Get Confident, Stupid!

New post for naughty purposes

2009-05-01T18:30:00.001+01:00

Looks like the manager of La Rebla Fam, a particularly dismal ska band from London, has thrown a wobbly. Read more here - http://www.undergroundscene.co.uk/forum/band-artist-feature-profiles/52359-seems-like-everyones-heard-la-rebla-fam-but.html

Day Whatever-Day-It-Is: Thinking

2009-02-19T21:36:00.003Z

OK, here it is, I'm thinking that maybe I've given away too much now on here. The experiment has done more than I could have hoped for it to do yet I'm finding less and less to write about.

Overall I'm in a good place, certainly better than I was when I started, so I don't know that I want to keep on writing. It's almost as if I've reached a point where I have to continue the journey privately.

Does that make sense?

Anyway, life is good. Kat got her spousal visa from the Home Office and will be here in less than 3 weeks. I've got a permanent job and a nice flat for us to both start our life together in. I've also started thinking about playing gigs again, and then making new music. Then I'll get painting and drawing.

Over and out.

EDIT: turns out that today is probably day 45, so it seems the right place to stop writing.

Day 37: Off I go!!

2009-02-10T18:01:00.000Z

Heading to the US for a week, back soooooon :)

Day 36: Bill and Visa stuff

2009-02-09T20:27:00.001Z

My brain has been totally full of stuff to do with bills and Kat's Visa today. Sorry about the less than interesting posts recently, been too busy.

Will try and get back to keeping you informed asap! :)

Day 35: Overslept and feeling 'meh'

2009-02-08T19:34:00.002Z

Overslept after a long night, now I'm feeling a bit 'bleh'.

Not sure why, just a general lethargy today.

Snowing outside, warm in the flat, going to the US on Wednesday....could be worse yet I still feel a little overwhelmed by life today. It always surprises me when the shadows creep up on me, especially as I've been doing so well.

*sigh* I guess I just have to battle through

Day 34: Still pondering

2009-02-07T20:55:00.003Z

Yeah, I'm still working out how to proceed. In the meantime here are some bullet points of my day

Work - not bad, still getting on well with my colleagues
Shops - Merryhill is horrible on a Saturday, luckily it's only 5 minutes drive from home
Wedding - trying so sort out the invites, weirdly I get stressed about fonts and layout
Flat - been building furniture

Oh, and I'm endlessly in love with my wonderful wife

An aside

2009-02-06T22:24:00.001Z

http://deathrayboogie.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/wristopolis/ - this is rather good. Wrist and Pistols was a band that I played a couple of shows with a few years back and then released a 7" of. They've put everything they ever did up for free at the link back there. It makes me happy, maybe it'll to do the same for you?

Day 33: Taking stock

2009-02-06T18:01:00.002Z

Almost halfway through (I decided that this would take the 60 days at least rather than the shorter 45) and how is it going?

Surprisingly well I feel that it's working. Some of the darker recesses of my mind seem to have been permanently sealed off, several negative thought processes broken once and for all. It's not easy for thoughts to head off down Everything Is Shite Avenue any more, their shortcuts all snapped and replaced with a highway that heads straight to Believe In Yourself Street. Ok, the metaphor is laboured, but you get the idea!

I have a more grounded feeling of well being than I've ever previously had, and I'm more confident in day to day life than I've been in many years.

Overall I think what I'm doing is working.

The individual days don't seem as important as they did, as the victories are now vastly outweighing the loses... so I have to work out how to proceed with this blog, to work out what shape is needs to take for the next part of the journey.

I've made the changes, now it's time to make them permanent.

Day 32: Back online!!

2009-02-05T18:25:00.002Z

Wow, that took a lot longer than I thought it would...but I'm finally online (and wirelessly) at the new flat.

The last week has seen a lot of ups and downs, but mostly I've been ok. There have been a few moments of feeling like crap, but they've been very much outweighed by the positive moments.

Instead of writing an epic post about the last few days, I'm going to just start from tomorrow when I get home from work. Here though, are the highlights of the last week....

