Boundaries

I’ve been listening to a podcast about stalkers recently and I find them fascinating. The podcast I’ve been listening to is Stalked by Rebecca Hetherington, a psychology and criminology PhD researcher, specialising in stalking. She covers the five different types of stalkers, the media that gives the best representation of each type and goes over various cases of stalking.

What had gotten me on to this was a conversation I was having with a friend recently about loneliness. Loneliness, to me, is much more like a state of mind and has most likely touched all of us at some point. Loneliness isn’t cured by having people around, I live with someone and still get lonely, it’s that feeling of isolation or not being able to connect.

Since I was young, I’ve always had ‘imaginary friends’ I suppose is the only way to term them. My earliest memories of this is seeing kids in the playground and imagining what it would be like to be friends with them. I’d waste hours building an alternative universe where this person/these people are my friends. I would talk about them to my real life friends/family, no doubt littered with inconsistencies. I’ve struggled, even today, to live in the real world.

Last year was a difficult year as Boyf was injured, awaiting surgery, and essentially housebound. I became the cook and the cleaner, the bread winner (he’s self-employed) and working a full-time job alongside all of this. During that time, I found someone on Instagram who I began to build a world around. It’s difficult to explain, but the aim of building these worlds is not sexual/an kind of attraction, sometimes I don’t even involve myself, I just watch all the other characters like a film. I would never message them or try to make any kind of contact, simply just look at his pictures and develop some sort of plot. The problem is, the lonelier I became, the more my interest in this person intensified.

I guess things started going too far when I began screenshotting their story posts. I never once checked them again, but it was nice for me to know I had them if I wanted to. The second thing was I started seeing them post pictures with a partner who I then also started following on Instagram. It’s difficult to describe because it almost sounds like an infatuation but there’s no romantic feelings whatsoever. I wasn’t filled with jealousy, I wasn’t wishing them any ill or that they’d break up, I just simply wanted an alternative reality to live in.

At some point, this person had mentioned that they were in a photo book publication only available in their country. The book was about £40 which I would have handed over immediately had it been available in this country. I set about emailing the company, trying to find alternative ways to obtain it, I thought about messaging a friend of a friend who lives in the area and asking if I could have it shipped to their home but would struggle to explain why I had gone through such an effort. I thought about having it shipped to something like an Amazon storage unit and collecting it myself. Why? For one page? I was enraged, I was devastated that it seemed I’d have to let it go.

A friend of mine then asked me if I’d like to go on holiday for a break away and I immediately suggested the city where this person lives. I added places that I knew the pair had been to the itinerary and during in the holiday, would stand and picture them together there like some sort of holy experience.

One night, my friend had gone to bed and I saw on Instagram that one half of the pair was at a nightclub. I laid on my bed, trying to remember the name so I could Google it and see how far it was from where we were staying.

That’s when I realised it had gone too far.

I realised that my loneliness had led me into obsession. You idiot, I told myself, what are you going to do? Turn up and just start talking to them? You’re fucking stupid. We enjoyed the rest of the holiday, I, a little deflated, conceded that that it was time to let this go. I couldn’t shake this disappointment, not that I hadn’t bumped into them, but that I’d let it go that far. I’m disappointed that my brain hadn’t been able to separate rational/insanity. Everything at the time had seemed like reasonable steps to take. And what had it been in that final moment? Had sensibility kicked in or had been social anxiety stepped in to reason with my runaway intrigue? Either way, I’m glad whatever intervention occurred had happened.

It did get me thinking about the part social media plays in all this. Don’t get me wrong, I am the wrong-doer here. But everything feels so permitted when people are putting things out there for the masses to enjoy, it almost felt like that’s what they were doing it for. The reality is, it’s just a young person going through life.

I feel mightily ashamed about all this. I’m hoping in 2024 I can finally get some help for these issues but it’s a slow process. Therapy can be expensive and the talking therapies here are…well, let’s just say they’re not great. I do think I have learnt my lesson now though, I’m definitely a lot more self-aware than I was when this was taking place. Like I say, the goal was never about integrating myself into their life, it was about escaping my own, even for ten minutes.

Sx

Stop and Stare

I was in a very strange scenario with a friend of mine at a restaurant recently, and I thought here might be a platform to air it.

We had gone for a curry at a local Indian restaurant and, whilst we were talking, I noticed a younger couple (early twenties?) looking at me and giggling. Now, normally when I feel like this, I’m able to talk myself out of it (“God, S, they could just be laughing, you know?”) but they made it really obvious, given that the guy kept having to look over his shoulder to get a glimpse. It was a really strange situation to be in and I’ve genuinely no idea what was so funny. I will say this though, I was proud of myself for being in that situation and not letting it put a total downer on the evening. It reminded me of a resilience within me that I haven’t seen (or perhaps needed) in a long time. I could feel it trying to upset me but I just…didn’t let it? I simply picked up my sparkling water and did my best to ignore them (having made eye contact with the girl a few times). I didn’t mention it to my friend because what is there to say other than ‘just ignore them’. Plus, my friend has terminal cancer and I didn’t want her to feel self-conscious either. I came home and told Boyf but he didn’t have too much to say about it, again, what is there to say? The only things I can think of is maybe I was talking too loudly and didnt realise (I was competing with a speaker in close proximity!) or it was my pastel coloured jumper dress (…hilarious?). Either way, I’ll never know. They didn’t say anything when they left so that’s a bonus. Hopefully it becomes something I just forget all about.

A few years ago I had a dress that I really liked and refused to let go of. I knew the time had come to get rid of it after this happened:

I went to work and realised that every time I lifted my arm, a bad smell would waft from beneath it. Of course, I was appalled. It wasn’t fresh sweat, it was old sweat. The kind that lives in clothes, the kind that you can’t smell when you’re adorning your freshly washed garment, but you sure as shit can smell after an hour or so. There wasn’t anything I could do about it except do my best not to lift my arms but it wasn’t always possible. Towards the end of the day, a colleague of mine said very loudly and deliberately “God, there was a girl on the bus earlier who absolutely stank. What is wrong with these people? Can’t they smell themselves?” I was mortified. It was a hot day but I shoved a cardigan on, hoping the extra layer would contain the stench.

Boyf and I were going for dinner that evening and we had a very pleasant meal. At the end of the meal, we went to split the bill and so I needed to pick my bag off of the floor to get my card. After I did so, the couple beside me grimaced and the girl mimicked me picking my bag off the floor in a painfully unsubtle attempt to explain to her partner why they could smell me. I was horrified.

It’s such an odd situation to be in, to be in a place and know people are making fun of you. I’ve been battling a kind of agoraphobia recently and I’m plagued by fears of people laughing at the overweight girl eating a pizza, or getting wedged between two tables, or falling over and everybody in the restaurant bursting into a symphony of hysterics. It makes me really funny about where I sit in restaurants. I’m working on it (my weight and the agoraphobia).

