Without making this all mememe:

My collagues at my main job (here) are all married with children. They are also on approx 3x my salary, which shouldn't make a difference, but it does in terms of the things they do with their spare time. I have to save up to do the things they see as spontaneous.

My colleagues at my Saturday job are more varied:
- the shop's owners. Lovely people but quite insular. Don't usually go out except with friends they have known for years who are also married with children - I am hired to babysit (which I appreciate)
- 60yo rock chick, who makes me laugh now, but drove me fruitloop for the 1st year I knew her. She stage manages a band and took me to a couple of gigs. I had a brief fling with the bass-player who was sexy but stupid and now I just go to her house for dinner.
- 16yo girl - nuff said. A sweet girl but not socialising material!
- Chinese graduate - v intelligent, killing time til (Chinese) bf graduates. Much younger than me & have never heard her talk about socialising

Please believe me, I'm not dismissing any viable sources of introduction. My friend & I actually fell out over this. After splitting up with his GF (and I was there for him every weekend despite being in a state myself) we talked and talked about forging a new social life together and how good it would be for both of use. He then got a girlfriend & ignored me after 4 years of friendship.

This is not in the nature of a complaint - just an explanation about why it is hard for me to meet people. I am more than open to Dwellars questioning this - there might be something I am genuinely not considering.

ANYWAY - if I'm ever in Philly I'll look you up ;)

That'd be nice, there are a bunch of us right around here - I wish I could somehow help. *hug*

I know what you are saying SG. I have opportunities to meet people because of work, etc. but I don't meet many who are really on my wavelength. I also HATE dating...I never did like it. I don't get the concept really. If I am interested in someone it usually works out that we just end up hanging out together...none of that "we went on 3 dates and we didn't click" or "this might turn into something" or anything like that. Too much pressure, too much stress, and I am basically not interested in that way of starting a relationship. My relationships normally start out as friendships, and that means it is someone I have occasion to be around enough (I don't pursue friendships either.)


When I first got divorced, my "friend" was all over me to get onto the dating websites...after all she was doing it and having so much success (not.) That is also not my style and I'd rather be boiled in oil. Her experience only confirmed my feelings. I'm not saying it doesn't work out for some.

I don't feel the need to have a "special someone" in my life at all times. If it happens it happens. If not, OK.

You made me laugh with your hairdresser comment. I hate having to chat it up when I'm getting my hair cut, also. Let me zone, make me gorgeous...I wish we could convey that up front without sounding like an ass!

Yet I do feel that people are interested in what I have to say, most of the time. People do think me unusual, as you said, but I like that. Many have said I wouldn't be me without my quirks, and I am unlike most "normal" people I know.

In any event, I do feel a bond to many people here, on what is perhaps a different level. I think many of us who congregate here are a bit different (in a good way.)

I guess my response got a little windy, too. Thanks for listening.

Not at all - it really helps to know that I'm not a freak! Or at least if I am, I'm in good company here. I'm glad you get where I'm coming from.

I just wish there was a real life Cellar I could hang out in... Get drunk with the party girls sometimes, suck up herbal tea and sage advice at others, listen to the musical Dwellars perform, hang round the edge of the same old arguments about gun control, watch some stand-up cock puppetry etc etc.

But part of what I'm trying to do not is not live inside my own head so much. The daydream of The Cellar Bar is a great one, but I need to accept that the Cellar is (just) a great forum and look for company closer to home.

Does that sound healthy?

You just said what I should have been thinking. I too wish for the Cellar to be a real life place, and I too am trying to get rid of some of my walls.

You sound very healthy, and real. You're very refreshing.

Ok, thats it! We are all gonna have to get together for a major picnic or something of some sort (no weapons allowed) and just hang. I think UT did this a long time ago with a BBQ or something similar. Lets pick a centralized location and make it happen. Who's in?

I think this already happens once a year...

Maybe this should be a project for me! I will make an effort to save in order to come to one. 2008? After all if I can crash at someone's place it needn't cost much more than the airfare & I can save a couple of quid a week.

Hell, I went to San Francisco for 2 days because my ex was at a conference and felt lonely, I reckon I could manage it for a BBQ :)

I would need to save up, too...but I would love to do something like that.
SG, if I win some big money I'll make sure you can fly over...you can always stay with me, or probably some other Cellarite would put us up (or put up with us) for a night or two.

There have been a number of regional meetings, and a couple of years ago we ended up grafted onto Plastic Forks.

Newsflash
I'm sorry, but Plastic Forks, as we know it, is on hiatus until 2007. Please come back next year!



Details, we need details.

Just following the tradition of naming the building levels in the UK -where the first floor is upstairs?

That would make it easy for British elevator software programmers...

Lifts, dear, they're called lifts. ;)

Without being a member of the site you are able to click the "What" "Why" "When" etc. links on the left of the page.

Or, just do a Cellar search for "Plastic Forks."

Or, look here.

Going back to an earlier post - my Mandarin Chinese course has been cancelled. Not enough participants.

Good news because I was beginning to wonder if I'd bitten off more than I could chew after listening to the CD. Bad news because the primary reason for the course was to get out and meet people.

I will have to keep looking at local adverts, see if there is something else I can do instead.