Not talking.

The CH thing isn't resolved despite my hopes that it would be (and the previous, time-delayed post). It is hopefully in-hand though. CH has returned from her foreign holiday and there was an agreement made that we would meet for lunch when she came back.

I wasn't expecting that to be immediately she came back, so only being in work last week for three days and potentially only in the office for one day meant I wasn't having any expectations.

I do have expectations for next week. CH still hasn't spoken to me since her return, which is disappointing. I don't know if her lack of initiative in conversations has sunk in, so I'll have to bring it up when we talk... if we talk.

I don't believe that she thinks she's done anything wrong. In fact, there's evidence briefly mentioned in this post that she probably thinks I am in the wrong. That's something we'll need to talk about.

I think that if I haven't heard anything from CH by the end of this next working week (lunch would be ideal, but I would take her striking up a conversation) that I'll have to finally pull the plug. It's half-done anyway as I've not made any effort (beyond trying to resolve this via text) in a month. I doubt she's noticed that though.

CH - the outcome

It's currently nearly 7PM on Jan 22nd 2015. At the end of February 2011, CH and I were introduced. I'm going to future date this post to automatically display on the exact time we were first introduced, just out of interest.

That makes today our four year "anniversary"... or that WILL make it our four year anniversary. I realised recently that, at least in the short-term, I've been doing all the work in the friendship and that annoyed me. It's been a week since we last "talked" and I started that conversation asking her to call down to see me when she was next free as I had something for her from KfW2.  What I was going to do was take a step back and see what she did between writing this and it being auto-posted.

But I've been having a conversation with USHW where I've just complained that FA2 never gave me a chance to fix our relationship and how that annoyed me at the time. I know that what CH and I have is not a relationship and despite CH's drunken texts in August where she pretty much said I was awesome, it's still very much a one-sided thing. I want to address that, but part of me thinks that the tone of that conversation isn't very platonic.

If I am as awesome as CH says then she should be initiating more contact, making sure she keeps appointments (i.e. social nights out), being more reliable etc.

So, despite my misgivings about tone, I think I'm going to go back on my plan and I am going to take the initiative one last time. I just hope she realises what's at stake.

By the time this post is scheduled, I should know, one way or the other, how this has panned out.

Talking.

I met KfW2 for lunch today. As she hasn't been in the office an awful lot recently, most of the talking was about work, but we did manage to briefly chat about CH. I'd explained that she'd completely missed the point when I sent my text message, concentrating on the reliability issue over the "not talking" part.

I know that KfW2 and CH talk (or they did), so when KfW2 told me that CH had said something to her about my social "demands", it wasn't really a surprise. Except, CH's complaint was completely inaccurate.

Essentially, CH had mentioned to KfW2 that I was wrong in arranging a night out for the start of December, that making that demand of her time at that stage was just wrong. However, the night out at the start of December was arranged by CH, not me, as a result of cancelling a night out in October and the invitation came from CH herself, not me.

I don't know when we're going to meet up for/at lunch. The ball's in CH's court. I've put it out there that I don't like her unreliability and the fact we don't talk enough, so it's up to her to rectify the problems or at least stop pretending like we're real friends.

I'm not being flippant... I'd love to sit down and be able to talk to her properly every now and again... or for social plans to actually come to fruition rather than have my friends ask if CH has cancelled yet a few days before a night out.

Cheers!

I was half-expecting GM to be in contact about heading out last night. He'd already disappointed me by going silent last week. Sadly, he wasn't. The weekend was saved, however, by an appearance by G. He was only home for a flying visit, but that enabled us to get out for a few hours, have a chat and generally enjoy ourselves.

There was nothing out of the ordinary to shout about, no potential women and, in fact, only 1 woman caught the eye the entire night - a very cute, but incredibly sexy blonde in a figure hugging dress who seemed completely inappropriately dressed to be in the company of twelve blokes on a pub crawl (for that is seemingly what was happening).

Friends will be friends.

