July 2007 Archives

In the first post on this blog I mentioned that I was getting pissed off with people (friends, family etc) always popping up on Yahoo messenger just to ask me for a favour, to ask me a question about something, rather than to enquire how I was, or ask me to come and visit them because it would be lovely to see me.

Now, I don't mind helping people. I get a buzz out of seeing a happy face, and knowing I had something to do with making that face happy. I like imparting knowledge about something to someone else, especially if that knowledge makes their lives or jobs a little bit easier. I like seeing little light bulbs go on over people's heads (figuratively speaking). But I've come to resent it if I don't always get thanks, or feel that that's the only reason people think I'm worth talking to in the first place.

Having read something about the teachings of Buddha this evening, I kept coming across the word "mindfulness", mindfulness of others and their plight through life. Reading these words over and over again made me realise that I've been incredibly selfish over the last few weeks, seeking answers for myself, about myself, about my problems and issues. I should be clearing my mind of all that rubbish, and focus on the fact that being mindful of others, being aware of their problems, being compassionate towards them, is the way to peace and understanding of myself. In other words, happiness should come from helping, not from getting the thanks afterwards.

I may have got it all horribly wrong, and I may have not expressed my thoughts properly here, so it probably reads like a mish-mash of half-formed ideas, but the purpose of this blog, for me, is to help me clarify those ideas, and to see how I'm changing over the course of time. So, right or wrong, insightful or misguided, I'm going to put little thoughts like this on the blog anyway.

It's been a few days since I wrote anything here and I'm still trying to clear out the thoughts in my head. The issues I wrote about here have largely been resolved, and I still chat with her online. Sunday night, though, my mind was going into overdrive, and once again I only got two hours sleep. I'm amazed I was only half an hour late for work on Monday, to be honest.

I've been spending some time this week trying to find out if my plans for how I want a future relationship to work are feasible or not. Now, at the end of the week, I feel I need to take some time out and reassess who I am and what I can realistically achieve. How can I get what I want if I don't know why I want it, or even if it's what I'm looking for in the first place?

So. Time for contemplation. After a little bit of googling I found this site and I'm going to read up a bit more about it over the weekend. I need to relax, clear my mind, talk to other people, gain some insight into myself and only then can I decide where I want my life to go.

Yesterday I was wrestling with my son, and as he's getting bigger these wrestling matches usually consist of me kneeling on the floor and him taking a running jump at me to try and knock me over. After 10 minutes of this, I'm lying on the floor, bruised, sweating, out of breath and wanting to take a break. "What did I do to deserve this?" I wondered aloud. Quick as a flash, he replied. "You married my mother."

Touche.

I feel terrible. Not just because I only got two hours sleep last night. No, I feel terrible because of the reason I only got two hours sleep last night. Why oh why I have to open my big mouth and put my foot so firmly in it I will never know.

(Note that with all stories of this nature, it's a simplification. No names are even mentioned, let alone changed)

At the end of April I met a woman online and, to cut a very long story short, we decided that as we both seemed to be looking for the same things, we decided to give it a go. After all, you don't get anywhere in life by sitting on your backside, do you? Well, for reasons I won't go into here, the relationship didn't work out. I didn't (couldn't?) give her what she wanted, so she decided to end it. This left us with the awkward situation that she was at home an hour's drive away, and half her stuff was still in my house.

During the week after the split we still chatted online, remained civil towards each other, and we arranged for me to drive down the following weekend to bring it all back to her. Also during that time she mentioned that she had gone out for a drink on the Saturday following our split, and got chatting to a bloke in the pub. The weekend comes around, and I arrive at her house, after being stuck in traffic getting there, she greeted me, then said she was busy in her room. Her kids were in their own rooms, and I was left alone in the lounge. Well, not exactly alone, I was fighting off the dog, who suddenly remembered who I was and how good my teeth seemed to taste.

After a few minutes she called through to me that I could make myself a drink if I wanted. I offered to make her a drink as well. I took the drinks through to her room, and went back to the lounge. I read the paper. I read it again. She called me in to her room to ask me a question about some setup problem on the forum on her web site. I answered the question, and not wanting to go back into the lounge on my own, I sat on her bed. I could see she had two chat windows open, one was to someone from the boards, I didn't know who the other chat was with.

About an hour after I arrived, she asked her son to help me unload her stuff from the car. We did this, he went back to his room to play with the keyboard I'd given him, and I sat back down on her bed while she chatted and tried to get the boards sorted. She seemed very focused on what she was doing, she didn't even give her kids a lot of attention while I was there. Apart from asking for my help with the boards, she barely spoke a word to me all afternoon. At about 5:30 I'd had enough, so I made my excuses and left. The only reason I stayed so long was that I'd driven an hour and a half to get there, and I was buggered if I was going to get in the car and drive all the way back after just 10 minutes.

