you when you least suspect it. After blogging a few posts recently about stepping out of my comfort zone and trying new things - specifically related to KfW2's friend's birthday, the last thing I expected was to go out and sleep with a 26 year old.

This is off the back of a few conversations I'd had elsewhere about body issues (prompted by this post) and self-esteem/confidence.

I got a call last night, late on. Well, not that late, but late enough for me. It was after 10PM and I was just settling in for a night on the sofa and a beer when I got a call from a friend suggesting a few drinks. This was not totally unexpected - we'd made tentative arrangements, but I tend to be quite settled by 10PM and never bother going out once I get into the "settled" mentality. Friday was different - it was a great day here and I had been busy around the house doing bits and pieces so hadn't yet gotten into that settled frame of mind.

I threw on a quick change of clothes and headed out. We had a good night - plenty of chatting and some flirty banter with a few girls - a typical night out with the two guys I was with (S and another guy that the girls find cute - I'll call him GM).

An aside about S and GM - I used to work with them a few years ago. I've known S for a good while now, but GM is someone I've only known for about three years, but he's a good lad. Despite the fact he's ten years younger than me, we do share a lot of things in common, so he's easy to get along with. S is, too, for the most part. We all used to hang around in the same group with KfW and JB, which is how S introduced me to everyone.

We stopped off at a late night greasy spoon for some food and while we were sitting there a reasonably cute, petite, blonde girl came and sat down while her friends got food. For whatever reason, her friends disappeared, leaving her on her own. We didn't figure this out until fifteen minutes later. She claimed she was drunk, but didn't seem it, though was quite flighty and random in her comments. So we sat around the table, chatting and generally having a laugh.

By this point, myself and GM looked to be interested in this girl, but she was definitely making eyes at me. S was, well, I dunno. I dunno if he was interested, but he was IMO, making a dick out of himself. When she went off to make a phone call to see if she could find her friends, GM made a (verbal) tactical withdrawal. We said that we'd stay and make sure she got a taxi whereupon she invited us all to a party, having made contact with her friend.

GM declined and shepherded S away (he was still being dickish, but I think it was drunken dickish rather than deliberately dickish, if you get my meaning), leaving me and the blonde girl. I don't usually turn up to anything on the basis of a third-party invitation (see recent posts about KfW2's friend's birthday), but I knew that MfW2 was having a fuck buddy over for a pre-arranged booty call, so wanted to keep my head down. This is usually where I call things a night - a handy get out clause - but in light of recent conversations, I took the other option, to stay out, to see what happens.

We managed to flag a taxi and get to the party whereupon the girl's friend was being annoying by pretending not to hear the door and refused me entry (despite giving her friend permission to bring all three of us not fifteen minutes previously).

I said that I'd just head home - no harm done - but the blonde girl insisted on making her own way home too as she was pissed at her friend for both abandoning her at the cafe and then being a moron when she showed up.

It turned out that we were both heading roughly in the same way, so we flagged a taxi down with the intent of dropping her off at hers on my way back to mine. It would have been a slight detour. But when we got to hers, she invited me in for a drink, and I accepted. Sometimes I'm clueless about women, but I had noticed the signals and wanted to see how this would pan out.

Suffice to say that the drink didn't last too long before we were sat on her sofa, snogging away. And we weren't doing that too long before things progressed.

As a result, I've had precious little sleep due to a late night finish and an early morning start. I've been spaced out all day and have already potential arrangements with FP tonight for the pub as well that I'm strangely looking forward to, despite the fatigue.

It's unlikely that there will be any further contact with this girl. At 26, I don't think she's relationship material and, well, there is kinda the issue that she thinks I'm eight years younger than I really am.

Oh dear...

First it was clubbing, then it was pubbing, then it was pubbing on a different night to what she'd originally planned... these are all the different things KfW2's friend pondered today at lunchtime for her birthday celebrations.

I was all for pubbing on the Friday night, cos I like pubs and JB would be there, increasing the number of people I would know (plus, JB perving is good).

Then it changed again. We're back to heading out as originally planned, to a club, on the original night... only now everyone is meeting at mine for a few warm up drinks.

Still, a week to go. It could all change again!

The golden goal.

Once again I am thinking about getting into shape, losing a bit of weight and regaining some fitness. I have two reasons for this - I am doing a 10K run with the boys next year and I have a foreign holiday to fgo on that I'd like to be able to fit into some nice summery clothes that I currently own, but are not the greatest fitting. Generally being fitter means better sleep at night and better concentration and mental faculties etc. during the day that would be enormously helpful in my line of work.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to get ripped and run off and do the Insanity P90X routine. What I want is to lose some weight, especially around the midriff and tone up a bit - tighten the tum, get a bit of stength in the arms and become fitter. Importantly, though, I don't want to lose too much weight. I have my reasons for this that I don't want to share publicly at this time.

The amount of information out there is incredible and often contradictory though. About the only thing that everyone agrees on is that diet (note: not "going on a diet") is 80% of weight loss, and 20% exercise. But everything else is at odds with each other - carbs, no carbs? Proteins? Healthy fats? Calorie counting or not? Trying to find a decent eating plan is impossible and, sad to say, my own motivation to do exercise is really poor right now.

So, starting at the weekend, I'm going to try and research an eating plan. Right away I know that I will have to cut out the booze (if stuck, drinking gin and slimline tonic has been recommended in the past by GC) and I will have to cut out my much loved foods of cheese and crisps. The new eating plan will require me to be more stringent about what I buy at the supermarket, doing weekly shops instead of when I need them so that I have time at the weekend to cook my own lunches and always have things in the house so I don't resort to unhealthy snacking.

