08.11.98 - Selfishness is a fragile framework

I am so naïve sometimes. Usually this fact surfaces when I am faced with awkward social situations and just lately there seems to be a lot of them. It makes me wonder whether I need to toughen up, change or just accept it and carry on as I always do. I can be talking to someone and suddenly I realise that my conversational abilities when I am sober are dreadful. I never know what questions to ask, I never know how to keep the conversation going without horrible long periods of uncomfortable silence and I invariably end up saying something really dumb and regretting it afterwards or not saying what I really mean to or want to. If people could look into my head they would see that I am not really the idiot I appear to be sometimes. I hate the idea that a simple meeting with someone always has to be a major challenge but with me it seems to be. I hope that isn't the case on my holiday! I'm sure it won't be after an hour or two though. I'm pretty confident that I will loosen up.

Relationships are really confusing me and getting me down lately too. I can't get a grasp on those at all and indeed I don't help myself really by sleeping with almost every new person I meet! Oh dear that sounds really sleazy and I wonder whether I shouldn't put that in my journal but what the hell! The problem is that you can't keep a friendship going very well once that sort of thing has happened and what I need most at the moment are friends. I can't go through life relying on one friend to stop me from slipping into solitary insanity. It makes me realise just how fragile the framework is that I am building for myself for when I leave home and set up in my own place (probably in London) sometime soon.

Going back to the time Pauline summed up my personality and told me that I had a propensity to be selfish. She was certainly right and indeed I have been very selfish over a few things in the last month or two. As a result I have messed some things up for myself and possibly lost a good friend in the process (although hopefully I can salvage that situation). I never used to have a selfish bone in my body (although modesty has always been lacking as you can tell) and I don't know how or why I am becoming this person. I keep telling myself that it must be the "real me" because I am finally growing up in a situation or situations away from my home environment at last. While I am sitting here thinking about this I realise that in a journal entry many weeks ago I made the comment that you have to be a bit selfish to get anywhere in life. I am certainly getting somewhere now by living my life more how I want to, doing things I want to do and making steps toward reaching some of my goals. I guess I never really wanted to believe that comment I made but here I am proving the point!

One of my goals that I haven't really had to be selfish about to reach is my trip to the US next Monday. I wish I had spent more time on the preparation and planning for this holiday because (a) I am rushing around at the last minute now trying to get things sorted and (b) I think I've lost out on some of the excitement and build up you get with a holiday. Still, regardless of all this I am going next Monday and yes, I am looking forward to it. Of course I am a little anxious about how I will fare abroad on my own for the first time but with good people there helping me and being my guide I'm sure it will be fine. This week will feel like a "dead" week to me. I won't want to do any work because I have already made up my mind to resign as soon as I can when I come back from my holiday and my whole mindset will be focused on the holiday, going out with a friend to the cinema in the week and possibly meeting up with someone at the weekend. Work is just a necessary sideline to enable me to get paid and do these things, damn annoying though it is. I really have to get another job when I come back. I am sick of their shit and I want to tell them that when I get back. The holiday is the start of something new for me. A new start which I intend to carry on through when I get back.

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