emotear

[emotear]

3rd December

So it has only taken me two months to get around to typing this up. No matter, it is not something I shall easily forget, as this potentially could have been the last vestige of use I have running from my body just as the blood left his. So I ended up within 3 metres of a stabbing. Fixed blade tactical just under the sternum, I think they went to for the stomach. I knew it was coming and was watching intently as the blade entered. But as the blood began to seep from around the blade something unexpected occurred. A heat seemed to rise from within me and the equilibrium within my brain began to fade. I felt dizzy, it wasn’t overpowering to start with, but the intensity was increasing at a steady pace.  I continued waiting, hopefully, long enough to evade suspicion given my past and made my way to the bathroom.

I laid on the cold hard floor,  at this point I wasn’t even concerned about why this had happened, I just wanted to get back to a sense of homeostasis asap and get back out there. Then a bead of sweat broke the skin of my head and ran down gravities vector. 

Not long after, I heard a voice, it was enough to make me discontinue the current course of action for fear of discovery and I made my way back, hopefully appearing fully undishevelled. The rest went according to plan, with no further surprises but left me with a question.  Why did I almost faint? Sure it had been years, 6, 7? Nevertheless, I didn’t think something so fundamental to a soul could change. As much as I admired him, I use to look at Dexter with a disdain, arising from the fact that he caused many of his own problems by trying to keep up such an elaborate charade. It wasn’t lost on me, how he must have felt after Little Chino escaped now.  It was suggested to me that the anticipation of the event caused me to hold my breath and while this is entirely plausible (I can’t even recall the sounds he made), it will still be in the back of mind until I prove nothing else has changed.

[emotear]

1st December

I went to see a stage production of the Exorcist at a theatre in London. It was amazing. Once you were seated all the lights were out and you were sitting there in the darkness, with just the gentle sound of the rain. Light starts to emit from the windows of entrance doors, crimson red light. The storm begins to rage with the odd crack of Thunder startling me and the whole Theatre illuminated by a split second of lightning.

Queue the onset of a misty fog and dramatic music and the atmosphere was set!

[emotear]

24th November

Pub in Chelmsford. I really like this one, not sure why exactly. There was a group that I found that I thought I would go to, but rather than actually go on over and introduce myself, I decided to sit at a table nearby and observe. I know most people would find it awkward being in a pub on their own on a Friday night, but I’m a paying customer causing no issues, so why would the owners care? It’s not like every chair was full, so I wasn’t detracting from potential custom. They were humans, I don’t know what else to say, again it has been a while since the event, so it is hard to recall. I remember trying to get a Mexican after the pub closed, as apparently, they are open until 3am, only to find that they were closed not long after midnight. 

[emotear]

13th November

Second board game event at the Retailery.  It has been 2 months since I actually went now so I cannot remember much. I do recall feeling sorry for the girl who organises it because I was on her table again. I remember a game with rubber pigs and trying to get them to land a certain way.  Pass the pigs, but it was a certain edition.

[emotear]

10th November

So this was for someone’s Birthday. Started out in Romford in a pub and then went to Camden for a Japanese meal and to the World End pub. We were meant to go to the Electric Ballroom too, but the queue was always massive and it was raining, so we skipped it. Unfortunately, only 5 of us made it to London, me and two couples. I am glad I went to show support for Garden, because if I had known it was me and couples I may have bailed out. I always feel unwanted when it is, kinda illogical, as if they wanted to be alone, they would not be out, but still just how it makes me feel. I’m pretty sure Garden’s girlfriend dislikes me and think I am a brain dead idiot, which is ironic as I am probably the most intellectually and emotionally deep of them all, but I was portraying a character. In loud noisy environments, it is hard to have conversations of substance and I think the other three would feel like I was bringing the mood down if I did. Also, she is rather quiet and doesn’t say much, which is cheating if you are going to compare. However, I am not too fussed, I doubt we have much in common anyway. So the night was ok, but the journey back was a bit long. I did my usual sweep of the area in the World’s End and observed all the people there. Quite a few interesting looking ones indeed, but 90 minutes is quite a trek to go to a pub and sit on my own, so I’m not sure I’ll be visiting there again soon. However when we got back to the house of the TA the best part of the night occurred. 

He introduced me to this virtual reality headset! Damn son! That experience was wild!  I played a few, almost all scary ones. Such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czcqQ_aOiz8 I actually forgot where I was for a while and got scared! It was amazing! We set up me up, so physically I was in the same position as the character in a similar environment, so it even felt real! He also showed me an app where you can watch Netflix on what appears to be a giant home cinema. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc_T9LVa3cA I want one! But am worried it might be bad for my eyes! I need to investigate. Also as I left TA’s at about 4am I decided to get a cab, rather than wait another 90 minutes for the trains to come back online. It was the first time I have ever used Uber. The driver was really nice and was telling me about how in a few years he thinks we will do away with telephone numbers and sim cards and everyone will just use an e-mail address and data networks to make calls. Interesting guy.

