Dating sucks

My band is really tight at the moment but I've been hovering between 79 and 81kg for weeks now. This always happens to me. I go through a burst of motivation and enthusiasm to eat well and exercise lose on average 1kg a week and then get bored with cooking and get complacent about exercise then hello plateauville.

My band is so tight it is really anti social. I can eat but very, very slowly or if I stick to really band friendly foods I can eat a little more and a little faster. These include cheese and crackers, popcorn, smoothies, Cruskits, some muesli bars, soups. You bandits out there know what I mean - either really crunchy or really soft/sloppy. When I'm being lazy about eating I tend to live on cheese and crackers and chocolate and popcorn. Not healthy from a calorie point of view and certainly not healthy from a nutritional viewpoint either.

My staple diet

I wrote the other day about my latest dating situation. I've decided I hate dating! I hate the anxiety of it all. The games that are suppose to be played. You know what I mean? Trying to not seem too keen while still expressing some interest. In this day and age where communication is so easy via social media or text message it is easy to fall into the trap of overly regular contact before you know the person well and then when they don't respond at the same pace or with the same enthusiasm it leaves the mind to fill the gaps trying to work out what each message really means or what they really are trying to tell me when they don't respond for 24 hours. Because seriously, we all have our mobile close at hand. For blokes, they are only in their pockets. There must be a message they are trying to tell me by not getting back within a couple of hours.

So my mind has been working overtime since my date on Monday night. Does he like me, does he not? Do I like him? Or do I really think our political differences are uncompromisable (is that even a word)? My complaint with the last relationship was that we fell into a trap of being too comfortable too soon and in too much contact too soon. This current guy and I have a date set for this afternoon so I should be happy, but why do I assume he can't be that interested because he hasn't sent me a tonne of texts everyday since the last date? 

This line of thinking then sends me into a spiral of self doubt and self hate. OMG, I must be so annoying! I must come across so desperate! So old! So needy! It goes on... Why does it have to be like this? Why do I have to be like this? I've never been great with men and relationships. The reason for that could take hours to write about and I'm sure it goes back to the way my mother hated my dad my whole life (except for the last 5-10 years) and how she basically taught my sister and me to either hate men, or fear them, but I don't want to go into that now. I've always believed that I've spent most of my life single, or with dickheads, either because I'm too fat, too needy, too aggressive, too drunk, too headstrong, too unable to play the game...

Noo and I went out and about just the two of us yesterday which is usual for a Saturday. We visited my mum in hospital (she's ok) and then went in search of somewhere to cool off (it was 30+ degrees here in Sydney). The first park we went to has a really great sprinkler system for the kids to run under but was packed, despite the fact that the water feature was broken. We left there and went to a local pool. I'd been resisting the pool because I had a small lump taken off my arm during the week and wasn't suppose to have it submerged in water for too long but the pool we went to has a great kids' wading pool so I didn't have to get wet. Anyway, the reason I'm writing about this is that I hate Saturdays in parks, pools, zoos... any place for kids. Saturday is Dad Day.

I'm pretty sure I've written about this before but I can't be bothered to go hunting out the link. All the places for kids are packed with older, school aged kids as well as the preschoolers and toddlers, and they come with their dads or as a family unit - with both parents. I don't want to sound bitter, because I'm not (I don't think), I made the choice to be a sole parent, but it is on these days that I realise I really would like to share this wonderful experience with someone. As well as share the hard times of raising a child.

In the kids' pool yesterday there was a couple with their little baby who might have been about six months old. Watching them share the delight in their baby's face as he padded and splashed around the shallows of the pool made my heart melt. I love seeing dads with their babies. The hardness of their masculinity disappears as they focus on their baby and as an onlooker you can just feel the love between them. I would love to share that with someone. Because the truth of it is I want more kids! But not alone. It is just too hard. 

The father issue has come up a lot lately because Noo is starting to realise he doesn't have one. He sometimes talks like he does and sometimes calls my dad - his pa - daddy. I feel really bad about that. Not because I'm not in contact with his biological father because getting that fuckwit out of our lives was the best thing I could have done for Noo but for not having another man in our lives we could both love and he could call dad. Or I wish his real dad was a decent bloke and could be in our lives but that is never ever going to happen.

*big sigh here* 

Anyway, I've written way more than I wanted to. It is a beautiful day here again and I have lots to do. I'll write later about this afternoon's date. He just text so we're all set. 

Now, what am I going to wear?


V.