So much to do

I’ve been a little AWOL from blogging over the past couple of weeks, partly due to travelling for Christmas and New Year, partly due to being busy getting ready to move to my new job and city.

I spent Christmas with my family in another part of the country, and as there were only three of us on the actual day it was a quiet one. Also the family issues which started at the end of last year are ongoing so my dad wasn’t as happy as he could have been. Still, it was good to see them and to visit various other relatives who live in the same area.

New Year was spent with my best friend and her family, again in a different part of the country. As she has two young children New Year’s Eve didn’t involve any partying but it was fun nonetheless, spent at home chatting, drinking wine and playing cards (wow, I really know how to party don’t I?).

I then spent the final couple of days off work looking for a home in my new city. I decided to find a room in a shared house to give me a chance to get to know the various areas of the city before committing to my own place. It also means I will immediately know at least some people, which will hopefully mean I can do a bit of socialising and maybe meet others. I saw a few places, some ok, some that I would have hated to live in (dirty house, awful area of the city), but quite quickly found one I really liked and I have taken it. It’s in a pleasant area, the house feels homely, my room is a good size and my new housemates seem friendly.

I’ll be moving there and starting the new job later this month. I’m really quite excited about moving, especially now I’ve found a home and hope it will be the change I need. I’m also nervous, about moving to a new place where I don’t know anyone and about starting a new job for the first time in a long time.

I spent a lovely evening at the weekend with E and A, who’ve now moved in together. They’ve already said they’ll come and visit me and have invited me to come back here and visit them. I’m very much going to miss them and it will be very strange not seeing them regularly, but I know I’m not going to lose them as friends.

Chatty Guy is still, well, chatty. He made a comment today about getting me drunk at my leaving drinks/dinner, but it sounded like a general “we’ll all get you drunk” so I’m not reading anything into that (or maybe I am or I wouldn’t be writing about it?).

I have a lot of finishing up in my current job, clearing out, packing and saying goodbye to friends to do over the next few weeks, and I think it will probably turn out to be quite an emotional time.

Changes

This past week has been rather eventful, a little stressful, but quite exciting. I had the interview midweek and immediately afterwards I wasn’t sure how it had gone. Some questions I felt I answered well, others I thought I could have answered more fully, and for a few I wasn’t sure my answers were very articulate.

They said they wanted to make a quick decision and would let me know one way or the other later that day, or the next. I received a call right at the end of the working day. I fully expected it to be a “thank you for coming to the interview, we decided someone else was more suitable” type call.

It wasn’t. They offered me the job, and asked me to decide whether to accept by the following day. I think I was probably in shock for the rest of the evening, and was slightly panicked about the extra responsibility the job entails.

I had already arranged to meet E and A and another friend for a drink and when I told them the news they were hugely excited for me and told me that I absolutely had to accept and that I can definitely do the job. They’re right on both counts: I can do the job, extra responsibility and all, and I would kick myself if I rejected the offer and found myself still stuck in my current job and going nowhere in a year’s time.

I’m now negotiating my notice period and will need to find somewhere to live in the new city. The next couple of months are going to be very busy and probably quite stressful, but I am fine with that because the flipside is that some of the change I need is coming sooner than I ever expected.

As for Chatty Guy, there is nothing much to say. He’s been his usual self and I’ve been too preoccupied with interview thoughts to try any flirting. He joined a few of us for drinks Friday night, which was fun, but it did just feel like drinks with friends. I’m really not sure there is anything there, from his side anyway. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to keep blogging about him, especially if it’s the same “I tried flirting, nothing happened” scenarios each time. I suspect it might just send me into over-analysis mode, which is the last thing I want or need.

Things on my mind

A few things have happened so far this week, some good, some not so, which have left me a little pre-occupied.

The good is that I have an interview for a job I applied for a couple of weeks ago! It’s the same sort of job as my current one, but is effectively a promotion, which means that while it wouldn’t be too much out of my comfort zone, it would be more challenging and give me more responsibility. It’s also in a different town, so all in all it would be at least some of the change I’ve been wanting.

