Journal

a simpler time.

As mentioned in my previous post I'm back from vacation. And after the anger at finding my mother-in-law has a propensity for trespassing derailed my plans for my blog post here it is.

The vacation was to a place near to where I vacationed as a child. As a result there are a lot of memories, first time I drank alcohol (aged 11), first time I got drunk (13). Spending early teenage summers around women in bikinis there was also a lot of fantasising going on but I didn't have any sexual encounters out there or even kiss a girl, my first girlfriend and first kiss where when I was 15 but my last summer there as a teenager was shortly before my 15th birthday.

The great thing about the place (other than some very hot women sunbathing in tiny bikinis) was that I had friends who also went out each year. It's slightly odd to have friends who you pretty much spent 2 or 3 weeks with solidly and then didn't see for another 50ish weeks. Sometimes one of the group wouldn't make it out one year or due to family holidays the wouldn't be as a big an overlap. Unlike home where friends all seemed to be the same age the group of us were spread over about 5 years (hence why I first got drunk at 13 as a couple of guys were 15) which meant that pretty much each year some randoms would join the group on a temporary basis.

As you would expect, I did a fair amount of reminiscing about this summers which led me to the realisation that I have no friends anymore. If I ask Facebook then I'm sure it shows me having about 100 but Facebook's definition of friend is somewhat different to mine. My definition of friends is rather simple:
If I had every other Saturday afternoon available to do whatever I wanted, would I chose to spend time with them?

Based on that I feel the only person who meets the criteria of friend is my daughter, and I'm not sure I can bring myself to be corny enough to say my daughter is my best friend.

If somehow I did get Saturday afternoons available, then currently I'd be choosing between spending it by myself or with my daughter. I don't have time for other people.

You could try to argue that Izzy falls into the category of friend as I would enjoy spending Saturday afternoons with her, but I don't think she counts as I still wouldn't choose to spend the time with her for obvious reasons.

Maybe claiming I have no friends seems overly dramatic, but I'm not saying having no friends is a particular problem it's just the current state of my life.

The fact that based on my definition of friend my wife is no longer my friend is rather sad though.

Maybe things will change, if I get more time available maybe I'll start wanting to spend some of that time with other people.