Return to Strumpetville

I’m back gentle reader, from my holiday to sunny Herefordshire. Managed to drive all the way there and all the way back without major incident – a definite plus.

The cottage we stayed in was lovely, and the weather we had was glorious. How towny we all are is shown by the fact we decided to walk to the nearest pub one night – and that walk took three hours. Indeed, a local farmer took pity on us and gave us a lift in the end.

There were seven of us in total, including me and Fella. Four straight women and three gay men. A combination that can have a great deal of fun, and perhaps inevitably watch a fair amount of gay porn.

Alongside the smut there were walks, canoeing, visits to picturesque towns, dinners out, nights in in-front of the fire, being chased out of fields by bulls... and just general relaxation.

Six of the seven of us are long-standing friends and we certainly were on top form – perhaps behaving a tad too disgracefully for the more refined and conservative tastes of the Welsh marches but I think a great time was had by all.

Now we’re back, and for me it is straight into exam season – my first is next Thursday. I was surprisingly good and did some studying each day on holiday but of course I feel as time draws on that I haven’t done enough. Fella will be a research degree widow for a wee while I fear.

What surprised me most was the gay porn thing. I never anticipated that would be a thing to bond over with the straight female ladies of the opposite gender. Certainly they were quite curious and the third gay man in the group – a housemate of one of the ladies, who in turn is a colleague of Fella – was happy to oblige (Fella didn’t really approve bless ‘im). I’m not sure they were prepared for the breadth of material on offer...

All in all, a group of friends disappearing off the grid for a week away together in a remote cottage has the makings of a decent horror film about it, but instead we had riotously good fun and I haven’t laughed like that for ages. I certainly don’t want to go back to work the week after next, and will certainly be thinking about my career options going forward.

Well, back to studying, back to my diet, back to work... back to reality. I am a little sorry for it, though the holiday was about the right length I think. Certainly I am looking forward to my next adventure, and soon!

Holiday!

One down and one to go...


Last weekend Fella and I returned to sunny Cardiff, this time with good friends to visit friend ‘A’ and her fella for a weekend. It was tremendous fun, but my God I am getting a bit old for this kind of thing – we returned absolutely shattered. An excellent time was had by all, and ‘A’ and her man made a huge effort to make us welcome.

Next weekend we are getting into our blue car and driving with some friends back to Wales for a few days of more ethanol fuelled R&R – this time in the countryside where we can enjoy being away from it all and generally forget about the world.

I really need it too. I feel so much that I need a break from my life at the moment. This is just what the doctor ordered... a couple of weeks off work, get my exams out of the way; something like a new start.

Overall I think right now I am truly vile company at the moment. Stress, mainly by the sheer volume of work I have at the moment, but also things that have happened at work, has been overwhelming. In a Protestant-work-ethic/stiff upper lip sort of way I try to keep my head down and do a good job without complaining. I suspect my stress has manifested itself in many ways; and certainly today my boss made me aware of what may be a significant error on my part – a disordered agenda; disordered meeting papers. Drama.

Why do I know I need a holiday? I have made an error and by and large I don’t care. Oh my!

A holiday; a chance to relax; build up my strength for what comes next. A change is as good as a rest, they say – it really is time to get another job.

The friends we are going with are an eclectic bunch, but mostly people I have met through Fella. In Cardiff it was friends he met through me. The seven of us will drive in two cars out from London onto the motorway, then onto the A road, the B road and out to our cottage in the Welsh... Wales (I have no idea what the countryside is like around there – we could be walking into a horror film).

I have high hopes – to be candid, gentle reader, I’m pinning in no small part my (short term) future happiness on having a good time in Welsh Wales. Kayaking! Pub lunches! Badger stamping! All I really want to do is get away.

I really want to get away.

Three days to go...

I Want

I’ve been writing this blog for three years now (can you believe it?!). In all that time I’ve focussed on meeting guy, looking for that significant other and having my fun along the way.


Actually getting that long term relationship has in many ways presented a more difficult transition than coming out. It means reconciling all the things I was doing with my life before I came out with my well established sexuality, and concentrating on life goals again wider than catching up with who I am.

It is actually a little surprising, in a nice way, that the end result of a fair amount of work, regret, trial and error is a perfectly ordinary life. I’m engaged. I have a car; a goldfish; an office based job.

But... ah yes there it is Gentle Reader, the but that prevents the Cheerful Fairy being truly cheerful.

I have had some real challenges in other areas of my life recently, primarily with work. At the end of March next year the organisation I work for will cease to exist, and as matters stand I will be made redundant. The job is really very challenging; running an office of about 30 people, many of whom are very senior, and supervising directly a significant proportion of the rest. Now, the organisation I work for has moved me from role to role when difficult projects needed someone with my dubious talent. My current role is, though, the first in a long time of business-as-usual. There’s a huge amount of work and I’ve needed to develop skills in a host of new areas... and to cut a long story short it is often unpleasant and difficult, requiring long hours working evenings and weekends just to keep up.

