I'm so glad about all the information that is now available about introversion and support for introverts.  (Thank you Susan Cain, who seems to have set it all off.)


I do wish it had happened much sooner in my life.


I have lived most of my life being told, and believing, that my discomfort with social situations and people was a personal flaw, something that I needed to "get over", something that I just needed to keep doing so that I would "get used to it."


Well I lived like that for more than sixty years and I didn't get over it and I didn't get used to it.


I have always hated parties and I have always hated dealing with new people more than one or two at a time.   I can remember so many hours being someplace where I was not comfortable just waiting desperately for the time when I could leave.


It is only lately that I have discovered that when I am someplace I don't want to be if I simply say something like, "Thank you for inviting me, I have to get going now, goodbye", and leave,  no one bats an eye or cares.   Possibly because in that sort of situation I'm usually just siting there like a lump not saying a word and it's a relief to have me gone.


And I am still struggling to be able to say, "Thank you for the invitation but that's a setting in which I know I won't be comfortable so I am going to decline."


It isn't that I don't like people at all.   If I'm in a comfortable situation I do enjoy spending time with my friends.


But I have to admit that I am the most content when I'm at home on my own.
( Except of course for noise from the neighbours. )

Sometimes when I'm eating something that I know is unhealthy or really fattening I seem to eat it really really quickly.  


As though I somehow think that by doing that it doesn't count and my body isn't going to notice the intake.


Whereas what I should be doing,  having decided to eat it in the first place,  is eat very slowly and savour each sinful mouthful.

"You can afford it."


The ONLY person who should ever say that to you is your accountant and then only if you've specifically asked.


It infuriates me when I comment that a restaurant or a piece of clothing is expensive and someone tells me that I can afford it.  How the hell would they know and what business of theirs is it anyway?


How I choose to spend my money and what I choose to consider expensive is up to me and no one else.


The fact that paying for something is not going to mean I go without groceries does not mean that a restaurant does not have prices higher than I wish to pay or that an article of clothing is to me worth the price asked for it.


I often think friends are spending money very foolishly.   Maybe you need to have been really short of cash at least during one period in your life to appreciate having enough now and not want to waste it.


I also don't like to eat in very expensive restaurants or shop in very expensive clothing stores because I don't like to do anything that encourages them to continue to exist.   There is such inequality in the world and I don't want to be one of the people who consumes unnecessarily or excessively.

Interesting how,


"I don't deserve the friends I have,"


has two totally different meanings.

"A world into which he increasingly did not fit".


That's a quote from someone but I can't remember whom and I got no hits when I searched on Google.  


Anyway, that's how I find myself feeling a lot lately.


Particularly after dealing with people.


Part of getting old I guess.

Anymore when I see a commercial where someone is nattering on about hair colour or makeup or hair replacement or designer clothing or crap for the home I just get such an urge to scream at them to shut their stupid vacuous mouths.

I really am getting old.


When I watch a DVD,

I fast forward through the sex scenes.