From: osmith@acorn.co.uk (Owen Smith)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Where did all my "friends" go?
Date: 21 Aug 92 21:44:12 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

Well here I sit, still at work, at 10 PM on a Friday evening. Why? Because
the other option is to go home and read a book, listen to music, have a bath
or go to bed. Every Friday is like this, and indeed most other days of the
week. I can literally count the number of times I've been invited out this
year on the fingers of one hand. We're eight months into the year, and at
this rate I might just need my other hand by mid december. The last time I
got invited somewhere, my project manager from my previous company rang me
up for a get-together. We hadn't seen each other for nearly three years.
That was two months ago! Oh sorry, since then I got invited by someone else
who worked at my previous company to spend a week using his flat in Paris
while he looked after his boss's mansion on the outskirts (his boss went on
holiday). OK so everyone that used to work with me at the old place that he
could still contact got invited, but it did include me. I didn't go (apathy,
noone to go with, no money to do it with, the flat was unfurnished, noone
else seemed to want to go either) but that's beside the point. So about half
of my invitations to things this year have been from people I haven't seen
for three years! And I didn't even get on particularly well with either of
them! And use of too many incomplete sentences and exclamation marks is a
sure sign of a sick mind !!!!!! :-) (-: :-)...,;::

Don't get me wrong, I have friends, I know people, there are about 20 people
who will cross the street and come and chat to me if they see me. But they
don't invite me to anything. I call and visit them from time to time or
leave phone messages for them. They never call on me and they never phone
back. I stopped visiting one guy altogether. It's a ten minute walk from my
house to his, along safe well-lit footpaths. By the time I'd called to see
him over a dozen times (and he seemed happy to see me each time) he'd not
once come round to see me, so I stopped going to see him. Was stopping
calling on him a good move on my part?

One lot frequently eats out for sunday lunch. They invite the guy I share a
house with, but never me. Indeed one sunday morning they rang to ask if Jon
was coming, but he was already out. They said "OK thanks" and put the phone
down. I know these people - why didn't they invite me? What's up, have I got
leprosy or something and I'm the only person in Cambridge that doesn't know
about it?

I wonder if this has anything to do with my gender identity problem. All the
people I know are men socialising in exlcusively male circles. Am I
sufficiently intrinsically female that I just don't fit in with their male
only conversations etc., and they subconsciously realise I don't fit and
stop inviting me? I don't think so (it would be pretty damn weird if it's
true!) but it's an interesting idea. Of course women don't socialise with me
because in their eyes I'm not female, and there is the slight problem that
in the circles I move in there are about 100 times as many men as women -
computers, role playing games, brass bands and cars just don't have women in
them at all (how many women can you get in a Spectrum? (-: ).

One of my groups of friends is a bunch of undergraduates at the University.
I go to see them quite a lot, because they're a good bunch AND there are
about as many women there as men (which in a 35-40% female University is
good going). Of course they don't visit me - I'm not in much and I live
three miles out of town and wimps that they are they think it's too far to
cycle (how they can say this as I mount up [fnarr, fnarr :-)] to ride home
from their place beats me!). But they have my phone number and I have an
answering machine (they have my work number too) so why do they never phone
me? They said they would probably go punting after exams, and I asked them
to phone me if they did. If I'm at work I can be there in 10 minutes! They
went (three times); they didn't phone me. I can even hire punts cheaper than
they can since their college doesn't have it's own punts and my old college
has lots, so it would have been financially beneficial to have me along
even! (and they knew this). By the way this is the group that held the fancy
dress party I went to en femme, and in fact they actually invited me to it
too! It's the only thing I've been invited to by them though, and I've known
them for two years. Last time I saw them I turned up a couple of days before
they went home for the summer, and I found a party already in full swing (it
wasn't fancy dress). It wasn't crowded (a lot of people had already gone
home for the summer) so why wasn't I invited? Especially since I'd done the
host a big favour and loaned him a fairly top spec Archimedes computer
system and printer to desktop publish a fairly large document on. Previously
I loaned him an old amplifier of mine to go with some speakers he'd just
bought until he could afford his own amp. I reckon this guy owes me a favour
or two (I even had to get the soldering iron out and mend that amp before I
loaned it to him!) so why wasn't I invited to one measly badly attended
end-of-term party??

I've drifted and waffled a bit, but basically I just want to scream and
shout to the world "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME? WHY DO YOU BASTARDS
NEVER INVITE ME TO ANYTHING?". (This is not directed at soc.bi people since
I don't socialise with them, which raises the question of why in hell's name
I'm posting it to soc.bi. But anyway. Sigh.) Maybe I try too hard to be
friendly etc. Maybe I help people out too often (or at least offer to help
too often) and they get embarrassed (remember, real men(tm) don't need help
- help's for women and sissies :-( :-(). I do have a tendency to prattle on
and take over the conversation. Then when I run out of things to say it just
dies. I know what the problem is - I'm a mutant secret invading alien from
Mars! Quick, somebody phone the Sunday Sport! :-). (How the hell can I joke
like that and feel so depressed at the same time???)

I definitely don't fit with many of the people I know in terms of acceptable
conversation topics. For example, someone will say something about nipple
stimulation (or more likely I'll notice someone secretly stimulating their
girlfriend's nipples) and then I'll say something along the lines that
nipple clamps might be fun and I've read that your nipples get more
sensitive if they are pierced, and then everyone looks at me as if I'm the
sickest person they've ever met and the subject dies a death. There is a 2
minute embarrassed silence, and then someone manages to start up a
completely different conversation topic. What is wrong with these people?
Did they have their sense of adventure amputated at birth or what?

Urgh! This is too long and it's nearly 11 PM now. I told you I prattle
on for too long and then the conversation dies :-)!

Owen (no witty bits tonight)