Losing the food wars...

As I may have mentioned before, the Old Woman does the food shopping for the household. Mainly because she's retired has loads of time, the Man is at work all the time and I cant leave the house without him. And bloody hell doesn't she balls it up...

The Old Woman was born in the 1930s, (shes old enough to be my grandmother), and she still has his strange mental mentality that the boats aren't getting through. Now I'm not the kind of new generation kid who lives on crisps, chocolate and fast food, honestly, but I will still rather buy more food than I need rather than less. I honestly don't understand the point of buying less. I don't live in the 3rd world, I can afford it and most importantly I need it so why the hell not? Well apparently she does not share this new world view.

Most of the time shes quite reasonable, she gets the fact that the Man and I don't live in the 1940's and want curries, pasta and those strange bent yellow jungle fruit things. As does she herself, surprisingly. But quantity is a serious issue. She buys things on offer, things we don't even need, or more importantly wont eat, but when asked to go and buy cheese or cracker bread for example, she will come back with the cheapest, smallest amount she can physically get her hands on, which means it runs out ridiculously quickly, then she gets all pissy saying she "only bought it the other day, and didn't it go fast!" Yes it did, because it was a portion designed or an anorexic ant, not fully grown humans.

The Old Woman also has a very frustrating and yet hilarious motion that if SHE has been out and eaten "a big lunch" which I believe in her terminology consists of food that's actually been cooked, rather than placed between two pieces of thin bread, it means that WE have eaten too, and therefore only need "a light dinner". It is weird and funny and yet a really crappy ongoing problem because I only eat one meal a day most days (since I have such an irregular sleeping pattern), and then mix that with the very little food in the house that actually makes a meal and then imagine shes not cooking for all 3 of us, I'm stuffed, not literally.. Like right now.

There is barely anything around to make a meal for one. Which I would be quite happy to do if there was the ingredients around to do it.

I cannot go out and get food on my own.

I haven't eaten today.

The last ready meals were already eaten before I got up despite the fact that I told the Old Woman to go and get more only the other day, to which the reply was that she didn't need to do that because we were "OK for now".

And in response to my problem? Laughter. "Ohh! I thought there was a ready meal in the freezer outside! Ohhh dear!!" Giggle, giggle.

Yeah, its bloody hilarious that I might have to go without my only meal of the day...

Introducing, the acceptables...

I did promise that I would get round to explaining this eventually so here goes. There are perhaps only 4 or 5 people that I am socially comfortable with, and therefore the only people I talk to. But like with normal people too, my comfort levels, ability, and desire, to socialise or when socialising with even these few people goes up and down depending on my mood.

Firstly, there is of course the Man...

Who I live with and follow around like a lost puppy. But because he works stupid hours in central London, by driving into town, parking for the day and getting the rain to Paddington, most days hes just too tired or busy to do absolutely anything. Poor bloke. And I must note the only one of the acceptables who I trust to take me anywhere.

Trust (Not literally, just to not put me in awkward social situations) - 10/10

Social Comfort Level - 10/10

Then there is the Old Woman...

Who I also live with bu only technically because we don't see each other about that often being that I live in my bedroom, and shes always out. The Old Woman, as her may suggest, is old enough to be my grandparent and though "seemly" tries to understand my social phobia and the way my mind thinks, does not seem to understand the severity or the complexity of the problem. I do sometimes wonder if she either thinks I'm just being difficult or she still thinks its 1940 and I can be cured by hanging upside down on a Thursday with custard in my nose, either that or a nice padded cell. I have many arguments with the Old Woman. Most of which about her love of having many many guests over spontaneously, sometimes several times a week, which causes me to freak out completely, cry and hide. Something of which she still fails to understand in the slightest.

Trust (Not literally, just to not put me in awkward social situations) - 4/10

Social Comfort Level - 6/10

The Man's Brother, is another acceptable...

He comes by occasionally from town where he lives to discuss computer things, taxes, and mostly his financial and family situation. Sometimes to borrow things (that are his anyway, and live in our garage due to a space issue of his) or garden things, like chop down dying trees. He is currently in the process of divorcing his wife of 20 (?) years, since she continuously stabs him in the back and takes all she can from him, she has been stealing for many years. They haven't been happy for a long time but him getting another women pregnant clinched it. His 3 daughters aren't much better. All teenagers, two of which (the eldest and the youngest) have babies, but neither are still with the fathers. The middle one is a bit of a party animal but that has calmed down a bit since she found out she was diabetic and now has to take insulin every day. To top it off, he owns the Inland Revenue a stupidly massive sum of money into the hundreds of thousands. And the women he got pregnant is keeping the baby, but they aren't together, and so now come February he will have another one to worry about. You can't help but feel bad for him. (With no mean to sound like I'm on any kind of high horse, I do tend to find the man's brothers family rather chavish. Or very chavish actually, and you can sort of see why...)

Trust (Not literally, just to not put me in awkward social situations) - 3/10

Social Comfort Level - 5/10

And then there are the Man's friends, Fixy Man and Football Man...

Fixy Man lives in the same street in town near the Man's Brother with his wife and three teenage sons. He, as his name suggests, is a mechanic and he fixes things for us, cars, lawn mowers, motorbikes...etc, for free. (We try and pay him but he doesn't let us.) Another lovely guy. Unfortunately he recently has had an operation on his leg and has been out of action for a while. He was under the impression that the operation would cure his problem and he would recover but it doesn't look that way anymore, so fixy mans fixing days may be numbered.

Trust (Not literally, just to not put me in awkward social situations) - 0/10

Social Comfort Level - 4/10

Football Man we see less often. He also live in town with his wife and triplet teenage sons. he comes here mainly to drink beers and watch football (actual football, not American football) when important (so I'm told) matches are on. I am a nice enough person about stuff like this; I think its sweet that they get together and have a little play date to watch games, so there's no whining from me about such things.

Trust (Not literally, just to not put me in awkward social situations) - 0/10

Social Comfort Level - 1/10

All of these people are quite a bit older than me, and all but one of which are male...bizarre I know, but older males seems to be the type of person I'm comfortable with. Yes, I'm aware of the creepiness that it suggests, but its for these 4 reasons.
1. I'm frightened of teenagers and people my own age...I don't know why.
2. I generally find females rather bitchy and harder to be around.
3. The relationship with my mother was fraught with difficulty and hate, whereas with my father love and ease.
4. Being that my main social companion is the Man, and I have no friends, and most of his friends are men, it just happens to have worked out that way.

So, no creepiness I can assure you.

Left in the dark...

I woke up today at 3 something in the afternoon to the man coming in to say he was going into town and he wouldn’t be long, it was already dark, I wasn’t feeling too good, he was in a rush to get to the bank before it closed and so he left.

I haven’t been out anywhere in a while. When I do venture outside the home environment it is ALWAYS with the man, the man understands I don’t like people; he gets the whole phobia deal. I don’t trust anyone else to take me anywhere. I have in the past and I’ve either been left alone somewhere, or started to have a panic attack or just been thrown headfirst into awkward and horrible social situations. I can trust no-one. No-one but the man.

I actually felt like crying a bit when his car went down the driveway. Don’t get me wrong, I love being in the house by myself usually, but when he goes out without me it’s very much a lost opportunity to get out the house and go somewhere, for my own sanity if nothing else.

So I just sat up in bed, in the dark, in the eerily silent house and felt quite gutted. Sad really isn’t it?