[emotear]

6th November

So this was another of those online groups I found to play board games with. So far we know that I have about a 50/50 success rate with such things, but since it wasn’t Halloween I didn’t wear any face paint.

Once I arrive, I look through the windows and the place is rather empty, this makes me feel more at ease. I go in and somehow miss the massive pile of board games stacked on one table and assume the event has been cancelled.

I decided it would be a waste to just immediately drive home, so instead, I decided to get something to eat first. I have never been to the Retailery before and am initially confused.  It is akin to a small indoor market, with four separate outlets operating independently. The seating area is very quirky and appealing to me. Random chairs and sofas are arranged in various setups, there is no consistency of colour, theme or style. What table might be wooden and painted blue, the next could be black glass.  The ceiling is bare, giving a view of the pipework for the aircon and electrical cables etc. The walls are covered in artwork and posters etc. The door to the toilet is so covered I didn’t even realise it was a door. If I had awoken in this establishment, my guess would have been central London. Anyway, back to the story at hand, as I queue up to get food I ask if I am here for the board games by the lady in front of me, who then points to the large pile of games I walked past. I sit down with her and a man called Andy. Somewhere between mid twenties and thirties, so age-wise we are onto a winner. It becomes apparent though that these are normal and probably good people. A paramedic and a mutli-talented mum of three, who has two degrees, one in counselling.  During the conversation, I recall talking about work and how to approach situations where you think your boss is wrong. While I list of ways to subvert, ignore or overrule they talk about diplomatic conversations. I know most of this is born from my previous manager as I wouldn’t dream of it doing it to my current one at the moment, but I notice my tone is rather aggressive and revolutionary. The subject turns to politics on a few occasions and I have to keep myself in check. Some other people do turn up, but each group remains siloed for the remainder of the evening.

They were both nice and rather friendly people, but even visually I was the strangest person there, however it was enjoyable and the games were fun. As I have taken so long to write this, I already know that I returned the following week, but that story is for another post.

[emotear]

31st October

So here it is, Halloween itself. I know I am a few days late, but I have been pretty tired recently, too many late nights. I don’t think I will even be able to finish this post in a single session, I am too tired and there is probably more to write about than the others as this was the most interesting so far. So I get home from work, eat, shower and get dressed. Asylum shirt with pretend blood splatter on and basically a streaked red handprint going down my face. I actually got a few comments from people while I was out, so I assume it looked pretty cool. I drive to Chelmsford to meet some strangers to play board games at a Pub. Probably sounds a lot like my previous Saturday, but this is a pub, so a much more public event. Once I get there I sit in the car for a while and observe a man arriving and carrying board games into the pub, so now I know I have the right place for sure and can even identify one of them. Something seems very wrong with this though, I am going to go in a pub, approach a big group of strangers and ask if I can use their stuff and sit with them.  I felt like this about that Saturday, but once I was inside they knew exactly why I was there, it was a private event, no chance of me being a customer etc and that Australian guy was awesome and made me feel welcome immediately.  Eventually, I get out of the car and decide to go in the front entrance, as the group is by the back entrance and I want to scope them out first. So I go in, order a drink and some nuts, get a comment from the barman about my costume and, casually eat and drink while observing the group. There are at least 10 of them, maybe more. Some of them are proper adults, as in they could be my parents. No one looks really strange, I decide it is not for me, finish my drink and leave. Back in the car I decided it would be a waste to drive home now, it is Halloween and I am dressed up. I proceed to go to a dating site and trying and get random girls who happen to be online and live in Chelmsford to come out. Weird and kinda scary I know, but hey I’m mental. It doesn’t work surprisingly enough.  I start looking to see if any other events are on in Chelmsford that I could go to and then I check my Facebook messenger. This girl is online who I have been Facebook friends with for a while, she wants to College with someone I know. I know she lives fairly close to Chelmsford as it is her main place for going out, so I decide to see what she is up to. She isn’t doing anything as she is saving up for a holiday she has planned for December. She says she needs to do some shopping though, so I often to drive her to Tesco. I arrive, she gets in the car and although her lack of fear and caution around me is surprising, everything is fairly normal and she directs me well to Tesco. Once we get there though she starts talking quietly at times, I ask her to repeat it as I didn’t hear it and she says that she is working out how much money she needs or is planning her day for tomorrow etc, this is a commonly repeated event. Now I talk to myself, mainly at work to help me maintain focus, but I wouldn’t do it in public in front of a stranger, but there is nothing wrong with it as such, just rare. As we are shopping she tells me about her friend who drove into a deer tonight and has ruined his car and got a few cuts/bruises. She phones him to ensure he is ok, then she decides to buy him some sweets and a beer. A bit of a random choice, but it is a nice gesture. OK, getting tired, I think I will continue later.