On the positive side I was promoted into the role based on my achievements elsewhere and I have achieved some significant successes, so it’s not all doom-and-gloom. And it has opened up a whole new career avenue, which is invaluable.

The key I think going forward, is to couch things in terms of what I want

Even writing it I hesitate, not wanting to come across as selfish – I have normally defined my career successes in terms of how well I have helped others. But there we are; it’s time to think about what I want.

So what do I want? Well, my inner project manager fairy recognises that have a defined job to do in a defined period with a defined resource is actually a fairly luxurious position to be in. I want, at the end of this financial year, to have achieved a very real cultural change where I work, including much more sophisticated programme management systems. I want to have undertaken range of training and development that positions me very well for future employment, and ideally promotion with it. And I want to have achieved a balance between my work and the other aspects of my life that will allow me to explore non-work related interests supporting my ambitions

Now, I’ve never had a long term relationship before but I know this is a normal juggling act; work and home. Between the demanding job, the studying, our social lives and last but not least supporting Fella’s own career development, there is little Us time. It would be nice to have the time to go on a date too once in a while 

Oh... and I’d like to win the lottery!

I’ve never been the kind of person to have a five year plan but I have tried to keep positive and see opportunities, so having a one-year plan is refreshing and will help me avoid getting bogged down in every-day troubles. And that really is what I want.

Spring

Well, spring has sprung gentle reader. The days are getting longer, the flowers are blooming... all is well.


Yes, all is well. Fella and I have gone some good way to patching things up. For quite a while there I was ambivalent at best about our relationship but right now things are looking much more positive. To help cement this renaissance we did something we’d danced around for some time... we bought a car.

A blue Volkswagen golf, christened Morag, and proudly ensconced in our garage as a symbol of putting the past behind us.

The car will make it a lot easier for us; I have already planned the road-trip to visit my mother in Germany – no more silly baggage restrictions meaning we can’t take home some nice German wines, bring gifts etc. And we can make it scenic and touristy on the way. It also means I can go to the garden centre and get some proper, plants and soil for our large balcony, which will give me a chance to indulge my green fingers.

Plus, we are soon to go on holiday to a cottage in Wales with some friends, and the car will be invaluable for that too.

Yes, having a car is good.

Having a fiancé? Well, that’s OK too!

And spring is in the air...

Actually what I need to do is make some big changes. I think recent events are the culmination of a long slow build up of pressures in a variety of areas, and it’s time for me to address the fact that in some areas I am truly unhappy. Obviously when someone is unhappy in one area then it can impact on other areas of their life.

The two main areas are my work and my health; or more accurately my level of fitness. But the headline has to be Getting What I Want.

Focussing on that will mean less leaning on my relationship for support, or using the fact that I am trying to make a relationship work as an excuse to accept a whole load of crap. Our relationship will always require effort and work, naturally; but it doesn’t mean I should let the other areas slip – or do things by myself.

I’ll bog more over the next few posts about exactly that the problems are and how I want to tackle them. But on the positive side Fella and I continue well enough and that’s a good foundation to tackle the other things.

Speed Bumps

Being relatively inexperienced at relationships, compared to people who are older or who came out sooner, it’s difficult to assess bumps in the road.


Nevertheless, I think on any criterion you might care to name, my relationship with Fella took a hell of a knock last week.

On Wednesday Fella went out with his work colleagues and had a few drinks. I myself had a hell of a trying day at work, and when work is trying it really gets to me.

I think, gentle reader, that set the scene pretty well?

Anyway, we ended up having a massive row. He had got it into his head that I found him boring, and the things we liked to do or talk about uninteresting. I made repeated attempts to reassure him but to no avail. I think this was the booze talking... be became increasingly belligerent and unwilling to accept my reassurances escalating his comments to a point where I felt the best thing to do was to leave him alone for a little while.

I went out. I came back. By the time I did, he’d packed his bags.

I’m not really the kind of person one should bluff with, it seems. You pack your bags, I’ll call you a taxi. Engagement ring returned, facebook status updated, the end. It’s over.

I then proceeded to get very drunk.

Then... the morning after the night before.

Fella was apologetic... he sent me messages telling me how much he loved me, but I wasn’t really in the mood to hear it. I wanted to know why he had behaved in the way he did; why he had to push it and push it. We talked; it broke the ice, but I remained sceptical.

The thing that won me over was when Fella told me the story of how he fell in love with me. I had always been... suspicious, in a way, of why Fella wanted to be with me. I don’t perceive in myself any qualities that would make me husband material. No-one else ever has either!

But there he was, telling me how he just wanted to date for a while but slowly and surely I won his heart and he decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life at my side. That was a much more attractive scenario than being a boyfriend-shaped peg in a boyfriend-shaped hole.

We agreed to give it a go.

