So then. UL knows. I don't seem to mind all that much. Really, my largest concern at the moment is that i worry he's known quite some time. Which surely means that all my behaviour towards him in that time has been completely transparent. And raises severe doubts in my mind as to the significance of an event i'd spent quite a while in a previous (scrapped) post rejoicing. UL had danced with me one night. It was after the LGB meeting, on a Tuesday. We went on to the pub first, as always, and i spent a while there acting up at the pool table, bringing much amusement and jollity to the onlookers, particularly including UL, who from time to time offered 'encouraging' comments. I enjoyed the attention. Later, we went on to our usual place and eventually there came a point at which UL and i were dancing in the same group. He smiled at me and, with a gait i persistently think of as a sashay, even though i'm not sure it's actually possible to sashay two steps over that short a distance. He took a stance behind me and to my right and really i don't remember much past that, except that i had a vague idea how one is meant to react in such a situation and that i didn't manage this at all. I was probably just too delirious with happiness actually o pay much attention. By which i am not implying (I've just realised a possible way of realising those last few lines.) that anything, anything, of that sort happened, of course.

And all this, this obsessing and fantasising over this and similar incidents, is ended now. It was UD that told him, although he doesn't actually remember it. This isn't the first time i've regretted him knowing the address of my blog. I always intended to be completely honest in here, and a couple of times i found myself modifying the truth slightly to protect his feelings. I still ended up sounding utterly tactless, i suppose, but the point is that i compromised my honesty. (Could i sound much more pretentious?) So he has been following the course of my obsession, and finally saw fit to tell UL about it. I don't really know how much he told him, but i'm guessing (hoping) that if it was so easily forgotten, it can't have had all too much detail. UL then spoke with P about this on Tuesday night. (Had i mentioned they were neighbours? Apparently they will also be living together next year. It worries me so much that everybody else seems already to have decided who they are going to be living with. There are one or two people i would have liked to ask, but i'm too afraid of being rejected. I had really hoped maybe that i might get to move in with UA and UB, (Yet to be revealed in her complete glory on the blog.) but the one time housing came up in a conversation between me and UA she announced that she was definitely going to be living with a girl from her corridor who she really likes. I do think she's very nice, but i hardly know her. And since then she's decided she's to be moving in with mostly people from her corridor. Which seems to be what everyone one is doing. The people in the rest of my flats seem to be doing this, and i've already mentioned UL and P, who are moving with a lot of their corridor. At the moment i'm really afraid of being left behind, homeless and alone. One girl, who i know from my French classes and do indeed like very much, sent me a text message once asking if i'd like to move in with her. I didn't know her all that well at the time, and gave an answer saying that it seemed too early to decide, but apparently it isn't, so since then she's probably filled up a house. But i've realised as i write this how unlikely it is that UB will be moving in with the people from her corridor, as it sounds like she talks with them even less than i do with mine. But she's probably got all this arranged too.) He told him (And i'm not sure of details. I would desperately love to pester P for them, but i think perhaps i shouldn't.) that i was a "very pleasant person". (To quote P) In fact, i've just this second had P tell me UL's exact words. "I feel guilty about not liking him, especially because he's such a lovely person." Now i, as the doyen of guilt, feel guilt in turn for this, for making him feel guilty, as i'm so not worth it. My life turns on huge spindles of guilt, (Ridiculously over the top metaphor on its way) spinning away, weaving together my insecurities into this tapestry (Oh Lord! I can't stop myself! I'm so sorry!) of failure. He really shouldn't feel guilty. None of it's his fault. He can hardly be blamed for my obsessive tendencies, for my utter unloveableness (Ok, not true, i know. I just tend not to be liked in that way, just as a friend. Not that i mind that. I do love it when people like me. I really, really do adore to be thought of as cute, or sweet. I was cute last night, apparently, at the alternative music night run by the LGB committee. It was on the way back from that that i found out the big news last night. I generally walk back with P and UL and the two girls that generally come out to the LGB events for a couple of reasons. One is because i live very close to the giant monolith which passes for student accommodation here and which i inhabit, and the other is that i do like them. Particularly, as we know, one of their number. The others were eating pizza in one of the many takeaways on the way home, and P and i were outside, as we had food bought from another of the takeaways, and weren't sure that the owners would want us in there, taking up their space. (I'm sure they wouldn't really have minded, but it made sense to a drunk person, and i realise now that P may have done it expressly to talk to me.) He began by telling me he had something to tell me, which would upset. He carried on in this melodramatic vein for about ten minutes, using the phrase "break your heart" at least twice, until i finally shut him up and had him tell me, as i'd pretty much worked out by now what he was talking about and was getting impatient to have it confirmed. Fortunately, as we know, it didn't break my heart, and i was later able to explain to him that it was, in a way, comforting. Because, although i obviously liked UL first because i'm shallow and he's pretty, i've also seen that he's really a pretty cool person, and i want him as a friend. And i'm never able to talk to the people i have rushes on, but now all hope of that has been crushed, i may actually be able to talk to him. I did that night, in fact, as we walked the rest of the way home. I was more involved with the conversation than usual, and i might just have spoken directly to him from time to time.) and the fact that i'm just not as attractive. It might be possible to argue that it's entirely his own fault that he's so pretty and that he should have the decency to walk around with his head in a bag or always wearing clown make up or something. But really that's just silly. (Though it does remind me a science fiction short story i once read.) There's nothing for him to feel guilty before. Even though i know i have been in the same situation myself before. Somebody liked me, loved me, he believed, but i unfortunately didn't feel the same. And i still sometimes feel guilty about that. But it's very nice to hear that UL at least thinks i'm lovely.

