Yesterday’s post was a replica of the email I sent some friends of mine yesterday. I know I’m not acting right, I know I’m not myself. I sent it to them neither for pity nor understanding. I sent it to them to give them warning. To let them know that for whatever reason, my mind isn’t working right now – that my brain wants to close up and go to sleep for a little while. To shut the world out. It’s screaming out to be left alone.

Now, the day after, I wish I’d never sent it. At least if I hadn’t tried to explain, they’d just slowly grow to hate me and resent this person I seem to have changed in to. They could put this new me as the permanent thing and move on, make other friends, relegate me to “that person they once knew”.

Instead, they write back, they sit me down for a chat. They tell me that they can tell I’ve been different and that, while they’re there for me, I should try and be careful around them. They don’t want to feel like they have to walk on eggshells around me. Basically, they don’t want to feel the way I did around N.

And so, finally, the guilt has caught up with me. I don’t want my friends to feel the way I did when I was dealing with N. I want them to carry on being happy and awesome, only dealing with their problems. I want them to leave me alone until I’m done with whatever this stupid thing is. I don’t want their pity. I want to feel like myself.

Sometimes all I want to do is sleep and ignore the world for a bit. And I’m scared. I’m scared that when I read back on how I felt at that time of N, the descriptions of him, I see myself. 

Fuck. Since when was I so alone?

But, generally, I’m there. I’m with it. I can tell when something isn’t going to to go the way I want it to.

For the last couple of weeks I have been dealing with a man who… well… instead of me telling you what I think, I’ll show you. (all spelling etc as in the emails. [My notes])

From: <him>
To: <me>
Subject: Just to say hallo
Date: 1 April

It was nice to see you last week . [watching the local team play rugby]
Thought i would see you yestaday,how is work and stuff? what do you do after work.
This week i am back to the Gym after a minor injury.

From: <me>
To: <him>
Subject: Just to say hallo
Date: 2 April

I was in France all weekend so couldn’t make the rugby. 
Work is incredibly busy at the moment. I don’t usually finish until about 8pm so I just go home and sleep!
I hope your injury heals soon.

From: <him>
To: <me>
Subject: Just to say hallo
Date: 2 April

Yep it heals i’ll be down at training today. If you want pass by after training, or if not possibly tommorow after 8.00pm at [local gym].

From: <me>
To: <him>
Subject: Just to say hallo
Date: 2 April

I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere for the next month or so – work is very busy!

From: <him>
To: <me>
Subject: Just to say hallo
Date: 2 April

What?one mo….nth, dame.should i pop around your place then.

From: <him>
To: <me>
Subject: Just to say hallo
Date: 9 April

[nuttycow] did i shock you? i asked politely if i can see you . Can i?
Wishing you happy Easter.

You know how sometimes gmail adds random people to your gchat once you’ve sent them a couple of emails? This is the sight that awaits me as I log in to my gmail today (clicky to embiggen)

Yes, that’s right. This man has had his status the same for four months.

And it’s a personal message to me.

*shudder*

So what do you think? Do you think my politeness is clear enough? Is it time to bring out the big guns? How would you handle it?

I’m now 30. I had things to do. Did I do them?

The Saucepan List

The slightly shallower, slightly shorter version of a bucket list.

• Complete that stupid 30 days of truth thing that I started and never got round to finishing.

Still to do. Um. Yeah. Sorry about that. Bugger. Maybe we can saythat I’ll get in done in the next 30 years?

• Under the influence of the Mother Superior in the Sound of Music, I want to climb every mountain (well, maybe just one) so I can have the obligatory pensive-stare-over-vast-Swiss-vista picture in my Facebook portfolio.

Done. Sort of. The skiing was done. I didn’t get the stare-over-the-vista picture but I did take a million and one “look where I am, I’m up a mountain” pictures.

Yeah, I know, I’m showing off a little bit with these ones, aren’t I?

• Finally follow a recipe word-for-word and see if it works. Dixie Chick does it and her food always turns out fab. I seem to have a “can’t-follow-recipes” gene somewhere. I glance at them, and then make the rest up. (This accounts for a lot.)

Done.

• Get my arse in gear and get some photography lessons. I’ve been meaning to do it for a year. I still haven’t got round to it. Maybe Sir Charmsalot and I can start going on regular “taking photos” fun days?

