Talking and drinking.

KfW2 has been and gone and it was a great night. We sat and chatted in my place - she's the first person to have come purely for a social visit, so from that perspective it's nice to break that duck. I hope that there will be many more nights with people coming round. Not necessarily parties, just chilled out gatherings.

We covered all the usual stuff - her family, our respective new houses, Sports Girl (and my romantic status) and more. It was late when KfW2's hubby turned up,  very late in fact and that meant that today wasn't particularly enjoyable and seemed to last forever.

Despite suggesting at Christmas that I look to SG for sex ("To get you back on the horse"), yesterday she took a different stance after I admitted that I couldn't get a read on her. KfW2 implied that I shouldn't be looking at bedding SG as she is now a friend, but I was planning on addressing that. KfW2 is correct in that I have to be careful if I pursue this angle or risk losing a friend.

There's an outside chance that SG could come over at the weekend. It's something I've been trying to get for a while. It's not just the sex, it would be nice to have a proper conversation with her. Nearly everything personal I've learned about her has been as a result of a Whatsapp conversation. And vice versa - the personal stuff I've shared was never in person.

The conversation around SG lasted quite a while. KfW2 said that she thought SG was tactile when drunk, also that she was naive and quite, quite bonkers. None of it was said maliciously - KfW2 herself has a mad female friend and we both agreed that they're very similar.

I wasn't drunk last night, but I wasn't sober either.

As it happens, SG asked me how last night went and I'd said it was nice to speak to KfW2 in person cos text-based chats just don't cut it. She agreed. We've had this chat before, which kinda makes her reluctance to come over puzzling.

General ramblings.

It's going to be a week of ups and downs. I have a meeting with a manager in work to talk about my current unhappiness with my performance scores. As indicated in my last post, I'm expecting a brick wall and no kind of flexibility and, as a result of that, a lot of anger on my part.

I guess, what I should at least hope for is a solid plan going forward, but I'm not sure that even that will be forthcoming.

However, on the plus side, KfW2 is coming to visit on Wednesday night for drinks, snacks and chat. I'm looking forward to it a lot - it's been a long time since it was just the two of us sitting down for a beer and a chat together.

Potentially at the weekend, I might actually get Sports Girl to my house. She actually volunteered to help me with some decorating and suggested that she could get paid in beer and pizza. The downside is that she will probably expect GM to come along. Oh, and the fact that I don't really want any help decorating. I want to do it myself.

Any ideas of getting something physical going with SG have been shelved - she's shown no sign of it being an option and a recent Whatsapp chat with her about a guy she dated last year resulted in her being offended that he wanted to take her to his hotel room and sleep with her. No, I don't understand it either.

I'd like the opportunity to get her alone to have a chat though - the stuff we cover when out with the gang just doesn't cut it.

Dreams.

A throwaway comment by GM in a conversation last night reminded me of CB. I've often said that I don't do regrets, but when it comes to the day when I look back, she'll be one of the few. Or rather, not taking the chance I had to talk to her will be one of the few. Still, at least this time, I've avoided the temptation of Facebook stalking her. Go me. I think.

I also had a weird dream a few nights ago. I was out on a date with a cute girl from work (who I've swapped at most about a dozen words with and danced with once at a work event) and it was going exceedingly well, then when I went to the bar, I got chatting to another girl who was asking me about my date. It was Sports Girl! Except, she was blind. And on a date of her own. The ending is slightly fuzzy - I think we chatted for a bit then went back to our respective dates, but I can't remember what happened after that.

Work funk.

Life at work has been frustrating over the past few weeks. Most of it stems from my dislike of hypocrisy. I really hate being told one thing only for whomever to mean something completely different. That doesn't change when you're talking about something like a set of processes in work rather than a person.

So, for my end of year performance, I think I've been really underscored. All the things I was told were important and that I've been building towards for a few years now have been ignored in favour of, I believe, something completely different.

Part of the problem is that our goals are not really that defined. There's nothing measurable there, so it's all subjective and reliant on interpretation. Verbally and written, my feedback is excellent, but when it comes to turning it into the all-important percentage mark, it doesn't add up to me, especially when compared to the guys working beside me.

