So apparently I'm not the world's best party guest

Although I probably knew that about myself already. I went to my ex-housemate, the Scientist's birthday party the other evening. It was at her house and I said I'd go because I like her and because I would hate it if I was throwing a party and nobody came. I wasn't really that keen though, and would have preferred to sit at home with the TV or some music and a book.

I think I've mentioned previously that I'm not good in large groups of people. Well, the party was no exception. The only people I knew there were the Scientist, her housemate, and the Scientist's ex-work colleague. The rest were mostly people she knows from a musical activity she does. I spent some time talking to her, a little talking to her housemate, and most of the evening talking to the ex-work colleague. I will certainly never be one of those people who wanders around all the rooms at a house party chatting to everyone.

That bit of the evening was ok, especially when the ex-work colleague confessed that she didn't like house parties either. Unfortunately she had to leave fairly early and I ended up sitting with six or seven people I didn't know, listening to them talking and trying to smile or laugh at the appropriate points. I think I contributed about two comments, excluding telling them where I work when they asked.

I stayed late enough not to look rude then decided to leave. I got up and made my way out of the room, and I'm sure as I went one or two of the people made comments about having scared me off. I guess they may have thought I was unfriendly and rude as I didn't talk much, but surely there's no need to comment while I'm still in the room? I must have become much thicker skinned over the years because it didn't actually bother me. I just thought "oh well, their problem not mine".

I'm not entirely sure where I am going with this post. At 35 I know I'm not suddenly going to be able to change my whole character and become the life and soul of the party. I just wish I came across as a semi-confident, interesting person, rather than an extremely shy, socially maladjusted one. All the advice about going out and doing things making it easier to meet men is all very well, but it's not going to work if I can only manage to speak to people I already know.

I have and I haven't...

Okay, so I haven't posted for what seems like forever and I don't even have a proper excuse. I haven't been at work till late every day, I haven't been out socialising till midnight every evening, I haven't been on a month long holiday, I've just been plain lazy. I'm still enjoying the novelty of housemates to chat to, of having a communal area to lounge around in and I just haven't been able to summon up the will to blog. I have written various posts in my head over the past couple of months, I just haven't got round to putting them onto paper (or rather laptop hard drive).

Here's a few more haves and haven'ts from the last couple of months:

- I haven't found a boyfriend

- I haven't lost my virginity

- I have started to sign up to e-harmony

- I haven't finished signing up to e-harmony as I got stuck at the part where I was asked for what goals I have/had had in my life. My answer would be available to any of my matches and the length was unlimited. I was a little daunted by this, decided to go back to it later and so far haven't done. I had no idea what sort of goals I should be writing about. I don't see myself as a particularly goal driven person. I would like to be happy. I'd like to be healthy. I want my friends and family to be happy and healthy. I want to have friends I can trust and rely on. I want to do a job which gives me satisfaction and where I feel I make a difference. I want to earn enough to be able live without debt and to be able to take a holiday of two a year. I'd like to see more of the world and experience different cultures and countries. And yes, I'd like to have relationship. Is this enough? Should I have a goal of climbing a mountain, or something else exciting?

- I have been swimming a few times

- I haven't been swimming as much as I want to (again laziness) and need to

- I haven't signed up for any evening classes

- I have sometimes felt quite content

- I haven't felt too stressed in the new job

- I have been on holiday to New York (for the second time)with my friend T

- I have loved being in New York

- I have enjoyed spending time with T, and with Sociable Guy, and E and A who've all been to visit me

- I have been reading blogs even though I haven't been writing, or commenting much

- I have been annoyed with myself for not trying online dating and for not signing up for an evening class

- I haven't socialised with any new people in my new city. I could arrange to go out with my female housemate who is very friendly and easy to get on with, but I think she has very different preferences to me on a night out. She goes clubbing and goes out planning to drink and get drunk. I prefer to go to the pub or out for dinner. I do drink and I do sometimes get drunk but getting drunk is never the main aim. I don't think her male friends would be my type anyway