I felt pushed out, rejected, ignored and invisible. I know we'd just split, but she was the one that decided it wasn't working, she dumped me in effect. And there I was, still trying to be a nice guy, to be a friend. She barely acknowledged me while I was there, and I've no idea how she felt about anything, because she didn't tell me.

I later discovered the other chat was with the new bloke she'd met in the pub. They are getting on like a house on fire, apparently. He's giving her all the things I couldn't give her (and I'm not talking physical items here, I'm talking about treating her the way she wanted to be treated). She said something to me, probably a throwaway comment, that if he wanted her attention, then he got it. Well, I thought, he certainly had her attention on that Sunday afternoon, that's for sure. I mulled it over in my head and thought "If he can demand that sort of attention online, what's he going to do in real life? Am I going to be treated the same way again if I visit and he's there?"

So why, if it was so awkward, would I want to visit again? Well, I have dvd's for her and she has some of mine, so there's going to be at least one more visit. Besides, I don't want to lose a friend, even if it is someone I tried to have a relationship with and it failed. We still have other ties, to do with the website I helped her set up while we were together.

Anyway, that throwaway statement she made ate away at me, and last night I pulled her up on it. But, being the master tactician than I am, I was aggressive and showed jealousy. Needless to say the conversation went right downhill, and it was all my fault. I'm still pissed off at how I was treated when I last visited, but I can understand she was uncomfortable talking to her new bloke while her ex was sitting on her bed. She could have told me the situation though, I'd have understood. Also, she could have told him she had a guest in the house. We argued, we shouted, we stormed off, we came back... but I think I managed some sort of truce by the end of the evening though.

I still don't feel any better about the way I was treated when I last went to see her, and I feel fucking awful now about the way I treated her last night. Her behaviour towards me went a long way towards forming the attitude I used in my reply to her throwaway comment, and now I've got no idea if we're on speaking terms or not.

So.... in a nutshell.....
We start a relationship
It doesn't work, she dumps me
She finds new bloke almost immediately
I take her stuff back to her house
She's devoting all her time to online chat with new bloke
I get pissed off at being ignored, but say nothing at the time
She makes a comment a couple of weeks later about how he gets her attention when he wants it
I make a comment about how I'd consider that to be very rude if he did that while she had guests
We argue
I don't apologise for making the comment, but I do apologise for the way I said it
However, I'm still waiting for an apology from her about ignoring me.

I'm not being egotistical about this, at least I don't think I am... I just think that when you have guests in your house you treat them with respect. Is that so wrong?

I was in the middle of renewing my car insurance this afternoon. Why it didn't renew itself at the end of last month I've got no idea, so I had to phone the insurance company to ask them if I'm insured or not. Since I've been so lethargic in the evenings, and busy with work during the day, this is the first chance I've had to try and sort it out. Anyway, we get pretty much to the end of it all, and then they ask if I have any motoring convictions. No, I said. Points? they asked. Yes, three, I said. What's the code? they asked. What code? I replied. The code on your licence. I've got no idea, I'm at work and my licence is at home. We can't set up the insurance without the code. You can phone the Licencing Authority and ask them to tell you what the code is. Give me a contact number and I'll call you back later and we'll get your insurance sorted out, they said. Ok, my number is 01.... and then the phone went dead.

Not just my phone. Every phone in the building. And since I was the only IT person on site today, and the phones are now controlled through the computers, I had to sort it out. Isn't it great how IT people have to fix anything and everything just because it has a plug on it? The phones went off the other week as well, but I was out of the office at the time and a colleague dealt with it. He was taking the afternoon off to take his newborn baby for some jabs though, and didn't leave any instructions on what to do.

Well, tough, I had to call him, as I had no idea how to proceed. Can't call on the main phones, as they are inactive. Can't call on my mobile, as I soon discovered it wasn't in my pocket. Must still be on the bedside table, charging.

Borrow a company mobile off someone, call colleague, he tells me what I need to do. Ok, get that done, sort out the internet access as well, everything's cool at work. First I hear that the phones are fixed is when the receptionist puts a call through to me, and it wasn't a call from the phone company to tell me it's fixed. H'mmmm. Ok then.

The upshot if it all is, by then it was too late to sort out my car insurance and driving licence. Here's hoping I'll have a chance to call them tomorrow. And wait in a queue to talk to an advisor. And go through the whole bloody process again.

My last post was a rambling, probably incoherent, summary of my life at the moment. And that sums up my life, rambling and incoherent. I set myself goals, start to work towards them, and then, for some unknown reason, just stop.

Here are just a few examples:

Health and fitness

In 2003 I joined a local walking club. I went out with them a few times, got chatting to a few people, enjoyed myself. Then one week I didn't go. Then the next week it rained and the walk was cancelled. I've never been back since.

In 2005 I joined the local gym. I went three or four times a week for the first two months. Then I stopped. I started again in Feb/March but stopped again. Earlier this year they phoned me and asked if I wanted to restart my membership. I gave it a go, went three or four times a week, then stopped again. I haven't been since Easter.