Since then – since then I have been somewhat depressed. I’m not going to pretend that this hasn’t changed our relationship, but it’s difficult to see how it can be the way it was. I can’t escape the feeling its a wounded animal, or damaged goods. Part of that is a reflection of the unattainably high standards I set for myself. I want my love to be perfect-and-forever love. Now it is publicly and embarrassingly human. What a let down.

When with others rows and upsets were par for the course; part of the rich tapestry of all my boyfriendettes. But with Fella it is different. I loath rowing with him, and always promise myself that it won’t happen again. I’m not that easy to get on with, it seems.

Yet somehow I can’t let it be.

So here we are. Time will tell what happens next. I don’t really know. Perhaps next time I blog I’ll be in a more positive mood. We shall see.

Census

Being an introverted and nerdy Fairy I took great delight in completing our census forms.


This is the second time I have completed the forms, and when I was posting the paperwork back I began to ponder the last ten years and how things have changed.

Where was I ten years ago?

I was in the middle of totally loving my first job since graduating. It paid next to nothing and I shortly after left because there was nowhere for me to go... but it was great. In those days I smoked and back then you could still – just – smoke in the office.

The office also had its own rather extensive wine cellar – it was, and is, a regulatory body traditionally headed by a member of the House of Lords – so many is a time we wiled away the night in the boardroom making a dent in some worthy plonk.

There were a number of out gay men in the office, which never phased me at all. Thinking about it back then it must have been quite a bit more difficult to be an out gay man in the workplace. No legislation protecting you. Less widespread internet. Less able to be open about any relationship...

I didn’t dare go there, not much anyway; though there was at least one guy was interested. One of those boozy nights we did get down to our underwear... I remember around that time we went out for dinner too. But that was that. Silly me. Instead I embarked on an affair with a female colleague that was short-lived too. Obviously my heart wasn’t in it.

My home was a small one bedroom flat in east London, cheap as chips, and shared with mice and the occasional cockroach. I’d moved there after graduating – and in fact would continue to live alone until the week after I met Fella.

I had my internet connection, and boy was it an eye-opener. I was more nerdy then than I am now, so it was the perfect way to start to learn about who and what I am. I suppose that road if uninterrupted would have led to me coming to terms with my sexuality a bit sooner than I did. Sadly, partly – majorly – because of my neighbour in the flat below mine the process was interrupted. I do believe coming out is a process, rather than a big bang event. And it doesn’t always happen smoothly; or the same for everyone.

Truisms aside it was an interesting time to be alive and by and large I remember the time with great fondness. Who isn’t fond of being young? It certainly helped make me who I am today. Who knows, gentle reader, where I will be in 10 years’ time. And what I will be looking back on.

Up, up and away

The up side to being in a relationship are fairly obvious. At its core there is the sharing. Chores, finances, bodies, fears... it helps get through the trials of life. I have great friends whom I adore and really don’t deserve; but when in a decent, loving relationship there is someone to talk to 24 hours a day, whether it be the most inane pet hates or ranting about a difficult day at work or... the most private and difficult thing.

If I didn’t have someone to come home to I think my life would be a lot worse. For an introverted science-type who lived alone since graduation that’s a hell of a thing. Good old Rule 14 is there for a reason – meeting guys, exploring my sexuality, especially the sexual side, was a lot of fun but sooner or later having no-one really there was... aging. Body and soul. And heart.

The downsides don’t really compare of course; I mean the only real downside to being in a relationship with the Cheerful Fairy is that Frumpella comes along for the ride!

I think it is important to consider the downsides all the same; otherwise I worry they assume in importance they don’t deserve and begin to take over my day to day feelings.

So what is there?

We have to guard against dullness, slipping into a rut/routine. It’s not really a downside that it takes effort to make it work; if it were, then we’d really be in trouble. But we need to also make the effort to be outward facing, keep up with our friends.

One potential downside is that we don’t have the freedom to socialise as if we were single; everything is in consultation. Can’t just stay out all night any more!

Another, though I’m not sure it’s really a downside, is the need to take the other half into account when planning for life in the round. Before Fella and I got together I could indulge in retail therapy to my heart’s content. Now, well it’s the wedding saving, being careful with money. Being sensible. I’ve worked for four organisations since I graduated; and only with my current role have I moved from one job with another to go to. Can’t afford that kind of whimsy in Strumpetville these days.

It’s difficult to find specific and terrible downsides to being with someone. The real issue is the need to be a bit more sensible and grown up [shudder]. Cardigans, wills and pensions, oh my. I’ve never really convinced myself that I’m much over 18; though I dimly realise I can’t really continue to act like I am half my age...

Yes, it is time to settle down. I suppose I started this blog precisely because that was the path I had set for myself. Being in a relationship is a tremendous up (when it’s the right one), and if there are a lot of downsides, then... well, gentle reader, it’s not the right relationship, or the right time to be in one.