And there we go, Persian is in a relationship.

I've felt worse. Other rejections, from boys who've shown less interest, have hurt more. Perhaps because this time was so gradual. Perhaps because the actual rejection hasn't come yet.

I don't intend to contact him now. There isn't much point. I have a fair idea now where i stand. Perhaps if he never gets in touch to call it off i'll ask why, but that sounds like it may lead to the depressing realisation that he'd never actually known my intentions.

Assuming that isn't the case, i'll actually be pretty annoyed if i don't get some explanation from him. Not that i begrudge him all this, (Well, obviously i do really, but i'm trying not to.) but he must have realised i'd see everything he put up on his facebook, so to parade all this under the nose of someone he knows is interesting, and knows believes he is too, seems a little cruel. Not that i'm vain enough to think it's actually malicious, but it's still a little thoughtless.

I think i may have a goth day tomorrow. This is possible now i finally have black nail varnish.

Sorry these posts are a little disjointed, but so am i.

"Mesopotanian is delerious from lack of sleep and overwhelmed by the sexy guy sitting in his room."

That's fairly unambiguous.

I want so badly to find out where i stand, but i have no idea how to without coming across as an utter freak and ruining any chance that some small part of me is clinging onto still. But his doesn't seem any longer like something i can just wait out. By this morning i'd already nearly convinced myself that it was all still going to be fine, we'd go out when i came back and then who knows? Now that looks less likely than ever.

And for another thing, even if we were still on, if he perhaps planned to wait and make some comparison between the two of us, how am i ever going to compete with 'overwhelmingly sexy'?

I really don't know how to handle this. I imagine i'll do my usual thing of bottling until i get roaring drunk, then absolutely put my foot in things and make a fool of myself.

I did have more worries to list about the date with Egyptian, but it's starting to look less like i'll have to. Not for remotely good reasons.

I'm teetering on the verge of one of my sloughs of despond. I'm really not terribly happy today. And i can't even really talk to anyone about it. Partly because i feel a bit silly, and i'm fairly certain this reaction isn't entirely justified, but mainly because i'm just not very good at talking about my feelings, and particularly bad at bringing up the whole subject in the first place. So my usual technique is to mope as visibly as i can, and try make sure everyone sees how down i am. The problem with that, though, is that i'm not very good at keeping in a bad mood. I think, much as i like to whine, i'm essentially a fairly cheery person. Once i'm around my friends it's a challenge to keep up a scowl for more than ten minutes, so i give up and just go for punctuating my grins with dramatic sighs. (Except not too loud, because for fear of not being taken seriously.)

So today i had a day of wandering round in town. I found another nice place to sit and be quiet and alone. I always feel so pleased to find these places. Actually, it reminds me quite a bit of my nook back in school, except less suitable for cold and wet weather. It seemed quite a good secret place, since the wall's at least waist high all the way round, and the way in doesn't look like it goes anywhere much. The graffitti proclaims that 'punx not dead'. I found somewhere to sit where there seemed to be less fresh spit. It seemed quite a good place to have a bit of a party, really, epecially in the summer, although that clearly won't actually happen outide my head. If i were a more inspirational person, or if this were a town where people were more inclined to actually have fun, perhaps, but neither of these is the case. It would have made a good place for that fantasy i talked about once on here. That fantasy that i was beginning to wonder if i might have found the other person in.

Except now i'm thinking (Not that i was ever hugely confident) that this may be less and less likely. A few days i read on facebook that Egyptian had a date with some guy in Sheffield. Not happy news. Since then my stalking has produced no word of whether or not this went well, but what he is looking for on facebook has changed from dating and relationships to just friendship. This, then, is the reason for my feelings of general shitness.

Of course, it is slightly possible that this means nothing at all, or that i still have at least some chance. He hasn't yet called off our date. For the moment, to save torturing myself, i'm going to assume that eventually he will. But if, by the time i go back home, i still haven't heard anything, i may let myself hope again.

Because why wouldn't he get bored, waiting for me. Six weeks, i'm asking him to wait for me to come back. On the promise of very little. I wouldn't wait around six weeks for me. Well i would, but only because i wouldn't be getting any better offers.

