Big Sigh.

After chasing up KfW2 yesterday, I'd heard nothing by the time I was leaving my medical appointment this evening, so I called her. She didn't pick up. After the appointment, I was walking around the city centre. It was a glorious day. The weather app said it was 20C. I don't know if it was that warm, but it was warm enough. 

If we were to go out tomorrow or Saturday, while the weather was good, that would be brilliant - some food then hit a beer garden somewhere.

But her silence is concerning. I'm convinced she's forgotten or double-booked and is afraid to say because of my reaction. I think it's the latter. She mentioned something about doing something with the kids if the weather was good. That's CH levels of mucking about. And I'm already disappointed. I don't like leaving things to the last minute, and she would still expect me to book a table.

It reminds me of that day in, I think, August 2022 where she'd gone quiet in the days leading up to the dinner, still wanted me to book a table, then got upset because she didn't like the time of the booking, even though it was literally the only table I could find. So then she decided on a place near her house and then CC invited herself along.

But I'm tired. And there's a feeling of, I don't know, a combination if disappointment, sadness and loneliness. Getting a friend out for dinner and drinks shouldn't be this much work, especially when she suggested the date.

sad face (con'td)

KfW2 called about half an hour ago.

"Sorry, I forgot to call you back last night. I've got a meeting in ten minutes, but you have me 'til then... go!"

"Errr... OK. Well, fuirst things first... we were meant to be going out this weekend for dinner and drinks, right?"

"Were we?"

"Yeah, we pencilled it in a few weeks ago. I've had Covid since, otherwise I'd have been pushing you to confirm." 

"Oh. Err. My son is home this weekend and he's taking me out to a cocktail making class for my Xmas present."

"..."

The conversation flowed more about family stuff, but clearly the thing here is that there will be no dinner and drinks with KfW2 this weekend, and even if I'd spoken to her last week, we couldn't make plans if her son was home.

Back to the drawing board.

Distance.

Over the years, since 2018, I've made several posts regarding my relationship with KfW2 and how our personal relationship seems to suffer (grow more distant) with each professional move that she takes.

I've posted that her career took another step forward/upwards at the start of July, but I can't help but feel that our relationship has suffered again. There were things that might/should have happened in early July that didn't. Some communication that should have happened, but didn't.

Over the past week or so, there are several direct questions to KfW2 via WhatsApp, unanswered. She blames this lack of communication on the diagnosis after her mental break at Christmas. I don't know if I necessarily agree/believe that (this inability to maintain a conversation is a recent thing). But the lack of response is getting me down.

I also think that this current funk might be overblown due to the half hour that we spent on our own, after her leaving party at the end of June, and how it reminded me of our adult nights out that we've not had in years. And how that snatched moment meant so much to me, just KfW2 and me, talking (albeit drunkenly) with no kids and no one else.

I'm reluctant to call her on it or try to address it. Memories of how things with CH fell apart are still fresh in my memory, even though it's years later. Plus, as I said, there are three unanswered questions out there. I'm not going to continue to message her if she's not replying.

Sigh.

You can guess what's going to happen here, can't you?

I pinged KfW2 to start gauging our night out. The current, pencilled-in, date is June 11th. Now, you all know that this is a night out that I've been trying to arrange with KfW2 since January and there haved been numerous rain checks. In reality, it's been much longer, but I can't really count the two years of Covid lockdown, can I?

So, it was entirely unsurprising when KfW2 made herself unavailable even before I got a chance to talk about going out. She's made other arrangements and I really do think she's forgotten about our tentative plans. Sigh.

But, wait! There's more! Could I babysit this weekend? She's got a birthday thing to attend and she has no other babysitters she can count on. I love her kids and I have no other current plans. But part of me feels that I keep doing shit like this while she continues to forget about our tentative plans and it's been years since we last had a night out together.

That's put me into an immediate funk - I'm really disappointed. It's not either of the incidents, but rather the combo.

I mean, I'll probably end up doing it, but I can already hear USHW in my ear telling me I'm a sucker for a pretty face or suggesting that I let KfW2 get away with an awful lot (she's not wrong).

The morning after...

I don't know if it's the morning after drinking, or the fallout from the job thing or whatever, but I'm not feeling myself today. I have this real feeling that something ominous is going to happen, but I can't put my finger on why I feel this way.

It's not a great feeling and while the stress has gone for now, it's been replaced by this other feeling.

Over-thinking. And drinking.