I was so indiscreet the whole time about my affection for him. He must have been about the only person in the LGB not to know. So i'm almost surprised it took this long. But it was nice telling people, because for some reason a lot of them seemed to want to help me. It would be selfish to assume this is any reflection on me, but we all know i'm damn well going to assume it anyway.

One of the best people was UA. I've long promised this rant on her wonderfulness and here it is, over a month overdue, and probably wildly diminished by time. So, firstly, she is wonderful. She is one of the best people i know here in Sheffield. I love her, i love her utterly. I first met her in the first week, when i went on the LGB bowling trip. Back then i didn't talk much to her, but i saw her a few times in quick succession, and the following Thursday she'd invited a few of us from the singing society back to her flat. Of the four of us there then, i was the only who remains in the society now. Three of us already knew each other from the LGB meetings, but the fourth, a girl, was someone who'd attached herself to me that evening. Later that night, when she hadn't been around, i'd asked the others if they thought she'd realised she'd stumbled across the LGB contingent of Singsoc. Many weeks later, to my surprise, it turned out that she was bisexual too, and fitted in perfectly. Or would have done, if that hadn't been the only time the four of us have ever met together.

I think UA was the second person i told about UL. P was the first, being the oldest friend i have here and my only actual connection with him, but UA was the second. I forget how, where or when i told her, but i remain convinced that i did. This was back in the days when all i actually knew of UL was that he was 'terribly pretty'.

Actually, i don't think that form the point i've reached now i can keep UA and UB separate in here any longer. A month ago, when i first planned this bit of my blog, i knew exactly what i was going to say about them both and that i was going to go through them separately, really just making a glorified list of what i liked about them. But just now i decided that i obviously can't keep them separate, as the space they fill in my head is shared between them, as they become less and less individual people and just this shape of all that is good in my life. Tears are actually pricking my eyes now as i realise how inadequate what i'm saying is to how i feel about these two people. On Tuesday, the three of us were in a corner, (The tears have now left my eyes and are rolling gently down my nose. I'm enjoying this, the first salty trickles to drip down my face in such a long time.) just hugging, and saying to each other "You are the two best people i've met in the whole of Sheffield". Well, mostly. UA has another person, the girl i've already mentioned, but really we can forgive her for that. A week and a half ago we mocked up a marriage ceremony, where UA (Who is ordained in the state of California, apparently.) made us pseudo wife and pseudo husband. We then immediately elected her our mistress.

