More successful social interactions

The routine didn’t change much, I ate, showered and went to work. I didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted though since I was up until 4am getting that darn Platinum trophy last night.

At work I was off the phones but at time I think I would have preferred it since there would have been more time to chill and take things at my own pace, I instead ended up getting a high CPH stat, annoyingly high since I saw my stats for the night shifts I did, they’re also way to high for my liking, there’s no reason for me to be working this hard.

I found myself having a few conversations with my Pakistani pals. One where I offered to cover the headscarf wearing ones shifts in October since she got screwed over on her holiday requests. I’m going to start calling her the “tall one” from now on. It’s not set in stone just yet, I need to get authorisation to move my night shifts around a bit and then I’ll need to sign a form waiving my right to have an 11 hour break between shifts.

The Pakistani guy interacted with me a bit too, he shouted across the office to speak to me and later in the day walked over to where I was sitting, just to chat, he joked about me going on the shag after work. The guy I sat next to today was a white guy, a university student, right at the end of the shift we discussed football, music and Magic the Gathering. I wasn’t that into football, said I was just into the drama of it, so that line of dialogue ended, next was the discussion on music, I heavily pushed that he should listen to Ghost, all we had in common there was that we both liked Metallica, though I don’t anymore. Lastly he peered over at my screen and asked what I was looking at, I said it was MTG stuff and he remarked that his friends play it, then we talked about nerd culture shop and then went on a tangent about trans people, a very lengthy tangent. It ruined the conversation, I struggled to keep it going and just waffled on about nothing interesting.

At home I had Doritos and dip again but this time I went was a dip that was less than 100 calories. So for the day I’m under 2000. I’ll have noodles tomorrow.

I’m booking holidays off from work so I can play MTG every fortnight at the local games store even if my shift pattern does not change.

Alien

The day period of yesterday was mostly spent “Nier: Automata”, this wasn’t a significant portion of time as I woke up late and didn’t have too long before I had to report in for my night shift. I found time to bust open my Amazon packages, I’ll be returning around half of the clothes, I’ve decided I’m a size 12, not 10, I can fit in a 10 but 12 is more comfortable.

At work, me and the woman I work with spoke some more, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are very different people and I should stop making an effort, it would also be appreciated if she did the same. She mentioned how she got very drunk when going out with friends recently, I mentioned how my 6’2 friend told me I was drunk when we visited various pubs around Lancaster a couple of months ago but that was as far as I could connect with her. Her sister is going interailing soon and she mentioned that she’ll be taking her “out” to the city as she’s never been on a night out in the city before, I initially misunderstood and thought she said said that he sister has never been to the city before at all. There was also a classic miscommunication when I heard “made me ill” as “aluminium”

There was also talk of the cities she’ll be visiting and some other normie stuff, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t relate at all. This person is just too different from me, we have no common ground. I actually thought she was a bit quirky/socially anxious initially when she told me that she kept her head down in school. We also walked out of the office together and that was pretty awkward too, I hope it doesn’t happen again.

It’s funny, I’ve come to the same realisation for the third time this year, maybe it’ll sink in this time. I’ve had a far easier time connecting with the Pakistanis at work, it’s so fucking easy and natural. No matter how I change my beliefs and no matter how much I drink, I won’t be like “them”, we’re too different, I haven’t had the same life experiences as them and I don’t live the same life as them now. Even my best friends are different to me in much the same way, I don’t understand why they humour me.

The following day I spent 12 hours completing “Nier: Automata”, I got another platinum trophy, it was pretty easy, just time consuming. It’s because there’s an ingame trophy shop. I was underwhelmed by the game, played it on easy with auto-evade enabled, I also chose to mute it while I listened to YouTube videos instead. The story was OK and there’s a cool bit at the end where the final section for the true ending is impossible to achieve, so after dying several times, you get an “offer of help” for another player (AI controlled). It then becomes trivial. After completing it, the game asks if you want to sacrifice all your save date to help another player in the same way you were helped. It reflects the story in some ways.

