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Things have been weird since Xmas. Sports Girl has kept her distance. Until a few weeks ago, we were still swapping messages several times a day. SG has been noticeably quieter and a bit more distant since then. She has admitted that's the case, but hasn't explained why.

GM has also kept his distance. He's yet to come over to see my new place, despite numerous invitations and and open, standing invite to come over at any time.

Additionally, from the core group seeing each other once per week prior to Xmas, since the turn of the New Year, I think we've all congregated about three times.

Last week was one of our traditional big days out. Except GM said he wasn't going to come out. SG quickly followed that up by saying the same thing. I asked SG why she wasn't coming out. Apparently she only has around eleven un-allocated holiday days left between now and the end of the year.

I suspect the same of GM. He hinted at it without saying it outright. It's disappointing.

It's also suspicious. GM and SG will, seemingly, drop everything for each other. Chances are, if you contact one of them outside of working hours, the other will be close by. If they're not, they'll be on Whatsapp to each other.

I get that they're friends - close friends in fact. It's frustrating though that I keep firing out these invitations only to be either ignored or turned down and then subsequently find out they've spent time together. That's happened a few times. On NYE, for example, SG only decided to come out because GM finally decided to come out. An invitation for pre-club drinks, that I thought had been accepted by GM (and SG) fell by the wayside. In this instance, SG was apologetic. She had thought that she was picking up GM and coming to mine, but GM had other plans.

I messaged SG today for some banter and she admitted that she had taken the day off unexpectedly because she was a little bit tired.

I've suggested doing something this coming Friday and S has already counter-suggested a night at mine, which I'd love to host. Let's see what happens, but my money's on GM and/or SG making excuses.

For the record, I'm not happy with the tone of this post - it seems a little whiny to me whereas I'm trying to vent some frustration. It's difficult putting what I'm feeling into words, but being ignored or let down the way GM and SG have done since Xmas isn't doing my loneliness any favours.

Oh dear.

A work colleague is getting married this weekend and GB, CH, MF and MFF (amongst others) are away to help her celebrate. GB has just posted some photos on Facebook and those of CH are really not doing her justice at all.

I actually think she's very pretty in the flesh, but often photos really don't do her justice.

Not that I'm ever going to say that to her.

Another flash from the past.

For weeks now, we've been teasing S about the new woman in his life. It's a tad on the harsh side - they've not been dating for too long and it's obviously early days, so calling her his "secret girlfriend" was inaccurate. S is notoriously private though, so we only knew he was dating because one of his core friends had told us on New Year's Eve.

Anyway, our usual crowd were having a night out last night and S dropped the news that his new woman was coming to the bar with some of her friends and one of her sisters. I believe that she referred to them as "hot chicks".

And hot they indeed were. They were also familiar. Despite being drunk, I managed to dredge a memory of another drunken night out. S's new woman and her sister were the sisters mentioned in this post. They were both as attractive as I remember and I at least got talking to one of them, S's girlfriend. She seemed nice, a bit shy and I hope things work out between them.

I think the sister's much cuter and, although she's single, she's too young for me.

"Hi again"

Despite not having any real luck with online dating, I keep my Plenty of Fish profile open though not active (all others are usually shut down after I have my semi-regular dabble). After a comment left by my sister on Facebook recently, I logged on again to see if there were any new faces.

And I spotted one immediately! Admittedly, she wasn't exactly a new face. At least not to me. It was Attractive Neighbour from this post. The temptation to send a message was there, for no other reason that I always felt that I didn't make more of our limited interaction previously. Obviously, she is cute and she is interesting (though her PoF profile doesn't give any of the latter away), but her profile blurb suggests that I'm not exactly what she's looking for.

Regardless, I had an "in" with the neighbours angle, so I sent a message. Over the next couple of days, we swapped a few messages - she was friendly in her replies, but I didn't sense an awful lot more. The conversation wound down with an open offer to meet (not really in a date scnario) if she wanted.

The thing is, even though I can see that she's attractive and sexy (having met her in real life already), I wasn't that excited by her. I pondered about sending the initial message for a bit until I finally bit the bullet.

However, as soon as I sent the first message, then things changed - it was important to me that she replied. I was pessimistic though. I'd assumed she had replied due to our real world connection, not because she was interested in meeting for a date. Though that worked in my favour. I was also a little intimidated - she has a wealth of really interesting life experiences and is well travelled (something I would love a partner to have), even though I have a good few myself. Despite my initial reticence, I was actually disappointed that the conversation never led to a date.

On the plus side, it was still a positive online dating experience and I don't have many of those. Attractive Neighbour was polite and while I'm not expecting her to use my phone number, it's out there at least for something non-romantic.

It's also re-raised the loneliness thing, so I might consider messaging a few more people on PoF while the recent AN experience is fresh in my mind.