Things OK with Boyf. We had a great weekend together but now things seem a little frosty though sometimes that’s when he’s tired.

See you soon,

Sx

My Complicated Relationship with Humour

Like many families in the 90s, the weekdays built up to the weekends of which the crowning jewel was always telly. I’m telling you, if you ever meet someone of a similar age and background to yourself, and you’re struggling to find something to bond over, ask them what TV shows they remember from the nineties. Maybe it’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire with the passive-unfriendly Chris Tarrant or maybe it was the innuendos on Blind Date that us kids didn’t understand but that the adults seemed to love. I’ve had many a conversation with someone who’s eyes have lit up as we briefly relived our childhood memories of TV shows that for so long brought us so much joy.

Perhaps some of these bled into the early 2000s (in fact, some of them definitely do) but a particular highlight of mine would be watching comedies with my parents, in particularly my grandparents, and absolutely relishing being in a room with people laughing. Perhaps we could be watching an rerun of an Only Fools and Horses episode, Del would turn and say something to Rodney, Rodney would reply, and Del would have a witty comeback that would have my family in stitches. I’d turn, smile beaming, enjoying this happy moment, then I’d turn back to the TV and wait for it to happen again. What did I take away from this? People liked funny response. That was it. I didn’t pay any attention to whether they were observational, dry or quick-witted, I simply knew that someone had said a line, and it made everybody in the room laugh. In fact, what I did, was learn the lines.

As kids, we all say something that unintentionally had the adults, or our peers, falling about the place laughing. I think it’s fair to say that a lot of us relish this glory and try to revive this one hit wonder. I’m slightly older in this example, but let me give you one from when I was in secondary school. The teacher had asked everybody in the room to write down stereotypes and prejudices that are still prevalent in today’s society. I sat anxiously waiting for my turn as he went around the room. Some people have great answers that sparked debate, some people couldn’t think of any others, some people proudly repeated answers that we’d already had. When it came to me, I nervously fumbled through the words “people that work for the council” to which the teacher replied “interesting, ok, what do people assume about them?” and in my panic, I said “well, that they’re, erm…scum?” The whole class and the teacher fell about laughing, really laughing and he went on the praise me for my point and my humour. It generated a really in-depth discussion around society and I walked out that class feeling like a philosophical comedian. So, it made sense that, come the next time we did a similar exercise, I repeated my answer. I forget what the topic was but I remember barely thinking about it and sitting there smugly waiting for my turn. These people are about to lose their shit, I’d be thinking. He pointed to me, said my name, and whatever the topic and my point was, I finished it with “and people think they’re scum”. No one laughed. The teacher pulled an acknowledging frown with a kind of ‘eh maybe’ bob of his head, and moved on to the next person.

I felt absolutely disgraced. But this wasn’t the first time and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Back to me, happily watching TV with my family, listening to what was said that was making them laugh so much. Ok, I’d think, that character said that so people think that’s funny. I’d then proceed to repeat the line. Now, as a child, my comedic timing was about as funny as a fire in an orphanage. Let me set the scene for you: In I’m Alan Partridge there’s a line where strong-accented Geordie, Michael, is having a conversation with Alan. Alan raises his hand and says to Michael mid-sentence “sorry Michael, that was just noise”. Of course, this had people laughing. Now, humour is subjective and people probably find it funny for many reasons, but, of course, the main one is that it’s social unacceptable or it’s a funny interaction between two friends, take your pick. For seven year old me, I just assume people find it funny when they hear the sentence. So, what seven year old me would do, is when my Mum is casually talking to me about which park did we want to do to, I would blurt out “sorry Mum, that was just noise” and hold for raucous laughter. She’d then repeat the question, probably thinking that she needed to speak to me about manners when we get home. But I would think she missed the joke. So, I’d be with my granddad in his greenhouse, looking at all his cacti, and he’d be telling me some quite interesting facts about a Venus Fly Trap and I’d be eagerly waiting for him to finish so I could deliver the killer line that was gonna have him falling about the humid glass house: ‘Sorry, granddad, that was just noise’.

Then there were the moments that I witnessed people being funny outside of TV. Maybe at some sort of function, like a family barbecue, where someone replies instantly to something and has everybody in stitches. I wholeheartedly struggled to deconstruct this humour, as often it was mean. Needless to say, banter was not little me’s forte. I can remember an instance where my Mum’s friend was being grilled by my younger sister and I about getting married (yeah, we were those kids) and my Mum replied from somewhere in the background “ask her if hell will freeze over when she gets married”. We looked to my Mum’s friend who leaned out the kitchen window, smoking her cigarette, and simply laughed. Cut to me, in a classroom in Year 3, witnessing one kid ask another if they have a ruler. The kid sets about trying to find a ruler in their bustling pencil case and when it’s been but two seconds, I quip ‘will hell freeze over when you find that ruler?’. Of course, they don’t laugh.
This thirst to understand banter took a bizarre turn and one that I still can’t really explain. My brain, unable to make sense of this so-called banter, had apparently decided that as long as something sounded like banter then it was. Let me be real with you a moment, these attempts of the ‘sounding like banter’ humour were often so horrific that thankfully I’ve suppressed them. I don’t think there’s many people who can say they’ve never misfired a joke, and I’m sure many of us probably can still recall the awkward silence and crumpled faces that followed. For example, my Mum had volunteered to come on a couple of school trips with us and had befriended one of the much admired teachers. They would instantly delight upon seeing one another, heads back, clapping with laughter. Imagine, thought younger me, if they became best friends. Images of me strutting into the Year 3 classroom, casually waving to my teacher who’d not mention a thing about mine being late (reality check: Year 3 me was never late, what the hell would I be doing that I’d be late? And there was no way in hell, if I ever was late, that I’d ever be that cool about it and not a big, flustered, tearful mess), I’d tell the other kids that me, my mum and Ms B were having a barbecue at the weekend and she’d buy me cool birthday presents and always pick me first because I’m her best friend’s daughter. One day, Mum had brought me to school and we had bumped into Ms B. As usual, the rolling laughter and fast quips came quickly and I filled with pride that my dream of being the coolest kid by proxy were coming true, but perhaps not fast enough for my liking. I devised a plan. I would be the clairvoyant for their banter so that their friendship blossomed and grew at great speed. I tried desperately to excuse myself from my regular class (Ms B. was a substitute teacher who taught another class on a long-term basis) but Ms C. told me it wasn’t crucial (how dare she) for ‘my mother’s message’ to be passed to Ms B. and so I could do it at break time. I tried hard to catch the attention of Ms B. as she rounded her parade of children, red-faced and flustered, telling them all there’d be no free time if they didn’t cooperate. “Ms B.,” I said quietly, “I have a message from my mum.” She sighed and told me to hang on, counting the children as they passed, one hand resting on her hip. At last, with another sigh, she asked me what the message was. “She said to tell you,” a smile poked onto my face, “that she’s willing to sell the bruises.” Ms B. looked back at me with confusion and repeated, “she’s willing to sell the bruises?” I nodded, “remember she fell over on the school trip and dropped all our insects we’d found in the woods, and her legs were really bruised, then she wrote you a Christmas card and she said ooh, those bruises at the end?” Ms B. nodded. “Well,” I smiled, “she’s willing to sell them.” She nodded and said ok, then just left me in the cloakroom as the returned to her rambunctious class. My plan hadn’t worked. I returned to my class, defeated, and instead decided that it would be much more sane and reasonable to buy Ms B. a notebook from Poundland and tell her it was a gift from my mum. Yeah. That’s normal.
Although, as I mentioned, these incidents were not isolated to childhood and it’s a sin I still very much commit to this day. I was at a party once when I made a joke to my ex-boyfriend and his friend, just as the room fell silent. They (not deliberately) asked me what I meant quite loudly and in unison. In my panic, I repeated the joke. It wasn’t that they hadn’t heard me, it was simply that it wasn’t funny. I’m sorry that I can’t grace you with what it was, all I remember was it was something like “he doesn’t want to stand next to you now”. No one said a word. A room of about thirteen/fourteen people were silent. I mean, what’s the etiquette for that situation? I remember at the time just shrugged and saying “don’t worry about it” but what else can you do? If it’s a small group, I suppose you can laugh it off a bit easier, but standing up to a room full of what’s essentially strangers, clapping both your hands to your cheeks and just laughing might look a little insane. It consumed me and I don’t think I spoke for the rest of that evening.