I've never really had this before. I'm able to be touchy-feely with these two, to attain skinship (Our linguistics teacher loves this word and wants us to popularise it. It actually is an English word sort of, in that all of it come from English, but via Japanese. It means physical intimacy, but in a non-sexual context. I think i rather like it too.) in a way i haven't before. Even J, so frequently flaunted as my best friend (I saw J at the weekend. I went home for speech night, as i'd won the French prize (P was incredibly bitter about that.) and on the Saturday i saw J. Oh, but i should say a brief word about speech night itself. E was there. We remember E? The boy i introduced in my very first entry as the boy i was obsessed with. I've taken you through all my experiences with him, right to the end, with that final e-mail. (Which is lost now. Sort of. The e-mail account i'd used to send him e-mails, and the one he'd replied to, was abandoned a long time ago, accidentally destroying that e-mail in the process. However, in the subsequent days i had shared this e-mail with a couple of people, so i was able to find an intact copy in the e-mail archives of another account. It's now saved somewhere, under the title "E's letter". I don't know why i need to keep it, but i do.) Well, he was there on Friday, collecting a prize for something... i really can't remember what, but it wasn't an academic subject, i think. He is still good-looking, but no longer is he the most beautiful creature ("Creature"? What an abhorrent choice of language there.) ever to enter my world. I had imagined he might be there, and i'd even gone so far as to suggest to myself that i might speak to him, but obviously i didn't. I didn't really even acknowledge him, which was obviously not the best thing to do, but it doesn't matter any more. The point is that i found out that i no longer feel anything at all for him. Perhaps now i can't obsess over UL any more there'll be a brief resurgence in my affection for him, but there probably won't, and even if there is it won't matter all that much. Besides, P says he has a girlfriend now.

Then on Saturday i went into Birmingham to see J. It was so good to see him again, but odd as well. Immediately before i left i told him i was in love with him (again), and by his lack of conclusive response i assumed that he did not feel the same. But this time when i saw him i didn't feel like that at all. He was just my friend. For quite some time we went round doing really very little. I felt camper than i ever had before. I'm not sure why, whether university has actually made me freer with my sexuality, or whether i just perceive that it has. But it was so brilliant to see him again, and now i want to be somewhere where i'm dancing and he's dancing too. It turns out, although i'm terrible at it, i really love to dance. And this must be at least partially responsible for my recent weight loss. Since leaving home i have lost one and a half stone. (I know i should use kilos, but my parents still think in stones and it's confused me.) This is partly through all the dancing, i'm sure. Doubtless, it also owes something to the fact that i walk to the university and back, about twenty minutes each way, six times a week and that my eating habits have become decidedly irregular. (But this is made up for by my frequent binging. Today i bought a huge bag of kettle chips and a bag of fudge on the way home.) I am now no longer considered fat by that BMI graph thingy. I am, finally, reassuringly, normal, although still not quite distributed how i would like.

So i do love to dance, and i prefer it while drunk and with lots of friends dancing with me. Before i left home i danced all on my onw, in my bedroom, but that was it. Now i often dance, sometimes for hours on end (Apart from the occasional moments when i need more alcohol.) and i would dearly love to be able to be dancing with J, and to make him like all my new university friends. (Sometimes i still feel like, even though he's quite a way away now, i need his approval before i can actually be pleased with the way my life's going.) I would utterly love to drag him along to the union's monthly LGB night, but that would be hard, as i suppose these things have the same age restrictions as everywhere else. And if i wait for him to actually be of age, i won't even be in the country.