Given some more time to sink in, and with a few beers in me, the disappointment and embarrassment is definitely overshadowing the anger and frustration of the whole job application process.

And more than maybe? I've withdrawn from job applications before and not felt this bad. It's starting to feel like a real missed opportunity.

It is frustrating because, as I said, the solution to the problem came to me once the pressure was off. It's not like the problem posed was tricky, I just don't do well under that particular kind of pressure. Sigh.

It shows you how stressed I was today when my appetite is so bad, I can have four beers, two meals and still be under my restricted calorie count.

No need to panic any more (until the next time).

So, in case you haven't figured it out, the thing that I was working towards for the past week was a job interview. Except it wasn't an interview. It'll be an aptitude test, said the hiring manager. We need to get a feel for how you think. Except it wasn't that, it was a code writing challenge. Write this code in this time frame, then explain to us what you did and why. That's not an aptitude test, this is a skill and knowledge test.  For a re-training job. In the name of fucking Christ. 

It's times like this that I hate our company. There's no need for that test. That doesn't tell anyone how I think.

It was real rabbit-in-the-headlights stuff from me. Halfway into the test, I'd made little progress. My mind was blank, my heart was racing and I couldn't think or remember how to do the simplest of tasks. I had nothing that I could present at the end. I did the only thing I possible could: I withdrew my application.

Immediately, I felt better. Well.. less stressed. I also felt embarrassed and disappointed. I thought the job was a good fit for me, and there are reasons why the timing was good for me too.

A friend, who was on the "interview" panel reached out a few hours later and asked what was up. I explained everything to him, including the fact I'd been prepping for one thing and it turned out to be something else. He let slip, then swore me to secrecy, that I wasn't the only person to withdraw my application. That's kinda reassuring, but ultimately, I've had mood swings all day since withdrawing: from happiness that I am no longer stressed to the disappointment and embarrassment that I mentioned earlier.

And I'm angry at the fact it all became a lot more complicated than it needed to. You just know as soon as you see someone's name that things will get complicated for no reason and that was true this time.

As someone else said to me: "I've always taken personal aptitude higher than tech knowledge - anyone can learn the tech but they can't stop being awful people". This is a view I wholeheartedly agree with.

Job hunting needs to continue, so I expect a stressful few months ahead.

Circles.

Speaking to KfW2 over lunch, and she once again reiterated how skint she is.

"And I will be until 2021!" she quipped.

Well... there goes adult night out for the foreseeable future. Unsurprisingly, she suggested that I might go to hers... along with her hubby's friend. I think I've mentioned before how often an invite to KfW2's often coincides with her hubby inviting his friend over for drinks. It's not that I don't like the friend... I just don't know him very well, so I'm unlikely to be vocal in any conversation.

Still... I haven't seen her, outside work in, like, forever so the invite is really tempting regardless.

Who knows when this will actually be though. I've already got a night out in October (possibly two if the usual Hallowe'en night happens), so my own finances aren't going to be in great shape unless this suspected promotion (and subsequent pay rise) come along.

It literally will be three years since our last adult night out before we get another one.

Yeah, so this happened...

At tea-break in work:

"So, " said KfW2 "That date we agreed on is out. I'm out with the hubby for his birthday."

"OK" What was I going to say? I know his birthday is about now.

"It gets tricky though. That weekend is his birthday, the week after that we're doing lunch and the week after that is my friend's hen weekend"

I must have sighed, or had a look on my face or something. She continued:

"It's not that bad. We were out last weekend and we're out next month too" (with the same people we were out with last weekend).

I hadn't told her, but I wasn't planning on going out with those people next month. It was nice as an infrequent thing, but I'm not sure I want to do it on a monthly basis. Plus, this was me taking her out for her birthday. Just the two of us. The last time it was just the two of us was her birthday two years ago. And the time before that when it wasn't a special occasion, I can't actually remember. I do know that I've been trying to get her out for around a year.

"We could do the end of this month" she offered.

But I know she's already committed to a spa day out with CC and a few others on that weekend and with her money being tight, that'll be that.

She knows that I value our time together and she knows that I don't think that group events or helping her look after the kids are a replacement. I'm happy to do them, but if the cost of that is that the irregular nights out are gone, I don't like the price I am paying.

As I said recently, there's a completely different vibe when it's just the two of us alone, and especially on "neutral" ground of the pub or in my house with no prying ears. It must be the alcohol because it's not there on a day-to-day basis when we have lunch together for example.

I'm not even angry. I'm just disappointed and tired.