I have a meeting with a manager to talk about it in the next week or so, but I'm not hopeful. I suspect me manager will be defensive of the company and possibly confrontational at my criticism of the HR policies that have lead me to being a) under-scored (in my opinion) and b) under-paid (subjective perhaps, but not according to the local market in my professional area).

There have been a few decisions like this over the past few weeks. Several (repeated) concerns and queries over decisions made in the office have not been followed up on, only for subsequent decisions and statements to show that my concerns were a) founded and b) ignored.

While the tone of this post may suggest something serious, it's not really. This is just a lot of small things that have built up over the past eighteen months or so, though they're all kinda the same thing - the feeling that I am not being listened to. Without wanting to sound arrogant or blow my own trumpet, I tend to be correct. I fully expect to be vindicated on the concerns I've raised recently, probably within a few months. No-one ever seems to learn to listen though.

Grrr...

Once again, Sports Girl cries off a night out after a period of Whatsapp silence preceding the announcement. Once my last question had gone unanswered for a few hours, I knew something was up, because we swap a lot of messages, so anytime she's quiet there's usually a reason.

I know when she's regularly unavailable such as her work hours or her week night commitments, but this wasn't during one of these times.

On Friday morning, she announced that she would not be attending our planned Friday night out, but gave no reason. As it turns out, I decided that I wasn't going to go out for two reasons: firstly the plans we had made had changed to something I wasn't interested in and secondly, I hadn't slept well the previous night so was wanting some peace and quiet .

Oh, I guess if I am being honest, SG's absence was also a factor. GM was absent this weekend, so this was a prime chance to see if I could get SG back to mine.

The GM influence is a hugely puzzling thing. I know they're friends and I know they've slept together at least once and I know they're close, but I don't know what their relationship actually is.

I think they're closer than I am with KfW2, for example. It's almost impossible to get SG to visit me, but she's at GM's at least a few times per week.

So, bearing that in mind, I was looking at Friday as an opportunity that was taken away.

This is a pattern that's slowly starting to come to light. Friday was a prime example. NYE was shaping up to be another. The pattern is that if GM doesn't come out (or is unavailable) then SG is unavailable. This wasn't always the case, but has been like this since before Xmas.

This is completely at odds with her assertions that our whole group (GM, S etc.) is very important to her and how comfortable she feels with us.

I don't know if this goes back to the NYE thing, but that in turn doesn't add up to her semi-inviting herself out to a recent night out I had arranged with AM, QC1 etc.

Eventually, SG admitted why she wasn't out on Friday night and it seemed a soft reason not to go out. I believe what she said - at the very least, everything she's said and done (even the weird stuff) seems to have been explained.

Without going into details, something (trivial IMO) was troubling her. I suggested that if it were still an issue the next day, we could go out for a drink and talk it through (or forget about it, whatever she preferred).

We swapped Whatsapp messages all the next day right up until the point where I asked her if she fancied heading out for a beer. Then she went quiet. She was online and active in other conversations, just not our private one on one. She then made contact again, but pointedly didn't answer the question until I bluntly asked her again.

She was too tired.

I don't mind that answer - she was doing physical exercise all day, so it's the truth.

However, this thing she does where she doesn't want to say "no" and goes quiet instead is extremely annoying. I don't like having to force answers out of people.

It's exactly this kind of flakiness that stops her from being girlfriend material. It's this kind of flakiness that tires me out. I can't be bothered putting in the effort on any front any more. Plus this thing where GM has to be there is too annoying to fight through.

Figure it out.

Sports Girl and I have been communicating on an almost daily basis, but I still can't get a read on her. At times, she appears to be friendly, but platonic and at others, I feel that there's something more in play that I can't put my finger on.

Like a random invitation to dinner at hers. Or her sharing a Facebook event that I'm attending soon, despite her not knowing who the people at the event are nor any of my friends who are going. Oh, and I think she has plans for the same night.

To me, that says that there's something else in play.

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again in the future, but she is good company and she is a good friend.  Her emotional side/empathy really reminds me of KfW2. Regardless of how things turn out, I'm not going to lose out.