But i can dance with UA and UB and have wonderful doing it, even if UB does need to be quite drunk in order to feel able to dance. (I'm actually the same, but i get drunk quicker, so it isn't as noticeable.) And i can have skinship with them too. Last Tuesday we were all three standing in the corner, and there was much hugging and stating that "You two are my favourite people in the whole of Sheffield." and assertions of love. Earlier today i went with UA to one of the free lunchtime concerts the music department puts on every week and when she noticed i was getting slightly glum (Because of the new developments with UL. When i'd first heard i was actually quite happy about it, as i decided that this would make it easier to be his friend, but at that time i was drunk and either more capable of rational thought or just numb. Since then i haven't been quite so happy about the whole thing, as i'd still like, just once, to touch him, feel his hair and his skin. But all along all i've ever really wanted is friends. They mean so much more to me. And friendships seem to be less complicated, as there's generally less selfishness involved. (Although that isn't so true of me, when i get possessive of my friends. That's something UA and UB have to look forward to.) And, of course, there's the fact that i'm more in demand as a friend than anything else. I've always been rather asexual. I thought i'd slightly escaped that, particularly by coming out as gay, but really it's true, i am still not entirely suited to that sort of relationship. Which has led to the resurgence of my theory that i only love (And yes, i know the word 'love' here is an exaggeration, but it's better than any other words i have.) people who won't ever love me back, purely for that reason. They will never love me back, and so i'll never have to deal with a relationship. Of course, this is probably nonsense and the problem is that i'm actually just confused about what i deserve. (Oh, and there was that whole thing of E selfishly being straight, which also contributed to his not liking me.)) (This always happens. I start off, bouyant and excited about a new post, and then lose track three thousand words later, mired in a sea of parentheses. It's actually Friday now, but i was working on this till two o'clock last night when it abruptly deleted five hundred words, so i left it to pick up again today.) she put her head on my shoulder. It was lovely. And then the day before we'd been walking round simply for ages, arm in arm. It took her a while to notice that i'd put my arm through hers, making me the lady of the pair, but she didn't mind. And i remember the night UB and i had our pseudo marriage, when UA had invited us back to her flat after the union gay night, seeing UA sitting on her bed with UB between her legs, and they were all cute and huggy. It really does upset me that i can't explain how much these two rock, how much i love them, so i think i'll haveto give up and move on.

UM is pretty exceptional among my new friends, because she's the only one among the people i would consider my good friends who isn't gay. Not that all my new friends are utterly gay, of course. UA is bisexual. For all i know, so might UM be. But my point is that i don't know her from LGB meetings. I have two circles of friends here, really, and she is one of them on her own. I first met her in my French oral classes, which we have in groups of about six people. (We have no oral exams, it just works on the basis of continual assessment through the course.) I was slightly late and had to take the only place left, the one next to her. I was to nervous that day to lift my head to eye level, so i had no idea what she looked like, but i heard her, because she spoke a lot. And, unlike the other talkative person in out group, she has a very good accent. Really, really, very good. So i, sitting between her and the French woman taking the class, was quite nervous. When the class ended and we all stood up to leave, she started talking to me and she had me just as astounded with her English accent as her French. I'm terrible with accents, so i had no idea what hers was, but it was incredibly thick, whatever it was. And when she spoke to me, she was just as talkative as she had been in the lesson. We split up to go down the paternosters (A very special and cool kind of lift.) but then at the bottom i ran after her, as she was the only person who'd spoken to me in a while, and i'd realised that i could actually talk back, to an extent. So i caught up with her and we walked back together. (She lives on the huge area of student accommodation that i'm near to.) She did most of the talking.

Since then i've stuck by her in every French lesson that's possible in, and seen her a couple of other times as well. We both went to the French social, where i clung onto her again, and we both got really rather drunk, enabling me to come out to her. I was desparate to know if she'd realised. (I'm still rather eager that people should be able to tell. I was so happy when one girl from my flats came up to me and said "You're gay, aren't you?") She said she'd thought i was, but hadn't wanted to ask. I had to leave after a while though, as i wanted to go the rest of the LGB meeting, which was on the same night. I managed to meet up with the others at the pub, and had a lot of fun, as i was already very drunk.

I seem particularly inclined to be friends with girls. I was, even all the way back in primary school, until they all decided boys just weren't good enough, and i drifted away from them. (Actually, that's probably not how things happened at all. I really can't remember, it was a long time ago.) Then, of course, i spent seven years at a boys school and had no life outside it, so the only girls i met were the female teachers, although even then i think i did generally get on better with them. I always thought this was just because i'm gay, that the stereotype had to be true in some respects and this was one of them. But apparently i'm exceptional even among fellow homosexuals. I specifically remember a time when a lot of people were sitting around two tables and by very subtle movement, people came to arrange themselves with all the cahps round one table and the ladies round the other. Apart from one fellow, well and truly wedged among the girls. Me. I don't mind, really, not at all. I seem to be more comfortable talking with girls. But i can only see this as highlighting my utter asexuality, that i seem to have so little interest in boys. Because it isn't so much that i'm scared of talking to them, just that i generally seem to feel better talking about things with girls. Even if the girls happen to be generally lesbians, about whom gay men seem so often to be represented as the most prejudiced.

I really don't think i can write anymore. I actually feel close to fainting, and it's only four thousand words. Goodbye.