There’s a girl that I’m dying to write a whole post dedicated to because she was a nightmare, I was a nightmare and the combination of the pair of us went together like mentos and cola. But I’d like to just share a quick story about her here because whenever I need a pick-me-up, it’s my go-to. I warn you, this is going to sound slightly venemous but when I write the full explanation about this person you’ll understand.
I can’t remember what the birds are called but there’s certain birds that come along to a nest another bird has made, turfs them out, and uses it as their own. That’s very much what this girl had done our entire school life. I would make a friend, she would use me as a way in. It was beyond infuriating as she would also then mock me in front of them, not always something funny, often something just unkind that left me and my friend kind of just standing there. Things such as ‘Oh, look at Podgy, her top buttons come undone’ and ‘oh, Podgy, can you do a cartwheel? Didn’t think so’.

Anyway, having endured a lifetime of this (we were ‘friends’ from about Reception to Year 9), I was fucking sick of it. By some miracle, come secondary school, I was briefly popular. In one class, I was sat talking to the most popular girls in our class, getting along just fine. Of course, who comes over? This smug little shit. She sits down beside me and I don’t acknowledge her, this girl and I just continue to talk. In an effort to shoehorn her way into the conversation, she goes ‘do you like elephants?’ in a really stupid voice, how one might speak in a costume to a child. Popular girl screws up her face and asks her to repeat herself. ‘Do you like elephants?’ she says again, still ridiculously. When the popular girl doesn’t respond, when we’re all sitting in a silence that is oh so familiar to her and I, she leans in and says, same voice, “I like pink elephants with green spots.” The popular girl gives her a dirty and confused look, turns her back, and continues speaking to me. I have never felt so vindicated!!

Perhaps here is a good place to mention that I have been referred for a test for autism. Having done my research, and re-reading some of this blog, I’m fairly certain we can say I do. I’ll write about it another time but it’s good to know there are other people who think just like I do.

Funny, really. (See what I did there?)

Sx

Merry! …oh

I’ve been going through a really difficult time, probably for a long time. My boyfriend had a very serious back problem which required him needing surgery and being housebound for roughly nine months. He made a successful recovery and went back to work but there was something I didn’t take into account – the mental scars. I’m not talking about my own, I’m talking specifically about his. For nine months we have been living as strangers, owner and pet, housemates, whatever. I really didn’t stop to think the toll it was taking on our relationship at all. Relationships are funny; there comes a point where you just assume they’ll always be there after a certain point. As I’ve said here, my last relationship fell apart when I found myself struggling to love my ex anymore. Of course I liked him. But I didn’t love him. I can remember feeling despondent and desperately lonely because I was stuck with someone that I had fallen out of love with.

Now I’m worried that person is me.

Boyf and I had been drinking on Christmas Eve and the topic came up of a friend who is miserable in her relationship. I turned to Boyf and said something along the lines of ‘I mean, if she’s miserable then she should leave’ which was met with a pensive silence. I confidently asked if he was happy, I mean, we had just been through that terrible nine months, right? What could be worse than that? But the answer, if I’m honest, shocked me. He said he had been wanting to wait until new year to tell me but he didn’t think it was working. I have a fight or flight personality and sometimes what happens is both of them tend to come out at the same time. I agreed initially (without thinking about it, I was just too stunned) then I asked him if there was anything I could do to change it which he said he didn’t think there was. I was crushed.

One of the worst parts of this tale for me was hearing the word ‘nasty’ being used in the context to describe my turbulent relationship with his family. Our families are incredibly different and from completely different backgrounds. My long history of not getting along with his brother are well documented and not entirely unfounded. Even in these moments of reflection, I struggle to see how I can be the villain. I’m not getting into the story again, but let me start by saying that from the get-go his brother has always been opposed to me. Snide comments on Facebook posts, making comments about my fake tan when we met, etc. The only reason he ever stopped was because we were forced together at a funeral. When we met, my boyfriend was being taken hugely advantage of by blindly trusting his brother and the ripples in the water started when I tried to protect him from it. That never stopped. So it’s no surprise, after all these years, that things came to a head. Admittedly, I sent him a message on Facebook after a few drinks and an evening chatting with my Mum who said she wouldn’t help us get a car if his brother didn’t take him off this van scam he was conducting. We’ve not spoken since.

The hard one for me is being described as nasty with regards to his parents. I have said nothing to either of them, I was cooking all the meals in the house for nine solid months, all the cooking, working a full-time job, paying for practically everything, and yet my resentment for them doing nothing is billed as ‘nasty’. It’s at this stage I would also like to point out that come Boyf’s birthday, he was re-gifted a tatty lavender eye mask and pillow spray. The kid was sleeping on the floor! He couldn’t move! He was miserable! You can’t even be arsed to walk into town or buy something he would like off of Amazon? It’s honestly breaks my heart to think of me trying to hold everything together, to be positive, to be supportive, and now I am the spiteful one. There was, however, an incident where I was angry towards Louie’s absolute saint of an Aunty and her husband coming over and I do admit, I was being a dick. But. You have to consider all the above, they came one summer afternoon when I was at work and I think I was just disappointed that something really positive was happening at home and it would be over when I got there. I didn’t hold it together very well and I sat at work feeling genuinely very disappointed with myself.

