... Running Around With You

There's a girl in our Glasgow office I quite like: having been in Glasgow quite a lot over the last 6 months, I've built up a bit of a crush. I started flirting with her last week and was waiting for an opportunity to ask her to go for a drink. Yesterday, our paths crossed in the corridor and we started chatting: a perfect opportunity. So I asked.

"If you want me to come out with you and the rest of the project team, then that's cool, but I've got a boyfriend."

Shit. Panic.

"Yeah of course, yeah, 'cause I think we're all going out tomorrow night. No, in fact Thursday... No... Saturday. We're all going out Saturday night and I was wondering if you wanted to come along. Yeah, going out with the guys. You and whoever else..." Accompanied by a very French shrug of the shoulders.

As crap as it sounds, I was actually trembling as I worked myself up to the original question. That's only the second time in four years I've asked a girl to go for a drink, and I honestly hate it. Why? I think there are several reasons:

- The fear of failure/ rejection
- The feeling that I'm better than that
- The dreaded small talk should she accept

All pretty standard stuff so I won't waste any time explaining...

A Long December (well, it will be...)

Almost a month since I have written anything, and despite my last posting, I haven't turned into a drug-obsessed junkie sucking white-collar cock for my next hit... The coke incident hasn't been repeated, though I woudn't say I'm completely in the clear yet: I'm in a situation where it will almost certainly be offered to me the next time I'm out, and depending on my mental state I wouldn't rule out me accepting it. I don't want myself to, but I can't say for definite that I won't. If I think back to the other (two) occasions in my life when I've done coke, there has definitely been a common element: mix severe fatigue, drunkenness, heightened insecurity, add a few demons and persistent problems and there you go...

I've just found out in one of my (currently tri-weekly) draining, consolatory phone conversations with my mum that my dad is being put on [deleted name of medication] and will probably never work again, and my auntie has a brain tumour. It's a good job tonight's big night out has been cancelled due to work commitments (I'm still at the office - will this be another a.m. finish? Answers on a postcard - though I'd better give you my work address or else I'll never receive it). Fuck, a brain tumour. That's bad. I'm hardly bawling my eyes out at the prospect of me losing her - she's too far-removed from my life for that - but the feeling of empathy for my uncle (who, like my dad, has serious health problems) and their children who massively depend on her is gnawing away at me... As for the news about my dad, well, I guess it's been on the cards for a while now. I just hope my mum can cope - I'm already planning an extended trip back home over the Christmas period just to spend a bit of time with them. This is long overdue I guess - partly because of my work schedule, and partly because I honestly dread going home and have to psych myself up for each visit. Lately I just haven't had the physical or emotional energy to play the perfect son.

Anyway, I'm trying not to let any of these things affect me ("Really? Sweeping it under the carpet? Or are you just using all this as an excuse to do coke once in a while?").

A work colleague was just openly discussing his own family issues, and his rather deterministic conclusion was that there was no point worrying about those things over which you have no influence. Unfortunately though, I'm not a robot...

OK, OK, "Get a grip." I know, I know...