i need closure!

firstly, refer to my last post if you haven't already.
oh and also read this.

now. when i went on the Personal Development thingy i had an older man in my group, and on the second night i had a feeling that he was interested in me. I had a conversation with him and i brought up our ages. after explicitly saying that i was 24 i asked him how old he was. I would never ever do that normally to someone older, but I really wanted to reiterate to him indirectly that there was a huge age difference. so i found out he was 42.

so on the second last night i saw him coming towards me with his mobile phone, looking quite nervous. dammit, he's going to ask me for my number.

Old Man: So, Bee, i was wondering... uhm... are you going dancing tonight?
Me: ah, no, my knee has been clicking for the past hour and i don't want to push it.
Old Man: oh, ok, because i was wondering, if maybe you wanted to possibly go out now, and just catch up for a drink, like we could go and have a coffee somewhere in the city... (really hopeful, puppy-dog expression on his face)
Me: (enter rambling bullshit cos i'm lying) ah, well, wow, i'd love to, but you see, uh, i just spoke to my little sister in the toilet (firstly i didn't speak to her, secondly, when i lie why do i say doubly stupid things like i was on the phone in the toilet?) and uhm she really wants to see me, cos you know she hasn't seen me all weekend and you know she's little, she's only 14 (blatantly lying again) so i already promised her that i'm going to go home and spend some time with her, cos i haven't seen her you know? (ramble-ramble-ramble)
Old Man: oh, oh, uhm, oh, well ok....

and then i did what i always did. I GOT SUCKED IN TO FEELING SORRY FOR HIM. and before my mouth could tell my brain what it was saying this came out of my mouth:

Me: but, uhm, did you want my number?
whaaaaaaaaaaaat on earth is wrong with me. he looked surprised, and then handed his phone over to me. I realised that he probably hadn't taken his phone out for my number at all. I typed in my number while repeating 'IDIOT' over and over again to myself silently.

i finished typing it in and looked up at him. he still looked really upset and he was looking at me as though he wanted to speak but was stopping himself. he went to speak a few times but nothing came out.

so again... i felt sorry for him, sympathy not empathy, and i said:

Me:well, tomorrow we start at 6, did you want to come past the city a little earlier tomorrw, say 5, and we can catch up for a coffee then?

this time he looked even more crestfallen.

Old Man: no, uhm, i can't, unfortunately 6.00 is the absolute earliest i could come... i'm at work, oh... uhm

as he 'ohed' and 'uhmed' with his worried expression i bit my tongue, as in a literally BIT MY TONGUE. i kept on feeling sorry for him and i was one step away from offering something even more ridiculous, like 'oh, look, would you like me to be the mother of your children?' just because i felt sorry for him.

so that was a perfect example of my movie.

BUT WAIT; THERE'S MORE!

i'm about to head out the door tonight, just running around grabbing shisha and coal to have at my friend's house, and a number called my mobile that wasn't saved in there.

Me:Hello?
Old Man:Hello Bee
Me:Who's this?
Old Man:It's Old Man
Me:(omgomgomg) Old Man! How are you? (fake enthusiasm, want to die on the spot)
Old Man:good good... are you going out dancing tonight?
Me:Me? no, no, tonight i'm just hanging out with my friends, quiet one. (stop rambling)
Old Man:Oh, because i wanted to know if you'd like to come to a greek cafe with me tonight and have a couple of drinks?
Me:ah, well Old Man, my friend is expecting me (mistake number 56 - it sounds like i would go had i not already made plans)
Old Man:Oh, so you wouldn't like to come to have a drink?
Me:(fuck! i struggle with confrontation withOUT people directly asking me) uhm well, no, she's been sick for a couple of weeks and i haven't seen her in a while (total lie and rambling)
Old Man:oh ok, well what are you doing tomorrow between 10 and 1?
Me:I'm going to my accountant (finally i said something that was true, and i was so excited by this that i subconsciously sabotaged it) and we made the appointment months ago and i can't change it (SHUT UP)
Old Man:oh, ok, it's just that i'm doing another personal development program and i thought you'd like to come as my guest
Me:(hell no) wow Old Man, that sounds really great, but i can't because of the tax man, my family would kill my because we have to do our taxes together (why the hell am i telling him this?)
Old Man:so you're not dancing tonight?
Me:Mope, night off.
Old Man:I borrowed a ballroom dancing book from the library. is that what type you do?
Me:(by this point i was hysterical and i freaked) when did you borrow the book? (for some reason i desperately wanted him to say 2 months ago, before he met me, and it was just a coinkidink that he then met someone who danced)
Old Man:uhm, oh... so do you do ballroom?
Me:No. when did you borrow the book?
Old Man:oh, uhm i cant remember.

after that point i think i was so frustrated that i managed to finish the conversation without agreeing to anything, without telling him where i go dancing, without making a coffee date etc. the whole call went for over 20 minutes so it was quite a lot of distress going on on my end.

anyway, i am now saving his number as DO NOT ANSWER OLD MAN.

i am a star... Happy-Go-Lucky

so the movie starts...
5 seconds of watching the main character and everyone has a smile on their lips...
10 seconds in and everyone is having a chuckle...
15 seconds and we all openly laugh...