Rude neighbour acting like a total cock - shrugged off and ignored where once it would have bothered me.
Feeling a little twitchy for a moment at the thought of various people hitting on Kat online, but again got over it.

OK, will be back to full speed tomorrow....

Days 24, 25, and 26: house move etc

2009-01-30T20:26:00.002Z

I can't pretend that I don't hate moving house. I've now done it at least 17 times in my life, most of those moves in the last decade and a half. I have nightmares about moving, of being told that I've got to leave a place within 2 hours and none of my stuff is packed.

I don't mind being in the place once there, it's just all the moving of boxes and packing, and all the other nonsense that goes alongside it, really stresses me out.

So I shouldn't have been surprised when, after 2 and a half hours of trying to make sense of the bomb site that is Kat and I's front room, I burst into tears and had to go and sit in the bedroom for a while. The stress had been building steadily throughout the day, and I'd made the mistake of not bringing my television with me so I felt completely cut off from the world. Add the lack of an internet connection and I found myself feeling very lonely indeed in a flat that was far from being anywhere near homely in a town where I know no-one. Even a few texts to local Birmingham friends turned up nobody who could come over and keep me company.

The feeling of sadness soon passed, and I worked to make sense of what was in the flat. I'll be glad when it's all done though.

The next day was ok, though I was again bored in the evening, eventually watching a couple of movies to pass the time. At least tomorrow I'll be getting more shelves which will allow me to finish unpacking and finally get started on eBaying a lot of my belongings that I no longer need. Also getting unpacked will make the place seem more homely and cleaning the (frankly minging) kitchen will make me more likely to want to set foot in it.

Generally my mood has been ok, but I have had the odd dip into feeling like shit about myself. Mostly it's when I think of how much I wish I could do for my wife and then compare it against how much I can actually do...I don't want to seem like a weak loser who needs propping up all the time....I want to provide for her and treat her the way I feel she deserves to be treated. I'm setting high goals for myself, and I feel that I'm falling short of them.

Anyway, there is some good news to pass on - I got offered a permanent position at work! Must be doing something right :)

Work has been good mostly, I'm getting on great with my colleagues and am starting to feel like I wouldn't mind socialising with some of them outside of work - it's been years since I've felt like that so I'm going to make the most of it.

Other than that, I'm impatient for my broadband to be put in, and wishing I could win the lottery so that money didn't have to be such a constant source of anxiety to me. I hate that I feel like I'm being 'tight' when I'm trying to be the exact opposite.

That's the last couple of days really. I've had blips where I've felt useless, and other moments when I've felt I can get it together pretty well.

I'll leave today with this question - anyone got any good tips for getting nice things on a low income?

(will be back offline for a few days now, will post when I can)

Still no web

2009-01-29T21:26:00.000Z

Will be updating tomorrow though, as i'll be over night with my parents and nicking their connection. Will tell you all about my adventures in house moving.

No internet connection!

2009-01-28T21:41:00.000Z

I'm offline for most of the next week due to moving house and there being problems with my broadband in the new place. Writing on my phone (as i am now) is really hard, so don't be surprised if there's a gap of a few days.

Day 23: Tired, and making mistakes

2009-01-27T19:47:00.002Z

Some days.....

Work was fine, more than fine actually - quite enjoyable in places even if one customer did get particularly arsey with me....doesn't matter though, I rose above it.

It was on the way home that I started to get things wrong, to misunderstand a conversation that was going on by that already easily misunderstandable medium, email.

I'm not going to go into it, but I ended up at cross purposes, losing track of what what being said and thinking more of my own annoyance and self pity than the support I should have been offering. In short I was just a bit shit.

So, next part of the journey is to concentrate on listening more, and not leaping to the first conclusion when that's so often wrong.

In other news I move into the new place properly tomorrow, so I may be offline if Virgin's quickstart stuff doesn't work as it should.

Note to self: remember we're on the same side.

Feel free to comment

Day 22: Endless stairs, boxes, and moving house.