So we get to the till where she buys 6 or 7 items but refuses to pay 5p for a bag, so awkwardly carries them in folded arms. On the way back to the car she starts making random panicked noises, I ask her what is wrong and she tells me that she has phone notifications, but cannot see them.... Well duh, your hands are full and your screen is off, wait till you get back to the car. I proceed to donate a plastic bag to her to stop her attempting to carry all the items in the same fashion again. She asks if we can stop by her friends' house to drop off the beer and strawberry laces, when we get there she leaves her bag, phone and all the money she got out of the ATM in my car. I just find it odd how much trust she places in someone who is almost a complete stranger. On the drive back to her house, she stops a sign on the pavement above a box, telling me she likes to see what people sell in those, I reverse and put on my full beams to read it, no sales, they are just offering free apples from their tree. About three minutes later as we are getting out of the car, she says “Oh that was a good time”. What was? I ask. “I’m remembering a time I and one of the other girls from work took the kids out on a trip to a farm. There were 20 kids and a farmer gave us some apples, but there weren’t enough apples for each kid to have one, so they had to take a bite and then pass it around.” Is it just me, or is that story just a bit too mundane to be something that you bother to tell someone else, or even remember? She invites me in for a coffee, I am a bit hesitant, but she tells me her mum is home, so I decide the invitation is as innocent as it seems. Her mum is terrified of me though, apparently due to my costume, and reminds me of this frequently. I think that fact a strange six-foot skinhead you have never heard of before turns up to your house late at night added to it quite a bit though.

Very have a very sweet, small white fluffy dog, I forget his name now (it is 12th November, so almost two weeks ago now), but he was cool and probably the most normal. Her mum has the TV on very loud as she is apparently a bit deaf and is not wearing her hearing aid. She turns it down for a bit when we first arrive, but randomly turns it back on at times, almost in a sign to the girl, to take his strange guy away and talk to him elsewhere, it is not a sign she takes though. I am getting a bit lazy now, basically, she swears at her mum a bit, arguing about money, which is somewhat uncomfortable.  When her mum makes her go outside to smoke, she tells me that her mum is a heroin addict and always gets to take it in the house. Her mum looks horrified and neither laugh. Eventually, she makes me the coffee and while trying to do it, forgets where things are located like she doesn’t even live here. She tells me about her planned holiday, calling it her 5th lone holiday over and over, but she isn’t going alone and judging by the description of her previous 4, she has maybe flown alone once or twice, but only to meet someone elsewhere, she has never had an alone holiday.

She also tells me that since she doesn’t have many friends and those ones she does have, have children, she frequently goes out alone. At this point, I do feel bad for her, but it is almost as if she doesn’t have feelings about it and is just informing me. The same way, when she reads twitter posts, she exclaims loudly how funny they are, but never actually laughs. If we she didn’t work with kids I would think maybe she has some form of social disorder, I really could not work her out. I actually thought she might have been drunk and when I finally get home, I message and ask her if she has had anything to drink today, apparently not a drop, completely sober. This girl apparently frequently goes on dates and then doesn’t hear back from the guys again and often wonders why. She looks like Marylin Monroe, so I have also wondered, but now I think they probably are just very confused by her, even I am and I like to think of myself as being rather socially aware and astute. 

[emotear]

29th October

It appears I have been going a bit mental recently. I am going to put it down to being Halloween and the fact I want to say I tried. So I was meant to go to PAS’s for dinner with 5 of her friends at 16:30, stay there until 20:00 and then go to Romford for COR after that. However I was pretty sure I would not get on with the people, so decided not to turn up until later so that I didn’t have to be stuck inside them for so long.

I turned up and I was still unsure, but then I heard Rob Zombie and Slipknot and figured better to be inside and warm listening to some cool music than not. PAS had done an amazing job with everyone’s costumes (she hand makes them) her and two others went as the three witches from Hocus Pocus. Another guy went as a zombie from the same film, leaving the other two who were Marvel characters, Black cat, was damn!

Anyway they were actually ok. Once we got to Romford I got a few positive comments about how cool I looked. I was surprised at how small COR was, not having been since it moved location again, but it was actually pretty cool. There was a guy there who dressed as an alien victim, complete with chest burster and ribs! At first I was just observing people, I still find it odd they have paid platform dancers there, maybe it is more to encourage people to dance rather than to be sleazy as it just doesn’t feel like it is that sort of place. In the end I started dancing sober, (well barely dancing) and the music was pretty pimp. Normally when I go to Cameo, I leave within 30 mins, it is just a safari park to me, once I have seen all the wildlife doing their thing, I get bored and go home, COR was totally different, obviously I had a much bigger group of people which was probably part of it, but the music and the strangers were so much better too. I actually ended up staying until closing and didn’t get home until almost 3am. One thing that I wonder about is that very close to the end of the night they played Back street boys. I think they do this just to see how drunk everyone is and if they can get a load of punks and metal heads to dance to it. I still felt like the only one of my species present, but it is hard to tell, once in a while, someone looked like they could have been me. PAS said that she had never seen me so energetic and happy.  That was however the first time she has ever seen me in a Nightclub though.

