23rd October: The Digital Age

I'm now sure that the digital age exists so that the perverts of the world can talk to each other. I was looking at some mods for some games earlier (things that modify those games, for those that don't understand gamer speak) and guess what? Out of the top 10 most downloaded mods for a game called "Oblivion" more than half of them were things that turned a game rated 15 into a game rated 18. That is.. removed the underwear on the women. Out of the top 20 mods, there were also some that incuded things such as "Erotic Animation Pack" and "Sexy Animations" and "Bathing Pool: See characters naked."

It's disgraceful! Yet again, what did I really expect? To have non-nude mods on the internet? Get real.. the vast majority of gamers are male. Or at least, go back a few years to when this game was exceedingly popuar, the vast majority of gamers were male. Call me sexist (which I can be), call it stereotyping (which it is), but girls tend to lack the same morbid fascination in two things:

1) Computers and everything attached to it/consoles etc.
2) The opposite sex.

Well, okay, I'm not so sure about number 2... but I don't dare ask, as I don't particulary want to find out. Saying that reminded me of a conversation I had about 2 months ago, with Grace. I can't find any reference to it in September, so I must have forgotten it until this point. The entire conversation was held at about midnight, whilst I was in France. Visiting relatives. This conversation is one of the reasons why I am eternally glad that my relatives aren't security freaks that sit watching my conversations with all my 'friends' on MSN (and the other, proper, friends as well... I'm not insulting all of you. Yet.)

Little Miss Princess (Grace): What do boys do at sleepovers?
Sometimes I'm so confused I don't know what's happening in my life (me): Heh
Me: Why do you want to know that?
Grace: Just answer the question. I want to know.
Me: *laughs* This one of THOSE questions?
Grace: Umm... yep!
Me: Alright then, fair does. We spend our time playing computer games, killing each other and watching DVDs. Pretty much...
Grace: Bet you want to know what girls do at sleepovers now don't you?
Me: Not really....
Grace: No you do!
Me: If you say so.. go ahead and tell me then.
Grace: We spend our time having pillow fights.
Me: Pillow fights?..........
Grace: Yep! In our knickers!
Me: ........
Grace: That made your eyes light up didn't it?


I should probably add in a later conversation that I had, a few weeks ago, with Grace. Who - for some bizzarre reason - remembered it.

Depression (me): Morning
Little Miss Princess (Grace): Hello!
Grace: How's you?
Me: Depressed...
Grace: Bet I can cheer you up! Remember that pillow fight thingy?
Me: What?
Grace: About the girls... at sleepovers.
Grace: Pillow fights.
Grace: Remember?
Me: Um... yeah.
Grace: Bet that's made your eyes light up hasn't it?
Me: Not really...
Grace: I bet it is.
Grace: Just picture it... pillow fight with all these girls giggling and laughing in their knickers, in the dark. Bet THAT made your eyes lit up!
Grace: Didn't it!

In the interests of my sheer good health, how could I possibly fail to be amused at this? To be honest, and this is fairly unusual for me - even on my blog, the first conversation just didn't spark off a reaction. I was being distracted by other things at the time, which those that knew me then should already know about, and those that didn't know me, or know what happened, should go and read this blog. From beginning to end. The answer is actually in the first few days of it I believe. Maybe, if I was being a little less black/white about my reactions, I'd say that it got a slight reaction.

Name a teenage boy who WOULDN'T react to that!

And please, for those that read this, don't start presuming anything about me and Grace. I know that half a dozen of you immediately presume that anyone that gets a mention in this is like.. the love of my life... or something equally ridiculous, but it's not true. No. Really. It's not. Otherwise I'm in some sort of really really complex love shape that makes absolutely no sense unless you're the person that sits there building it. And even then I'm not sure that they understand it. It's not that I mind particulary, but Grace has her own problems, and it's not fair of you to bully her when you don't even know her.

Charlotte - go ahead. It's always amusing. No wait.. don't. Grace might start taking it seriously then. I really need to work out a way of getting emotes onto this typewriter so that I can do ':D' and ':P' as it's really irritating not to be able to do them. Stupid WordPad!

Getting back on the topic, now I've had my rant at most of the girls that know me (and a few of the boys), the second conversation sparked off a response. I just couldn't stop laughing. Seriously. As for making my eyes light up... that's a different situation. I don't need someone else to help me imagine things to do that!

Damn... that sounds wrong doesn't it? Now I'll have you thinking I'm a dirty pervert. I'm not.. honest! You don't believe me do you?

