Thursday 4 March 2010

Day ninety four: silly me

I don't know why I
Make myself a lonely guy
When I'm not alone

To elaborate, I've found myself doing the thing I always do, and I don't know why I do it, so bear with me. It seems that whenever I move to a new town, I make an effort to make myself lonely. I'll, aside from my closest few friends, distance myself from people and go all quiet, spend most of my time in my room away from flatmates, and when I'm not in the flat just wander around aimlessly. It's only ever temporary (except for when I was studying in Spain, but that's a tale for another day), but I always do it. A case in point is this evening: I finished work at half 5, and only got home about half an hour ago. In that time I went to Oxford Street to pick up a couple of things I'd been meaning to get (ah, retail therapy, the old classic), and spent ages going to an unnecessary amount of shops, then inexplicably went to St Pancras station and sat in a cafe for an hour. When I got home I told my flatmates that I'd worked late then went to get some dinner with a couple of workmates.

The irony is that I do know plenty of people around here, and I'm a very sociable person normally, I love spending time with people and feel comfortable in most social situations; it just seems that this is some psychological hurdle I have to overcome whenever I move to a different town. The only explanations I can come up with are (a) that every time I've moved anywhere I've been at home temporarily beforehand, and when I go it always makes my Mum feel sad for a few days, which in turn makes me feel sad, or (b) deep within my psyche is the notion that I have to earn the right to enjoy living somewhere, and to do that I have get to an emotionally low point first, before building from there.

I don't know, it's weird, but I'll be okay.

It probably doesn't help that I was listening to The Smiths when I was out earlier

3 comments:

  1. ps. if there's anyone I actually know reading this, don't worry, I'll be fine in a few days, I'm sure.

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  2. Beautifully poetic haiku and I'm sure the lonely phase will pass. Take care and hope you're feeling better!

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  3. Cheers James. In spite of the tone of this post, I am really happy to be here - moving to London has been something I've wanted to do for a while, and I'm delighted it's gone so smoothly. Just once I get this settling in period over with I'll really start to be able to enjoy it.

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