A blast from the past

Over the years, USHW and I have had many chats about my romantic history. There has been talk about regrets, missed opportunities and a lot of other things. I've even covered some of them here.

While I think I've covered every important crush, date, partner or one night stand during the many different conversations, obviously some are never going to be mentioned simply because they were uneventful or not worth pondering over afterwards.

A post by a friend of mine earlier was surprising. She posted a picture of herself with her closest friend. A friend who had gone to uni with AM and QC1. A friend who I had been massively attracted to for a spell in the early Nineties and yet I'd completely forgotten about.

We'd come close to getting together a few times when I'd gone to visit AM at her uni and we'd gone out to the pub with her flatmates, but it just never seemed to work out.

I can't believe that I'd essentially forgotten that she even existed.

Back and forth.

On the Tuesday before Xmas, Sports Girl popped up on Whatsapp. She was talking about New Year's Eve plans. The conversation lasted a lot longer than recent conversations had. Well, longer than any conversation we'd had since she started dating GM.

Four hours later, the the conversation was still going strong. This harks back to our pre-GM conversations. In fact, it reminded me of a time that I was visiting KfW2, back when I was considering SG as a physical option, just before Xmas last year, where she was sending messages at a rate of like 1 per minute. My phone was constantly making alert noises and vibrating. KfW2 was amazed.

And as soon as she became official with GM (after a few months of friends with benefits, if I read it right), the conversations just stopped.

So the sudden intense conversation made me more than a little suspicious, especially a conversation that was trying to arrange a social event.

I shifted the conversation towards S and GM.

"What are their thoughts on NYE?", I asked.

"We've split up" was her reply.

I was sympathetic, but in my opinion, a break up is inevitable. Their relationship is so intense and they already spend every spare minute in each others company. I've already suggested here that SG is flaky, though that seems to be dialled in with GM. Their supposed reasons for breaking up were GM's constant moodiness (he's suffered from depression in the past) and SG's sensitivity. SG supposedly had issues with GM having a female as a live-in tenant. A female that GM briefly dated years back. They're close friends now, but SG seemingly couldn't handle that.

With the knowledge that SG and GM had split, I stepped back from the NYE talk. GM is more my friend than SG and I'd far rather spend NYE with him than her.

I confirmed as much as I could with GM without admitting how much SG has shared. Before I got a chance to talk to GM about NYE though, the Xmas holidays came.

My concern was wasted. Seemingly, over Xmas, they've patched things up - lots of gushing messages on Facebook and an actual Facebook relationship announcement.

I still don't see how it has legs and if it does end, it will be a massive blow up. They live too much in each other's lives for it to be anything else really.

SG is back into full-on NYE mode. Both SG and GM will be out, as will FC, his wife and hopefully S.

Missed opportunity?

A planned night out with FP last night saw us in one of my favourite bars. The bar where I first set eyes on CB, actually.

We had literally just arrived when I spotted a really nice brunette sitting at a table with her friends. She looked like a cross between a girl I'd seen on one of the dating apps (who, in turn looks kinda like KfW2) and MMBF, though not as attractive as any of those mentioned. She was wearing a plain black dress and a pair of OTK boots. FP and I were appreciative of the OTK boots.

As I've repeatedly mentioned here, it's rare that someone will really pique my interest in real life. I can't remember the last time it happened, so I was trying to summon the courage to chat to her. My confidence was a little high - I'd already been given a kiss on the cheek and a great hug from a cute redhead for carrying some drinks for her. And FP was trying to talk me into it as well. However, I'd already seen a guy approach the group and be what appeared to be brutally shot down.

FP and I left shortly after the guy had been sent away with his tail between his legs, the brunette was still chatting and laughing with her friends.

Lazy, lazy.

I was considering posting a completely uninteresting piece of information a few weeks ago after I had caught a 24 hour virus. That snippet of uninteresting information was that I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've spent all day in bed or even all day in my pyjamas. I certainly can't remember any time in my adult life beyond a night with FBS or a few times with FA2 that I've done it on my own without any... errr... persuasion. Even lazy days see me fully dressed, even if I have no intention of leaving the house.

However today, that number has increased a fair bit - another day spent totally in bed, just reading and a further few days of sitting around in my night clothes.

Hmmm... I'd far rather that I was reporting more FBS/FA2 reasons for the hibernation but sadly not.

A Christmas Digest (Part 1?)

