Scrub up well.

The family stuff has taken another turn. As a result, I've been stressed, my sleep has been poor and the loneliness is forefront. However, the benefit of that is that I've spent the past few days admiring some attractive women in scrubs. One, in particular, has a look/vibe of someone I can't put my finger on. A celebrity? Someone off the lone dating apps, maybe? I can't put my finger on it, but she's been super helpful and all-round lovely.

I do love a woman in scrubs.

Top that.

I don't know who this is, but seeing these pictures reminded me of QC3 and I think, though I can't be sure, a post I've made on this blog. I've definitely mentioned my fondness for women's backs and backless dresses. I think I've posted before about a stringy top thing that I can recall QC3 wearing, to D's wedding. 

Well, while not 100% the same, this outfit is very reminiscent of what I recall QC3 wearing that day.

Hmmm. Random.

For some reason, a thought popped into my head at lunchtime. A completely random thought. A memory, in fact. It was the night that both QC3 and I realised there was potential for something to happen. QC3 was never relationship material. She was far too flaky for that. She, in my opinion, oozed sex appeal though.

On the evening in question, I was out with AM and QC1. QC3 was out with a friend of hers. Towards the end of the night, QC3's friend came over, plonked herself on my lap, and made obvious signals that she was interested in making something happen. I, though, was not. QC3's friend was even flakier than QC3, and that's a feat. I managed to persuade her that nothing was happening and off she went, back to QC3.

Not long after, QC3's friend left and QC3 came over for a chat. She, too, sat on my lap. This wasn't a big thing because she'd done that before, though there was always a lust thing going on with QC3 so I was all for it. At the end of the evening, QC3 suggested going back to hers for more drinks.

I was up for that. We head back to hers. Getting close to QC3's and her lights were on. QC3 was adamant that she didn't leave the lights on. I wasn't surprised. It was early September, so lights being on would have been weird for someone who was out all day.

It was QC3's friend. She'd returned to QC3's, climbed in through a window and watched TV. QC3 got rid of her (she only lived up the street), and we had a drink, then QC3 suggested we retire for the evening.

I slept in my underwear, as did QC3. In the same bed. Nothing happened intentionally. I woke the next morning and we were wrapped around each other, though that's not how we had fallen asleep. One of my hands was partly on one of her breasts and it was swiftly withdrawn. The next morning, we chatted, I hung around for coffee and we chatted further and I left around lunchtime. I think we both wanted something more to happen but neither of us made that first move.

It was a week later, when I arrived at our usual bar that D started implying that QC3 was thinking about something non-platonic. I admitted that I wasn't against the idea, but that wasn't enough. We circled around each other for about three weeks until she moved away, and never sealed the deal.

What just happened?

So Random Internet Woman threw out a comment about coming over to visit (the country, not me), and I appear to have agreed to meet her. Hmmm.

Let's go!

Remember my monthly work nights out? Well, they're back! Quiet Girl messaged me to ask if I was attending the next one, which is next week. I am. Both Stalky Guy and I are attending. I encouraged QG to put her name forward, which she did. So, I now have a better reason to look forward to next week's outing than Stalky Guy.

Look and feel.

I don't know if I've stated this on the blog, but I am a gamer. A PC gamer, specifically, so I get to nerd it up both from a hardware and software perspective.

Games translations into TV series or films tend to be poor, often losing the whole vibe that made the game special in the first place. See Halo, for example.

There are two releases this year that I am looking forward to, though. Fallout is coming next month, I think, on one of the streaming platforms. Borderlands is another, though I have yet to determine the exact release date.

Both are very interesting visually as well as story-wise. Fallout has this whole futuristic but retro vibe going on. And while you can't see it from the picture below, the Borderlands game has cel-shading animation. It looks like a cartoon. I am a little surprised to see that they've gone full live-action on this one. I thought they might have stylised it like A Scanner Darkly or even the Sin City films to semi-mirror the game's look and feel.

But still, Cate Blanchett looking fine and badass? Go on then. 

And the game, for reference?

Shazam!

I watched "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" at the weekend. It was OK.

However, do you know what floats Ruuude's boat? Attractive brunette women in short-skirted superhero outfits with boots. Well, that's one of them.