I’m worried that Boyf may have lasting depression from what must have been a terrible time. And, whilst I concede he’s an adult who is capable of making his own decisions, I would hate for him to jump a ship that genuinely really routes for him, not just me, but my family and my/our friends. I’m trying really hard to think of nice things for us to do, go out for nice meals, take the dog out for a walk, maybe do some cooking, but you can never be sure if that’s going to be enough. Urgh. I’m trying, I am.

Let’s see what happens 😦

Catfishing: The Catfish’s Perspective

I would like to start this post with an apology. This is by no means an attempt to justify my actions or excuse them. Catfishing is manipulative, insensitive and cowardly. I must have started to tell this story a hundred times and each time I have found it too painful, too ashamed by my own actions. There is no excuse for catfishing. I’m yet to hear a good one. This post isn’t here to serve as a defence of catfishing, simply to lay all the cards on the table. To the people who were involved, I am deeply sorry. I’m sure you are all thriving now and tell this story to your friends who all comment how crazy I am and what a massive bitch I must be. I was thirteen at the time and I’ve done a lot of growing up since then. But yes, I think I agree that thirteen year old me was a crazy bitch.

I was recently reading an article about a lady who catfished someone she knew: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/15/gayle-newland-retrial

The story is absolutely ludicrous. “You couldn’t make it up” as people love to say. I wasn’t as surprised as I should have been at the awful ordeal because I’ve witnessed it firsthand. I hate to say it, but I was surprised that no one was more concerned for Gayle. That’s the same as saying “but what about Peter Sutcliffe? He must’ve been feeling some pretty strong emotions otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered killing all those women?”. I realised this was because I was feeling a strong sense of sympathy. The day all my lies unravelled around me will be one I never forget.

My mum called me up to her bedroom. It was late, the curtains were drawn and she was ironing, leaving the strong steamy smell in the air. I dragged myself away from the computer downstairs, oblivious to the words she was about to strike me with.
“I’ve just had P’s mum on the phone,” she said, running the iron over a white t-shirt, “she asked me if I knew what ward Stephen is on. Apparently I’ve been visiting him in hospital.”
I froze. She continued.
“I told her I’ve never even met Stephen. She said apparently he’s in hospital dying of cancer and P is absolutely beside herself. She said you said we’ve been going to visit him.”
“Oh,” I mustered, feeling blank.
“Do you know anything about this?”
“I mean, I knew he was in hospital,” I lied.
“Well,” she folded the t-shirt, “I’ve certainly never been to see him. I don’t even know him. She’s going to speak to P now.” She dropped the folded t-shirt onto a pile on a chair beside her with a small fabric clap. “I told her I’d speak to you and ask if you knew anything.”
Expressionless, I returned to the computer. The irony being that for once I was logged onto my own account and was enjoying life being me, playing Minesweeper Flags with an old boyfriend of mine. I told him I had to go.

What followed felt like some sort of civil lawsuit. Overnight I had transformed from being surrounded by – both real and fake – friends to a social pariah. Rooms went immediately quiet whenever I walked in, pointed whispers and menacing laughter followed me as I tried my best to forget what everyone was so intensely interested in. I hadn’t lied to one person, I’d lied to most people.
P’s father was a no one in the judicial system. A male chauvinist who believed whatever he said must be true because he had said it. You may think that my dislike of this man is bias because he was head of the investigation but I can tell you he was universally ill-thought of. Even by his own daughter. He immediately called my mum again, feeling the matter now warranted his attention. He had a long, bossy conversation with her where he told her that he was thinking of going to the police but wanted to have a sit down conversation with us both first. My mum told him that tomorrow we are going to Florida for two weeks and that it would have to wait until we came back. What should have been a child’s dream holiday felt like an anxiety nightmare. I would spend hours in my room, thinking of justifications and reasons, cringing at all the things I had said to all the people who for now were under the impression it was me. We returned from ‘the happiest place on Earth’ and P’s father was on the phone the following day, my mum, also finding him repugnant, told him we had just come back from across the Atlantic and we were jet-lagged and that she would be in touch soon. He wasted no time in telling her that he had called some of the fake phone numbers I had given out and had explained to the call’s recipient that their number had been used in a case where someone has been grooming children. “They said they will be very co-operative, that they were innocent,” he proudly explained, “but they’ve never heard of Stephen or Chris.”

He got his meeting. I dare say it wasn’t at all what he had been hoping for. When I told him I didn’t have the answers he was looking for, on trial in his cluttered living room with my mum, P and P’s mum present, he began a rather smug assault on my character. “Well,” a smug smirk curling onto his fleshy face, “I have to say, I don’t really understand why you’re not more upset about this, S. If someone was accusing me of these things then I think I would be a bit more…” he circled his hands as he looked for his words, “bothered.” I was bothered. I had thought of nothing else since. Everything I had known for the past year was coming to a screeching crash, thousands of angry bystanders looking on, cheering as the champion witch hunter paraded my head around on a stick.
I promised myself I would be honest and frank with this story. I owe it to all the people I lied to. I had grown genuinely attached to the people that Stephen and Chris had allowed me to be friends with and I wanted it to come to an end. I had woven two likeable teenage heart throbs. They were accessible, unoffencive, sensitive, complimentary, interested. The plan had never been trick anyone into a romantic relationship. If I had filled in a form before entering the venture, the box which asked: will you be using this platform for romance purposes? I would have firmly ticked ‘no’. So, what happened? How did two teenage girls end up in tears, heartbroken and angry?

I wish I knew.