[emotear]

28th October

So this time we pushed the boat out even further. I went to a movie meetup group in Chelmsford where I knew absolutely no one. The plan was board games, take away and a movie on a 104 inch projector screen with 5.1 surround sound! So I got there and was greeted by a really friendly Australian man, who had very lackadaisically dressed up as a zombie. I on the other hand had cammo painted by face red & black, worn a t-shirt of a smiley emoticon getting shot through the skull and have a pointed septum piercing in. Safe to say I was by far the strangest looking person there and by the end there were maybe 20 people there. The Australian guy was awesome though, he set up another table for 4 of us and we played a board game called Munchkin.  It was really quite fun. We ordered in pizza too and once that was eaten, it was movie time.

Now for Halloween I would have preferred something a bit scarier but it was Shaun of the Dead, however in true me style I managed to cut the comedy out from my mind and focus on the situations emotional impacts. In fact I almost teared up when his mum died and he had to shoot her. It was a nice big room and we have leather sofas to sit on, so it was a comfortable experience. Was a bit weird watching a film with a load of strangers, but I’m not one to feel awkward that often. After it was finished I helped move everything back to how it should be and then kinda waited a round to see if we would do anything else as it was only 21:30. While waiting I just observed all the other group members. Now I got this advice from a website:

“To truly enjoy being alone, learn to look at ordinary situations in new and unfamiliar ways. Go to the park and watch people play with their children or their dogs. Go to the grocery store and watch how people shop for their groceries.Everywhere you go, make an effort to understand the other people around you. Learning how people operate when they think no one is watching will make you feel more connected to them.” Watching people play with their children could be seen as rather dodgy in these times, but apart from that I thought I would give it a go. Just a tip for you, if you happen to be a 6 foot + skin head, with his face painted in a room full of people you have never met before, it might not be the best idea just to watch them, I think maybe I made some people nervous. After a few minutes I abandoned the plan and decided to chat to the Australian guy again, there was a point in the conversation where he asked what I like to do outside of work. Damn son, I don’t know why but I had not considered this. I really had no idea what to say without just putting myself out there as a freak. He asked if I played video games, which I answered occasionally and then said that I mainly just work. I don’t know why I didn’t just talk about all the random stuff I do, it was as if I thought he was asking me what I’m passionate about. The answer of justice would have just turned the situation into an avenue I knew wasn’t the way I should be directing it towards. Most people had left by now anyway, so I decided too as well and the guy asked if I would come again, so I could take that as he didn’t mind me or maybe he was hoping that I wouldn’t. I’m not sure, but I think I will go again, I mean if the people there are bothered by me they could always message me before hand and ask me not to come. On the journey back the familiar veil of sadness began to fall, all the people there seemed to know each other, there were even some couples there and while I was not made to feel like an outsider I could already tell there was no one of my own species in attendance that night. On the plus side I made it home in time to watch AJ vs Takam. I felt Takam gave a great account of himself and it was pretty unfair of the referee to stop it on the ground that he did. If it had been due to the cuts or something, then fair enough, but Takam was definitely still in the fight when he was deemed “ko’ed”

[emotear]

27th October 2017

I went to a pub in Romford. There were 6 others there, by the time I got there, all male. Three of whom I know well. One of whom once dated some one I cannot stand, plus he is rather “male”, so we don’t get on too well, but we were civil enough, in fact he made an effort. The fifth, I don’t know, but really do not like by reputation and the odd things I have heard him say, he is a DJ at one of the clubs in Romford. Some people I’m homicidal with a god complex, but this guy really is a narcissist. Rude, brutish degenerate. The last guy I have never met before.

It was ok, the pub was annoyingly loud, so we had to shout to talk, but it was interesting to learn about AR and what he had been up to. Unfortunately Garden had to leave early, so I didn’t get to speak to him much, which is unfortunate as I probably feel like I can relate to him the most. However it is his Birthday soon, so hopefully I can go out with him then.

When the conservation wasn’t exclusively with AR, the level of intelligence involved dropped by about 50% and I was the only sober person there, so it wasn’t due to alcohol alone. I left at maybe 11 and gave AR a lift home. It was an OK night, but the venue and company wasn’t ideal and didn’t leave me with any sense of fulfilment afterwards.

[emotear]

First Post

So I have created this just to remind me of the things I try. This is all basically so I feel vindicated when I complain about having no friends and the fact that I dislike everyone. Hmmm, I have just decided that perhaps a post per event would work best.