overlap

This isn't a fully formed set of thoughts, and I'll no doubt come back to it again. Something that came up today provides a good example of something important for me to explain - if you go digging deep enough in the essence of what makes me me, you'll come up against the issues of control and attention again and again. Attention bothers me in an entirely unrational way - if someone approaches me in the street and tries to give me something, I'm as liable to instinctively turn it down purely on the basis that I wasn't looking for it in the first place. The alternative is free stuff, but only where it's something I've seen going on from a distance and had time to form an opinion where I or anyone I know might want it, then my greedy side is unrestrained. But all of this comes down to the fact I just don't like talking to people. Specifically, I don't like talking to strangers. Not because Charlie says strangers are dangerous, not because I'm scared of anything, but simply because they get in my way. I've always hated making telephone calls to people I don't feel I know, and while I've learnt to be able to do it, it's not something I enjoy. I've never returned a faulty product to a shop, apart from twice, and one of those was only because it was for someone else. Anybody who's reading this is instantly excluded from that strangers category, and sure enough if you ask me a question I can answer, I can go on for hours and probably will unless stopped. But among the things I don't like is going into shops and having staff ask if they can help (Yes, get out of my way!) So it's no surprise that I much prefer supermarket shopping, where I can go on looking until I find what I'm looking for, and failing that move on to the next big place round the ring road until I find somewhere that's got it. Yes I'm familiar with the cliche about the gender divide when it comes to asking for directions, but it would be a mistake to read this as a pride issue. Unless I try to overcome it, or there's something in it for me, there's an instinctive reaction not to engage or not to join in that goes beyond the ego. People try not to hit their fingers with hammers because it can bloody hurt rather than because they are worried about being seen as poor hammer technicians, on the whole. Sure, I was born for the digital age where I can measure my words, re-read and edit them and only press send or enter when I'm happy, but it's not much help in the real world. This evening I realised how much difference having my own home has had, in ways I'm not going to detail here. And the effects of the information age that allow me to move between handbag-swingingly obvious ( a good phrase I'm pleased to nick) and desperately secretive at the click of a button. I know there was a point, yes, it was the post-it trick mentioned elsewhere this afternoon. It serves well to allow me to avoid having to ask too many questions or approach and talk to someone beyond a bare minimum, and it achieves the other objective of making someone think what I want them to think. Not because it matters that they either do or don't know I'm buying make up for me, but because I find it easier to deal with known quantities and familiar scenarios. Too many changing variables at the same time and I'm lost. On which note, this is going to be a very special weekend, and one that probably represents yet another step in a process that's taken twenty-odd years for me. Whatever happens, it's important for me to acknowledge to myself just how far this shows me to have come, then to shut up, drink up, and enjoy it.