I’ve started watching “Peaking Blinders”. I’m worried about more “spots” I’ve developed on my body, there are now a total of 3 on my lower arms and two on my ankle area.

FUCK FAKE NEWS

I went to sleep at around 4pm last night, I wasn’t doing anything particularly interesting, I just didn’t feel like going sleep. This resulted in me waking up at 2pm the following day.

I started things off by washing my hair and then going to ASDA to buy Doritos and dip, they totalled around 1700 calories, pretty bad but at least I skipped breakfast. With my time before work I played a little “Nier: Automata” and watched WWE Raw.

When I got to work, the music was mostly at a normal volume but late into my shift it was turned up, I asked the woman who did it to turn it down. She asked me to say please, I said “please, pretty please with a cherry on top”. She turned it down and then about 20 minutes later, turned it back up. She doesn’t seem to be malicious but I’m not happy with the situation.

I talked a bit to the woman on my team. She was wearing a crop top and it made me feel better about my own body when I noticed she had a bit of a tummy. I hope she doesn’t think I was checking her out.

Regarding the spamming of my blog comments with fake news about my past, firstly I need to stress that all the allegations are completely false. The posts in question where made by cowardly anonymous trolls roleplaying as me. It’s pathetic and anyone who knows me or has met me, knows that I could never write anything like that. Due to the worthlessness of the comments on the blog as of late, I will be disabling the comments function temporarily. I refused to be bullied off the internet.

Things were done

I didn’t want to waste my day so I tried to get up before 10am, I then pushed this back to 11am. The first thing I did with my day was some grooming, I shaved my legs and used hair removal cream on my crotch, I feel better about my body now.

It wasn’t until after 12pm that I ate, my mother had bought a box of Crunchy Nut before she left. I wanted something with lower calories going forwards so I went to ASDA and bought some ASDA branded Chocolate Wheatabix, less than 300 calories in two biscuits.

When I got back, there was a card left by Amazon, they’d left my delivery with a neighbour, I swiftly picked it up. More clothes and a few card sleeves. I then spent some time with my cards, sleeving a few up before doing some housekeeping in the form of taking out the trash and doing the washing, I split my clothes into 3 separate loads and hung them all out. It was boiling today so they mostly didn’t struggle to get dry.

At around 3pm I went to my aunts, I’m trying to visit once a week and my cousin said I should head there today to discuss a mysterious letter she received through the post. It looks like a scam but she’s worried, my cousin wasn’t here to discuss it though. Instead, I just had normal chatter with the family. My mother Whatsapp called us and showed us around the house in Pakistan, they have wi-fi there and it appears to be a nice place, like a holiday villa. There’s a lack of furnishings though since I don’t believe people usually live there or at least not many people. I bumped into my uncle on the way back, he drove me home.

Back at home, around 5pm, I played 45 minutes of Nier: Automata, it’s very low budget and unimpressive so far.

My dinner was a pot of noodles while I finished watching season 3 of GLOW. I got bored though so I also stuffed 2 packets of crisps and then went outside with the intention of buying Doritos and dip from ASDA, thankfully it was closed at this time due to the bank holiday. On the way back home I thought about getting a takeaway instead but I restrained myself.

I then watched the new Dave Chappelle standup show, it was good but below the quality of his previous works. Then some “Walliams & Friend”, it was crap, finally I just settled down with the most recent season of “Last Chance U”. During the middle of all this, I brought my clothes in from the garden.

I managed to complete some of my goals, there was a 20% discount code on ASOS which I used to pick up a watch, necklace and two pairs of black jeans (most of mine are different shades of blue). I was playing around with getting a a pinifore and skirt but wasn’t sure what to wear them with and how soon they’d be going out of season/fashion.

We run the asylum now

Even though I only got 6 hours of sleep, I felt fairly well energised by the time I got out of bed. I wasn’t able to do any more or less than I usually do other than put an outfit together that I was happy with.

On the way to work, I saw one of the newer members of staff, a fellow Pakistani who is working the same, awful, weekend shifts as me, I feel awful, the reason he has this terrible shift pattern is because they need someone to replace me if I’m to do night shifts all the time.