20 second... I stop laughing, everyone else laughs harder...
25 seconds... I begin to frown slightly, the guy behind me slaps his knee with laughter, and my friend S. is sinking into her seat.

30 seconds... I turn to S. and whisper fiercely 'S.! this girl is like me! that's me!'

S. turns to me, still laughing, then sees the expression on my face and begins to laugh harder... 'Oh my god Bee, you're right, it's you!'

hilarious... not.

the experience of sitting down watching a fictional character do things that you, a real human being, would do, and getting it right with every second that passes was insane. I was distressed as i knew that there would be things in the movie i hated about myself, but at the same time it was interesting... like 'what would I do?' and tell the character in my head what to do before she did it. and getting it right.

it wasn't the obvious stuff, mind you, like the art or the kids or the being single, although that stuff was all on the ball too.

it was the getting sucked in. i am a sucker. i am an intelligent person... i was always a strait A student, i got my degree without dedicating more than 20 hours over the years for study, i have never had to read anything twice... for goodness' sake my IQ is enough to get into bloody mensa. and yet the rational part of me can never manage to override the emotional.

i am the person who starts random conversations with the bookstore owner.

i am the person who, if they don't engage with me, i try even harder, to the point of being even more of a dickhead.

i am the person who, if someone steals something of mine i think 'well, they must have stolen it for a reason, they obviously needed it much more than i did.'

i am most certainly the person who begins conversations with random homeless people, even when they have clearly had a stroke in Broca's area and the conversation goes nowhere.

and i am the person, who, even after i get completely screwed over, i try to fix the person who did the wrong thing by me because i feel sorry for them.

but what made me upset about this movie was the ending. the whole movie i kept on saying her answers to myself before she said them, and then at the very end she was confronted with a terrible situation, the kind i am always dealing with. when someone asks you something and you should say no but you feel sorry for them and say yes.

well, i whispered in my head to her 'yes!'.

and she thought and thought and thought about her answer... and said, 'umm, no.'

and that was the end of the film. and it was closure for her because she has managed to work out when to say no and be firm. and now i'm freaking out because i've realised that i clearly still don't know how on earth to say no. i can't even tell the fictional Bee to say no.

i have to work out a way to be able to say no and feel no guilt.

personal development course

i used to be SOOO skeptical about these things, like 'The Secret' and stuff like that... but then I actually watched The Secret, and it really wasn't that bad. It's not going to give you everything you've ever dreamt of on a silver platter, but it certainly won't make your life worse. For the average, intelligent person it will motivate them, and I do admit that motivation is usually enough to make an initial step towards change.

anywayz! My friend, D. from dancing, went on a 2 and a half day intensive seminar and referred me to it. When the lady called me at work my clients were shitting me up the wall, I'd just found out two had attempted suicide, the day before the guy who worked in the next office to mine was arrested for possession of child pornography (for those of you who don't remember... I work with kids)... basically i needed all the motivation i could get my hands on, so i jumped.

So i'm here, end of day one, blogging. and it's pretty much what i expected... except for one teensy little bit. The seminar is like when you go on camp and you do all those motivational and strength building games, fun stuff really. Some of the activities were quite challenging, some downright frustrating; but that's me saying those things...

Enter exhibit A:

what happens when you do one of these courses and you are so depressed, so incredibly low and the state of your mental health makes me feel inclined to check your wrists and call the CAT team!?

there were two women (out of maybe 100 or so) who clearly would not not be benefiting from the seminar because they were so far gone. One lady cried the entire day... and when she did manage to pause she would only have to make eye contact with anyone and she would burst into tears again. She couldn't interact, talk, get her own food, contribute... nothing.

The second became extremely distressed at the amount of noise that was being made in one of the activities (quite loud i must admit) and began having a panic attack in front of everyone. The facilitator then wouldn't let her go until she admitted to the rest of us that maybe she felt fine (what the fuck i hear you ask? that's honestly what happened)

I'm still trying to work out why, when we first turned up this morning they got us to sign forms stating whether or not we were suffereing or had ever suffered from a mental illness... what were they planning to do with that information? I'm not pro medication, however i do know that sitting around talking about motivation can't always work if your world is truly upsidedown. Much less if you have a chemical imbalance that won't allow you to see it any other way.

The seminar has been great, don't get me wrong, but it has to be said that it is totally unsuitable for anyone who is sufferering from a mental illness... so that cuts out around a third of the population (no citation for that... it's my average... if you look up the percentages the studies always do ridiculous things like discluding anxiety attacks and including snake phobias)

and if you want them... or just a read...

lifeline
beyondblue
orygen youth health
cat team
and my current favourite Headspace