Another digest of sorts, covering the entire week. It's been eventful.

It started off badly. Fresh off returning home from KfW2's house, I was in bad form all of Sunday. It was nothing but tiredness. Well... not really. Something resurfaced on Saturday night that hasn't shown its face for quite a few years - my non-platonic feelings towards KfW2. While that in itself is not an issue - they were put back in their box sharpish and I don't feel guilty about these feelings nor do they trouble me - the issue is, unsurprisingly, this put me into a funk.

But it was mostly tiredness.

On Monday, while I was having coffee with KfW2, D called. That's never a good sign - we usually email or text. Friction Guy's father had passed away and the funeral was on the Wednesday. In addition, D had a couple of tickets that he and Friction Guy were going to use on the Tuesday, would I mind going instead? It wasn't my cup of tea, but it might be interesting enough, so I agreed. In addition, and out of the blue, SG messaged me on Whatsapp. Some small talk for an hour before she went quiet again. Why bother? It's a little sad - we were close. We messaged a lot for about 6 months and got quite close. Our conversations were quite personal - opening up to each other. For it all to go quiet almost over night has been frustrating and disappointing.

As I was taking myself off to bed, I wasn't feeling 100%. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew something was wrong. An hour after I went to sleep, I woke. Every fibre in me ached. When I lay still, it hurt. When I moved, it hurt. I was also running a bit of a temperature. There was a feeling in the pit of my stomach that, again, while it wasn't queasiness, was definitely not right. I tossed and turned and lay still most of the night. I don't think I got a lot of sleep - the odd fifteen minute doze here and there, but nothing significant or refreshing.

Soon, it was time  to get up, to get ready to go into work. I'd already decided to work from home on the Tuesday, but wasn't going to let work know until after I'd had a shower. Maybe a long hot shower would wash away this, well, whatever it was. I wouldn't find out. As I let the shower run through, I felt the need to make an urgent detour into the toilet where the previous night's dinner made a surprising reappearance. Urgh.

So, working from home then. I was only twenty minutes into my first batch of emails when I knew that I'd have to take a half day. The lack of sleep and general not-wellness was proving to be too much, but that led to a dilemma. I had planned on taking a half day on the Wednesday for Friction Guy's dad's funeral and to get ready for the Xmas party. If I were going to take a half day to try and rid myself of this awful virus thing (Norovirus had been suggested, though it seemed too mild to be that bad boy), then I'd not be able to make the funeral. It wasn't really a decision I could make though - it had been made for me. I spent all of Tuesday afternoon in bed, but thankfully started feeling better around 8 PM.

I was nearly back to normal on Wednesday morning. I wasn't sure if it were simply lack of sleep or the virus, but I was hopefully on the mend. I had to be - that evening was our works Xmas party. Ultimately, while I usually enjoy these things, I was underwhelmed this year. I think it was mostly because I was coming off the back of the 24-hour virus and a lack of sleep that had been plaguing me, for various reasons, since the previous weekend. A couple of the highlights/more interesting points to note:

• CH was there! She doesn't work with us anymore but was there to pick up OK and MFF - her old coffee clan. That in itself says it all - while I would have to fight to get CH alone, she used to do coffee with these people twice a day (as well as car share twice daily). We chatted for about ten minutes but it felt a little forced, at least from my perspective. Remember, I'm still waiting for her to arrange a coffee from our last contact at the end of August.
• KfW2 was as stunning as ever.
• I had suggested to KfW2 that if she wanted to stay at mine, then my spare room had finally been decorated and furnished. She had been due to stay at CC's, but CC had cancelled for personal (and understandable) reasons. KfW2 refused a couple of times before admitting that she had issues with people talking and what they would think if she took me up on my offer.
• Some of the HR girls scrubbed up really well. KfW2 disagreed.
• A cute, albeit horrendously drunk girl tried to chat me up as I was leaving for my pre-booked taxi, so I couldn't follow through to see what happened. Stories emerged the next day from IG that the drunk girl had subsequently ended up kissing some other bloke.

I was meant to be at a friend's house on Friday, but WhatsApp was a hive of activity on Friday from SG, GM, S and FC. The upshot was that SG, GM and S all went out to the pub on Friday night. I didn't get involved in the arrangements because I had my friend's thing, but that got cancelled at the last minute and I simply couldn't face the crowds in town. Plus... I find it hard to give SG any time these days. It's the fact that she's effectively disappeared off the face of the planet since she got together with GM with only the odd snatched conversation in between.

