went to see a movie by myself today.
it's quite a liberating experience, going to the movies by yourself.
it's easier.

especially when you want to see a romcom.
i don't know how old uma thurman is now but boy i would love to look like her after having two kids. so yes, i went and saw prime.

which made me think about relationships. and how sometimes, it's worth holding out for someone whom you have a connection with. it did make me miss having chemistry with someone. just that raw urge to just want to devour someone.

and it made me realise that the one who got away and i really have nothing to say. actually i started thinking about this last week, when a girl we both know mentioned that he'd called her from abroad several times just to chat about this and that. and i got thinking - we don't talk on the phone. our phone calls have always been brisk and businesslike, to arrange some social thing or other with a whole bunch of people. i think a sign of compatability is being able to talk about absolute nonsense with someone, male or female. it's the strength of the friendship - or maybe just a sign of similar minds. i have that with a handful of my friends. people whom you feel completely at ease with. you let your hair down, your guard down, and you are truely relaxed. and i've been friends with the one who got away long enough now to realise this muteness isn't about a mutual nervousness around each other, although i'd like to think that. it's just we have nothing to say to each other.

it's closure of another sort, but strangely unsatisfying.

i've been feeling down lately.
but as sabine points out, at least my social life is great.
i may be crap at work and stuck down a bottomless pit of my own creation below a savannah full of lions, and somehow just appear unattractive to the opposite sex, but at least i have love around me.

maybe it's something in the air. micky has been down in the dumps lately too, so tonight we decided to hang at home with bottles of wine and watch the sun go down from our roof.

in the space of three weeks, everyone around us has somehow gotten promoted, bought an excellent apartment, or met someone they really like who likes them back. micky's work life is miles better than mine, but other than that we're pretty much in the same boat. and we're both missing a sugar high from cupcakes at the magnolia bakery.

so we drowned our sorrows the english way - although i must say not being english we both lacked the stiff upper lip and let our inner neurotic new yorkers shine through...

i've moved into michaela's spare room temporarily whilst i sort out my digs.
she lives in a lovely part of west london, very hip and happening, in a great house with two flatmates. it worked out great - the third flatmate mitchell had to move back to nyc for two months, so it gives me time to sort my shit out.

so as part of my self-induction into the palace as we call it, i had a bunch of fabulous people over for dinner. or rather, canapes which substituted for a meal because frankly who can be bothered to cook for a party over ten. plus we have all this french wine at home to consume, so it was a great excuse for a party.

so the one who got away popped in, and brought his brother sam along. and by the middle of the night, sabine my new flatmate had become quite chummy with sam. so much so that whilst we migrated to the many bars in the neighbourhood, they left early. and when i stumbled home early in the morning, i encoutered him en route to the bathroom. i couldn't help it, a childish huge grin appeared on my face.

takin' myself right out of the ballgame.

tonight the one that got away and i met up with a few mutual friends to watch the uefa champions league final. and i realised a few things.

most importantly, i'm taking myself out of the ballgame where the one who got away is concerned. it's more important to have longevity in friendship and eternal love rather than push an issue that's a bygone. and whilst i'm a confident gal, i do lack the blinding confidence that makes one zone in on anyone she wants, confident that she'll get him, regardless of the macro and micro environmental factors. i'm enjoying the company of the women around me too much to enter into competition.

and i'm a competitive person. maybe it's because i know i'll always loose. maybe i know that these battles aren't worth it because the war is already over. or maybe i just lack the self esteem to win and take myself out to avoid the dissapointment.

either way i realised that i am not open to new relationships with the opposite gender due to the fact that i'm still in love with two different guys. both who do not love me sexually, but love me as a friend. the sensible optimistic friend alert part of me thinks this is great - their affection for me. but the romantic female side of me has been burnt to the point of chargrilled black toast where i think it will be another year before i venture forth to return (or even seek) the affections of a member of the opposite sex. the last two men i truely loved found me lacking in some way. or us lacking in some way. and maybe because i could never have them that i wanted them. but whatever it is, i'm prepared for a long and winding road that's not going to lead me to anyone in the distant future.

a kiss is still as kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.

a kiss is a fundamental basic expression of affection. it's also a social norm, a way of greeting between two people who may not even like each other. a few posts ago i was musing about the kiss as a greeting. the cheek kiss and the lip kiss.

today i managed to duck out of the office in the london drizzle and had lunch with my friend sophie. sophie's twenty five, an intelligent, pretty and pretty strong willed parisian who has been living in london for the past year. she's very social, and always manages to maintain a healthy party lifestyle despite a constant cash flow problem. maybe that's the secret of the party girls. either you have a paris hiltonlike inheritance, or you just make do with what you have. rent and bills can wait when there's drinks to be had and places to be seen in.

the topic of lunch was sophie's latest man. since being in london she had dated two guys in rapid succession. the first was a scottish actor whom she met through mutual friends at a party. things happen very quickly for sophie. meet, greet, get on like a house on fire and viola, c'est une relationship. when scottish guy went home for christmas and realised he still was in love with his ex girlfriend, things got a bit ugly, but she promptly went away to the tropics for new year's and found a new man, an english screenwriter who intially appeared to be a great match. turns out he's another one of us thirtysomething year old lost souls who doesn't know what he wants and thus can't commit. being english, he was also quite reticent which i think didn't gel too well with sophie's let's get it all out there nature.