- I have just finished a work related training course which was useful and fun. I met some interesting women from my company who I may meet up with in future

- I haven't felt particularly sad or upset or distressed about being single

- I have wondered whether this lack of sadness is because I have become numb to my feelings and have just given up because the possiblity of ever meeting anyone seems so remote

- I have looked at many women with their husbands/boyfriends and thought the classic "if she can find someone why on earth can't I?". I don't think I will ever stop doing that

Lost time

Finally I have made some time to blog. I'm not quite sure what I've been doing the past few weeks which has stopped me from writing. I seem to have been busy without really being busy. I've only been out one evening and away for one weekend. Time seems to have been swallowed up in finishing unpacking, shopping for extra bits and pieces needed for my room and lounging around in front of the TV.

Actually lounging around in front of the TV has been nice, as for the first time in ages I'm living somewhere with a communal living room, so I've spent a fair bit of time in there with my female (now ex) housemate (who I'll call The Scientist, because she is one), watching TV and chatting. She has just moved out into a place with one of her friends but she invited me out for a drink one evening last week and I think that's going to be a regular thing. It was just a quiet weeknight drink but good to be out nonetheless and I met a couple of her friends. It seems a shared house is a way to meet people.

My new housemate who is moving in this week is very friendly, and on first impressions appears more bubbly and outgoing than The Scientist. She has also mentioned going out for drinks so things sound promising there too.

I haven't got round to doing any of my regular sporty things, or to joining any clubs yet but hope to do that in the next couple of weeks. I need to get myself into a routine. I am doing a sponsored sporting activity this summer so really need to get training.

As for men...well nobody promising so far, but my job is in a very large workplace and there are rather a lot of men about, I just need to work out how I get to meet them. Chatty Guy made me smile the other week. I had contacted him a couple of times along with some other people to arrange for a group of us to meet up and he'd replied. Then about a week later he texted me one evening, completely out of the blue to ask how things were going. I tried not to read anything into it, but I did find it nice. And surprising.

I have realised recently that I'm surprised when any man shows any interest in me, even if just as friends. Whether it be Sociable Guy, Chatty Guy, A, or someone else, any email or text asking how I am, a mention that they miss me, or that they want to arrange to visit me, any indication that they care about me and want to spend time with me surprises me. I guess it's partly because I've never been in a relationship, and am therefore not used to men wanting to spend time with me. I suspect it may also be self esteem related in that I don't feel I am interesting enough for men to want to be around me (which also stems from never having had a relationship). Whatever the cause, I am always surprised (but pleased) when any man wants to spend time in my company.

On a completely different note, I went to the hairdressers last week and mentioned that I'd just moved, and said something about a new job. Her first comment? "Oh, did you move with your partner?" I was a little taken aback. Was that really the thing most interesting about my move? Not why this city? Not what was so good about the job? Not how am I finding living here? But have I moved with a partner. Is it that abnormal for me not have have a partner? For me to have moved alone? For me to have moved for myself and nobody else? I don't think so, but she seemed to, as her next comment was "Ooh aren't you brave?" Yes it's nerve wracking moving to somewhere new, where you don't know anyone, but I wouldn't describe it as brave. I've done it before when I went to university. And I've only moved an hour or two down the road, I'm not at the other end of the country, let alone the other side of the world.

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.

Stuck

I’ve been feeling as if my life has got stuck for the past couple of days. It’s something that hits me every now and then and when I woke up on Thursday I recognised the feeling immediately and have not been able to shake it since. There are all sorts of aspects of my life that I wish were different, and that I want to change, but I seem unable to, hence the feeling “stuck”.

