Woke up and started the day with an insight...

I woke up this morning, and got to work on all the housework that has been building up for the last week or so. This is great reflection time for me, gives my hands something to do that doesn't need my consciousness to be involved. It's usually doing the housework or sitting on the loo that I make my greatest insights. (At least 20% of my PhD thesis came to me setting on the toilet I'm sure!)

Anyway, as I was folding the laundry this morning, I started to think about the last couple of months, and the whole V thing, and then, I made an effort to put together a time-line for the whole relationship, and what had gone on.

It struck me that I had failed to make one final insight into all that had gone on.

While V was with her bloke E, and she knew I was crushing on her, she was the cat with the cream, she had E who was cute and came and went on his own whims and gave her enough sex to keep her reasonably happy, and then there was me, available for her at all times and willing to bend over backwards to do whatever she wanted to do.

I realised the point when it all broke down, was when E gave V the push. When V told me this, she asked if I thought it was good news for me (or something to that effect), me being the realist(?!) that I am, I said no. To be honest at that point I had concluded the best we were ever going to be was friends, and so E being off the scene didn't open any doors for me, I was certain at this point we would never be an item. I said words to that effect to V.

The cat had lost the cream, no cute E to fuck her when she needed it, and me no longer crushing on her and entertaining her every nonsense.

For a couple of months up until that point, I had noticed that I initiated every conversation, and it was all one way. The only real response was when she was shooting me down, then she was all fired up and ready to go.

Over the few weeks that followed me saying that I was no longer interested, her bits of random sniping became more and more pronounced, until I decided to see if we were friends or I was just a handy emotional punch bag to get her angst out of her system. To that end, I just stopped contacting her, I wanted to see how long before she picked up the phone, started an IM, texted or contacted me however.

For a couple of weeks (normally we chatted daily) I heard nothing apart from the one "Are you there" when I left MSN on "Away".

Eventually she IMed me while I was online, and we had the chat that I knew was coming, she said that she was uncomfortable that I was crushing on her, I pointed out that I wasn't anymore, nor had I in fact been crushing for weeks. So she decided that we couldn't be friends because I didn't stimulate her.

Obviously I was really hurt by this, I might be many things, but I'm certainly not boring, ask any one of the many friends and acquaintances that I have.

So I have to conclude that either she was telling the truth and I didn't stimulate her and that is a problem she has, or it was a just a bullshit reason to get me out of her life.

I'm inclined to think it was a bullshit reason to get me out of her life.

Lets face it, I'm not stimulating because I'm not a tattoo covered biker, and I'm not stimulating because I'm not rich, I'm Mr. Average Chap of 33, one ex-wife and a six year old kid, no excitement there at all.

Of course the whole not rich thing was just her perception, I tend not to let the women I am interested in know what I have in the bank, they tend to like you for the wrong reasons.

As for V, well she likes to think (at the grand old age of 27) that she has the answers. The truth is, I don't think she knows what she wants, but she's not prepared to get off her arse and achieve anything, but happy to wait for it to land in her lap. I wish her well, but think it is somewhat tragic that she lives the life she does, she is a clever woman, who could really do things, but she is not prepared to go to the mountain, much like Mohammed, she wants the mountain to come to her.

I was disappointed that she chose not to say bye face to face, or over the phone in a personal manner, but to say it via a blog post. I really did think she was more mature than that. Such is life.

Bye V, nice knowing you while it lasted. I don't wish you any ill, I really do hope you sort your life out in the end.

New blog

I realised that the home buying was taking over, so I have started a new blog to just deal with that. "I'm buying a Home" can be found here.

Self destructing, relationships and general mental state will continue to be reported here.

Normal service will resume shortly. :)

Apparently we are playing "Silly buggers"

I got a call from the estate agent again today, the vendor hasn't accepted my offer, but they wanted to see a proof of address and a proof of identity. For anti money-laundering purposes apparently...

Hmmm, the correct response I think is, "What the fuck!?". (And I don't often use multiple punctuation I can tell you, I'm the son of a retired English teacher after all.)

I tempered my initial thoughts somewhat and came back with the following answer, "Let me get this right, yesterday they point-blank refused to play the game and negotiate in the universally accepted manner. And now they haven't even accepted my offer, but they're expecting me to jump through hoops?"

Estate agent: "Er, yeah, I'm not too happy about it either, on the good side at least they haven't rejected your new offer and they're asking for this, so this could be a good sign that they are ready to progress now".

Moi: "Er yeah, I'm not convinced."

At about 2PM this afternoon I dropped by the office and handed over a bank statement (I was careful to choose one with a £125K balance, ho ho, hopefully should stop them prating me about) and my passport, when they had finished taking copies, I very calmly and carefully explained to the estate agent, "I want to buy a place with the minimum of fuss or hassle, to that end, any further nonsense, or playing their own game and expecting everyone else to dance to their tune and I'll be withdrawing my offer then looking for somewhere else to buy."

The guy was most contrite, and tried to explain that his job is to work for the vendor, I explained I could see his point of view, but after only one day I was at the end of my tether with them, they had had as much leeway as they were going to get. Twice in two days they had changed (or attempted to change) the rules of engagement for this process. Twice is enough for the whole deal.

I received a call this evening from the estate agency again, apparently the vendor does not work weekends so no news until Monday now, fine by me. He also let slip that mine is the only offer from their estate agency and that there are no offers at all from the other two agencies. All good news, this property has been on the market for three weeks now, and just three months ago would have been snapped up in a matter of days, now there are three estate agencies trying to sell it, and there has only been one offer (from yours truly) in three weeks. I am so in the driving seat, if they accept my offer, I may retract it and resubmit back at £335K just for fucking me about.