2009-01-26T21:02:00.002Z

Ugh, today has been HARD, and I mean physically hard.

This morning I had to go to deal with more stuff about an ongoing legal situation.

Then I moved house....which took forever, seemed to involve me stumbling up and down many staircases over and over again with insanely heavy boxes and resulted in me feeling like I'd die of a heart attack.

Too knackered to write anything today.

Day 21: Me, me, me, me.

2009-01-25T18:15:00.002Z

"Me, me, me, me."

So reads the comment from 'Anonymous' on yesterday's entry, probably intended as a snipe at how 'Alex-centric' my blog is. That'll be the blog written by me, documenting my ongoing battle against clinical depression.

I'm not sure what 'Anonymous' is hoping a blog covering this subject would be about, maybe (in his opinion) I should be opening it up, discussing football or whatever was on TV last night. Perhaps I should even open it up for other people to post entries - who cares that it's specifically and deliberately about me? Or perhaps he's so uncomfortable with the concept of someone trying to address a mental health issue that he'd rather I didn't write anything at all.

Having obviously offended 'Annoymous' somehow I feel it only right to stop writing altogether, to give up on the journey I'm on. After all, I don't want to continue upsetting someone who is so unhappy with my writing that he couldn't even bring himself to leave his name.

......

Of course I'm not going to stop, and I have to wonder what people who try to undermine this whole thing are hoping to achieve. No matter how anyone feels about me in other spheres of my life there's a certain nastiness on show from some quarters.

***

Sunday has been ok, even if I did have a small twinge when thinking about my wife's previous partners. It's not that logical really, considering that I have a past as well, but I still get a small amount of residual, retrospective jealousy when I think about it. For this reason part of this 60 day rebuilding attempt will include a trip to Relate to seek professional assistance for dealing with this. I'm aware that jealousy can destroy relationships, that it can leave one laying awake at night, shaking with fear for no reason whatsoever, so I want it gone from my life, gone for good.

Though I'm making good progress on my own with the CBT/REBT I know it'll be beneficial to talk to a professionally trained counsellor. I also bought a book about how to deal with 'Romantic Jealousy', a delightfully library-ish scented hardback that seems to have been published in the 70's. The excerpt I read online gave a lot of good tips (some of which I've been applying during these last three weeks) and helped me through a horrible wobble a few weeks before I started writing here. I'll be spending time over the next few weeks reading through it and seeing if I can apply anything to my own attempts at recovery.

Got some stress in the post though as I move house for what seems like the millionth time. I'm going to be living a lot closer to my job, but I've never ever lived alone before having always flat shared. It's only going to be until the middle of March (fingers crossed) but it'll still be a new experience for me. Who knows though, I might enjoy it!

With any luck I'll have a working broadband connection within a few days so that my time offline won't be too severe (it's a bad sign, isn't it, that I'm getting anxious at the thought of not having a high speed internet connection?)....new place to live though, eh? Kind of scary....

S to the cores

The Good -

Poking a few emotions that would have previously sent me spinning out completely brought nothing to the surface.

The Bad -

That twinge earlier, I would have hoped that some things would have started to vanish by now, but I suppose I shouldn't (as said many times before) expect instant results.

So what do you guys think?

Day 20: Pocket sized update

2009-01-24T22:02:00.002Z

Work - not bad
New Car - runs very nicely
People who slagged me off a few weeks ago - second one has been fired

The Good -

That car seems to be a bit of a winner, it's great to drive
My mental state has been pleasantly stable for a few days

The Bad -

Feeling a bit impotent about Kat's car (which she's having trouble with). Distance is crap at the best of times but really hits home when it prevents one from helping a loved one. Impotent is perhaps not the right word - it's more that I want to help and literally can't....frustrating but not something that's causing my mental state to suffer even if it is very annoying.

Days 18 and 19 catch-up special

2009-01-23T18:57:00.002Z

After the failure of the internet connection yesterday I've got to do a bit of catching up.