I have had a couple of days off though, my sleep is almost back to normal and this week, at work, I've pretty much nothing on. By the end of tomorrow, I hope that my Xmas shopping will be done and I can get it wrapped and forget all about it.

Surprise!

"Wanna meet for a drink?"

It was KfW2. I knew she was out - doing a posh hotel afternoon tea with a friend. I wasn't expecting her to hang around afterwards though, never mind contact me. Having had only two hours of sleep the previous night due to a work thing that started at 3AM, I was dead on my feet and ready for a quiet night in. However, time alone with KfW2 is at a premium now, especially with alcohol, so after making sure she was not going to go home after 1 drink, I acquiesced.

We spent a good few hours talking, drinking and having a laugh. We covered a lot of general ground and avoided work talk and even managed to talk about CC's tits. We both, I think, realised that we have much more in common than we had thought (and we do have a lot in common already). One of the topics raised was something that I've talked about with USHW - I rely too much on people noticing that something's wrong when I'm in a funk, for instance, and would like people to pro-actively help out. KfW2 was admitting to something similar, though she had a specific example in mind - getting her family to offer to do some baby-sitting. As it stands, it's their friends who are helping out and as someone who's very family orientated, the lack of family volunteering is concerning her.

On the way round to leaving KfW2 off at the bus stop, she managed to talk me into going home with her. Her hubby and his mate were at hers, drinking. She was having fun and wanted the night to continue. I was sceptical. It's a 45 minute journey to KfW2's and it was likely that she'd go to bed after a short time leaving me with her hubby and his mate. I don't have any problem with KfW2's hubby - we get along really well and he's a very likeable fella, but it's an awful lot of inconvenience for the benefit of extending my enjoyable night out with KfW2 by a couple of hours.

Even as the bus approached, I really didn't know what I was going to do... until I found myself handing over a fiver and asking for a single to KfW2's home town. We got back to hers and the night continued. There was a brief period where KfW2 and her hubby disappeared. At a guess, they had a quickie, which raised some emotions temporarily. They both returned and it was probably after 3 AM by the time I got to sleep and it was an early start - shortly after 8 AM. We had to wait for the bus which wasn't due for a few hours, so it was lunchtime by the time I got back to my house.

I've been walking around like a zombie all day long. I don't often say this, but roll on bedtime.

Fatigue.

Mentally, I'm exhausted. Over the past year, I've been trying to engage with managers about recognising what I bring to my team in work. And I bring a lot. Without going into too much detail, I have more responsibility than anyone else in the team and the work that I deliver is as good as anyone else's, even those who are at a higher grade than I. Even considering areas like mentoring and technical expertise, I compare more than favourably with team members. Getting my managers to admit to this and have this reflected in my end of year score (which then has a direct influence on things like pay rises, promotion opportunities and bonus payments) is proving almost impossible though. Goals are constantly moved. Manager’s scores are subjective rather than objective. I can put forward as many logical arguments as I want, but that ultimately means very little when people cannot justify their own scoring system, but won't admit to its failings. I can, though, objectively prove my claims above regarding responsibilities and quality of work.

However, within the last 24 hours, the situation has been exacerbated by a recent change in internal policy. Supposedly a lot of salaries were reviewed based on, yup, last year's scores and employees' responsibilities at a manager level rather than HR level as had been the case previously. I've not been reviewed, at least, not yet. It's possible that the meetings are slowly taking place and I could yet be told that I am graded higher or have had a salary adjustment, but my gut says otherwise. And without blowing my own trumpet, my gut is usually pretty damned accurate.

This year's scores are still four to six weeks away, but a realignment right now would have been a good litmus test to what I might expect. And if I've still not had a review meeting with a manager by end of day tomorrow, then that expectation will be set low and the likelihood of me having to go to HR with a complaint becomes much higher.

This is in addition to the holiday period. It's getting to me more this year. Whilst I've always disliked the Xmas season, I've tolerated it... but if I could crawl into bed tonight and come out on Jan 3rd, I'd take that option right now. It has felt as if things have been far too much hard work this year. Things that should be simple have taken way more work, time, perseverance and energy than they should. It's not just the work thing, but even getting KfW2 out for drinks, or the wasted time with Sports Girl before she started dating GM as other examples.