It’s something I still think about. Sometimes I’ll be laying in bed or having a bath, I’ll squint and ask myself: “what happened?”. Even seventeen years later, I still can’t work it out. There was no particular excitement or high that I had from lying, no power trip, no thrill. I didn’t think I was better or smarter than them. I certainly was aware that I didn’t feel the way my characters felt. So, what was it?
“She’s a very placid person,” my mum said, coming to my rescue, “she’s always been very calm.”
“Do you understand, S,” P’s father continued, “how serious this is? We could be dealing with paedophiles?” I told him I understood. “You don’t have anything to say?” I told him I didn’t. “Well,” he sat up in his old fabric sofa, “then I guess I have no choice but to call the Police.” The room was silent and tense. We had been in the interrogation for about forty minutes. Everyone knew it was me. P’s dad had been hoping to be the hero and emerge victorious. Picturing himself opening phone calls with a big sigh and saying to the other parents, “yep, I got her.” Instead, I blinked at the floor and nodded, a slow and heavy nod. P’s father, sensing that we were about to be adjourned, took one more swipe at me. “I think it’s you, S,” he said, raising his voice slightly, “I think you are behind all of this.” He waited for me to engage, to erupt in tears and through the garbled mess of my distress cry, “I did it! It was me, I did it, OK?”. Instead, I nodded, looked at him for a long pause and then shrugged. He walked us to the door, repeating several times that he was going to phone the Police now. My mum told him that they would know where to find us.
We sat in the car. Mum had stuck up for me several times and I felt like she was on my side. She was but she didn’t believe me. I was chatty for the first time that day, trying to explain to my technophobe mother how a virus in the computer could make our computer IP address show up, given that Stephen and Chris had sent me so much stuff over the internet. “That’s not true,” she said, buckling her seatbelt. I sat back in the passenger seat. I was defeated.
We got home and I immediately called my mum upstairs to my room. I was tearful, remorseful and everything P’s dad’s wet dream had hoped I would be. I told her I did it to make friends. I hadn’t carried any friends forward from primary school and inventing these characters had allowed me to get to know everyone. It was easier to talk to people I didn’t know as someone else because I (me) had nothing to lose. So what if they didn’t like Stephen? Real me hadn’t lost anything, only a fictional person who was incapable of having sleepless nights over a conversation had. What had this new power given me? Freedom. I was no longer shackled by social anxiety or lack of confidence. What I found out about myself was that I was funny, people thought I was charming…or rather, the people that I was the puppet master of were. I would get to know people as Stephen and then, when they liked me, I would say: “My friend, S, goes to your school, do you know her?”. They would say they knew of me but didn’t know me. I’d tell them how nice I am. What felt like overnight, I gained an abundance of friends. Not just any friends, the popular kids who up until now hadn’t even spared me a thought other than to say something juvenile or unkind. Now I had a cool, confident friend like Stephen, I was one of them. I wept as I explained this to my mum who rubbed my knee as I recounted how I had come to realise that I didn’t need my fake friends anymore. The cancer story had been an out. I wanted Stephen gone. His death seemed the fastest way out and it would be final. I couldn’t go back to him, he would be finished. Had I considered how upset people would be? Yes and no. I knew they would be sad but sadness is temporary…right? She didn’t say anything. I told her I was really sorry. I told her I knew everyone was going to be angry with me. She said I was right but they were allowed to be angry. I told her I know they are. With a weighty sigh, she left my side and went to make P’s dad’s day. It was a bright August day, I sat in the sun that beamed through the window of my attic room. Everything was eerily cheerful and calm. My mum returned and told me that P’s dad had playfully called me a banana. I suspect she was being kind. She left and I sat in silence, knowing that outside the apocalypse was happening. Landlines were ringing, people were gasping, sighing with relief and anger. It wasn’t long before my mum was back in my room, extending the phone to me. P wanted to talk. It’s hard to describe how I felt and I remember very little of our conversation. I had entered a kind of trance. It’s the sort of blank space I expect I would be in if I found myself faced with an approaching ball of fire. The pain is inevitable, you’ve just got to wait for it.
“I would have been your friend,” P said calmly. I didn’t believe her. I wanted to tell her I was cripplingly shy and we would never have spoken but I acknowledged her instead. Like her father, I expect she had been wanting more than the void of where her friend once was. The call ended and I returned to silence. My mum returned with the landline and told me it was my (now ex) friend, F.

F was the most popular girl in our school. She had large friendship groups, a sparkling sense of humour and she could make you feel like you were the only friend that mattered to her. I had never aspired to being her friend but somehow along the way it had happened. The problem was F was the only one who more consistently preferred made-up Chris to me. She would talk candidly to Chris about home life, fears, secrets, loves and hates, about her friends, who annoyed her and why. I had become close to F but I could never get her to open up in the same way as she did to Chris. Why? Because she loved him.
Now, this next part will sound unrelatable and cruel, but as promised, it’s the genuine truth. Did I think entering a virtual relationship with F was wrong? Yes. Was saying I love you too far? Yes, it was. Was I aware of this at the time? I think I was, yes. Then why didn’t it stop? I wasn’t in love with her. I said things to her I didn’t mean. Even as a supportive friend, I didn’t think she was beautiful like the boys at our school did. I wasn’t jealous, I just didn’t think it. It comes down to the quest of ultimately being liked. If someone is in a relationship with you then chances are you are doing a pretty good job of making them like you. The fact that “you” are enough, when you’ve been an outcast for most of your life, is hugely reassuring. Once again, I failed to recognise the true gravity of the situation. That what I was doing, albeit not maliciously, was going to leave someone I really cared about feeling hurt and upset.
A few months prior to this phone call, it had dawned on me that I needed to ‘shut down’ Chris more than I did Stephen. Stephen barely logged on anymore but I was becoming Chris everyday. I liked F and I respected her. Yes, she didn’t like me as much as she liked Chris but the reasons why were slowly revealing to me as I was growing slightly older, maturing. I didn’t need to kill Chris. In my naivety, I thought that telling her that it wasn’t working out was going to be the end of it. Sure, she’d hate Chris but I’d be there and soon we would all be friends in a Chrisless world. Of course, that isn’t what happened. There I was with F in the medical room at school, holding one hand with P holding the other. F had taken the news worse than expected and was now suffering public panic attacks. Segregated away from the wide eyes of our peers, we sat silent in the clinically bright white room, listening to our friend’s frantic breathing. She was sent home. In a panic, I reignited the relationship and sat begrudgingly having empty conversations with someone I couldn’t stand. Not F, but Chris.

“I warn you,” my mum mouthed to me, holding the phone to her chest, “she’s very upset.” I nodded and accepted the phone from her. My mum left the room. “Do you know,” F said through her raspy tears, “how much of our lives have been wasted?” In a dulled, painless voice I told her I did and I was sorry. “I’ve spent a year with someone when I could have been with someone else!” I apologised again. “Everyone,” she drew in a large snotty nasal breath, “is going to think that we are idiots because of you!” I couldn’t think of anything to say other than to keep repeating how sorry I was. “When I was sat in the medical room that day, you wouldn’t even look at me!” I remember not agreeing with this. I had been looking at her, in fact, I’d been staring. I’d never seen someone having a panic attack before and it was frightening. I knew better than to say that though, instead I apologised again. I can’t remember how to call ended but I know it was short and she more than likely hung up on me. I don’t think we ever spoke again.