There were a couple of issues I had to deal with on day 18, these were; the way I'm perceived on the internet, and the way my credit file has been screwed up by idiots (and the realisation that I could have solved the problem sooner if I'd got off my arse and done something a month ago when I had the chance)

Firstly that internet thing.... There's no two ways of putting this - the online 'persona' that I unleash on many messageboards can seem a little trollish. This is partly because I've, over many years, developed a deliberately over the top, grumpy, reactionary character that I (and a small handful of others) thought was funny whilst causing the vast majority of people to think I was an absolute wanker. Many many times I'd meet people in real life and find myself being told during the evening that they'd thought I would be a total shit and that they were pleasantly surprised by what a thoroughly nice chap I am.

For some reason this amused me greatly for a long time, but recently I've realised that maybe, with this whole 'New Alex' kick going on, it would be healthier for my online 'me' to match my real life 'me'. My wife also pointed out that she wished that the world in general would see me as she does.

The first step I had to take was to shutter the blog I wrote poking fun at various people. Though I never meant a single word I posted on it (well, the personal attack stuff anyway) and saw it merely as a semi amusing exercise in creative swearing, it became increasingly obvious that a lot of people were taking it very seriously indeed...I would go as far as saying that I was genuinely offending many more readers than I'd intended to.

So in the spirit of my attempts to change my life for the better I'll apologise now to anyone who was properly upset by anything posted there, it was meant as satire of the darkest kind and I'm not surprised that many just didn't 'get' it.

The other thing that happened was finding out that my credit file had a couple of random errors on it that led to me being told I couldn't have broadband fitted by Virgin Media in the new flat. I managed to get a default notice removed that RBS had added in error, but I've had no luck at all getting through to Hillesden Securities in Northamptonshire who decided that they should show me paying a zero balance on a closed credit card a month in arrears for 7 months AFTER it was shut down....leading to a 'late payment' mark against me. Absolutely ridiculous.

It's possible that I'll not have a regular internet connection for the first couple of weeks after moving in a couple of days, so be prepared to see fewer posts here for a little while - I'll keep writing the updates, so you'll get a sudden burst of them once I'm back online....

Today (Day 19) has been quiet at work, so quiet that Helen, Michelle, Danielle, Simon, and I ended up setting each other quizzes. We got so good at this that we're entering a team at the work quiz night at the end of February - should be fun.

My confidence has reached the point where I'm starting to try things that I've previously avoided - I know it sounds silly but it was an achievement for me to go into Subway and order a sandwich from them. Sometimes I've found it hard to step out of my comfort zone, so this small step made me feel pretty good (also the sandwich was far better than I expected it to be)

I got home to discover that a replacement car had been procured by my parents, something I'm very grateful for. It's a nice small hatchback Ford, good punchy engine, massive fuel tank (20 litres large than my dead Rover had) - another Good Thing for me to feel good about.

Anyway, that's been about it - things have been good today and full of positive realisation yesterday. To top it off I got the following message from a friend up in Scotland when I logged into MSN earlier -

my clubnight is tonight, and again i want to say thank you for entertaining my sending of jpegs and also for mm just for being you, and for inspiration i guess.. this'd be easier if you were online, i mean, it wouldn't seem so contrived. But i mean it, anyway. I hope you are well. Love, David. x

It's nice to be told I've inspired someone, and that positive note seems to be a good place to end this post.

Day 18: which will be posted tomorrow!

2009-01-22T23:27:00.001Z

Net only just came back up and I'm knackered so I'll be posting tomorrow and today tomorrow evening.

Sorry about that.

Temporary problem.

2009-01-22T21:43:00.000Z

Got a problem with my web connection, hopefully it'll be back up soon so I can post today's entry.

Day 17: Low quality abuse is the sincerest form of flattery

2009-01-21T21:29:00.002Z

I guess the main thing today is the 'hilarious' blog set up by some anonymous individual to rip the piss out of me. Now, I'm not stranger to others feeling the need to dedicate whole websites to me, the past has seen 'Alex is a cunt' appear twice (and be removed twice when other people reported it for violation of the creator's ISP terms and conditions), and more recently someone tried to set up a whole forum dedicated to attacking me.