As I think I said before it’s not my dream job, and I’m not sure how much I really want it, but it is a job I could do and would probably be happy doing and I will try to prepare well for the interview. If nothing else it will be good interview practice and will give me an idea of how my interview technique is, as it’s been a while since I had one. It was also a boost to my confidence to know that my skills and experience are good enough to get me an interview. I am quite nervous already (that feeling started as soon as I read the email), but hope that will subside.

The not so good is a couple of things. My friend T is not doing too well at the moment. It seems the older guy from her work who she hoped she might start a relationship with has been treating her badly, and she is feeling quite depressed. I would love to be able to do something to make her feel better, but at the moment all I can really do is be there for her as and when she needs me.

The other not so good is a family problem which I don’t want to go into too much detail about. I hope it will work itself out, but at the moment I’m a little pessimistic.

I have seen Chatty Guy a couple of times. He was his usual talkative, teasing self, but did mention an attractive woman he briefly spoke to on his way home from the Christmas dinner. If he was interested in me in any way surely he wouldn’t be telling me about finding other women attractive? I haven’t managed to try any interested-in-him signs yet. Actually I’m not too sure what I can do in front of my colleagues. Maybe I’ll try a little emailing?

In the eyes of others

I finally got around to meeting up for a drink with Sociable Guy. We had quite a pleasant evening, and a quiet one by his standards – just me, him, his new girlfriend and one of my work colleagues who also knows Sociable Guy.

It was interesting to meet the new girlfriend. She seemed a little quirky, as is he, and appears to have led an unbelievably fascinating life so far; she’s travelled, done charity work, “lived her dream” on another continent. Oh, and been married and divorced. She must be around my age so I did feel somewhat inadequate and just a touch boring compared to her. She’s done so many things I’d love to do but for whatever reason haven’t.

I did have some minor news of my own in that I am in the process of applying for new job. I’m not sure whether I’m likely to get an interview, or even whether I really want the job, but it feels like one small hurdle crossed in the attempt to change my life. I have actually, properly, started a job application and if I can do it once I can do it again.

My work colleague made a bit of a random comment when I mentioned the job application. He said maybe I’d find a man if I end up moving to the new job (it’s in a different town), because after all I haven’t met one in x years in this town and workplace. He said it in a well meaning way (although it was nothing like the encouraging comments I get from Sociable Guy), but it did give me a little insight into how others might see me.

I’ve never thought of myself as the sad, older, single woman at my workplace, even thought I am the only older, single woman there and even though sad, older and single is pretty much how I think of myself outside the context of work. At work I’m just me who sits in such and such an office, doing such and such a job, and who is someone most people know or know of.

But my work colleague obviously sees me as a single woman who hasn’t managed to find a man in x years. Does he have an opinion on why I’m still single? Does he think I can find someone? Does he think I’m a lost cause? Was he just being polite when he said maybe I’d find a man? Do other people share his view? Do they judge me as a person because I have failed to have a relationship since they’ve known me? Do people feel sorry for me?

Part of me wants to know the answers to those questions, but most of me doesn’t. If the answers are positive I’ll just think the same as I have for the past 10 years, that is, that they’re lying. If they’re negative, well, I have more than enough negative opinions of my own already. I really don’t need to know that everyone else agrees.

One of the guys?

This has been a bad week at work so far. There has been a problem which required me to liaise with various departments in an attempt to get it resolved. It still wasn’t fixed by the time I left work today. Then something I spent hours setting up in a database then didn’t work as it was supposed to. I’m not sure I can get it to work. On top of that I’ve had new tasks thrown at me from all directions.

I arrived home exhausted and fed up and spent a couple of hours browsing the internet for job vacancies in my sector of work, and for other possibilities. I even started a couple of online applications. I’m not terribly optimistic that this will lead to any actual, real-life, concrete change of job. Next week when everything has calmed down at work I’m likely to slip back into my usual procrastination and never get round to completing the applications. Still, it’s further than I’ve got in a while. Maybe next time I have a bad week I will complete the online application form....and the time after that I will actually submit it...