The reason behind me laughing? If I knew that I'd be happier than I am at the moment. I can never work out why I get this sporadic fits of laughter. It's not as if I'd had skittles that day, and as far as I'm aware, not very much else affects me in that way. Maybe I got high on Haribos. Is that even possible? There is a very easy - and very expensive - way to find out. I'll try it sometime. It sounds like fun.

Yes, donations are appreciated. No, you can't do the experiment as well. I'm not that rich!

Maybe, just maybe, if Grace had gone into a lot more detail - as in, more than the actuality of the more than what I put up there - it might have sparked off some reaction. But my hormones are fairly under control. Or at least.. they were. They seem to be demanding more and more attention at the moment. And no, I'm not mixing up my hormones and my little sister. I'm not that insane.

Yet.


I was reading something, somewhere, about the physcological effects of where in the line of siblings you were born. For example, the eldest child is often more spoilt, as they were used to getting their own way earlier on in life. They will seek more attention from their parents as more siblings are born in order to retain their 'place' as the favourite child. In theory. The youngest child, as the youngest, will often feel dominated by the older brothers and sisters therefore making them seek out ways of undermining them. They are dogged through life by the shadows of the older siblings, often... and so on. Seriously, it puts me to sleep.

It's asolute and utter tosh. It's about as useful to me, in this day and age, as a piece of sliced bread that was made last year, left out in the rain for 6 months, thrown into a blast furnace for another 5 months and buried 3 feet underneath the ground for the last month or so. In other words - for those that thought that the metaphor was a little too long and wordy - no use at all. Chocolate teapot level. Charlotte level.

Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but it's worth it to see Charlotte's reaction on MSN. I'll definitely tell her to read this one.

An evil smile broke out across my face then. I'm getting worried... what's going on? I think the hormones are getting a little out of control and telling me to do things! ARGH! I see a bloody knife! I need to purge my hands of the blood stain!

Only joking. I've not killed anyone yet. With a knife that is.

I think my place in my family is firmly assured. The one that trails behind the other two and further ahead of the one trailing behind everyone else who trails in front. Everywhere I go, people know me. My sister does half a dozen things, including outreach to schools, so all the kids know her. My brother worked at one of the larger schools in my area, and went through the system. As did my sister for 3 years, but that was only long enough for half of the town to get to know her. Then, of course, my dad works in a slightly wider range of schools. He also works - as an organist - in an awful lot of the churches (about 10 or 11 I believe) leading to more people knowing of me.

It sounds fine, everyone knowing you. And then you realise the truth. If everyone knows you... how are you supposed to know everyone? I spend more time being polite to strangers than I do being friendly to friends. Talking to people without knowing their names becomes more than just courtesy, it becomes common practise. As some people know, I have an awful memory for names.... it's a result of this "everyone knows me." Naturally I can't blame it all on the family.

Although my sister and brother and parents all made a splash when they hit my local area 8 years ago (when we moved here), I'm sure that I made a similar splash. Nowhere near as big, but it's still a splash. I do enough acommpanying and covering for my dad at musical things that I'm beginning to accumulate a reputation for it. I do enough music at things like schools that I come into contact with a vast number of students at any new school I go to... simply because I go and do what I do to a high standard.

Notice the ommittance of the phrases, "what I do best," and ,"what I do better than everyone else." I'm not some sort of arrogant person that believes that they are the best at what they do.. I just think that I'm the best at making what I do seem like the best. I've met people all over the place that are better than me, but due to lack of confidence aren't. It's all it comes down to really. Confidence.

As many of my school reports, and many peope have said about me, confidence is one thing I have in excess. Unless I'm being a lazy bugger, which is fairly common at the moment, I won't say "I can't do that." I'll say, "I can't do that at the moment, but give me a few minutes and I'll find out how." The same applies in sport. I'll do something, and trust in myself that I'm going to do it properly and not muck it up. If I do muck it up, it doesn't knock a dent in my confidence, but rather gives me a larger bit of confidence which I'll achieve through practise.

If you've ever done watersports with me - and if you have I feel sorry for you - then you'll know that I'll throw myself into it. A slightly better example of my confidence comes from things like Hi-Rope courses and abseiling though. For some inexplicable reason, I have this fear of heights. I suffer from Vertigo, as it is. However, that doesn't mean that I won't do these things where going up to heights is a problem. I'll just rely on myself to be able to not let myself down, and do it. Naturally, confidence doesn't extend quite so far in these directions, but I'm getting there. Slowly.

I'm nearly ready to start considering things like skydiving, but I'm also fairly sure that if I freeze whilst doing something like skydiving, the mistake will be fatal and will only happen once. Strawberry jam finds it hard to skydive you know! Although, on that sort of note, one of my friends is apparently going bungee-jumping. Have fun. Make sure the harness is on properly.