so last weekend sophie went out with a bunch of mates and ended up snogging a cute australian guy who ended up going home with her. granted they met up two nights later for a quick drink, i'd say by any cultural standards that suggests keeness from both parties. according to sophie, they had a great time but he kissed her on the cheek.

so lunch was a hearty pasta dish, flourless chocolate cake for two and a dissection of what a cheek kiss means after you've been quite intimate with someone.

speed dating alert.

caitlin's back from nyc, and she's threatening (although she obviously does not see it this way) to drag micky and i on a speed dating rampage. now the new yorker in me is open to meeting interesting people through 2 minute assesments in the adult singleton version of the proverbial toy store, but another part of me dreds the effort i will have to put in.

it's bad enough i had to endure a whole series of job interviews in the past six months. now i'd be willingly subjecting myself to the same torture, at my own expense, with potentially less dividends than a constant salary will fulfill.

dating doesn't really happen in this town. london chicks put it out there like l.a. girls, and it's all about the conquest. or the stiff british upper lip where everyone is all conservative until a few pints at the pub and all hell breaks loose. there's a special breed of london girls, like certain new yorkers, who have no qualms about poaching a man who has a girlfriend. some will even put it out there when the girlfriend is present and has gone to the bathroom. it's that competitive. and between work and work, i don't have the energy to enter that minefield. i'm a confident gal who can hold her own, but no way am i ready to deal with the bullshit of being at ease with my man flirting his ass off with some random chick. it's hard enough seeing a fan club around the one who got away. i'm taking myself out to right field in a game full of right handed pitchers and staying there until this whole ball game is over.

i had drinks with a friend last week who was telling me about a girl at his work. we're talking a girl who's boobs peek out of the strategically arranged garments she wears to work each day. who knew plainly that he lives with his long term girlfriend whom he loves with all his heart. now my friend is not a man to mess around with any woman, much less frivolous twentysomethings who have zoned in on him like a missile. i admit alcohol does loosen inhabitions but it's a lame excuse people use to justify their emotions and actions. a way of post-rationalising something you know deep down you should not be doing.

so i'm proud that my friend despite copious pints in him remained a complete gentleman in control of the situation, striking a perfect balance of distance and politeness. yet that wasn't enough to deter this twentysomething youngen' who basically molested him on a work drinks night out. she's made it clear to the entire office that he's her everest- and she intends to conquer him. so poor brad has to put up with a situation which is more annoying than flattering.

the life of the single and fabulous.

i've noticed that my single and fabulous friends are always up for a party.
or, the attached and fabulous whose partners are not in town - they too are up for all nighters.

i've been staying out until dawn the past few weekends with a few guys i used to work with. their girlfriends' arrival in this town are imminent, and i have a feeling we may see less of them when this happens. in the meantime, we are all out and about. and i drag my hungover ass home each sunday morning, wasting the rest of sunday mooching about as i can't be bothered doing anything else. especially when my apartment is such a haven and the skies are grey outside.

i like being fabulous. i'm sure i am completely biased, but i feel fabulous. and i feel that my friends are fabulous. my friend michaela once made a comment that all of her friends are attractive. and looking at them, she's right. they are all young and sexy and smart, and mostly open and friendly people who welcome new people into their fold.

sometimes i look at micky and i wonder why we're both fabulous and single. truely single. like me, micky doesn't meet men at all. except for that hot young designer she had a brief thing with, nothing ever happens. i wonder if it was us. our high standards, stand offish exclusive nature, or the fact that despite being attractive and fabulous, we're just not that approachable.

in reality, i know it's because deep in my heart i'm still trying to get over the one who got away. it's not that i'm unavailable, it's just i am not giving up any vibes. or i just attract people who don't interest me.

hmm.

i'm feeling a bit lost.

a melancholy mixture of loneliness and displacement.
i have a feeling it's from a whole lot of partying. but drug free partying, so it doesn't make sense. can alcohol and fun times alone give you a come down?

it's like an emptiness that nothing seems to be able to fill. something that doesn't feel like it can be fixed easily, and something that can only be mended by searching deep within myself to find that spark that will ignite the flame within to warm me again.

the one who got away and i were again at the same party tonight.
we hardly spoke to each other, and when we did at one of the bars we mosied onto after the first one shut, it was nice but brief as we were joined soon by another friend and he soon dissappeared to get us more beers.

any questions i had about him being affectionate to other females was answered. at one point once we got all jolly in the first pub i saw a gorgeous colleague perched on his lap, with another drapping her arm around him. at the last bar another female colleague of his asked for a moment alone so they could have a private conversation, which i obliged happily and overheard after a moment the lap perch girl observing their lipkiss and urging for more passion.

which just reminded me i want no part of this fan club. a girl has to have her pride after all. it's the realisation that you don't want to end up with brad pitt, because frankly even jennifer anniston couldn't keep him. and i'm not angelina jolie - either in partner stealing or stature and sex appeal plus confidence.

so i've resigned myself to the fact that it's quite impossible for me to meet anyone. this town may be populated by cute smart sexy men, but there's always a catch, and a long line of lionesses willing to fight tooth and claw through the jungle for that taste of these guys.

what happened to the days of men fighting over a woman?