So when 'Get Stupid, Confident!' appeared, credited to 'Thee Alex' (as noted elsewhere, my online name in a multitude of places), I barely even mustered a shrug. If it was in any way funny, insightful or even vaguely original it still wouldn't be much more than some weird little troll deciding to 'have a go'.

I take my lack of reaction as a sign that this plan of mine is working. If I was more fragile then it almost certainly would have gnawed away at me, causing me to start to doubt myself horribly, but nothing at all has happened.

A bit of a failure on the part of the writer then.

Today at work has been ok. we've been relatively quiet but their have been enough calls to at least give the day some shape. It's given me time to have a hearty laugh with my colleagues though, and that's always a good thing.

My state of mind has been mostly very good today, no doubts creeping in at the edges, a successful time all round I think.

I did have a little moment when I paid £300 for a mattress using my credit card...not because I'm worried about not being able to pay it off (I'm totally fine with it), but it was just that same 'eep' that I had when I threw down the money on the flat and that passed quickly enough.

Still waiting to hear if I'm going to get a permanent position at work, knowing for sure would certainly take a lot of background stress off my shoulders and allow me to get planning. In the meantime I'll just have to slog on hoping that it all works out.

The Scores -

The Good -

I maintained my positive outlook at work
I didn't get even remotely upset about the blog attacking me.

The Bad -

That annoying wobble over the mattress, got to get over the money issues (anyone know the winning numbers for the lottery with week?)

A note on comments

2009-01-21T17:31:00.004Z

I've had to switch on comment moderation as some hilarious comedy genius has signed up for blogger using my regular online name Th ee Alex and started a blog clearly intended to attack me here. I don't want someone who is obviously deranged enough to waste their time doing this, and is out to try and undermine what I'm attempting here, to be able to post.

Once my cyber stalker has tired of his (it's ALWAYS males isn't it?) escapade I'll switch off the moderation again.

Day 16: Equilibrium restored

2009-01-20T22:05:00.002Z

After a few days of wobble, I seem to be gaining control over my mental state once more. 'Confident Alex' is reasserting himself and I'm feeling loads better for it.

It's reassuring to know that I can come out of the other end of a glitch and feel like I'm in the same place as I was before I fell into it. I've managed to remain calm and good humoured all day, haven't felt the slightest bit embarrassed or self-conscious at work, and feel like I'm better liked as a result.

Unfortunately days like this don't make for particularly good entries (though I am sure my wife will kick my arse over this!!), it's typically British to say it, but difficulty is far easier to write about! I wonder why that is though? I wonder why we, as a nation, in the UK are so uninterested in the Good Stuff? We really don't care at all! It's so wrong and something that we'd be better off if we didn't do. That 'Stiff Upper Lip' thing has caused far more harm than good.

Well, I'm NOT ashamed to admit that certain things can leave me blubbing like a child, the ending of the recent Will Smith movie 'Seven Pounds' for instance, or this heartrending cartoon, or (most tear inducing of all, honestly I can't even THINK about it without starting to feel my eyes watering up) the final scene of the BBC version of Cassanova from a few years ago. Yes, these things are all thoroughly manipulative but if we can't allow ourselves to prod the side of our emotions that lead to great big man sobs then we're missing out.

Our British Reserve causes us to push these emotions down, to actually feel ashamed when we cry over something. How wrong is that? That we're embarrassed to be seen having an emotional response to an event that demands that emotional response? How much healthier would it be if we were able to embrace that we're human and have feelings? A good cry isn't something we should instinctively try to hide from those around us, and seeing someone who is crying shouldn't automatically make you feel uncomfortable and unable to work out what to do. Let people feel things, and be there to give them the support and solidarity they need.

So, to the scores -

The Good -

Got told by several people at work that they didn't believe I was 36, all of them placing me somewhere in my mid to late 20's. That I hadn't fished for it ('Hey! How old do you think I am? Go on! Tell me!! etc') made it feel a lot nicer.