I've said this before, but I will have to work all this in gradually - stopping the boozing, radically overhauling my diet and rapidly increasing my exercise will not last long if I do them all at once. I need to gradually phase them all in. I'll knock the booze on the head in October for a few weeks as I'm already booked up for the pub for most of this month. The diet thing will probably be the second thing as I see that as taking a good few weeks to research properly, so that means that the first thing I need to to is up my exercise routine - find things I can do in the house without too much impact (i.e. pissing off the downstairs "neighbours") cand turning up to the gym again maybe once or twice a week - and ultimately aimn to be doing something perhaps four nightrs as week for an hour (or more) at a time.

I'm not looking forward to it, but it's something I need to do.

...

So, after a bit of pondering and a conversation with UHSW, I told KfW2 that I would go out with her to her friend's birthday. I'm still not 100% convinced about it - we're supposedly going to a club that plays music I tend not to like - but I guess that sometimes, it makes sense to go out and do something you wouldn't normally do.

Plus, KfW2 was really pleased that I'd changed my mind.

There's still plenty of time for things to change, so we'll see what happens.

*sigh*

The proposed night out with KfW2 is in danger of being cancelled. The night we were planning on heading out has kinda been hijacked by a friend of KfW2's whose birthday it is. Well, I don't know if it is her actual birthday on the day we had planned to go out, but that's the day she's taking for her celebration. KfW2 guiltily confessed to me earlier that this had happened at lunchtime (while I was out for lunch with GfW).

I kinda brought it on myself because I had said to KfW2 to invite her friend along to our night out, the friend (who I kinda know, having met her a few times as she work in our firm) had said that she was planning on going out the previous week for her birthday, but if we were heading out, could combine the two (or words to that effect - I'm paraphrasing here a little). So KfW2 assumed that I would tag along for her friends birthday. However, I don't think I will... firstly, I don't think it's KfW2's place to invite me to her friend's birthday, even thought it'll be held in a pub/club and isn't private (I'm funny that way - see this post) and secondly, the choice of pub/club is something I don't like - the music is far too dancey for my liking. So, I said that I probably wouldn't go.

KfW2 had started the conversation by suggesting I would be angry (at the choice of venue) but I think she was slightly taken aback when I said that I probably wouldn't go (as I don't know her friend very well) even before the venue bombshell was dropped. I think KfW2 is feeling a little guilty now... and I don't think she should - a birthday for one of her closest friends is a more than acceptable reason to change plans. It's not like she simply had a better offer at the last minute and took it, which really would grind my gears.

There are two weeks to go, so things could change. KfW2's friend could directly invite me out which would probably make me reconsider my position (yes, I really am funny about that) or the venue could change or KfW2's friend could change her mind about the date...

Red alert, red alert!

I know I have a problem opening up. Even the person that I trust most in the world, G, has trouble getting information out of me, though he has less problems than most. He was the first that I admitted the E3 conundrum to, for example, but I still have the same issues opening  up to him as I do with, for example, QC2. I've known G for pretty much my entire life - at least that part that I can remember. G and I have known each other since P1, when I was... *thinks* ... five? Probably five. Barring one brief period where a girl separated us (by him, I should add, though isn't that often the case?), we've been there for each other.

So when G's partner showed up tonight and mentioned that E3 is getting very broody, especially in the light of M and MM's recent arrival, both G and myself had a bit of a giggle over my actions a few months ago where I put her in a taxi because she was getting a little too friendly.

Don't get me wrong - as a no-strings shag or a bit of a snog and fumble, I'd be right in there, but if she has grander designs then I should probably stay clear, given the fallout from mutual friends.

The day after.

Yesterday was...eventful. Pretty much all my conversations were female orientated - weddings, breast feeding, clothes, unrequited attraction by a girl. Interesting, but very female-centric. We had our monthly work night which was OK, but we met up with a few ex-colleagues later on and CH arrived down after her own commitments were met.

As usual, CH and I had a good laugh and I think my friend GB might be a bit of a cock blocker in that she was getting very protective of CH last night. I think the chemistry that we share might be a concern to others. It's not to me and I don't think it is to CH, but GB was definitely trying to keep between us last night and was moving conversations away from anything I might try and join to something else (the breast feeding convo for example).

There were a few kisses between us - quick pecks on the lips, not full-on snogging (she is married with kids, so nothing's ever going to happen), I grabbed her boobs for a photo at some point (photo deleted the next morning for obvious reasons), a cheeky bum nip and plenty of hugs. One thing that did cause me to wonder was when she had her arm around me, she would slide it down over my ass rather than remove it normally. This happened more than once, so it's either something she does normally, or she wanted a cheeky feel of my arse. I'm all for that, obviously.

Regardless of that one moment of confusion, it was a great night out all round. Her friend came to pick her up around midnight which was interesting in itself as this was the friend that CH was supposedly going to try and set me up with. Sadly, I don't think she's my type, plus she's a full-time smoker. While I do smoke the odd cigarette and cigar, I'm not a full-time smoker and probably wouldn't want to date one. In fact, the last full-time smoker I dated was CAB and that was nigh on twenty years ago.

Still... a good night out. I met up with DSC this afternoon for a recovery lunch and some aimless wandering about the town, doing little bits and pieces of shopping. That was thoroughly enjoyable.The plan for tonight is to keep my head down, but G is home this weekend and we're definitely meant to be heading out at some point. Usually, this means a few quiet pints on Sunday night, but the odd time it's a Saturday instead (or as well as the Sunday). I don't feel as bad as I should given the booze I poured down my neck last night, but I would probably think that avoiding the pub tonight would be a good idea on my part.