Work was a bit of a riot today, the team leader noted that we’d only averaged 6 CPH. I think over half the staff in were Pakistani, the phone lines were quiet and there was a healthy amount of chatter. The headscarf wearing Pakistani woman who I have talked to frequently was talking to the woman I do night shifts with and the Pakistani guy with dead grandparents was talking to me, he was asking a lot of questions. I liked having an element of mystery about myself so felt uncomfortable with his constant line of questioning, I revealed that I still lived at home with my parents and details of the family trip to Pakistan, the most awkward question was the one regarding my sexuality, I was ashamed of being a virgin and not currently having a bf, so I just nodded along when he asked if I liked women (an option he circled back around to after asking if I was gay or asexual).

We talked a bit about religion again and he said he wanted me to see the light and that a trip to Pakistan with my family would have been good for me, I thought it amusing how his thoughts echoed some of those on my blog and /britfeel/.

One of the more flattering things he asked was why I don’t apply to be a manager, I said that I’d only been here for 6 months but he felt that I was smart. My reply was honest, I don’t intend to be here that long and I agreed with him when he said that this job sucked. Our conversations sometimes crossed over with ones others were having, one time we discussed “nonces” and how I formerly worked with one and how the woman on night shifts dated a guy with a nonce for a grandfather. One weird part of the day was how both myself an another person also told funny stories about black people, not in a racist way, just stories where their race was relevant.

I’ve learned that a fair few people (Pakistanis) will be going (back) to university in a month or so, I’m not sure what the plan is after that since the workforce will be depleted again. My team leader asked when I’d be ditching my night shifts for permanent nights and I told her that it was supposed to be when the new people started but now I’ve been told 3-4 more weeks. She said that this wasn’t fair and she’d talk to our manager about it. Pretty cool of her but I don’t want it to look like I’m complaining.

When I visited the bathroom, a Pakistani looking person I hadn’t spoken to before, at the urinal, threateningly said something along the lines of “don’t look at my dick, gay boy”. I then ran into a cubicle.

At home, I ate and hopped on YouTube. More clothes have arrived and I’ve installed “Nier: Automata” onto my PS4.

I really want a bf so will make a fresh attempt to snag one.

Alone

I woke up at a reasonable time, I had a little more than an hour before having to head out to work. Today was also the day my family were going on holiday to Pakistan so it was mildly emotional, I didn’t outright say goodbye to anyone but I spoke to most of them. My father wanted me to call the mobile phone contact provider, I was angry about this given that I only had so much time to unwind before heading out to but I still did it.

I’d spent months saying that I didn’t want to go to Pakistan because it’s dangerous and I could die, my father constantly refuted this but now, on the day of his leaving he started a sentence off with “In case we die…”, it was amusing but he was serious, didn’t say anything too interesting though, just housekeeping stuff.

I went to work and it I had one awful customer who called me out on being passive aggressive to them and was glad calls were recorded (this was an outbound call and I hadn’t pushed the record button so they’re going to be disappointed), their complaint is pretty trivial and they just made a terrible, nonsensical decision really.

After 7pm, the only staff remaining were the white team leader, myself and two Pakistanis, carrying on the great tradition of Pakistanis having the worst shift patterns. There was some chatter about Khabib Nurmagomedov, the Pakistanis really love him and shamed the white guy for calling him “Ka-beeb” instead of “Ha-beeb”. I chipped in very slightly when the topic changed to boxing and a few other bits a pieces but I wasn’t really part of it, just butting in. I was able to drop my 6’2 friend into conversation though, that was nice.

My experience at home was different, it was quiet, I didn’t like it, it felt like my family was gone forever and I was completely alone. It reminds me of when I was away at university, maybe moving out isn’t a good idea. The house needed a bit of a tidy since my family must have a had a bit of a party before leaving, I cleaned the dishes and put the rubbish (sweet wrappers) into the bin.

The night was spent watching the MTG GP Vegas finals on Twitch. My fake MTG cards from China arrived, they’re not convincing in the slightest.

