I find dating exhausting

My maternal grandparents

How are you this week? When are you next going to the hospital? How is work/social life/house going? A bit of me wonders, are these beige envelopes mounting up in your doormat, but hey! I made a commitment.

Today at customer care training I learnt that the most dangerous occupation is agriculture. Previously it was construction and before that it was mining. LEAD stands for Listen, Empathy, Action and Do it! The difference between action and do it is that do it is when you ring back to check that their complaint was dealt with to their satisfaction. I didn’t quite get the connection there!

I’ve had a bit of a traumatic morning today. J1 threw an absolute wobbly with us all and is currently round the girlfriend in hate the world state. Note he can’t absolutely hate his mother as he already supposedly detests his dad so he is running out of suppliers of good will. I’ve just had to give a pep talk to daughter who came back in the middle of the day to try and appease him. I am worrying about his mental wellbeing today.

Secondly I’ve booked to take me and J2 to Thailand in August. I am not taking J1 because post 17 they are not holidaying en famille. He is skiing at half term and I will pay car insurance for him for a year as I did A*. A* is going on band trip to Barcelona and I am taking her to New York for her 18^th. The company is the same one I went to Egypt with and the itinerary is really exciting. I’ve also found out that all the other kids in the party are boys around J2’s age so he should be OK. I am scared a bit because it eats my savings, but also excited. I so want to look back on these post FH years and not feel I let life come to a standstill.

On Monday I went out for a drink in London with a bloke I met early on when FH left. We never had a sexual relationship because he was in to relationships in serial and I haven’t seen him since June. It was quite a difficult evening and it made me realise how probably I am moving on even if I think I am not. He kept saying how quiet I was and was actually very physical with me in a way I began to find quite offensive by the end of the night. I didn’t think the affection was genuine – I felt it was just how far can I go stuff. I kept thinking, did I go along with this before? By the end of the evening I was struggling to find my solid ground about what I had liked and admired about him in the first place. I have to say that is what I find exhausting about dating – the whole evening was quite expensive and I was totally out of sync so got very little back. I went home quite depressed and thinking, what am I searching for? I do think I am searching a bit at the moment – like is this it? I remember you also said once or twice I was too quiet – not in my head I’m not!