Grace Caroline Currey

Chatty.

Out of the blue, KfW2 sent a message earlier. Was I free in the afternoon for an hour? She was dropping her husband off in the town and would call in for a bit.

Well... I was available and would love to see her, I replied.

About an hour later, my brother-in-law called. Did I want to do some Family Stuff (related to the stuff going on for the past 3 months)? I wanted to, but I was expecting KfW2 to call in.

So, a tidy-up, a quick mopping and vacuuming later and I was all set.

And then the inevitable happened.

KfW2 called to say she couldn't make it. One of her kids had left a coat behind at football and she had to go to try and find it. If it hadn't been a brand-new, expensive coat, she'd have just left it, she explained.

We chatted for a bit, her kids interjected with questions and it was a nice 30-minute chat. At the end, I promised to talk to her soon and we'd arrange something. She seemed happy with that and that was it.

I am more than a little frustrated though. I'm off to watch a move.

Ooooh.

I can't remember if I knew this before, but I have mutual friends with the blonde Emma Willis woman who pops up infrequently in my online dating applications. I got a weird sense of deja vu when I found that out last night. I can't remember if I ever posted about it.

Actually, I should expand on that. I have two mutual friends with blonde Emma Willis, both school friends. One is a woman that I know I've posted about before. The other is a guy that I've only ever seen infrequently since we left school. 

Not an "in" or anything. More a comment on the coincidence.

Reach out.

As an aside, when I was out last week with The Crowd, GM dropped into the conversation that he's bumped into CH at Starbucks. 

"She was asking after you all," was the only thing of note that she said, apparently.

I dunno. I always feel a little disappointed that a random meeting like that doesn't prompt her to reach out to people. Not just me, though I was, apparently, someone she felt close to and had trust with. She was also close enough, I think, to FC.

Maybe it's just nostalgia or the memory of her absolutely fantastic rack that makes me feel like that, though.

Back to back

Remember my fondness for backless dresses? Are you aware of Scottish actress Karen Gillan? Well... here's a picture of her from a few days ago. An outstanding example of a backless dress.

To me, to you.

I was in one of my favourite bars last Friday evening with The Crowd. It was packed. It always is these days. Sadly the really cute barmaid wasn't working. GM actually mentioned her.

In the throng, a small group of really cute women squeezed past us. I think GM and I saw the same girl at the same time - a tall attractive brunette woman. We laughed. After a few seconds, she turned around and moved back the way she came. She and I did that dance where I tried to let her pass, but she stepped in the same direction, then we repeated that a few times before we both laughed and I stepped backwards and let her pass. As she squeezed past me, we clinked glasses, I wished her an enjoyable evening and returned to GM.

"How do you always talk to the cute ones?" asked GM incredulously.

This was news to me. GM is a babe magnet. Genuinely. Women approach him all the time. I don't recall that this is something that people would think of me - that I can strike up a conversation with anyone at any time.

I am a good double-act, though. I've chatted to my own fair share of women just by bouncing off people like M, FP and GM. Recruitment Bird is probably the best known on this blog, but there have been others that never led anywhere beyond a fun few hours chatting.

Just... erm... stuff.

For no reason... ahem... I was thinking of Jenni Lee earlier.

Count 'em.

Unsurprisingly, the number of Valentine's cards received this year is 0, dear reader. I can't remember if I've posted about this before, but I only ever recall getting two cards in my entire life. One was a joke from a godparent and the other was from QC2. I had the hugest crush on her at the time, too. I had kissed her at a party only a few weeks earlier, asked her out and was turned down, so this card coming through the post really threw me. It took a chat with AM to clarify that there was no intent behind it other than a bit of light-hearted fun.

The only person I've actively been dating at this time of year was FA2. She was giving off these "I don't buy into V-Day", though I still bought her flowers and took her to dinner. I don't recall getting a card from her, either. In fact, beyond birthday cards, she never really came up with the goods, though I've probably covered that before.

But even though I wasn't actively dating anyone on V-Day, the memory made me realise that this time of year is probably my most active or successful in terms of meeting women. And by this time of year, I mean roughly mid-December through to mid-March.

