"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.

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.

Goals

For the first time since I started this blog, I can actually write a goals list that won't have one of my recurring goals on it. The housing situation is resolved, and should be pretty much permanently resolved. That, though, has kicked off a whole new set of goals that arise from living on your own - decorating and making my new place my own.

The ongoing Sports Girl thing is not a goal per se, but the recurring one of trying to find someone most definitely is. That's not to say that the SG thing goes away - it doesn't. SG could provide a "fix" that I need, but it's not a solution. Well, not a goal. All I can do is try and maximise the chances of something happening, which is definitely a goal.

The physical fitness thing is another goal. I have things I want to do - stuff that I had been doing before and had been successful with, but had fallen away due to sports injuries etc. I just need to get some decorating done to free up a room in my new place, then I can get started in anger.

And, I can't really think of anything else. That's not a bad thing. Those three above are fairly major (and two of them are time sinks as well). Maybe having fewer goals means more chance to achieving them?

Oh! But before I sign off and post, one more sprung to mind. I want to take bigger steps forward in my professional career. I have been moving forward, but in a more organic way. This isn't getting me the results I was hoping for though, so I am going to try and make some headway by being more pro-active.

And that's it, I guess.

Belated Happy 2016 everyone!

Updates and the end of the line?

Friday saw our regular night out resumed - GM, Sports Girl and a plan in place to hit a couple of our favourite bars. SG mentioned dancing. She wanted to dance.

GM was being his typical, indecisive self. He didn't know if he'd come out, though I knew better than that. SG would talk him into it.

I was right, SG turned up with GM in tow. That's neither a good or bad thing, but I had hoped that SG would be on her own. We've had some decent conversations recently, but nothing in person - it's all been via text message. I wanted to see if we could sit and have a conversation, face to face, over a drink.

And I wanted to try and gauge the interest levels - while I've not really been encouraged by the signs recently, I am still trying to figure out if a friends with benefits thing is viable.

That's all hard to do when there are others there and the focus is more on fun than anything else.

Beyond SG being a lot more tactile than I remember her being in recent times, there's not an awful lot to report about the night. We didn't get to hit all of the bars we wanted to and there was no dancing.

Last night, I suggested that SG came over to mine for a few drinks partly simply for some company (I was feeling a little lonely) and partly to address the topics I wanted to talk about the previous night. She turned it down but quickly suggested we hit the town again.

I wasn't really in the mood for it, but it was an opportunity to spend some time with SG. I got ready and watched the TV with a beer... and another beer... and another beer.

Eventually I asked her what she was up to. She replied that she'd gone out of town to meet with a guy she'd previously dated and then threw out the comment that she needed to date again. My comment about being annoyed at her was semi-ignored and the dating comment could potentially rule out the physical thing I was looking for.

This annoyed me - she had implied she was going out, with me. It didn't bother me she was seeing an old boyfriend, but it annoyed me that I had eventually come around to the idea of going out and was looking forward to it, only for her to be doing something completely different and not telling me. Regardless of whether it's a friend, a romantic partner or family, reliability is a trait I very much value. This kind of flighty, random nonsense annoys me. CH pulled something similar a while back that frustrated and annoyed me immensely at the time.

But it's given me something else to talk to SG about. She says she needs to date again, but recent conversations have indicated she doesn't like dating and that she's not ready for a serious relationship. She's a good looking, sexy woman. She'll get plenty of offers if she signs up to dating sites (again).

Knowing me, knowing you.

Things have taken an interesting turn with Sports Girl. Neither bad nor good (possibly slightly good) but definitely interesting.

It started, as it usually does, with a question.

"How long have you been single?"

I answered, and it kinda took off from there. I didn't get a chance to say the things I wanted to say - to steer the conversation towards dating in general, what SG is looking for, maybe get her views on casual sex because, off the back of briefly talking about dating, she was telling me about a guy she'd met a couple of times and was being a bit full-on. Seemingly, this was the only guy she met last year. I'd thought she'd met a few people (and I don't mean that to sound nasty or anything... I just seem to recall she met up with us after a couple of dates).

