Is it me?

Well, things don't stay frozen for ever, my friend Peter who left for the States over 3 years ago is finally back for a short visit, and I saw him for the first time on Wednesday, after regular visits to see him for many of the previous 30 years before he left.

Apart from that, I have been wondering, particularly after discussing stress on a new forum where they let you speak freely, whether my clearly unhealthy mental condition is more from the outside circumstances than just my own genetic malformations. Clues are that I did used to be pretty happy most of the time in the past, unless there was a good reason not to be. And when I was presented with a few months off between exams when everyone else was still working I did get pretty fed up as well. I suspect isolation could be one of the worst factors in causing stress symptoms, and unlike overwork where (except for the financial repercussions) you can just cut down or bail out altogether, isolation means chasing around hoping to find social activities that are an improvement on all the harmless but dull things you learn to do alone to keep occupied (yes, including blogging). But just as when I saw friends as a child, at the end of the day we had to go home to our separate places. Being an only child I felt I could only borrow people my own age where nearly everyone else had them around all the time, fighting or not. It's the same now, whoever I manage to see during the day is only temporary. It's someone around all or a lot of the time that's the key to my major trouble, and that really isn't down to effort, intelligence or strategy. It's a chance result of so many factors, one of which may be intention followed by effort. But really that's such a small part it's probably no better than just meeting someone by chance and it taking off naturally.

Yes, you can suck up small ads online and elsewhere like a hoover, telling hundreds of strangers your interests and history, they may even phone you, in my case either sounding like someone I'd never have spoken to normally, or in a couple of cases that they don't want to meet anyone despite investing in an advert. Conversely I recently met a woman who's nothing like what I'd look for generally, but as I had to cross her path regularly got to know her anyway, and soon forgot her average looks (as I was recently described myself) and found a really nice personality. Apart from the major role Jesus has in her life (primary in fact) it may have led somewhere. But I had no say in meeting her, she was introduced into my life regardless. That's been the case ever since I became too old for the normal dating scene where we went to a disco once or twice a weekend, eyed up every girl there and worked our way through asking them to dance until (maybe once every ten places) I got lucky. Then I'd take their phone number, and if they didn't regret it the next day would then start dating until one or both of us found we had little in common.

Of course there were other ways to meet, but apart from holidays, where the downside is they could live anywhere in the world, the numbers were insignificant. Meeting people through friends and family was the next best way, and is now the best, as the other two aren't really going to work at my age. Of course I can confirm that by having gone to a disco or two a year until I was nearly 40, each one I realised why I'd stopped. Unfortunately apart from the recycled women who had just got divorced and were back after a period out of commission, the remainder could be divided in two. One was the obvious appearance reason they were single, equally applying to the men of course though that didn't concern me, and the ones who looked OK soon turned out to be mentally challenged as soon as you spoke to them. The full spectrum was there from simple immaturity to genuine insanity. Yes, they thought the same of me I'm sure, but at least I didn't keep going there regularly like most of them did. It was the same rough bunch just as it was 30 years ago, when if there was actually a party in Greater London the phones would start ringing until hundreds of people had the address and arrived en masse anywhere within a 30 mile radius of London to descend on some poor bugger who had just invited maybe 25 people to their 18th birthday party. Amazingly, with a few exceptions, I always got in, and a few I was even invited to officially.

The major problem was that because of the apparent proportional lack of activities compared to teenage population, the same people followed the parties around so after a year or two it was very rare to see more than a few new people at each party. The social market therefore got used up by the time I graduated in 1984 and thought I'd have the time to really get stuck in, only to find the same people at a do I'd seen there a few years earlier. By then most of the others were paired up only leaving the hard core to continue following the few arrangements left for the over 25s.

Maybe I can write an academic paper on this, I've certainly exhausted all the avenues available myself, and though London is an exception in that it doesn't really have local communities that focus on a small area where it's impossible not to know where the single women are and get to know them, would still apply in any other city this size. This means there are plenty of single women in London, probably within a couple of miles of me which includes a few who may be just right. But as it's London we'll never meet. By the way, anyone who goes to pubs regularly is so unlikely to be my type I think I can rule that route out. I tried it once (OK, my friends did as I stood by getting more and more embarrassed) and I could see then by their combined enthusiasm and guts to go and do it, combined with their total lack of ability and maturity, it wasn't worth trying again. In the end my only hope is if I finally crack the media world, which is slowly happening, they are an incestuous bunch who are very free to socialise with their own, and continually mix and match regardless of their marital status. Who knows, I may even make it with someone from Big Brother- especially if it's Becki Seddiki from Big Brother 5 who I briefly met last year, and was looking for someone at the time. And a psychologist, what more could I want?

By the way, I've heard every possible insult on my dating history here by now. It's really not worth adding any more. It's repetitive and makes myself and every other reader of the blog (people have told me) feel sick, and just makes you look like a sad and bitter bitch.