He said he wouldn't be changing his mind. I hope not. I think i do like him. I like nice, and he seems it, without the criticism so often applied to it, dull. But right now i'm not doing anything to keep his attention. He'll get bored of waiting! But i don't know what to do. I think i may be able to text from France, but neurosis gets in the way the way of that. For one thing it'd mean explaining that when i'd said i couldn't, i actually could, but chose not to because of it's being far too costly, which is now apparently not the case. For another it'd mean explain the whole thing where i have to text from my French phone, but replies should come to my English one (At the same price they'd be playing if i were still in England), which people don't seem entirely to find easy to understand.

There is also facebook, of course, but i'm really not sure of the etiquette involved. I mean, presumably you're allowed to post on the wall (facebook likes to make up silly names to make it seem not exactly the same as all the equivalent sites) of the boy you're hoping to go out wiwth in a few weeks time, but what sort of thing to post? Should i be carefully avoiding mentioning plans for a few weeks time? What if he wants to keep it all a bit secret? A date with me isn't exactly something to proudly screaming from his window. (Not that i think it's desperately humiliating either) But then, what if, in not mentioning it, it makes him suspicious. What if he thought i was embarassed? (I'm not - i blurted it out to everyone. Would have put in big letters all over the internet too, if it weren't so easy for him to find what i've written. I don't know for certain that excitement over it all would scare him off, but it seems a fair precaution to take.)

What if, worst of all, however i do (If i do - although obviously at some point i'm going to have to) contact him, he somehow reads through it all and realises quite how neurotic and worrisome i can be. That, i imagine, must be enough to scare him off.

But what if he gets bored? What if, by the time i'm back, he only goes out with me because he'd agreed to six weeks before. This would hardly be good. He could end up resenting me even more.

I want him to like me! I really do. This is the closest i've ever come, and i'm so afraid of it just petering out now. It's the closest, but i want to get closer, closer to finding an actual something, a somebody, a him.

One of the somethings i have wondered abut myself is the fact that i seem to find people being attracted to me so damn repulsive. Let's face it, in the past, i've only ever really liked people who don't like me back. And i've never been anywhere near certain that this a coincidence. And there have been people who have liked me, much as i like to tell myself otehrwise. And i've never really liked any of, despite there not being anything wrong. The most recent example would be Jeremy who Leanna was desparate for me to go out with. He was so obvious in his attraction that even i could spot it. He gave me his number. It's still there, unused.

People who do like me quite clearly have something wrong with them. Not all of me actually believes this, but i'm pretty sure some of me does.

So it's quite rare, then, that i should like someone and they should like me back, as seems to be the case with Sumerian. One of my worries is that, while right now i'm very excited about what's to come, it won't last, that i will soon come to realise how crazy this boy is for showing any interest in me. This is a large downside to asking someone out six weeks before you'll actually be able to follow through with it.

For the moment i'm hanging on, but only through a strategy i don't really think much of at all. I've been getting jealous. (I really can't claim this is entirely deliberate) Facebook is how we do all our stalking nowadays, and it makes it an awful lot easier to not be caught. And, browsing round Sumerian's facebook profile, i find someone who seems particularly to have interested him.

I, of course, have no claim over him. It is completely ridiculous getting jealous over someone who has simply agreed to go out with me. Especially since, should anything happen, i'll be, zip! right back out of the country again for another month or two. It'll be May before i could even ask him to commit anything. But still i get jealous. Not, i think, unfoundedly. If it were just me deluding myself, tricking myself out of losing interest, i'd mind less, ut i think there's actually something to be jealous of here, if i had the right to. But then, maybe that's me deluding myself still further.

So this is a fear - tricking myself, before we go out, of actually wanting to.