I have a job that which I don’t really enjoy and which doesn’t especially motivate me. I don’t dread coming to work each day, but I want to do something that I find more fulfilling and more of a challenge. The trouble is I am not entirely sure what that might be. I do have a “dream job” but it is one which is only recruited to once a year and which has quite a tough recruitment process. I have applied in the past and will do so again, but I don’t want to rest all my hopes on it, and would like to have an alternative in mind in case it doesn’t come to anything. So unless I am lucky in the dream job application and until I work out what else I might like to do, I am stuck.

I am in a similar situation in my home. I don’t hate where I live but would like to have a place of my own or at least to share with just one other person. Currently I share a rented flat with several other people and it often seems as if some of my flatmates change every few months. Unfortunately I can’t afford a place of my own and don’t really have anyone to share a smaller place with. So again I am stuck.

And then there’s my love life, or rather lack of. This is where I feel particularly stuck. I have had other jobs and lived in other places and can imagine changing both for something better eventually, even though it seems a distant prospect at the moment. The lack of a relationship though, I’m really not sure I can imagine that changing. Five years ago I thought, and hoped, that by now I might have met someone. As each year goes by however, and nothing happens, it feels more and more as if nothing ever will.

It’s as if I am treading water and going nowhere, while everyone else is swimming on past making progress in their lives.

It’s when I’m feeling like this that the optimism I usually take from my friendship with my sociable guy friend turns to pessimism. The theory that if he finds me interesting enough to want to be friends with me, then surely there’s someone out there who will find me interesting and attractive enough to want to date me, turns on its head. All I have is the thought that if all I need is for someone to find me attractive as well as interesting, why the hell hasn’t it happened yet? I’ve known a fair few men over the years, some of whom have become friends even if only for a short time. Did none of them find me attractive? Were they attracted to me and I missed the signs? I am extremely bad at reading signs, plus I often get too caught up with my own nervousness to even look for signs, so it is possible. I’m not sure I want to go any further with analysing why; I think I’d just make myself feel worse.

I was supposed to be meeting up with Sociable Guy this weekend. We haven’t made any concrete plans and I’m not really in the mood for trying to socialise, but I think I might contact him and try to arrange something. If I don’t I’ll just end up being miserable at home alone, and I’m definitely not going to unstuck myself doing that.

Shooting myself in the foot

I just realised that my last post talks about my friend Sociable Guy inviting everyone he knows when he’s going out for a drink, and I thought isn’t that what I’m looking for, a way to meet new people? So why don’t I accept every invitation that comes my way from him?

I do accept some of his invites and over time have met a good number of his friends. They’ve all seemed nice but there hasn’t been anyone I’ve really clicked with or wanted to get to know better. When I go out with him now and his friends are there, I’ve generally met most of them already so the source of new people to meet has pretty much dried up anyway.

Also, I am not very good at all at speaking up in a large group of people, especially if I don’t know them very well. I’m that person in the corner who sits there and says nothing, while the conversation flows on without me and everyone else contributes insightful comments and chips in with witty one-liners. I can’t see anyone deciding that the quiet one in the corner is the one they want to know better.

I find it a little easier to talk to people in a smaller group, but if I don’t know them well (or at all) it’s still quite difficult and I still feel uncomfortable. There are those awkward pauses while I try to think of something to say and in an effort to say something I sometimes say pointless, stupid things.

I am a slightly more successful at one-to-one conversations, mainly because if I do say something idiotic, or am stuck for words, there’s only one person witnessing it, rather than a little group. It sort of lessens the embarrassment factor.

I will keep accepting the invitations if they arrive in one of my more confident moments. I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot by refusing them all, because you never know, one day there may be a new person there who I do click with. At the moment it just seems like one more “activity”, along with classes and clubs, where I’ve unsuccessfully met new people.

The thought does occur that I’m being somewhat fussy and picky about this – “I want to meet new people and make new friends...but not like that...I couldn’t make friends at that sort of event....I’ve tried that, it didn’t work”. But any analysis of that will turn this into a very lengthy post. Another time maybe. I need to go and buy wine to go with lunch.