All by myself...

It sounds melodramatic, but I'm almost convinced that I will spend my life single. Seriously, I do not see being part of a couple in my future.

Yes, this is prompted by a recent rejection, but it's not reactionary. The rejection just forced me to address some things that I'd suppressed for a decade (thank you Depo, for lowering my sex drive to non-existent so that relationships weren't front and centre during those years). And the conclusion I have come to is that I'm not the person people want to be with.

Sure, I'm a great friend and I'm funny and and smart and interesting and helpful. I would also maybe rate myself a 5/10 when it comes to attractiveness. But I'm not who people want. And I don't know why.

Some would argue that the problem lies with them, not me. But if I hear similar things from more than one person, can it really be?

It could just be that my choice in partners is wrong. I might be picking people I know are unavailable (is that part of some fucked-up attempt at self-protection so I don't need to get into a relationship and REALLY open myself up?) or people who I know aren't suitable for a relationship.

Or it could be that there is something fundamentally wrong about me that I don't know about, some fatal flaw that makes me unlovable in that way.

I don't know what it is, chances are I will never find out (guys appear to find it almost impossible to be truly honest when they reject you, 'it's not you, it's me', 'I'm not in the right place just now' etc etc) but I just need to accept the fact that everything I was taught about love is a lie:

• There's not someone for everyone
• Sometimes frogs are just frogs, not princes
• People do die alone
• Your best friend will not be your soulmate
• Love doesn't come when you least expect it 
• Opening yourself to opportunities doesn't result in opportunities

Wow, what a downer of a blog post!! Still, I'm keeping it real.

In which I make a change

I posted before about my guilt over eating meat. So I've made the decision to be vegetarian.

I'm doing all my research and pinning a lot of recipes on Pinterest. Pay day is Friday so I will stock up then and in the meantime use up the last of the meat in the house and lower my use of it.

Habits easily made are just as easily broken if you put your mind to it.

The cats, however, will remain carnivorous. I once knew a woman who refused to feed her cats meat. She was a fucking weirdo.

The difference between like and respect

I have issues with a lot of people. Fuck it, at times I'm downright antisocial. I prefer my own company, or the company of a few choice friends and family members, as opposed to a massive crowd of people. And as much as I like spending time with loved ones, I like withdrawing just as much.

I used to think that it was a by product of my job. As a journalist, I would speak to dozens of people a week, on a whole range of topics. And when I moved up and was put in charge of two papers, I then had to attend events as a representative of the company and the brand.

However, I think it is more than that. As much as "bullshit fatigue" is probably part of my need to drop out of the human race for a bit, the fact is that a lot of people annoy me. They always have.

I was an advanced child, reading and writing before I started school. In primary, teachers would frequently have to give me work of older children because I would blast through the class work in a fraction of the time the rest of the class needed. I was also conversing regularly with adults - the benefit of having parents who wouldn't dismiss me up to my room at all times - so I was always mature for my age.

As a result, I would see the stuff my peers were doing as silly or childish. It never occurred to me that they were doing the normal things of children their age. Sometimes I did play, but in a "proper" way. I am more prone to whimsy and flights of fancy now than I ever was back then.

Anyway, the reason I explain that is to show that my dislike of people has been ingrained in me from a young age. But, what I have learned over the years, and it's something I'm proud to say I have learned, is that you don't need to like people to respect them.

Doesn't sound too revelatory, does it? Well, it's amazing how many people can't respect people they don't like. 

There are people I downright hate, but I can still respect them for who they are. I might think they are total bastards, but they might be good at their jobs, a good parent or have a great talent. The fact that they are a horrible human being to or in front of me doesn't negate all that other good stuff.

What gets me through many a day is the  understanding that I may not like a person, but I respect them. I don't want to ever go for a pint with them, but I can respect their achievements and who they are. Hell, I can even respect someone who can maintain a complete and utter veneer of bullshit in the face of reality. That takes a lot of work!!

Now, don't get me wrong, respect isn't automatic. I hate people who demand respect before they have shown they deserve it. "Respect your elders" - why, because they have managed to live a long time? Some old people are shitbags, so no. But tell me why I should respect them and at least I can base the decision on merit. I have respect for people who show that they should have it. 

And there's some people I neither like nor respect. But they are the ones I spend zero time and energy on, so I won't waste another word on them.

I wish I could be more ethical about animals

Not that I abuse animals or anything (are you kidding me??) but I have meat lover's guilt. I also have leather and fur wearer's guilt.

I could possibly become a vegetarian. I am aware enough of how to get the nutrition you need while removing bad things from your diet (see my adherence to the Paleo diet as proof). I do love bacon and lamb, but I think like most things it has become a habit. There are so many tasty meat substitutes and vegetarian recipes now - I think I could enjoy being a veggie.

The sole reason I would do this is because of the animals. Most of the time I try and ignore the fact that the bit of meat on my plate was once a living, breathing (possibly cute) animal who had no choice about whether or not it ended up on my plate. But as I get older and become more aware of the rights and wrongs of the world, this is a guilt that increases.

But then I think, "is that enough?" Am I really helping the animals unless I also give up wearing leather, suede and fur too? And then do I need to give up any and all products that have been animal tested? In the UK there is a ban on testing cosmetics on animals, but some products are shipped over from other countries and there aren't the same restrictions.

And do I need to go full vegan in order to stop contributing to the horrible mass production of dairy products etc?

If I am going to be ethical do I need to go the whole hog, or can I comfortably play a small part by reducing, but not entirely cutting out, the killing of animals to live my life?