We talked about NYE - she was very drunk and can't remember the end of the evening, which has stopped any further probing about her admission.

The following day, we touched on her personal circumstances. I know about her kids, but wasn't entirely sure about the exact details. She explained them to me in great detail and it's not brilliant, to be honest. There are custody disagreements that could have HUGE life changing influences on SG if they go ahead.

We chatted further, but in the course of about 36 hours, we'd had a more personal conversation than we'd ever had. We've dripped bits and pieces of information about ourselves, but this was quite direct (and admittedly, she was saying much more than I was). I don't want to use the word "enjoy" with regards to the conversations, but I've often posted here about not getting enough meaningful conversations with some people. The crowd of GM, SG, S etc. is mainly banter and less about getting personal (ignoring the infrequent and all-too-rare GM chats), so I liked that I was able to get to know SG a little better, and I hope we can have more conversations like this in future.

The family revelation stuff had another effect - it made a few other recent things make sense that were inexplicable at the time.

SG is still not dating material, but she is very forthright about who she is, and from what I've seen so far, she is exactly what she claims to be. I just want to get her naked to see all of her tattoos.

Let's get physical

No matter how I think things are planned, I seem to spend the majority of New Year's Eve stressed out. This one was no different. I was chasing GM and SG to see if they were coming out with myself, S and his crew. Eventually, they both confirmed that they were. Of course, I had a vested interest in getting SG out, but GM is good company too.

A number of times, I invited everyone to mine for pre-pub drinks which got a favourable response but crucially, no one actually stated outright that they'd come over. I was having some banter with SG about putting on a dress, which she agreed to (I think she secretly wanted to anyway, but she's one of those women that looks good in a dress or jeans). Then I tried to get her to leave the car at home and drink. The latter was more to do with my ulterior motive of scoping out the possibility of getting her into bed than simply a desire to see her drink.

But, it all came together... late as usual. When we hit the bar, SG said that she'd turned up at GM's house at 6 PM as she thought they were then coming across to mine. For some reason, this last part never happened and they ended up spending time with GM's lodger. The annoying part was that they never communicated this to me and I had to find out where they were.

But, SG had been talked into drinking by GM and the night got off to a good start. SG had gotten dressed up and looked stunning in a strappy, figure-hugging dress. I followed her upstairs from the bar to the club, admiring the view and how it all moved.

I had planned to initiate a kiss at midnight, but she never presented herself with a kiss on the lips. I settled for a kiss on the cheek and a long, lingering hug. From then on, the night was a bit of a blur. SG led me, by the hand, to the dance floor where we danced for a few songs. When I suggested going for a smoke, she led me by the hand, to the smoking area. In between times, she was inseparable from GM. It had been suggested to me that perhaps she and GM still had a thing going on, but NYE put paid to that. GM's eye was wandering and he got chatting to a few women. SG didn't really mind and was chatting to me when all this was happening.

We were at the bar, late on, when SG tried to tell me something. I can't remember the details, but apparently, someone had mentioned something about how we held each other. I tried to probe for details but SG wasn't in a position to explain. While my intentions may be less than honourable, I've never actually been inappropriate with SG. Any physical contact is strictly above board and usually only when we're dancing (apart from the odd hug).

I asked her about it earlier today, but she can't remember. Or so she claims. She was pretty toasted by the end of the night, so I have no reason not to believe her. Her chat with me, yesterday and today, has been no different than usual. Whatever it was that was bothering her, I don't think it's that big a deal otherwise we'd have talked. It's entirely possible that whoever brought up the topic, only said to her on NYE itself, so the blackout means she can't even remember someone talking to her about this perceived issue in the first place.

I think the problem is that she appears to be more interested in me when it's only the two of us and when others are out, she dials it in. That was certainly the case on Thursday night (and a few other, recent nights out). Maybe, if I am going to try it on or cover this potential issue, I'll need to do it when no one else is around.

It wasn't the end to the year I was hoping for, but I have reason enough to feel positive about 2016 which I will address in my usual goal-setting post in a few days.