One other thing that has been occupying my mind at work is a guy who works in my department. Well, more something he said really. This guy, G, often pops into my office to say hi and have a chat. He’s a nice, friendly sort, I get on okay with him and we chat about non-work stuff, but I’ve never seen him outside work so wouldn’t really call him a friend.

Anyway, the other day he was in my office and a new female colleague appeared in the doorway and asked if he could help her out with something. He said he’d be with her in a minute and when she’d gone turned to me and made a comment about her being “hot”. And it occurred to me that if he’s saying that to me, does that mean he sees me as “one of the guys”?

Sociable Guy does a similar thing in that when we’re out he will point out women he finds attractive (immediately before apologising for ogling other women instead of talking to me). I never really had male friends when I was younger, but in recent years I have made some, mainly developing from going for after work drinks with a group of them.

None has been interested in anything more than friendship (to my knowledge anyway) and I think they do tend to see me as one of the guys and talk about “guy things” in front of me. I kind of like that because it means there’s no ambiguity about our friendships and nobody is wondering whether there is a hidden agenda.

I guess there must be something about the way I interact with them that makes them feel like that. Or maybe it’s my “keep your distance, I’m scared of relationships” vibes. I don’t know. Whatever it is, I wonder sometimes whether it is such a good thing, especially when it comes to meeting new men. If I’m going to be seen as one of the guys am I automatically not potential girlfriend material? Do I need to act more “like a woman” or more “girlie” for men to consider me as possibly more than a friend?

The times they are not a-changin’

I didn’t go out with my Sociable Guy friend after all. I contacted him but he was working all day Saturday and decided the weather was too cold and wet to leave the warmth of home once he got back from work. So I spent the evening at home on my own. It’s at times like this that I really wish I had a group of single female friends who I could call up and invite out and I’d know that at least one of them would say yes.

I mentioned to Sociable Guy that at the moment I’m feeling fed up and as if my life is going anywhere. He responded by saying that only I can change the way my life is going and that I have to take the plunge and do what makes me happier.

I guess he’s right up to a point. No matter how stuck I may feel, there are probably ways out if only I try hard enough. I could try to work out what alternative job would suit me, then find myself a new job, preferably one with a higher salary, because that would mean that I could also get myself a home of my own. Or I could even try to find a better paid job similar to my current one because again that would enable a change of home. But finding someone to have a relationship with, relying as it does on someone else’s feelings, doesn’t seem quite as straightforward. I could make more effort to meet new people. I could sign up for even more courses and join even more clubs. I could even try internet dating, although the thought of it terrifies me. Ultimately though, I have no control over someone else’s feelings or over whether we click.

I know that I do need to change my life in some way, but I am uncertain whether I ought to try to change one aspect at a time, or just go for one big bang. Do I move into a different houseshare and stay in the same job? Do I find another job and a new home but stay in the same town? Do I find a new job in a different town which would give me a whole townful of new people to meet (assuming I could pluck up the courage to try to meet them)?

Doing anything at all seems too scary. What if I don’t like the new job? The new housemates? The new town? I think I’ve become almost too comfortable with a lot of things. I can do my job with my eyes closed. I’ve known my colleagues for ages so no nerve-wracking getting to know them required. I live conveniently close to work. I like the town I live in, its facilities and its location. I sometimes wish I hated my job because that would give me a push into at least changing jobs even if nothing else.

I am a terrible procrastinator. I am capable of spending hours thinking about what I‘d like to change and ways I’d want to do it, I day dream about living elsewhere, about travelling more, about the day I am offered a wonderful new job, yet I do nothing that might help to take me down that different path.

Sociable Guy is right. I am the only one who can change the way my life is going. I just need to give myself a very big kick to force myself to do it. Trouble is, I think I’m too afraid to give myself that kick.