Can I ever live with another person?

This isn't me begging, more something I have been thinking about. I have lived on my own for nearly 6 years now, since permanently leaving my mum's house. And in that time I have become very used to doing things my way.

So if I were to get some kind of housemate (platonic or otherwise) I'm not sure I could cope. Having to consider someone else, not being able to do the things I want (or having to do the things I don't want), compromise.

I like leaving my house a tip if I can't be arsed cleaning or tidying up. I like not showering if all I'm doing is slobbing about the house (and I like being able to laze around with no-one seeing or being encroached on by me). And most of all, I like not having to talk to people if I don't want to.

Besides, I have three cats as housemates and they dictate everything - when I eat (always after when they eat), when I sleep, who comes to visit. And I know that I don't need to live that way, I choose to because I want to give my kitties the best home possible. Perhaps I will feel like that if it was a person I cared about? But when I think about it, my instinct says "love me, love my ways". I am not going to become a house proud, neat freak who sits primly on her perfectly maintained couch in her spotless livingroom. Who has the time?

That makes me sound horrible, doesn't it? But the thought of living with another person makes me feel uneasy. If I ever have a relationship, we will need to do the HR Giger thing and just live next door to each other. That always sounded like a good idea to me - I think some of the biggest problems in being in a relationship is proximity. We move in together and all of a sudden all the quirks and foibles become apparent, and it's that stuff rather than the big stuff that puts us off.

Full disclosure: This is coming from someone who has never lived with a man, btw, just someone who has had to listen to LOTS of friends bitching about their other halves and the little things that drive them mad.

When did being a mum make women untouchable?

I understand that being a mum must be a hardcore experience. Although I'm not one myself, I am a daughter of a woman who was a single mum. And I wasn't exactly an angel growing up, I gave her a ton of grief and worry over the years.

I state the above to clarify that I am not one of those people who think that mums "have it easy" or aren't as stressed or busy as working women. However....

What I have noticed is that you cannot question a woman once she becomes a mum. If she needs time off work then you can't argue because her children are more important than any reason a childless person may have to get time off. You can't question their dedication to their work, that their priorities may have shifted (which is natural, saying that isn't a criticism) or that they get special treatment.

The fact is that more allowances are made for parents than for any other part of the workforce. The same provisions aren't put in place for religious people, carers or just the ordinary worker. Not being a parent doesn't mean you don't have dependents. 

Last year I was in a situation where a colleague went on maternity leave. The manager advertised for maternity cover for a week before she left, and made no secret of how half-arsed he was doing it. So the rest of us had to take on parts of her role for the year she was off. We didn't get a choice, it was just the way it was.

It was during that year that I was signed off with depression. I now know that a wee bit of that was grief after losing Molee but the fact is I was overworked, not doing my job well (and that was really disheartening for a perfectionist like me) always tired, drinking a lot to try and not feel like shit and being a really crappy person. It was too much.

The fact is, I don't blame the woman for getting pregnant and taking the maternity leave she is perfectly entitled to take. I blame the management who let her go without a replacement and piling work on a management team already handling a hell of a lot. I raised my concerns about the work at the time, and had them brushed aside.

Where I work, there is no choice and when you inevitably hit breaking point, you are seen as the weak one, it's never the boss's fault.

50 Shades of Abuse

So the 50 Shades movie is released this week. Women around the world are getting wet in the knickers at the thought of actually seeing the badly-written sex brought to life on the big screen, and how Christian Grey's jeans actually sit on his hips.

I personally won't be seeing it. Much as I couldn't get past the second page of the book (the WORST published fiction I've ever read, and worse than a lot of the unpublished fan fiction in the Pit of Voles) I have read a lot of articles and blogs that take the trilogy apart chapter by chapter detailing not just the bad grammar, worse sex descriptions and passages that pretty much rip the source fiction (Twilight) off shot-for-shot. And the one thing I take away from it is this - what is described between Ana and Christian is abuse. Pure and simple.

Having sex with someone against their will is rape. There's no other word for it. Forcing them to do sex stuff they don't want to do is sexual assault.

Threatening to hit a woman, not because it's part of a sex game but because she has pissed you off, is domestic violence.

Imploring someone to stay with you, not see their friends etc etc because you don't know what you will do without them is emotional blackmail.

Monitoring emails/phones to see what your girlfriend is doing and who she is talking to is weird and stalkerish. I know the CIA does it, but that doesn't make it right.

Christian does all of those things on multiple occasions in the books.

But Ana's no better. She's a mean girl dressed up as a nice, normal, 'plain-Jane' type. She's shitty about any woman within a three mile radius, she has no sympathy for the mentally ill and she too emotionally blackmails her way to "true love".

I understand that not everyone sees the sinister side of 50 Shades. I hope those people don't ever get into a relationship with an abuser, because I don't see a happy ending in their future. However, how people don't recognise the above as wrong and not sexy astounds me. Maybe I just have my eyes open to that stuff. Or maybe I don't need to drop myself into a fantasy to get my rocks off. But if I did, it would be someone who loves me for who I am, not someone who tries to make me "better" (again, a big part of these books). Someone who doesn't command me to eat when I don't want to and threatens to smack my arse in the middle of a restaurant if I don't. Someone who doesn't go mad if I choose to go topless on the beach because other people can see.

So don't go and see it - stop giving money to EL James and her badly-written abuse-fest of a book series. Donate that money to a domestic abuse charity instead. You will feel better for doing it.