Yes, I know I have a low tolerance for people titting me about, or inventing new rules once the game has started. :)

Plan in need of revision already...

Hmmm, the plan has gone to shit already! A bit quicker than even I suspected it would. :)

So what's happened then... well first of all my employment has fallen through, funding was coming from the US not the UK, and given the current exchange rate and the insistance of GWB that the US economy should collapse in the next two to three years, the guys in the US just don't have the readies to pay me with. :(

So boo-hoo, no great job, no being paid great cash. On the upside though, about an hour before that call came through, I got a call from an agency with an interview request, and being the somewhat prescient person that I am (or maybe its just that I have been though this particular cycle a number of times over the last decade) I went ahead and organised it just in case this one fell through.

So all mojo sent on Monday at 4PM will be most appreciated.

What else? Oh yeah, my initial offer on the maisonette was rejected, no surprises there, I didn't really expect them to go with the offer, the whole point of negotiation is they ask for too much, you offer too little, and then you meet in the middle somewhere.

However their response was somewhat cumbersome, it turns out that the vendor of the property is actually a company that sell reposessed properties (hence the unexpectedly low price I guess), and their immediate response was to say, "No, what's the maximum offer you will put in?".

Obviously I didn't answer that, on account of me not being a complete and utter fucktard and of course having a clue what negotiation is (what with doing it professionally for the last 12 years of my life).

Anyway that figure is for me to know, and for them to find out (painfully slowly if I can manage it, what with having to find a new job and reorganise a mortgage again).

In the end I made my displeasure clear, what I was expecting was one of the usual responses, such as "No, but you are close to a figure we are comfortable with", "yes", or maybe, "No, you are miles away from a figure we are happy with", but certainly not, "No, tell us the absolute max you will spend (then we can add 5K to that)". Then I gave them a new figure of £340K to play with. I was asked if that was my maximum bid, and I responded along the lines of, "maybe... maybe not".

The way I see it, they have a property in need of work, the season is slow at this time of year (no one wants to buy now, they're waiting till next year), I've got the money (as far as they know anyway), so all in all they can be rid of the thing soaking up all the cash in their pockets now, it's a good deal for them before the market drops any further!


Oh yeah, and had a call from my brother's solicitor (she came highly recommended) regarding the conveyancing of the property, looks like the bill is going to come to over £12K when stamp duty is included, not to mention another £500+ for a survey.

We shall see what tomorrow brings... this is fun though right now. I didn't expect the plan to hold long, but less than 24 hours was a surprise! :)

Onward!

W00t!

A most busy and productive day...

I got the job, got the money I wanted, and a job that is just great working with great guys. I sorted the mortgage and put in an offer for the maisonette...

Woo-bloody-hoo!

Real life changing, growing up stuff, who'd have thought I'd be here a week ago, when I woke up and decided to buy a home?

I believe that I may have set a personal record for impulse purchasing. (£335K)

Fingers crossed that the offer is accepted. All mojo being sent this way will be gratefully accepted.

No signs of crazy lady S, bridge burnt me thinks. :D

Right got to go, I have a hot bath to run and a half a bottle of chilled white wine to drink while reading a good book. A minor private celebration I think.

Laaaaaaaaaazy day

Today I have sat around and done pretty much nothing. I just about managed to clean my kitchen (who'd of thought that cream cleaner would bring up limescaled stainless steel so well?)

I was meant to go and meet an agent today, but I totally forgot, he didn't help by sending the contact details to an old email address (even though I gave him the new one) . Anyway, I'm to give him a call tomorrow, and we'll meet up then hopefully.

I got an email from my favourite ex-employer... they want me back, yay!

All I have to do is convince them that they want me for six months not four (or at least write a contract to that effect for the mortgage lender) and to pay me at least £450/day and I can get this mortgage sorted out and buy my lovely maisionette! Double yay!

I'll drop by their office tomorrow and start the negotiations. Whoop!

Fingers crossed for a new home.

Away for an evening

Yesterday evening, I drove to my brother's place after I dropped A back off to her mother's house.

We ate huge steaks (that I bought from Borough Market Sat AM) and lots of roasted veggies, yum! All cooked to a T by T my brother's g/f.

Then the three of us watched Something's Gotta Give, cute film, but oh so slow!

I drove back into London this morning, and then spent the day furiously applying for jobs.

Lots of irons in the fire, and lots of progress being made, made it known to all the relevant agencies that I'll take a low rate for a job as I'm getting a mortgage sorted out for a house.

Fingers crossed that the interview requests start rolling in tomorrow and the job offers start rolling in by the end of the week.

It seems I am re-energised. The great thing about someone telling you to fuck off (nicely or nastily, it doesn't matter) is that you normally have two options on how to deal with it. You can either get upset, try to analyse it and as a result make yourself upset, or, you can say "Your loss" and move on with your life. I seem to have made a third option, a bit of careful analysis and then the "Your Loss" scenario. This way I feel that I have learnt something from what happened, but to be honest, I know who will be regretting the decision in the months to come, it won't be me, since I didn't make the decision...

Oh, on another note, can't remember if I mentioned it or not, I sent S (the crazy lady) some roses and chocs, she claims not to have received them, but the Interflora agent's description of the two people who collected the failed delivery describes her and her flatmate perfectly... Someone is telling porkies and I think I know who it is. Anyway she flounced off when I asked her if she was sure for the third time, she put the phone down, I suspect I shall never hear from her again. :)

Funny really, I'm not sure what her problem is, she's hot but too much effort, I'm tired of crazy people in my life, I give up officially, (unless she's buying dinner on Wednesday :D).

Head games are for arseholes, why can't I find someone who isn't an arsehole?

Genius!

One of the craziest things I've seen in a while, seriously clever stuff though! It's QuickTime download, well worth sticking with for the final product though.