Not done. Bleugh. Too much work (and er… too much going skiing) means that my weekends were spent either preparing for apres or recovering. Not feeling too guilty about this one, I’ll be honest.

• Prepare for my impending old age by learning how to knit. I don’t know why this appeals to me. It just does. I’m claiming early senile dementia.

Not done. No excuses on this one. Just didn’t get round to it.

• Go on a cool group trip somewhere. [...] You know, something a little bit different. But fun. And with added wine.

Done. Trip with Bad Influence planned for my birthday. Not exactly a group activity (since it’ll be just the two of us) but it will be different. It will be fun. There will be wine.

• Frame and hang up those photos I had developed. Oh, and put all the other photos into some semblance of order in a photo album.

Not done. The “other” pictures I hung up previously have since fallen off the wall and I’ve never got round to putting them back up again. I bought some frames the other day and meant to get crafty but well… I wasn’t very good at it. So I gave up. *rolls eyes* yep, useless.

• Get in the black for the first time since I was 18 and first totally understood the magic of alcohol.

Done.

Assessment: Not too bad. Granted, not great either but I have an excuse in the fact that work has been mental busy for the last three months (as my friends – and the fact I haven’t been blogging – will attest). At least there’s been a little progress. Hasn’t there?

But here it is. I’m now 30. Well there you go.

Thoughtful and no doubt depressed blog post on reaching this milestone tomorrow when I’ve had more time to think about it.

How did you get on?

Two years ago, I started my new job in a new country. Do you remember the journey over here? Do you remember how quickly I had to learn new things? Do you remember how I kept on making the same old mistakes?

I can’t believe how quickly the time has flown by. I can’t believe how I was once content stuck in my London rut with a no-good boyfriend.* How I put my career and dreams on hold for him (I don’t know if I ever told you that I’d always wanted to travel with work but N put the kibosh on that one? Yeah, well, he did.)

I think about my daily life here: The 10 minute commute. The view from my office over the lake and mountains. The rush to get to the shops before they close at 7. The mad, fantastic, international office. The taxis which will only pick you up at a designated taxi rank and then charge you the crown jewels to go 5 minutes down the road. The endless hills. “My” nightclub with its barstaff who know me, bouncers who tolerate me, sticky floor, rubbish music, shots bar and the scene of many an indiscreet snog. The summer months ’round the lake. The winter months up in the mountains. The charm and elegance of the town. Its little quirks (see 2am). The overly complicated system for renting a house. The overly complicated system for pretty much anything.

I think about my daily life and, although sometimes I just want to scream, I feel a little warmer inside.

I watch my new friends (who, also, probably need some form of alias… I’m on it) who are in their first and sixth months in this wonderful place and I see them struggle with the bureaucracy, the frustrations and the endless process but know that, slowly, they should grow to love it as much as I do.

So that’s the sweet. Happy Anniversary to me.

And the bitter? The loss of twoof my closest friends here (again).

First All-American Girl, now Dixie Chick and Rabbie**.

At 5:20 this morning, I herded DC to the car and took her to the station for her to start her long trip to Singapore and her new life, The Squire by her side.

Having had her in my flat for the last month and a half, opening the door to silence was deafening. What? No figure huddled underneath a quilt on the sofa? No annoyingly sunny demeanour at 6 in the morning? No chatting in the kitchen with wine while supper is created?

Fine, I don’t play well with others (ever since I moved out of the House of Heroes and into my own flat I knew that it was incredibly unlikely I would move back to the hell of having housemates). But still, it’s a little… empty. I’m going to have to learn to live on my own again. To remember that I can’t blame the mess on anyone else but myself. To relish in the fact that I can watch and listen to whatever I like (although, to be fair to DC, she was very forgiving of American Idol and, towards the end, I managed to get her hooked on the West Wing so it wasn’t all bad).

Rabbie leaves this afternoon. A weekend of parties, of laughter and of memories, all  wrapped up in foggy haze of gin. Off he goes, back to the land of Susan Boyle and men who wear inappropriate skirts (I know, I know). A quieter friend that some of my others but no less important.

A bittersweet day.

Those of you who know me also probably know that I am normally the instigator of the “just one drink” spiral of doom.

