Where to begin

Don't worry, I haven't done anything exciting like find a boyfriend or lose my virginity. The recent drama has all been in my friend T's life. Now I'm all for living vicariously through the lives of others but in this case I wish her life had been boring since my last post.

Last time I posted I was worried about going away for the weekend with her in case she gushed about the guy she was seeing. Well the weekend was fine, there was a little gushing, and a bit of worry, as there was misunderstanding the two of them needed to sort out while she was away, but all was ok. Since then however it's all been downhill.

Not long after that weekend he told her he had to clear the air with his ex girlfriend and that until that was done he and T couldn't be together properly as it would be unfair on both women. Fair enough, it seemed he was doing the right thing. Not long after that he told her he only wanted to be friends with her, only to sleep with her again a week or two later. And a couple of days after that he again told her he could only be friends. The possibility of him getting back together with his ex was also mentioned.

Various other things have happened before and after these two "just friends" chats. He has invited her to his house for the evening then changed his mind at the last minute. She has gone to his house for an evening and he has tried to make her go home just before midnight after the last train has left. Other plans have been made and broken by him. All in all he has been a pretty unreliable guy.

However she says she is in love with him and really wanted to try to be friends with him so she didn't lose him from her life completely. She thinks it was going ok but from the numerous emails she sent me daily, over analysing every last action and word of his for a sign he might want more than friendship, I don't think it was.

Almost the last straw came a couple of weeks ago when he posted on a social networking site that he was in a relationship. He hadn't told T. She assumed it was the ex but was really upset that he hadn't told her in person. She was feeling so bad that she almost pulled out of the holiday we were due to go on.

Then this week it got worse. He cam out for drinks to celebrate her birthday. She had invited him long ago and he had said he would come. She kept saying that if he didn't she wouldn't bother going out at all (which sort of made me feel a little unwanted - aren't I good enough to celebrate with?).

Anyway, he did some out, and the evening started okay, but then in bar number 2, he made some comments relating to drug dealing friends which really disturbed me. She told me not to worry and we carried on to bar number 3. For the first half hour or so the three of us drank and chatted and took photos, then the two of them moved away a little and started their own conversation, leaving me standing alone, for pretty much the rest of the evening. She came over to me a couple of times to say they were sorting out the whole friendship thing and please could I let them sort it then we could have fun. The fun did not happen as not long after she came to me and said he had just said something which suggested he himself deals in drugs. He also made some nasty comments to her which made her feel awful about herself. She ended up crying her eyes out on me when we got home, though she never showed him how upset she was.

I am really not good at dealing with this sort of thing, as much as I might say "it will get better, you won't always feel like this" how do I know it will get better having never experienced it? Part of me also wants to shake her and say "you've only known him for 5 months, how can you be in love with him?" but again I have no personal experience to base that on. And when she says she hates herself and that shit keeps happening to her, I feel like saying "what about me? You think you're awful because this happened, I am so loathsome that nobody even wants to try to be with me, so I've never got as far as being dumped."

I'm not really sure where this post is going, but I am just tired of being an amateur counsellor for her (she has said a few times she wants to die and has self esteem problems) and needed to write this all down. I will keep doing the counsellor thing as much as I can, but it is exhausting me and I'm not qualified for it. I am trying with not much luck to get her to see her doctor and get a referral to someone who is qualified. I am grateful all this crap is not happening to me, but at the same time it makes me sad that I have no idea what it feels like to love someone.

So I was just wondering...

Nothing exciting to report on the online dating front. I have continued communication with the second guy (who I'm going to call Barbados Man because he says he'd like to own a home there one day). We've exchanged must haves and can't stands and there are no dealbreakers there. I've sent the second lot of questions to him.

I have some questions to answer from Scarf Guy. The answers are free text rather than multiple choice and I need to take some time to think about my answers, but have not really been in the right mood this weekend. I will see if I can get them done tomorrow evening.

I felt a little sad yesterday evening. I spent the day with T and her mum, lunching, drinking wine, mooching and doing a little shopping. It was a fun day and when I arrived home alone to an empty house I felt a bit sad at the prospect of the rest of the evening. I found it rather odd as I do like (and need) time spent alone and enjoy my own company and being able to do exactly what I want. I think if I had spent the day alone I would have been perfectly ok about being alone for the evening too. I guess it was just the contrast between a fun, busy day and a quiet evening which affected me. Anyway I've felt fine today.

Ok, the third topic for this post is the main reason I am writing this evening. I have a statcounter on my blog and can log in and see some details of who is visiting the site - ISP, country, what web browser they have etc. The same visitors seem to pop up quite regularly and I've been wondering about you all - who are you, why do you read the blog. Of course I know who some of you are from your comments (and I really enjoy the interaction we have and very much appreciate your advice, suggestions and support) but the rest I have no idea about.

I'd love to hear from you - drop me a line at whenyouleastexpect@gmail.com.