Right, so Babylonian and i are on for some time in my February holiday, and it is up to me to plan what we do. The only hitch is that i have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA. I know it's a long time off, still over a month, but i'm rather scared. I've never taken anyone out. I've never even been taken out. (I feel, though, that i'd be a little better at that; having to be so active in this pursuit is very unnerving for me.) I really haven't the faintest idea how these things are supposed to work. Am i supposed to take him somewhere to eat? I really wouldn't be much good at that, i don't really care about food; i have trouble seeing most of it as anything except sustenance, so how would i know where to go, and what to go when we got there. People go to the cinema. It was suggested to me once, when someone did ask me out. But then it was suggested as somewhere i could take this person i wasn't particularly interested in (Though i was having trouble being entirely certain of that. (Actually, i was pretty sure, i just didn't like the idea of throwing a chance like this away so readily.)) to give me a couple of hours of silence to work tjings out. In this case i'm pretty certain i do like him, and i'd rather like to talk to him, or at least try to.

I'm sure there are all sorts of other options i have, but so far this is all i've managed to come up with. Things are in a bad way.

So, an awful lot has happened since i last posted to this. Well, an awful long time has passed, so hopefully some things have happened. I'm in France now, on my year abroad. It's odd. I've been making trips back though. Last time i was back in Sheffield, i got the number of a boy. I got it for entirely innocent reasons. (I assume. I don't actually remember it happening. I was perfectly sober at whatever time it must have happened though.) About a week later i decided, under the pretext of finding out why i actually had the number, to text this boy. (Let's just say he takes his name from an ancient empire. We'll call him Abyssinian for now.) I'd decided i liked him, and i was enjoying the confidence that being resident in another country to the objects of one's desire can bring. If i made a fool of myself at any point i would have quite some time to recover before seeing anyone who even knew about any of it.

I texted him, and he texted back. This pattern continued, until the Pipettes came on and i was rendered hors de contact. It picked up again a few days later, and again after that. We texted each other on New Year's Eve, and i was beginning to wonder if for once i wasn't deluding myself entirely. I mentioned him to my old school friends, who i pretty much only see at New Year's Eve parties nowadays. There were questions being asked of all us present, and my answer to whether there was a someone was a resounding "Maybe".

I had, in this time, been gathering advice from a couple of trusted friends. Not only trusted, but completely unconnected to Abyssinian. They, on the basis of the texts they were shown, (Via internet, of course. I don't see many real life people any more.) faithfully transcribed, (Except for the New Year's Eve, from which only Abyssinian's texts remained.) were asked to diagnose whether this might become an anything. Their replies were hopeful.

I would be leaving again soon, for France. I had been intending, on my return, to send Abyssinian a text asking him out. (I may be safe and abroad, but i'm still a bit of a coward. Plus, face to face completely destroys the safety net for if it all goes wrong.) However, i'd begun to reformulate this plan. I wanted resolution before i left. I didn't want gto be left wondering for six weeks if anything might happen. So, with Fiona's endorsement, (She, by this point, very hopeful) i texted asking if he would "like, maybe, to do something. Um, with me". After a brief thirty minutes of torment he texted back. He'd like that. (Not sounding as eager as i'd hoped. But not exactly reluctant, either.) I attempted to convey my surprise in the next text, without entirely doing the whole "Pity meeee!!!!" thing. He called it a date.

Yesterday, i got on a plane to France. A little while before i did, i sent one last text, saying i'd see him in a few weeks, if he didn't change his mind and i didn't chicken out. He said there was no mind-changing going on his end.

And that is the thing from which most of my current concerns spin off. Now that's down, hopefully i'll get round to writing down my actual worries. Not right now, though. I am tired.

Gather all the hair possible in the left hand. Tease out a couple of wisps on either side so as not to leave the fringe completely stranded. Are we symettrical? Good. Bobble in the right, careful to lose as little of the bunch as possible in the changeover. Pull it tight and twist, tight and twist again. Once more? And let go. Gently patting the back of the head, are we central? A good height? The ribbon, then. Purple and thick and long - two metres long. Start underneath the bunch, bring both sides round to the top and tie. Two equal lengths? If not, try again. Make a loop in the left hand - remember how to tie a lace? A loop in the left hand, bring the other hand round with the rigt and pass it through the space this has just made, making a second loop. Take one in each hand and tease them out till they're equal, but not too far. The bow to come down to the top of the neck, the ribbon ends down to the shoulderblades. Roughly. Make sure it's all sitting right, there aren't two loops of the bow on the same side. Are we perfect? Then i'm me.