There’s a MTG store event next week on Saturday, I’m really disappointed I won’t be able to attend, I don’t want to ruin my 100% attendance record.

Good stuff tinged with negativity

I went to sleep late last night and struggled to get to sleep, it’s becoming quite a problem. At work, there was barely anyone in, it really took me by surprise, I’m not sure what happened, despite this, it wasn’t too busy and it was an overall quite chilled out day even though I was on the phones all day.

I sat next to the headscarf wearing Pakistani woman I’ve been friendly with pretty much since I started working here. We had quite a few conversations throughout the day, topics included previous jobs, my night shifts (she also disliked the loud music and how the lights were turned off) and she also noted how one of the office dogs reminded her of me. The dog was black and woolly but with some grey.

There was one fuck up about how I bragged about leaving the office during my night shift for a short while and then found my manager was standing behind me, she then chatted to me about my night shifts, I took the chance to note how loud it was, she suggested I say something but I retorted that the others don’t think it is loud. She then said she’ll have a word. That sounds great and in other positive news, I found the earphones I thought I’d lost at work months ago, they were left on a table, everyone was aware they were there apart from me.

Another conversation was with one of the team leaders who noted she hadn’t seen me in a while, I said that I’d had holidays, she asked if I’d done anything, I joked about having gone to a Magic the Gathering tournament and being “so cool”. She asked if I won, I replied that there were a thousand people there and I went 5-3.

At home, my father Whatsapp called me to let me know he found his phone, this is infuriating since I’ve spent all day worrying about all the sensitive date that could have been in the hands of some nefarious person due to my father not protecting his phone with a PIN/password.

I only spent around £5 on MTG cards today, just a couple to improve my main Modern format deck.

Below is a conversation from work between me and the Pakistani guy there. The one with the deceased grandparent(s).

Thursday, the lost day

The night shift was awful, the loud music is really getting to me now. I’m talking less and less to my co-worker, it’s always her who initiates.

I got out of bed at 3pm but I really could have slept longer. I didn’t want to waste the entire day, that’s why I forced myself up early. I checked my phone and my cousin was asking if I want to go see a “Roy Chubby Brown” show with her, I declined, she thought it would be funny that we could be lynched. I didn’t respond.

With my limited free time, I chose to be as productive and knock something off the todo list I created a few days ago. Today it was buying some more clothes, I went with Amazon since they emailed me about a sale they’re having and returns are easy. I bought a couple of sweatshirts since they’re pretty popular these days and cold weather is approaching, a couple of t-shirts, a pair of jeans and a dress.

The only media I consumed was YouTube videos, none of them interested me much, I just needed something to listen to. Apart from the clothing, I avoided buying anything further, I need to get my finances in check, I’ll only make further allowances for the things on the previously mentioned checklist.

At around 6pm, my father burst into my room, he had lost his phone. I ribbed him a bit about this but he got angry and started hitting his own head before collapsing to the floor in the fetal position. It wasn’t long before I called the customer services team for his contract provider to arrange a replacement. While I was only though, I muttered insults at my father, he became angrier and ranted at me in language, I didn’t understand what he meant but as before, it just confirms that he really isn’t a nice person, he just puts it on. There’s also the confirmation of mental illness, I believe both he and my mother are both mentally unwell and that has passed onto most of their children in different ways, not much of a revelation, throughout the years we’ve all accused each other of needing help.

I called the people, they cancelled the sim and arranged for another one to be sent out. It won’t be arriving before my father goes on holiday though. I’m also concerned about weather or not he had a password/pin on his old phone since it’s quite possible that there was a lot of sensitive information on there. He used that phone a lot, for work, to watch Pakistani media, read Urdu language news, he even had an email account. I didn’t get the chance to communicate any of these concerns to him though, he just asked if I had a spare phone, I said “no”, he kept pushing until I gave him one, no charger though, it’s my old OnePlus 2.