I bought a bicycle about three years ago. The first summer I had it I rode it quite a bit. Last year, not so much. I've been out on it once so far this year.

Business

I had an idea of setting up an e-commerce web site. Although you can have a steady income working for someone else, you're never going to have financial independence. That only comes with running your own successful business. Now, I come from a technical background, and not a business one. I probably couldn't sell shit to gardeners. So when I had this idea, I tweaked my technical skills and started building a web site that I could use to sell widgets. I'm not going to say here what the product actually is, in case I do ever manage to resurrect it and get it off the ground, but widgets will do for now. The particular type of widget I want to sell isn't something that would fit into a standard e-commerce/shopping cart application, so I can't use one of the off-the-shelf packages. I had to write my own.

I got it to the stage where the customers could browse the products, choose what they wanted, tweak the product to their own requirements and place an order. They could track the status of their order. They could leave feedback, read the latest news. I could print out the orders, and update the order status. It printed reports showing me what I needed to order from my suppliers. I offered discount schemes for loyal customers. It's pretty much there, but it needs graphic design and layout, and integrating with a payment mechanism.

Now, if you're planning on running an online business, you're going to want more than just paypal for getting money from your customers, you want to be able to use credit and debit cards too. And that means setting up a proper company, and getting a merchant bank account. And that means persuading a bank that you're going to make money. You have to have a business plan, projected earnings, all that sort of stuff. I don't have that, and I don't know how to start going about getting them. The product I want to sell is something that is used by millions of people every day, so there's definately a market for it. I just don't know if I can grab any of that market for myself.

Relationships

H'mmmm... this is a tricky one. I'm not sure if I'm ready to talk about this in such a public place just yet, suffice to say that I have my own ideas about how I want future relationships to work, and so far they haven't worked out that way. And the reason they haven't worked out is that I'm not sure I have a srong enough personality to make them work the way I want them to work. That probably doesn't make the least bit of sense, but don't worry about it. I'll expand on this when I feel the time is right.

I've started blogs and I've stopped them again. Started and stopped. It's a good idea, it's a bad idea. I'll make time for it, I don't have time for it any more. I'll research ideas that I want to expound upon, then I suddenly can't be bothered. I can't seem to concentrate on any one idea for more than a few weeks. I'm happy being alone, I'm depressed because I'm alone. I want to be successful and well-liked, but on the other hand I'm popular enough at work and I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in the fridge. Which is more than a lot of people.

I have a few friends, I could do with more. I never seem to have enough money. I've done things in the past I'm ashamed of. My future is shaped by my past. So how can I change my future? Is it possible for me to change as a person?

I tend to fade into the background. When I'm in a group of three or four people talking, they all seem to be talking to each other rather than to me. I don't have opinions on anything. I can't be bothered with sport, and any political views I have tend to be very simplistic. Sometimes I want to learn about something in depth, most of the time I don't. I'm losing my hair. I weigh too much. My teeth are getting worse. I can't afford to have them fixed.

I have a failed marriage behind me, and a couple of short-term relationships after that. People are happy enough to remain my friend, but I don't know if that's because they genuinely like me or because they feel sorry for me. A lot of people only get in touch when they want me to do something for them.

I've lost touch with the people I grew up with. The people I went to school, college and university with. I don't know if I want to get in touch with any of them or not. I've seen a few names listed on friends reunited, or facebook. But it's like any school reunion, you're scared to go in case everyone else is deleriously happy, with beautiful wives, intelligent children, and investment portfolios.

So why start another blog? No idea, seemed like a good thing to do at the time. I've no idea what I'm going to say in it. I've thought about doing a video blog and uploading it to youtube. Doing a podcast on a subject that is close to my heart. But... I'll probably do one episode, maybe two, and then that'll fizzle out as well.

I need to clear the crap out of my mind. I read an article this morning on the benefits of meditation, sitting silently, clearing your head of all thoughts, so your mind can reorganise itself and be more productive and efficient. But when I sit silently and try to clear my head of all thoughts, all I am aware of is the tinnitus ringing in my ears. An unfortunate side-effect of being an outgoing popular teenager into loud rock music.

The tinnitus means that I'm forever finding something new to think about, something to keep my mind occupied so that I'm not aware of the constant ringing. Actually, it's not a ringing, it's more of a high-pitched whine. It also means that when I'm in a pub, club, or party, I find it difficult to follow conversations. The background noise gets in the way and if someone isn't standing within two feet of me and I can't see their lips move, I sometimes have trouble making out what they are saying. This means that I sometimes just stand there and stare into space.

Maybe writing all this down and blogging it will force me to actually get up off my arse and do something about my life. At the moment I just feel like I'm going through the motions, aimlessly. I wake up, I go to work, I get home, I find something fairly useless to do all evening, and then I go to bed. Usually too late, which means that when I wake up the next morning I'm lethargic and still aimless.

I really must find a goal in life. Something achievable. I'll talk more about goals in my next post.