It came *this* close to being over. Not in a "throw a massive strop and never talk again" thing, but more a resigned, sad, stop making effort  and saying 'hello' in passing thing.

Of course CH cancelled our lunch meeting. Should I have expected anything else? Apparently she had some shopping to do for someone else and couldn't spare the time. She tried to save herself by suggesting afternoon coffee... not ideal, but I could go with that... until she tells me she's going for coffee and her friends are going too.

Sigh.

I did contemplate walking away at that stage, but then, had I really made it clear to CH what the issues are? I'd just assumed that she knew what was going on.

I dropped her a quick text last night asking if everything was OK and that's prompted a rather lengthy text conversation about the state of our friendship. Personally, I think she's been ultra defensive and has taken the content of the texts quite literally in places instead of seeing a bigger picture.

But, she's agreed to make time to meet for lunch soon. Ordinarily, I'd just assume she'd cancel for some flimsy reason, but this time I think she finally gets it. I don't think we're ever going to agree on the reliability thing. I think proposed social things will always get cancelled because everyone else is more important to her than I am, even if I am only asking her for her time once or twice a year. I don't see that asking to be a higher priority once or twice a year is that unreasonable.

And that's what it comes down to - time. In a recent chat with KfW2 about her own friend problems (a friend who will buy extravagant presents but won't make any time for her), we do agree on this. All I ask is for some time every now and again... be it a coffee, a drink or whatever and it would be nice if my friend,  no matter who that is, could make that their priority.

Here we go.

Tomorrow is pretty much make or break in my friendship with CH. We've agreed to meet for coffee, but we're only able to do so because a previous engagement of CH's hadn't confirmed with her.

I'm still unconvinced that she won't cry off at some stage and that's only part of the issues I have with her. Despite having second thoughts myself this week about my concerns with CH, there are problems I want to address:

• She frequently cancels agreed social events.
• Afternoon coffee is always done on her terms and even if I say I'm free from 3PM (for example), I often return to my desk after a meeting at 2:55 to find she's left ten minutes earlier.
• She's not initiated conversation with me in months unless she wants something.
• She's been very quiet since Xmas.
• Even a birthday drink she wanted to buy me was done on her terms (because she refused to come out with everyone else).
• The few times I've tried to talk to her about serious stuff, she avoids the topic/ends the conversation/ignores it.

I'm not planning on tackling these issues individually, but rather address them all in one bunch - that I'm putting more into this than she is, that I often feel like an afterthought and that I think enough of her as my friend for it to be a problem.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Sunday afternoon blues.

The downside of having a really good night out as a tonic for an ongoing funk is that, sooner or later, you come back down to earth. Part of me feels incredibly lonely today - not in terms of being single, but in general. I'm guessing that part of that is recovering from a rather nasty head cold that's been annoying me all week long. I had the opportunity to go out with S last night, but apathy got in the way, plus I wanted to stay indoors and recover.

I could go up to my sister's today, but the apathy/wanting to recover thing is still in effect... the head cold is going away, but I want rid of it before work tomorrow. It looks like chilling out and plenty of liquids again for me today.

And online dating is going very slowly. As I've posted about earlier, there's not a lot on Match.com to excite me. I've yet to set up profiles on the other sites due to the head cold/apathy combo (illness always makes me lazy). It hasn't stopped me thinking about what I want though, what I'm looking for in a woman. It's kinda based off a comment that GM made a few years ago when he said he saw me with someone who was a combo of CH and KfW2.

That, IMO, is close. Ideally, I'm looking for someone who grabs my attention as much as CB, who I'm sexually attracted to as much as CH and who has a personality like KfW2. Looks-wise, a combination of all three (though KfW2 and CB are stunning compared to CH's general "good looking"), KfW2's height and CH/KfW2's curves (CB is thin).

That's not too much to ask for, is it?

Just what the doctor ordered.

A few nights ago, KfW2 and I had our long awaited Big Night Out. It's something we had planned months ago - late last summer, in fact. Originally, it was going to be the end of November along with CH, but we all know how that panned out.