Went up to the new flat and met a couple of the neighbours during a 'car parked in the wrong place' incident. Seem like very nice folk .

Might have some seriously good news soon, but can't write about it for several reasons far too boring to go into here.

The Bad -

You know what? I can't really think of any today

Day 15: Looking for ways to break circular thinking patterns

2009-01-19T14:54:00.002Z

Circular thinking is a pattern that's a bitch to break, it shores itself up, reinforces its negativity and generally leads to 'shit times'.

I've been in its grip for the last day or so, fighting desperately to escape while it claws and drags at me. It's almost like, after a fortnight of medication free positive thinking, my subconscious is trying to ruin everything. It feels as if a separate entity to myself is trying to gain control of my state of mind, I don't like that one little bit.

So how do I deal with it? Dwelling on it seems only to give it power, and ignoring it feels like I'm burying my head in the sand.

I suppose the first step is to identify the source. On this occasion it's the residuals of the last few days that have snuck in and poisoned me, my fear of driving my beloved away (though based purely on a misunderstanding that has subsequently been resolved) is making me feel scared of expressing anything that might be considered as 'down' thinking, the stress of trying not to be 'down' has the effect of - you guessed it - making me down.

How stupid is that? The answer is 'Very Stupid INDEED'

I need to look at this objectively; my worry is based on nothing, and my stress that being stressed will make things worse is just ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous.

Solutions: Head up, shoulders back, tell myself I'm worthwhile, take the time to make sure I believe myself. Breathe in and out, clear my head of poisonous rubbish. Don't let this derail the whole process, accept that there will be days like this, that sometimes irrationality will get the better of me, just don't dwell on it, move on when it's passed.

Still not bothering with the Scores today.

Day 14: Two hours talking in the dark

2009-01-18T20:11:00.009Z

Seems things had to get a whole lot harder before they got better....

Not sure even how to write this all down, as it's based around a two hour telephone conversation that Kat and I had between 5.30am and 8am UK time. The nub of it is this - in my attempt to show Kat that there was a 'Kat shaped' hole in the jigsaw of my life I'd managed to screw up completely. Instead of the intended 'look at this jigsaw, with many elements and lots of positive things going on' I gave the impression that the puzzle only had two pieces, and that she was one of them.

Being typically British I rarely play up the positives - when something goes well it's just 'how it is' but when something goes badly, even slightly (the tiniest things imaginable) I, like my fellow countrymen, moan about it at length. Heavy traffic on the way to work becomes a 'bloody NIGHTMARE!', moving house goes from being hard work to being 'utterly HELLISH', and a light shower become 'a torrential downpour'. Fellow Brits automatically adjust, finding the actual level of difficulty amongst the hyperbole....anyone from a different culture is screwed though, as Brits appear to be a nation of moaners.

Yup, we British are World Class at self deprecation, not even noticing when we do it. I guess we just don't 'boast' very well. It can't be fun to deal with if the context is completely alien.

So this is what happened, I gave my wonderful, beautiful, American wife the impression that my life over here was a non-stop litany of misery, punctuated only by shit weather and regular disasters. I didn't mention the evening spent with Ade last week, crying with laughter at Youtube videos of the idiot BNP leader, I glossed over completely the real growing friendships I'm developing with several work colleagues, and I didn't mention regular moments of hilarity at that same place of work.

This had the effect of causing her to doubt whether being with me was a good idea. To be honest I'm surprised she didn't run a mile - I must have seemed like a terrible, friendless, miserable, bitter man who saw no hope in the future. I made her feel like she was the only good thing in my life, and that my jealousy and insecurity would cause her to be isolated and trapped in a suffocating relationship where I wouldn’t want her to have friends of her own in case she left me for them, and what friends she had I would cling onto because I didn’t know how to find my own.

This was further exacerbated by her feeling guilty that she felt like she couldn’t give me what I needed, and that deep down she didn’t want to…

She wanted me to be happy, but felt that it was starting to be at the expense of her own sanity.... she couldn’t stay for her own sake and she couldn’t leave for mine.