Seventeen years later, as I lay in the bath reading the article above, I asked myself a lot of questions. I don’t think what I did was particularly clever. Fooling all those people doesn’t make me feel like some kind of genius or master manipulator. It makes me feel incredibly sad and very small. I had attempted to bypass my personality, my flaws, and lazily create meaningful friendships. What I ended up doing was putting everything I didn’t like about myself, all the bad pieces of my personality, on public display when I was burned at the stake. I’ve never spoken to anyone about what happened despite it being public knowledge. As far as I can find, Gayle Newland and other famed catfish, Gemma Barker, have never spoken their side of the story either. I can tell the story but I don’t think I will ever be able to explain it. There will be people out there, other outsiders, other people who craved social acceptance, that would see this and think that they would never have resorted to this. But I guess that’s like saying there are people out there without bread who wouldn’t resort to stealing. People are different.

I’m thirty now. I’m not hugely popular but I’m also not desperately lonely. The people that I know now know the real me. Whilst writing this, I’ve tried to put myself in touch with the thirteen year old me that did these things and I’m almost pleased to say I can’t reach her. I know she’s not a monster, she’s not heartless and she’s not evil. She’s someone who talks to herself, she can make herself laugh and wants nothing more than to have other people in her life she can make laugh too. Her mind is filled with a whole cast of imaginary friends who come alive in her bedroom, two of which escaped into the real world.
I still have the wild imagination but it’s rarely seen in public. I’ve learnt to enjoy their idea but not their presence. I can’t remember when I stopped impulsively lying but it was some point in my mid to late twenties. I guess it becomes exhausting. It’s cliche but the truth really does set you free. I’ve found greater joy in telling the truth than I ever did from lying. That thirteen year old me in this story struggled for the next few years, living in the prison of my actions. I guess I deserved it. P and F are both fine, I haven’t seen anything about either of them for a long time but ones married and the other went to university. P’s dad did, however, pass away a few years ago. He might not come across very well in this story (or perhaps he does) but he was a man trying to do right by his daughter.

There might not be any answers in here but it’s good to finally get it all down. I’m genuinely sorry to all those that were involved. From the bottom of my heart, it was disgusting and I was wrong. There really is no good reason to catfish.

Dear Me,

Once again you’ve arrived at this blog. You’ve read it’s posts that you’ve read a thousand times before, been impressed with your own witty remarks and story-telling (wishing you could tell stories that well in your real life!) and once again, felt compelled to add to your small virtual history.

You turned thirty this year. Your other previous two birthdays were in lockdown and your loving little sister tried the impossible task of gathering your friends together for a party. As you know well, your birthday is in the rainy depths of February. It’s icy winds and long dark evenings act as a deterrent for any kind of fun, not to mention your birthday falls neatly just before everyone’s payday. With the best of intentions, your friends sought to keep the outing a secret from you although they forgot one crucial element required for such a facade – “got any plans for your birthday?”. Their lack of questioning and seeming lack of interest only served to let you know that there was a plan. This filled with you with both excitement and dread. Why were you excited? Hope. Hope that this time it will be different. Hope that this time your friends, spurred on by your important age, would not be held back by arctic weather conditions and a crippling lack of funds. Sure, you’ve lost some people along the way but the pool of friends you have now, are they not the ones who care enough to stand by you? Why were you fearful? All of the above reasons.
Of course, you had a lovely evening. The turnout was small and intimate, the evening simmered and never really boiled, but you had fun. Well-meaning friends with legitimate reasons stayed home while bright-eyed ‘party-goers’ met you with anticipation of your surprise reaction. It was a collection of people who cared. Isn’t that all you’ve ever wanted?

I must say, when I read this I was surprised at how much you write about weight and the loss of it. It’s no secret to you how much you want it, even now. But it seems, amongst all the other more important things, to consume you. It still consumes you, of course. Remember in Croatia last October? Hurrying through the hotel lobby so no one could get a glimpse of you in your ‘fat clothes’? Staring at a similar age and size to yourself and admiring her for walking around so freely and unashamed? You know deep down that none of those people remember you. They probably didn’t even notice you. You were the only person burdened by your own feeling’s of chubby unsightfulness.
So what was surprising? I suppose it was how the same person who rushes through hotel lobbies, who can’t try clothing on in stores for fear of looking in the mirror, who can’t see people she hasn’t seen in ten years so they still picture her to be skinny, can go through just about _everything_ else she’s been through detailed in this blog. I lived through these things with you and today I felt sad reading them. But you weren’t sad writing them, and you’re not sad thinking about them (well, most of them). I think you and I both know that your inner strength, that iron mental armour, is something to behold. You get annoyed with yourself for being so sensitive, and yet, as you read through some of the traumatic things past you has been through you can’t even remember the details of who said these mean-spirited things. I wanted to reach out to you because I know how you’ve been feeling recently. Life gets tougher. You get older, problems and relationships become more complicated and, in a world that demands you do, you don’t have all the answers. I don’t want to say “enjoy today because life only gets worse”, but, as you so often say to others, think of all the good things in your life. Look at everything you’ve been through and everything you’ve achieved. I know you’ll hate reading this, you’ll think me writing in the first and second person is pretentious and laughable. It is! But sometimes you need to hear it. Sometimes I need to say it.

There are several new things in your life that you’re very proud of. You have a nice flat, several consoles and a MacBook (it’s true, one does stop saying laptop as soon as one owns a MacBook), upcoming creative writing classes as well as a whole host of ideas, and a lovely garden where I sit writing this to you.

It’s good to check in with you, friend. I can’t wait to see what you do next.

Sx

But DO desperate times call for desperate measures?

I don’t think it’s that uncommon when you’re dating to think that every date that’s going well is “the one”. I once had a heated debate with a good friend about this very topic. She was free of a six year relationship that she was thrilled to be out of but hadn’t found her new man as fast as she would have hoped. Like many people, she joined Tinder and went on a string of dates. These all turned out to be pretty unsuccessful but what was annoying was that every time it was going well she would proudly boast that this relationship was ‘different than any other’. Having sat through this a few times, and sat equally through them going sour, I had had enough.

One day at a friend’s bbq, my friend was glued to her phone, periodically smiling and giggling at the screen.

“Is that your Tinder friend?” One of my pals asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, “you know, we get on so well. It’s like I’ve never known two people have so much in common like we do. Like, this relationship feels so different to the others.”

I laughed into my drink which bubbled and made everyone look round. My friend asked me what was funny.

“Well,” I decided in a split second I should go for it, “it’s just… Aren’t they all like that?”

“What?”

“I just feel like you say that about all of them. I mean, yeah, they will feel different because it’s someone different from before.”

My friend didn’t say anything, nor did she mention her Tinder partner again that evening. She couldn’t really argue with me because it was true. She had insisted one of her Tinder dates came to our friend’s wedding after telling us he was something special. Yeah, he was a real piece of work alright. For some reason she had accepted the fact that she, the Queen of selfies, wasn’t allowed to take a photo with him. Apparently he hated it but I say this was so his girlfriend never found out. I picked up the disposable camera on our table and pointed it at them as he frowned and told my friend to tell me he hates it. He was forever not turning up at their dates as well with a flimsy reason and leaving her in town on her own in the evenings.