And so it was, on Saturday night. After a day of skiing, some rugby, some food and a little wine, the group found itself standing out in the cold deciding what to do next. And suddenly I found myself making the inevitable call.

Let’s just go out for one? It’s only 9 o’clock, we’ll be home by 11.

The usual suspects (Dixie Chick and the Canadian) looked at me with a slightly disbelieving but none-the-less agreeable smiles. The boys looked weary. Their wives looked like they were about to do something really daring. And, leading the way, I became the Pied Piper of après - leading the ladies away.

It’s from this point that the evening gets a little hazy but, in the spirit of full disclosure, I will outline (in bullet point format, of course) the tidbits that have come back to me since and what I remember learning from the whole experience.

• I broke my new year’s resolutions of not buying shots. The first thing I did when we arrived at the “Red Hot Saloon” (yes really) was order 8 Jagerbombs. It went downhill from there.
• It’s a novel moment when you go into a bar and all the staff are English, scruffy and, for the most part, good-looking. This just doesn’t happen in Switzerland. Or in England, I suppose.
• When 8 girls arrive in a predominantly male bar, they will attract hangers on. In our case, some strange man with a beard from Paris (and, apparently, two of his friends who were wearing novelty sunglasses if my photos from the evening are anything to go by).
• If you get Dixie Chick and I in the right mood, we’ll buy anyone drinks. Including a round of shots for the table next to us (who then promptly ignored us the whole evening) and four beers from some teenagers who were looking thirsty. Apparently Dixie Chick would only give them beer if they promised that when they were 30 they’d buy beer for some impoverished teenager too. I like to think of it as an alcoholic version of paying it forward.
• Making friends with barmen (as I’ve explained many many times before) is a must. Our new friend Panda (when asked why he was called Panda, his friend laughingly explained that he “eats, shoots and leaves”. A fine upstanding gentleman) would prove to be a godsend in the final hours of the evening.
• You should never judge a book by its cover. Despite my initial sarcastic supposition that Panda was “a fine upstanding gentleman”, it turns out that he actually was. Looking past the ski-bum exterior, the ladies found out that this man was actually charming, funny, and a generally all-round nice guy. We didn’t tell him this though. Obviously.
• It seems I’m going to miss Dixie Chick a lot more than I let on when sober. There were tears on Saturday night – neither Dixie Chick nor I can actually remember what they were about but I think we have to presume that they were about her impending departure to Singapore.
• Dixie Chick are the hardcore of our group. She and I, despite being the least capable, were the only two who managed to make it past 2 o’clock.
• Clubs called Amnesia will actually inflict amnesia. I can’t remember much about the club. I do remember trying to get past my reflection in the mirror. The next day I felt like Marshall in How I Met Your Mother.
• Living up to his new reputation as being a bit of a gent, Panda walked us back to the hotel.
• I don’t remember leaving the club but I do remember walking home. Unlike Dixie Chick who can’t remember walking home but does remember leaving the club.
• She got the shock of her life when she woke up 4 hours later to find Panda in the spare bed.
• Apparently I called Fursty Ferret on Sunday. Apparently I was talking to him about how I’d met someone else with an animal name. Apparently we had quite a long conversation. I have no recollection of our conversation. It scares me a little that about 2 hours later I was driving down a mountain.

On collapsing into the warm embrace of my sofa on Sunday evening, I slowly went through the accumulated rubbish that a trip brings. In amongst the many, many credit card receipts (I spent *how* much?) I found a scrumpled bit of paper with a name and number scribbled on it.

The memory of a clandestine kiss at 6 o’clock in the morning plus the piece of paper in my hand alleviated the post-weekend blues a little.

How was your weekend?

Things have reached a crisis point.

I now have so many chins that I fully expect a troupe of people to set up camp outside my house, protesting that I am the 1%. That I’m hoarding all the chins. That I’m not sharing the wealth.

I love my female friends to death, I really do. (Believe me, I never thought I’d say that being, as has been explored quite a lot in the past, more of a girl who hangs out with men.) They make me laugh, they give superior advice on a variety of subjects I’d never think possible, and, best of all, they make sure I get home when I have too much wine.

Anyway, there we have it, I love my girlfriends. They rock.