I don't want to have to go to another funeral this year, one's bad enough thank you.


Looking back at the conversation I typed up (from memory, which is why it's imperfect and full of mistakes. Not that you'll notice them, as I made up the bits that I couldn't remember and chopped out the bits which reveal things which I'm not allowed to reveal. Without explicit permission from those involved that is) I realise that there's probably a few people wondering what I meant by "one of THOSE questions."

To briefly summarise, I offered Grace - who kept on badgering me with lists of questions - the opportunity to get three questions answered honestly. That is, totally honestly, in the simplest form possible, with no elaboration or explanation. Yes/No answer if possible. Of course, questions like "why" would be elaborated and explained, and I ended up elaborating and explaining all of my answers. As a side-note, confidentiality was explicity requested, and was given in equal amounts. Basically, they trust me not to say anything about anything that they've said, I trust them not to support any of their opinions with the honesty that I provide.

This may sound like a strange offer to make to a friend - and especially to Grace, who as I've said before (many a time) is my "counciller" - but let me explain. And elaborate.

Firstly, about the councilling thing... everything has a beginning. Those questions were the beginning of it. Now I'm sure that Grace - offered the choice - would love to go back and not accept the offer, preferring to spend her time on MSN talking to other people about slightly cheerier things than whatever happens to be depressing me. Confidentiality (my name for sometime on MSN) was what I stood for at that point in time however, so it's entirely possible that the confidentiality thing cuts two ways with Grace. Possibly.

Secondly, the offer was made at midnight. I'm hardly at my most coherent at midnight and I make bad decisions. I'll openly admit that offering Grace three questions was a bad decision in hindsight, and one that I worried over for some time. Having someone hold that sort of power over you - especially when you are going to keep your word.. a matter of principal rather than any actual physical necessity - isn't exactly comforting. Unless you want all your secrets spilled. Offering Grace them led to one thing, and another, and another, until the problem has multiplied itself several times. Um.. yeah... that's great. Now there's three people who have it. Guess what... they all got offered it at midnight.

I come to life at midnight! Not my fault....

Thirdly, and hopefully finally, the offer was made after a long and depressing conversation about trust (I think it lasted about 2 hours, maybe a little longer. Maybe nudging on for three hours) and after a conversation like that, what can you do but offer your trust to prove your point that you trust them? I'm sure that there are other things, but y'know.. it's not the point. It should be noted, however, that in the cold light of daylight I modified my original offer (which I believe was actually only one question) to two, then to three (which is the one I always remember) and then now (which I always remember as well.. because it affects me constantly) I place no limits on the questions.

It was too much like placing a price on friendship, and I'm not going to do that.


There, wasn't that fun! You got the totally useless background behind an equally useless offer that bears no resemblance to those that can ask because they no longer know the same group of people, and that bears no useable purpose to those that need to get the answers. And, unless something changes radically, I'll keep those two groups apart. Maybe, just maybe, some other people will gain this sort of trust out of me. At some point. But I'm not promising anything, and it certainly won't be soon.

Give it a couple of years maybe? Prehaps 18 months.

I'm sure that Grace and possibly Dani will pick up on that blatant reference. If not, I'm not going to care too much. You SHOULD though. Try rereading some of the conversations we had in August....

For those that aren't Grace or Dani (or possibly even Charlotte, although I think that she was unaware of that particular thing) I'm afraid you'll have to make do without understanding the reference. Just take it for granted that it explains an awful lot of nothing, and that if you were aware of the reference you would get all the wrong impressions out of it. It nearly makes it worth explaining it to you.


And yes, there is logic behind that. My logic. Teenage logic.

I need a motto for this sort of thing...

"Illogical logic - the wonders of thought" prehaps?
"Teenage logic - imperfect sense" maybe?
Possibly even "It's all in the name of the game..."


And I'm sure that even less people got that last reference, despite me mentioning it to an awful lot more people. It's not the sort of thing that sticks in your head for that long.


In reply to Keelan's questions and everyone else that decided to ask me any questions yesterday or today... look in my blog. The answers are there. No, seriously. Just try looking at it with teenage logic.

In reply to the questions that haven't yet been asked, but will be at some point: Look on this blog. I answer most of them before they ever enter your head. Of course, you have to interpret it first.


I would love to see someone try to use this as english comprehension. Can't you see it making a good book for that? Makes absolutely no sense unless you know me, even less sense if you do, and perfect sense to about one person in this world, who everyone says is actually an emo, demon, geek, nerd, neek, gerd, boff, chav, townie and various other names, but who actually can be summed up in just one word.

Not saying what it is though.

That'd spoil the fun!