The final straw came when she snapped and he admitted he’d been a massive dickhead. Her family were throwing a garden party that he said he would attend to. After dropping her off at their home, she went I’m and told her whole family that he’d be a long in a minute after he’d gone home to get changed.

He never returned.

I dunno, he said he had to run an errand or something but that was it for him. I still think his girlfriend had come over!

But that’s what happens when you become, well, desperate. I’m no stranger to it sadly. I was talking to a boy online once and our friendship was dwindling. He had once been calling me every day and texting all the time then he started to move away from me. I’d text him and have to call to get a reply. Previously, he’d been quite romantic but now didn’t seem to say much at all. So, I took a reaaaaally desperate move.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“I had a dream that you and I were in a car and we were married.”

“Err, okay?”

“I just… I just really feel like in our previous life we were married.” Narrator: She did not.

“That’s not a dream, that’s like a vision.”

“Yeah.”

“Erm, okay. Err…”

I don’t know what was going through my mind. I was about thirteen/fourteen at the time and lucky that no one found out about it. I’m sure he probably had a giggle about it with his friends but no one ever said anything – I was lucky! God knows what I was thinking! Why did I think that was such a smooth idea?! Because I was desperate. I can picture him in a restaurant, explaining to his beautiful girlfriend that he’s apparently been married before and her looking concerned before she laughs and looks confused as he finishes the punchline.

Funny really, I can’t imagine being like that now. If anything, I can picture being too defensive now.

It’s the little things we do!

Sx

Nappy Nights (and just how awful they are)

Nappy Nights is a term in Britain that describes when a nightclub opens its doors to teenagers to give them a taste of ‘nightlife’. It’s for 14-17 year olds essentially and they are terrible.

I went to one once and never went again.

My friends had all been to a few but for some reason I don’t think I had ever had the courage to ask my parents if I could go. When I did eventually ask, they said they had no problem with it – I was sixteen.

The problem was that my friends had all gotten fed up of them by then. I excitedly asked who was going and I was met with a sea of unenthused faces.

“Come on, guys,” I pleaded. It was no good, they weren’t going. Part of the problem was that people were always talking about how they ‘got off with’ tons of people and my friends were not meeting anymore. How were we supposed to know it was all bullshit?

Desperate, I turned to a boy I liked at the time. We had met a couple of times and gotten along but didn’t really have that much in common. We’ll call him Glynn. Foolishly, we tried to date but he text my friend and asked her to come over and I told him I couldn’t see it working.

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re trying to cheat on me.”

We stayed friends anyway and he asked me if I as going to the next nappy night. I told him I was and asked him if I could go with him as my friends were all bailing which he said I could. Glynn had a lot of idiot friends so I didn’t want to go just with them. I asked the weirdest kid I knew, David (more about David soon), to come along with me. Glynn and David actually knew each other and didn’t really get along so God knows why I even bothered. Stupid really, Glynn’s friends weren’t going either so the three of us were a *ahem* awkward trio.

I’d gotten dressed up in a white denim mini skirt, silver MK1 high heels, and some horrible grey top. I stood in the line and looked as I realised I was overdressed when I saw girls in denim shorts and trainers. The two guys I was with, who weren’t talking to one another, hadn’t even said I looked nice when I had spent so long getting ready. We joined the line and stood awkwardly. David soon realised one of his friends, Desmond, was standing in front. The three of them started talking and I stood like a lemon to the point where Desmond actually thought I was a girl that had come on my own.

“Nah,” said David, “she’s with us.”

“Oh,” Desmond nodded from lack of introduction, “right. Hello.”

“Hey,” I smiled.

“So you boys looking to meet some birds then?” He continued like I wasn’t there.

“Yeah mate.”

“Er,” Glynn hovered for a moment before shyly replying, “yeah.”

“Sick, same here, innit.”

Was I glad he didn’t ask me what I was there for? ‘Yeah mate, I wanna meet boys’. Perhaps my poorly ringletted hair said it all.

I remember Glynn tripped down the stairs on the way down to the main room and I laughed too much in an attempt to be flirty. It hadn’t worked between us but I still really liked him and thought he was really cool. He was a quiet guy who was liked by a lot of people and had a really good sense of humour when he felt like it. We’d shaken off Desmond and now were huddled around one bar stool with our free water. Please Don’t Stop the Music by Rihanna boomed from above as all the confident people grinded on one another on the incredibly tiny dance floor. I stood and tried to yell to Glynn to make conversation but he didn’t really answer, just nodded, even when I didn’t ask a question. David was preoccupied looking for a friend of mine that he had become somewhat obsessed with. This would prove to be a huge burden. Even more so because Glynn also liked her. He looked around manically as he searched for her face in the crowd then demanded we all walked around with him.

“She might not be here yet, David,” I looked to Glynn for backup but he just shrugged. “And we’ll lose our seat anyway.”

“Fuck the seat,” he said irritated, “none of us are even sitting on it.”

“I am.” I planted my rear end awkwardly on the sticky chair and pulled my skirt back down my almost definitely unshaven legs in an uncomfortable display.

“Fuck sake,” David snapped as he stormed off.

I was alone with Glynn. What more romantic situation than trying to make yourself heard over Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie? He stood with his hands planted in his pockets and continued to nod as my voice was lost in Shakira’s vocals. It took a couple of minutes for David to return.

“I don’t think she’s here yet.”

“Oh.”

“Theres no signal down here.”

“Yeah,” I sipped my now lukewarm and sickly water, “it’s an underground club, innit.”

“Then we need to go outside.”

“David! We’ve just got here!”

“Come on!”

“No!”

He downed his water and threw the plastic cup away from him in disgust. I tucked my hair behind my ear and smiled at Glynn who looked bored. David thankfully left to go and get phone signal.

“Shall we dance?” I asked.

“Erm,” he looked at the crammed dance floor, “nah. I don’t like dancing.”

If there is such a thing as Lord of the Dance then I suppose I should thank them for my dancing would’ve been abysmal. I can even see what I would’ve done. I would’ve done that thing that breakdancers do before launching into their moves. That kind of stepping back and forth while loosely crossing their forearms and my body would have been painfully rigid. I sat hunchbacked on my stool and drank my disgusting water to the last drop, pleased when it had finished.

“Oh, I’ve run out if water. I’m just going to go and get some more.”

By the time the conversation between Glynn and I had once again gone cold, and my water lukewarm once again, a huffy David returned like a child who had not long kicked their ball over a fence.

“Her phone’s off.”

“Oh well,” I shrugged.

