End of Days

Well, this is bound to be my final post of 2008 and I for one am glad that the year is almost over. I’ve had some pretty shitty years of late, but this has been by far the worst. Crap job, crap holiday, depression, no job then boredom. Next year, I hope, is going to be a hell of a lot better.

I’m also hoping that, at some point during 2009, I might actually want a girlfriend. I’ve been single for quite some time now, and a few of my friends have asked me why. Or, as one friend put it “You’re nice bloke, you’re funny and you’re not hideously ugly, so why don’t you have a girlfriend?”In all truthfulness, I really haven’t wanted one. Initially, I just wanted to get other aspects of my life (career, better living arrangements) sorted out before I even went looking for a girlfriend. The problem is, I’ve taken so long getting nowhere with everything else and, subsequently, been single for so long, that I can’t see myself letting go of my independence (such as it is) and my individuality and become merely a constituent part of a couple. The thing is, I’m actually quite a solitary kind of person. As much as I enjoy being with other people, I’m sometimes glade of the fact that I can go back home and be on my own. Of course, I do feel lonely from time to time. Sometimes I long for something as simple as a hug, but for the most part, I’m okay by myself.

There are actually quite a lot of reasons why I should not even attempt to meet anyone right now.

The biggest reason is my depression. Until I can fully conquer that, I don’t feel like subjecting myself to anyone else. I simply can’t deal with unhappiness. I can’t deal with seeing the people I care for being upset. A fair few years ago, I went out with a girl who, in retrospect, it’s apparent also suffered from depression. Obviously that was a terrible combination.

Whenever she told me, in tears, about her problems and issues (and, given her rather traumatic past, those issues were myriad) all I could do was cry. Hopeless really. I couldn’t help myself though; it just upset me so much. I loved her dearly; I guess I just wasn’t the right guy at the right time. She broke up with me almost immediately after she returned from a three month trip to America. If only she’d done it before she left. Instead I was forced to, quite unnecessarily as it turns out, pine for her over the summer months. During that whole time, I didn’t look at anyone else. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for her. I often wonder whether, during those wasted months, I might have met someone else. Maybe the course of my life would have been completely changed?

Ideally I needed to be stronger. I’m just not there yet. Maybe when I am I’ll finally be in a position to seek out a girlfriend. Until then, I’ll remain alone.

I do actually have rather a lot of friends who have girlfriends that I can’t stand. One’s far too controlling. On my birthday she made damn sure my mate could drink no more than 4 pints of lager. I hate people who try to manipulate and control others. The other day she also threw a strop because my friend was unable to get her some brown bread. Apparently she wanted a couple of slices of toast for breakfast the next morning. The only place that sold it was too busy and buying it would have meant that he would be late to meet up with me and another friend. As it turned out, he was late anyway. I tried calling him on both his mobile and his home phone, but both were engaged. When I eventually bumped in to him, it turned out that he was on the phone to his girlfriend back home. By the looks of it she was unleashing upon him a torrent of abuse. The phone was pressed to his ear, but the expression o his face suggested that he wasn’t listening. I just couldn’t put up with that sort of behaviour. Honestly, why couldn’t the lazy, stroppy cow have got off her arse and bought it herself.

You’d think she must have some sort of redeeming characteristic, even if it’ merely superficial. After all, a lot of very attractive women don’t seem to bother developing a personality because the increasingly vacuous world at large lets them get by on looks alone. She is, most definitely, not one of these people. Frankly, she’s no looker. Facially, she’s fairly forgettable. As for her body, well I’m pretty sure she’s loaned it from one of the male attendees of a local primary school. She’s short, with a straight up and down figure; no curves whatsoever. I’m sorry to be so superficial, but I do think that, in order for a relationship to work, there must at least be some measure of physical attractiveness. I’d, be the last person to extol the virtues of puffed up, silicone enhanced glamour models. That, in no way conforms to my idea of beauty. But what does it say about you if your girlfriend has the outward appearance of a little boy?

I’ve developed a small distaste for one of my other friends girlfriend for a different reason altogether. Like the aforementioned girlfriend, her appearance is a bit of an issue. She’s not ugly, certainly; take a look at a photograph of her and you’ll be pleasantly surprised about how attractive she looks. When I say it’s her appearance that’s the problem I’m referring completely to the lack of it. I can only attest to how good looking she appears to be from pictures, because, for the entire time they’ve been going out, almost four years, none of my mates friends have actually met her.

Frankly, I think that’s appalling. To her credit though, she doesn’t seem to restrict my friend’s movements too much (though he did go into London for Saturday drinks a hell of a lot more before he met her. Okay, U-Turn approaching; she is a manipulative cow who can’t even sum up the decency to meet her boyfriend’s mates).

I’m being too hard of course. There are other mate’s girlfriends that I think are utterly brilliant and completely lovely. In actual fact, I'll be spending my New Years Eve with one such couple. Unfortunately, the good ones seem to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

I bring all this up because I have a horrid feeling that I might have upset one of my friends. This particular friend has just started online dating. This time, he seems to be having a great deal more luck. Apparently he’s in contact with quite a number of girls, and actually went out with one last night. After the date, he gave me a call to let me know how it went. Initially he seemed quite positive. Actually, right up until the end he seemed positive, but wasn't completely convinced.

During the course of our conversation he reeled of a list of her more deplorable attributes, most of which would have been deal breakers for me. Bunking off work (oh how I long to have an opportunity to pull a sicky. Even when I was terribly ill, I seldom called in sick), professing to hate the internet and computers. Also she lives alone in her own flat, but squanders her opportunity for total independence by relying on her mother to come round and clean her flat. She also takes her washing back home to be washed and ironed by her mother. Even if you ignore my ideological problem with parental dependency, surely it's way more hassle than just doing it yourself?

Obviously I'm going to address the point that irks me the most. How can you hate the internet? Let's put aside the very obvious paradox of her only being able to tell my friend how much she hates computers because they met through an ONLINE dating site. Without the internet and computers, much of modern life would be so different. How you hate something that gives you access to so much information and entertainment? I'll admit that, as with any medium for communication and transmission of information, 95% of the internet is total dross; a complete waste of time. However, surely it's got to be worth it for what remains. Remember, even if it is only 5% useful, that's still millions of terrabytes of worthwhile data.

Anyway, despite their differences, they talked, almost nonstop for 3hours, so I guess, at least on that level, as my friend was at pains to point out, it was a success. He said that he appreciated her honesty. To be frank, there’s a difference between honesty and shamelessness. I once worked (very briefly, I should add) with a guy who, on pretty much his first day of employment, admitted (or perhaps even boasted) that he had just finished a driving ban. He then went on to say that she had been banned for drink driving. I find that sort of thing deplorable. What kind of person wouldn’t hide such a despicable thing from someone they’ve just met?

He’ll be seeing her again apparently, but I can't help but feel that I dulled his enthusiasm for her with my negativity. If that's the case, then I'm sorry. It is, after all, up to him. Besides, who am I to condemn someone I haven't even met. All I have to go on is what he said about her. Maybe that's the point. Maybe I'm just interpreting his own viewpoint for him. Maybe I'm getting it all wrong.

Anyway, as I write I'm fiddling about with my laptop. See, life can be exciting and fulfilling without someone.