Except…

Well… none of them are *whisper* single. And, as we all know, as soon as you shack up with someone/get married, you completely forget (almost instantly it seems to me) what it’s like to be in single-lady-limbo. The constant questioning at dinner parties (believe me, Helen Fielding got that spot on), the stomach-swooping when spotting someone who takes your fancy and the motification (no, not the body decay, the feeling of shame) when a wedding ring flashes in the light or a girlfriend sidles up. Sundayitis.

Case in point, Saturday…

Saturday was skiing day (again). I, along with 3 girlfriends (2 married) and one fella (boyfriend of the third), got up at the crack of dawn to trek our way to the nearest slopes.

After falling over for a couple of hours, a hearty lunch (and a couple of glasses of vin chaud) followed by more falling over, it was established that a soupçon of apres was probably in order.

As the solitary single in the group, I took it upon myself to talk to, well, anyone really and, in my travels, found a group of chaps taking in the view outside.

A brief chat about who they were and where they were from (4 from the UK, all visiting a friend who lived in Geneva) and several bar recommendations later, it was established that there was only one place to go for beer. Charlie’s it was.

It turns out the likely lads were right. (Any bar that sells 5 beers for CHF12 is a winner in my book (£8.20)). And so there we sat, on slightly worn velvet barstools, taking full advantage of happy hour, watching pro-bull riding, discussing chick-fil-a and doing all those random arse things people do when they’ve had a day out in the sun with very little food, a lot of exercise and some beer.

On my meanderings in and out of the bar (anti-social smoker, me) I noticed that the likely lads had also gathered at the bar. One was snoring softly but, surprisingly, the others seemed almost sober. A brief hello to the group turned into small talk with a few of them which turned into flirtatious banter with one in particular.

“Where are you off to?” W says as I brush past, my bright blue ski jacket in hand.

“Last train” says I, making a move past. We’d already missed one train thanks to happy hour and the last one was in 20 minutes. If we missed that, we were stuck up in the mountains until 5 the next morning.

He catches my arm. “Don’t go! Stay with us.” Big brown melty chocolate eyes look at me. Resolve weakens. I falter.

“I really can’t” I stutter, going through mental logistical plans – if I stayed another hour could I get a cab home? How much would it cost? Would I be able to get a bus? Maybe I could stay the night and go skiing the next day? Was 20 miles really that far to walk?

“Oh come on, it’d be fun – if you need somewhere to crash we’ve got plenty of room.” More persuading followed.

My drunken mind continued to weigh up the options.

And then, just as I’m about to give in to temptation, she appears at the door. A friend has been designated by the others to come and drag me away. She gives me that look – you know the one; the “come on now, you’re having fun but it’s time to be sensible and you know you’ll regret this tomorrow otherwise” look.

I leave, grumpy and complaining (while, deep down, even then, I know that my friends are right. Staying would have been a stupid idea – but then again, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have a couple of stupid ideas every so often).

“How do you do that?” they ask me on the train home. “How can you just go and talk to anyone?”

I look at them blankly. It doesn’t occur to me that there’s anything wrong or difficult to talking to randoms. In fact, that’s pretty much how I get through my nights out.

So why did they, the non-singles of the group, find the concept so alien? Is this something that’s endemic to the non-single population? If so, what is it about being part of a couple which switches off your “ability to talk to random people” switch?

Or am I just making sweeping generalisations (General Isations *salute*)?

If I think about it, whenever I go out with my loved up friends, it’s always me who’s off talking to new people, bringing new people into the group and moving around the place. They are (and I’m not saying there’s anything in particular wrong with this) quite content to stay within the group and chat amongst themselves.

Is it because they’ve found the one (for now, in some cases) that they feel no pressure to go and talk to other people? Is it because they’re so content with the conversation and company they have that they don’t feel the need to find anything new?

Or is it us singletons? Are we so desperate to have what they have that we’ll put up with talking to anyone and everyone?

Discuss.

My friends. Whenever they’re around, I always look good.

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A new series of short Q&As.

My ability to rock at work. Not a good day for being strong in meetings. Ah well – tomorrow is another day.

In other news – it is Sir Charmsalot’s birthday today so 7 other people all descended for a supper of fish and chips and cupcakes.

Hence the short report today. Bridget Jones and red wine at the end of the evening. Super.

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A new series of short Q&As.