“Maybe she’s here?” Glynn piped up.

David agreed and started frantically looking through the crowds again. This time he was able to convince us that we should all go on the hunt for her. Leaving Glynn at the dance floor’s edge we pushed through a load of interlocked teens. It was sweaty, slippery and smelt of hot damp. I followed David through several times, each time he insisted I looked a bit harder. Upon the eighth time I threw my hands up and told him to forget it.

“I know she’s in here!” He insisted.

“OK? I’m sure she’ll find you,” I shrugged, feeling a little unconvinced.

“We need to go through again!”

“…Where’s Glynn?”

“What?”

“Glynn? He’s gone?”

“Dunno, toilets maybe. Come on!” He pulled my arm in an attempt to drag me through the literally tongue tied crowd once more.

“David!” I growled irritated, “stop! I need to find Glynn, at least we know he’s here.”

“He’s there,” he pointed at Glynn standing with some other lads he obviously knew. I gulped, not wanting to approach them as they were all handsome and friends of his that I knew to be quite unkind. I freed my arm from David’s grasp and sighed. This wasn’t fun. David grunted and disappeared through the crowd again. I circled the club like I had somewhere to go but I was wandering without a purpose. Drinking and collecting more water.

I sat down at an empty booth and clicked through my signalless phone. How did people meet people here? No one was even looking at me! I smiled at random people passing but pass is all they did. I hovered over my home number with the idea of going to call my dad, who had been so pleased that his loner daughter was going out meeting people. He had so confidently told me that I’d love it and here I was thinking of calling him just an hour later.

Glynn eventually came apart from his friends and I pounced on him immediately – “oh, fancy bumping into you again” type bump. We kissed awkwardly because aside from dancing there was nothing else to do. I guess I was relieved that I kissed someone but pretty disappointed it was someone whom I’d previously failed a relationship with. I stepped back and smiled with half my mouth as Glynn stood with his hands in his pockets. We were both probably wondering why we had done that and why we were even still here.

I did lose Glynn again after a trip to the toilet. I came back and he was regrouped with his friends who were throwing water at each other (May I remind you I was wearing a white skirt) . I rejoined David who confirmed to me that tonight had been shit without me saying a word. I nodded and told him we should leave, he asked me if I would help him look for my friend again and I politely told him fuck no. We left, hydrated and disappointed.

Glynn and I had an on-off friendlationship although were both awkward enough that it never really materialised into anything sexual. He would invite me over and spend the whole time playing fifa, or a load of his horrible pals would turn up. He wrote a comment on a photo of me to which one of his horrible friends wrote underneath “fuck off, she doesn’t even fucking look like that!”. This was a kid I had always made a point of being very polite to (his dad owned a supercar dealership so I don’t really know what I was expecting). I’ll write mine and Glynn’s weird relationship when I’m less tired.

As for David… Well, like I said, more about David another time but I can tell you he’s currently in prison. No, he didn’t end up with my friend.

Night y’all.

Sx

I can’t weight

So, you’ll remember previously that I was elated that my Xmas weight amounted to 11st7 which I’m pleased to report has now dropped to 11st4. I’m just terrified of getting to that point where I step on the scales and go backwards!

I’ve also made the stupid decision to go on the Wii Balance Board and all I can say fuck you, balance board. Fuck. You. It use to have a nice little chart that was as so:

• Underweight
• At risk of underweight
• Ideal
• At risk of obesity
• Obese

So, my little Mii is standing there all slender then BLAM! she’s padded out and bursting out her leotard. It read ‘Overweight’ bordering on Obese. I was offended. I didn’t expect Ideal or anything but at least it use to soften the blow with ‘at risk’ which they’ve now ditched. I’ve tucked the stupid balance board neatly behind the sofa.

I asked Boyf if he thinks I look any different and he wasted no time in telling me that he didn’t.

“Really?”

“What! Eurgh, God, you’re annoyed now aren’t you?”

“No.”

…

“A bit.”

“Grr…”

“It just feels like I’m making a huge effort and no one is noticing! I’ve lost nearly a stone!”

“I live with you so I wouldn’t notice. It’s like when people tell me how big the rats are and I shrug because to me they look the same.”

Well, let me tell you he was quick enough to *notice* that I’d gained weight I can tell you that much.

My mum is a diet perfectionist and frowns whenever I eat something “forbidden” like shredded wheat. Shredded wheat, for god sake! She’s doing amazing though. She will look great by the end of it. Hopefully the same can be said for me soon.

… Shredded wheat!

Sx

Two thousand and weighteen.

I’m sorry I’ve not been blogging much. Life has been mad. I ate and drank so much over Christmas it was actually a relief for it to be all over.

Sorry, this won’t be the catch-up blog that I keep promising myself I’ll write.  I’ve started my new job, got gossip about my friends and I’m feeling a little frustrated at a stumped relationship (we’re happy, just…stuck?).

One thing I am passionate about though, is getting my old body back.  When I’m slimmer I am more confident and I want to feel that way again.  I’ve been drinking 2 litres of water and avoiding unnecessary carbohydrates.  Man, I miss carbohydrates.  I eat some, obviously, it’s necessary to do so but it’s tough.  What I wouldn’t do for a big old bowl of rice!  And yes, I know some people will read this and think “rice isn’t the worst!”.  Well, perhaps not, no, but when I lost all that weight before it was by cutting those delicious satisfying carbs out.

After much pressure from my whiz-dieter mother, I weighed myself.  I placed Boyf’s specialist scales (works out BMI, etc.) on the bathroom floor and stripped of my pyjamas.  With a deep breath, I placed two cautious feet on the cold surface and waited while the numbers flickered tauntingly.  Was this going to be me starting from the very beginning again?  Well, to my surprise, no.  Last time I weighed myself I was 11st5lbs.  That was before I “let go” for Christmas.  I shovelled mince pies and Christmas pudding in my mouth and washed it down with brandy butter and a double-borderline-triple vodka and diet coke.  “I’ll start again,” I thought, enjoying delicious farm shop cheese, “new year, new me and all that.”

Well, when I weighed myself for the first time this year I weighted 11st7lbs.  Really?  That’s it?  Okay, maybe some of it had fallen off beforehand but I couldn’t believe it!!!!  It’s really been the boost that I needed.  This can be the year that I can do it.  Plus, my passport photo needs renewing and it would be nice to have one that I actually like (I know this normally is not the case).  I’ll bore you about my passport/airport dramas another time.

The picture at the top is my dinner this evening and I tried to dress it up the best that I can.  It’s got a fat free cream cheese filling and was actually more satisfying that what I thought it would be.

Hope you’re well and your diet is bringing you 2018 joy!

I have a craving for vegetarian sushi… *breathes in* be strong!!!!

Sx