I took a day off work and we met in one of our mutually favourite bars. KfW2 polished off her first few drinks rather quickly, setting the tone for the night. We ended up at a few bars, the latter few had bands playing as well, so we enjoyed the music. KfW2 found a photo I'd saved on my phone of the actress's Tinder profile that I'd wanted to send to USHW and quizzed me about it. KfW2 then both of us spent ages trying to replicate her pose, while taking photos/selfies. We touched briefly on the CH thing - I'd mentioned that I wanted to give her one actual chance to address the issues. It seems churlish of me to simply reduce contact with her without giving her a chance to see my point of view. KfW2 agreed. KfW2 also let it slip that she knew a couple of secrets that she wasn't allowed to share, especially not with me. I tried a little to get her to confess, but she was being stubborn. I might try again a little, cos I hate not knowing and I am inquisitive. She shouldn't have said initially, but she was very drunk.

KfW2 asked me the next day had I seen any women while we were out, but I hadn't. Well, that's not strictly true. Before she had shown up (she's perennially late), I saw a few cute girls, but none of them appeared to be single. Once KfW2 showed up, I didn't really look around me, I was enjoying myself so much.

Despite nothing newsworthy happening, I had a brilliant night out. KfW2 is always great company and after the revelations of the past week or so, it was a night I really needed. I think she enjoyed herself just as much which I'm pleased to hear and we've already agreed that we'll do it again very soon.

Here we go again...

The CB thing has really had an effect. My past frustrations with online dating have been overshadowed by all the emotions generated by last week's CB revelation and I'm going to give it another go. My Match.com profile is now set up and live. I'm planning on adding an OK Cupid account (I have one already that's dormant) and Plenty of Fish (also dormant). The timeline here is three months because that's how long I've paid up to Match.com for.

Unlike last time, I'm going to try and not shut down all the accounts when my activity has ended, just in case someone sees the profile and wants to get in touch. That's assuming I'm not successful before then and that women are more pro-active this year.

First impressions are not good. I've explained before that I live in a small catchment area, so I'm already dealing with a reduced number of potential matches, and I'm not seeing a lot of profiles that are exciting me. As an aside, CB's profile is still there and still active... but she's updated her location to London. That's not stopped her profile from appearing in my "near me" searches though, just to rub it in.

I'll reactivate the other profiles tomorrow and complete them with details and photos and then see where this is going to take us this time around.

Thinking time.

After the CB revelation and the ongoing CH funk, the desire to get out and meet new people has been reignited. I've no idea how I'm going to do that, though. The obvious answer is to get out to the pub and instead of having fun with friends, I should perhaps go out with the express intention of meeting people. I've never really done that though, but I'll put it out there with GM to see what happens.

I think, as well, that I'll dip back into online dating. I can't just steam in and do the same thing again though  - as has been proved in the past, that's just going to lead to disappointment. As above, I have to figure out some way of doing things differently. Maybe the solution is not to try as hard - just throw a couple of profiles out there and see if they attract interest rather than be hugely pro-active like I've done previously.

However, GM hasn't been as available as I would have liked, especially since we had our chat in the latter stage of last year. I would have thought that opening up to him would have helped him understand my need to get out socially, but it hasn't really.

We had a work night out on Friday. I was with Stalky Guy. It was good fun, though the cute women I had hoped would be out weren't there and we stayed in the one bar all night, so there was little opportunity to meet new people. Out of the blue, Stalky Guy spoke about a friend of mine, an ex-colleague and a friend of MM. Someone who, if there'd been any interest from her end, I'd have easily disregarded my "no co-workers" guideline. He was being extremely complimentary about her. And, sadly, while the night itself was good fun, that was probably the most memorable part of it.

I have tonight to look forward to - drinking and having fun with D and Opinionated Guy. Tomorrow is a day off (though I could potentially be meeting CH if I get round to sending a text message this afternoon). Later this week I have a night out with KfW2 that we've been meaning to have for months and another lazy day off. So, some stuff to look forward to, but I need to give some thought to meeting people and how to do online dating again.