Of the women frequently mentioned on this blog, QC1, FA2, FBS, and CAB all happened/started within this period. The E3 incident happened. While nothing progressed, the Chloe night fell into this window too. There are a few others who have not been mentioned on the blog when the initial meeting happened at this time.

While regular readers of this blog might assume that, due to my perennial single status, I don't like V-day, I do have very fond memories of this time of year because of the women mentioned above.

Pancakes, you say?

Yeah, I've been greedy and made, then eaten, a load of pancakes. Sue me.

*burps*

What the?

I would write about the quite weird dream I had last night, but the details are rapidly disappearing. Travel was involved. Broken aeroplanes were involved. I think FP was in there somewhere. And house renovations. and aimless wandering around an airport.

But I'm sleep-deprived. I stupidly stayed up late to watch the Superbowl and I am paying for it this morning.

Sigh.

I think it's safe to say that the quality of my sleep has not been great over the past week or so. I've blogged about a few already. I've also had a dream that involved FA2 and a load of sex, which may have been prompted by reading an old email conversation with USHW. Last night's featured an alien takeover of our planet with the use of mind-controlling, addictive secretions. Yeah, I have no clue either.

You again?

Yeah, another KfW2 dream. This time we were actually out and about, doing something socially. I don't know what it was, but there were crowds of people. We got split up. I spent hours trying to find her, with no luck. She messaged me despite not picking up any calls I'd made, only to chastise me for leaving her alone. She was angry and accused me of a lack of effort before telling me to never talk to her again.

I shared this with KfW2 and we laughed about it. I offered to take her out for drinks, dinner, or whatever she wanted, but she didn't commit to anything. Well, she kept going back to the dream. 

"Why go out? You'll just leave me lol" That kind of thing, without addressing an actual, genuine, invitation. Attempts to get the conversation back on track proved useless. Sigh.

D'oh.

I had another couple of weird dreams last night. The first I can barely remember, but I do recall waking in the early hours of the morning and thinking that the dream, and how I was visualising that in my head, would make a great video game.

The second involved USHW and I travelling or trying to, in the middle of a transport strike. Where we were going and why we were travelling was not apparent, or I can't remember.

And in the middle of that, when I was trying to get back to sleep after the first dream was the memory of Chloe asking me to make sure I saved her number. I think I've commented on that before.

But now I'm thinking that she really did want me to call her, didn't she?

Sigh.

London Girl is documenting her trip to New Zealand on Facebook. I've been to NZ before and I adore it. I'm staring wistfully at her pictures and the desire to travel is really strong.

The hunt.

I had an interesting dream last night that had two parts, though in the same setting. The setting was a workplace. Not anything that I can remember from the real world, but something technical, computer, nerdy...

In one track of the dream, I'd left an anonymous comment being critical of someone's work. I don't think it was rude or out of line, but it generated a massive manhunt to find the author of the criticism.

The other track involved KfW2 and my inability to pin her down for lunch and paranoia that we'd had a falling out. We still worked together, but she'd done AWOL from her desk. With lunchtime rapidly approaching, I was trying to find her, to find out if we were still going to go for lunch together. All the while, I was trying to dodge the manhunt.

Both tracks eventually ended, in my favour. I found KfW2 and we went for lunch and my paranoia was for nothing. I also dodged the manhunt, who eventually realised that the criticism was constructive and that there was no need to find the author.

So, yeah, that. The work/manhunt thing is a mystery, but the KfW2 thing is probably just a reflection of my constant semi-frustration at trying to get a hold of her for socialising.

Up here.

I was browsing Tinder. I don't know why, I don't think I'm in the right frame of mind to be dating. I had planned on posting about the fact that I'd not seen any of the usual attractive women on there - the local celebs or my sister's university friend - in a long time. You're probably talking last summer, if not before that.

So, it was surprising to see the blonde Emma Willis pop up. I've swiped right, of course, though I've swiped right on her numerous times with no result. But that's not what made me want to blog about it.

In one of her photos, she's wearing a sheer black top with a nice black bra. It reminded me of the outfit that FA2 was wearing the first night that we slept together - she wore a sheer green top with a green Wonderbra.

I'm not going to lie, I am lonely, but I'm definitely in no place to date. Something casual though? Yeah, I could do that.