The penny dropped suddenly and painfully for me, laid out in the dark, listening to the woman I love's tearful voice travelling halfway around the world....I realised that my attempts to make her feel like she was needed, that she had a place in my larger jigsaw, had failed horribly and made her feel smothered, neglected, upset, and ready to start thinking about throwing in the towel.....something she felt she then couldn't do because it would ruin my life and make everything even worse. Inadvertently I'd created a situation where the most precious person in the world to me felt trapped and miserable, and on the verge of losing her mind.

It makes me sick to my core to think that I could even accidentally do such a thing.

Ultimately I'm lucky that I have a patient and understanding partner, as Kat understood that I'd not done it deliberately and believed me when I told her the reality of my life is very different. I felt like such a fool though, I'd tried to achieve one thing and had successfully done the exact opposite, and I'd very nearly lost my wife over it.

We talked for a long time, we both cried a bit, we both laughed as well....and it was getting light by the time we started to each notice the longer gaps between replies. There was something slightly magical about both almost drifting off to sleep together.

Lesson? I need to talk to my wife more, and I need to play up the daily victories in my life. Yes, she's part of my life, but I need her to know that my life is worth being part of. And I need to prove to her that I would never want to smother her - I don't want to 'own' her, I want to stand side by side with her, enjoying life together.

No scores again today, it's all been covered above I feel.

Day 13: A mighty dose of 'WTF!!??'

2009-01-17T21:05:00.000Z

Today has been very hard.

It started last night when I realised that I don't have that many close friends here in the Midlands. This came up when Kat was asking me about my stag night for our August UK wedding....I couldn't think of anyone who would either want to organise, or even give a crap about doing it for me. The one person I consider my closest male friend here wouldn't want to deal with something like a stag, and the other people I know wouldn't be bothered.

I got a bit down about this, suddenly feeling lonely, but it lead to being told that I maybe hide away too much and don't make friends easily. I got confused and upset by this, as I've never had any problems making friends, as witnessed by the dozens and dozens I had when I lived in Scotland - my flat always had visitors, whether they were local friends or people and bands from further afield staying the night after a gig.

The truth of the matter is I have cut a couple of people off that I used to hang around with a lot in Solihull. One is a male friend who I just reached burn out with, realising that I couldn't stand yet another night in the pub going through the same old conversations. The other was a woman I'd known since her and I were both teens. We were very close, even going on holiday twice together in 2007, but gradually her increasingly right wing views coupled with her slagging off of someone else I was friendly with behind my back led to me severing all ties.

I have other friends, but a lot of them have never gotten past 'people I know and get on with' status because of being 20 to 30 miles from where I was living - I never socialised with them because it was really hard...that'll probably change when I move into my new flat next week as I'll be a lot nearer to a great many of my friends.

So to be told that I come across as someone who struggles to make friends felt a bit like a kick in the teeth if I'm totally honest. I felt like I was going insane - what if I really *am* crap at making friends? Maybe I was so rubbish at it I'd just not noticed, being totally oblivious to my uselessness...

I had a long think about it today, and realised that I *had* made friends, but that I'd chosen to cut some off, and that others were a long way away. I also realised that I miss my Scottish friends a great deal but, due to the internet, never really feel that I'm not 'hanging out' with them - even if I don't see them physically from year to year.

Such a non-issue as whether I'm adept at getting on with people or not blew up out of all proportion in my head and I found myself almost in tears several times as I discussed it with Kat. What didn't help was that I've had very little sleep this week so the slightest thing is magnifying when I should be shrugging it off.

Anyhow, here're my conclusions -

I have no trouble at all making friends, I can be personable, entertaining, and charming in company.
As I've got older I've learned to appreciate some friends more than others, realising that it's sometimes necessary to cut people off (witness Mat and Becky)

Today felt like falling off the wagon a bit, but I was relieved to note that I didn't plummet anywhere near as far as I would have done even two weeks ago. I may have been tearful, and fed up, but at no point did I start thinking 'I hate myself'.

Not going to bother with the scores today, as it's all been rather tiring.