I’ve started hanging clothes onto my rail but I’ve avoided placing the more feminine articles on there since they’d be visible to anyone who visits my room. For now it’s just t-shirts, jeans, plaid shirts and a couple of hoodies. Before going to bed I did a quick search for jobs and found a few that vaguely interested me, I don’t have time to apply today but will make a note of them. I’ve taken a couple of laxatives.

Finally aware

I sold a few more Magic the Gathering cards so went off to the post office to send them out. I also took some time to setup my new clothing rail, I’m now just waiting for some hangers to arrive so I can actually use the thing. I feel organising my clothes this way will help me start my days right and present the best version of me to the world.

My cousin visited, it doesn’t look like she’ll be getting a divorce. She convinced me to visit her mother and watch some “Roy Chubby Brown”, she enjoys watching him with her husband, his father used to watch him too.

The night shift was a chore, especially after reading a reply from my manager which took a week to reach me, she said that due to being understaffed on the weekends, I’ll need to continue to work my split day/night shifts. They’ll re-evaluate in 3-4 weeks time. I replied asking “what about Fridays?”. If I can at least turn my Friday late shift into a night shift on another day, I’ll be able to play MTG. What made the night hell was the loud music, my headphones didn’t block it out and the sound could be heard from the bathroom. I only spoke to the woman sitting next to me twice, once when I initiated about us continuing to split out shifts and an hour or two later when she told me about a gross email she was dealing with.

The following day at home, I pre-ordered the Final Fantasy 8 Remaster (the only other main series non-MMORPG in the series that I haven’t completed is FF3) and bought Nier: Automata since I needed to use my £5 Amazon credit on something before the end of the month. I watched some GLOW in the background, I didn’t get enough sleep, too tired to do anything and there’s not enough time to form plans and get anything meaningful done. My next night shift starts shortly, I’m starting to believe I might have been screwed over but two can play at that game, I was working 50% harder than expected until now, so I’ll just turn it down and chill out, I’ll even search for other jobs tonight while at work.

Low Completion Rate, Total Failure Avoided

I went to sleep a little late last night so woke up around noon. There wasn’t any cereal other than porridge so I went out to ASDA to buy some, I went with the ASDA branded version of Kellog’s Crunch Nut Chocolate Clusters along with Dorito’s and ASDA branded dip.

Back at home, I cleaned my room and ate my meal while watching “Hasan Minaj’s Patriot Act” on Netflix. I then set to work on my other goals for the day, started off with one of the easiest, buying a necklace. I found a simple one that was fine but I also came across various pendants and now I’m not sure if I would rather one of those instead but there’s so much more variety with those, it’s harder to commit to a purchase.

Due to how long I spent browsing necklaces/pendants, I wasn’t able to move onto my other similar aims for the day (buying a bag, watch or attempting to book FFS again). However, I did find time to go ASDA again to buy some Coke Zero to stimulate my mind. I’ve thought up concepts for my first article and should have it published here, on a separate page, by the end of the week.

At around 5:30pm, I began travelling to my local games store to play Magic the Gathering. There were only 6 other people there, they were familiar faces. The trans person who I tried chatting to previously but was unresponsive, the very friendly guy with stretch marks who I probably speak to the most due his empathy, then there’s the possibly Israeli guy from Friday and one other visit to this store. Everyone was engaged in games of discussions with others, I sat on the edge of the table, opposite the friendly guy, we eventually started speaking and I brought up my trip to the GP over the weekend. We talked about Magic in general after this. The possibly Israeli guy then came over and made an intentional attempt to talk to me, I was very happy about this, we talked about Magic, obviously and my trip to the GP, I like that I can discuss the Modern format with him.

Due to there being an odd number of people, I got a “bye” in the first round so that meant I was paying £4 for 2 games of Magic. I lost all my games, 2-0, so thoroughly thrashed. Pretty disappointed about that but I wasn’t playing a meta deck. I got one booster pack as a reward and pulled nothing of value.

At home, I searched for some items for my father and when I was done he took his chance to request I cut my hair, he said it was embarrassing and that others have changed, he also said that I used to be so smart. I tried explaining I was only smart relative to the subhumans in this part of town.