Social anxiety and failure DISCLAIMER – This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
On Thursday I woke up at 6am and got to work on cooking some chicken and rice. The ingredients I had weren’t perfect, the main problem was that I bought “long grain boil in the bag rice” rather than normal rice. I mostly just threw ingredients into the skillet, I didn’t pay much attention to heat levels.
My mum arrived near the end of the process, she made conversation, was impressed. I turned off the heat, I was done, she picked up one of the rice grains and noted how hard it was, she suggested I pour water into the skillet and heat it some more. She also quizzed me on whether the meat was halal. I later tried eating my concoction, the rice was still hard.
During the day, I watched various NETFLIX shows, just the first episodes of popular shows like “The Good Place”, “Better Call Saul” and “Messiah” are some. I went to sleep around 6pm. The following day, I checked out the debuting Pokemon movie on NETFLIX, it was a CGI remake of the first one, it was inferior. I then watched some more “Better Call Saul” and went to ASDA, I bought junk food, I’ll cook healthy food again soon, I’ve discovered that my reliance on junk food is an addiction, it’s completely psychical, I don’t eat because I’m hungry, I desire junk food because it brings me happiness.
My shift on Monday was fine, just me, the African, the WoW woman and Koreaboo. I was immediately annoyed as soon as I sat down, the webchat rota for the night had been published my a manager from another office and the African was complaining, he was unhappy that he had 2 slots and I had none. I tried pointing out that he literally took a total of 2 webchats last night, I didn’t bother bringing up that he’d done half the total number of chats as me this month or that he missed out an a reward due to having done so few chats last week despite decent stats.
I was frustrated, can’t stand complainers, so I sent a message to the manager in the other office, said that the African was whingeing and if he could change the webchat rota. He did so, he also asked if the African complained a lot and I shared my feelings with him, it’s harmless, the African is unhappy here due to not getting as much as he wants and will be leaving in April. I did have sympathy in one area though, our manager included junk emails when he did his performance review, so he looked like he’d done less than he actually had due to him not getting rid of junk emails. The sympathy was short lived though because during the entire 2 hours that he was on webchat, he marked himself as “busy”, so that no calls would come through to him even when he didn’t have a webchat to deal with.
The highlight of the night was the WoW woman bringing in Krispy Cream donuts, two boxes, so a total of 24, she encouraged me to have several, so I did, around about 10 according to her but I think the figure was closer to 7. They were delicious, I don’t often eat sugary foods. Later in the night, I revealed that I spoke with friends through KIK, the WoW woman who was formerly Bisexual, recognised this as a rather deviant app, the type of place people would meet on Grindr and then ask them to chat off-site. I said that I was gay when pressured, the African didn’t like this and said we were not friends and that he was not an ally. This emboldened me to continue setting up my Grindr account, I haven’t set up an account in full just yet
When I got home, I got a couples of hours of sleep before I had to head back out for a laser patch test, I needed to have another one before starting my full course of laser again. I’ll be going once every 2 months or so due to the low amount of hair.
I was tired and had to go to sleep after this but not before chatting to my 6’2 friend over WhatsApp, he pointed out that I was getting porky and the dangers of continuing eating like this as I age, we discussed diets and he recommended chicken & rice along with vegetables, we went into the intricacies of this, I questioned him but he reminded me that he was a scientist. He also said the profile picture I was planning on using for Grindr wasn’t good, I had no means to take a better selfie or a shot with friends/social setting, ultimately though it meant that I was too ugly, the best picture I could take of myself wasn’t good enough.
My phone eventually lost charge and I was too exhausted so had to sleep around 5pm. The following day I woke around 8am and went to ASDA to buy ingredients for Chicken & Rice, I spent time cancelling my PayPal credit account, Tandem credit card and ordering some £200 glasses. They have a 30 day returns policy, so I will just return them for a refund in a few weeks, just want to wear something fancy. I also tried setting up a new bank account since they’re offering money to switch over.
This took it out of me so I tried taking a nap around 5pm again, just for an hour but I woke up at 2am.
One story I forgot to share was on Sunday I was eating crackers at work and joked that there were too many “crackers” here.
The three days I’m about to cover have all been great.
The first, Friday, saw me on shift with the big guy and the taxidermy woman, there was sporadic conversation, I shared a fair bit about myself such as how I view situations and the taxidermy woman suggested metal music to me after I said that I liked this one band (Brothers of Metal) who sung about Nordic myths. She also recommended a film, it’s about a Mexican drug lord and cult leader, Borderlands. We also finished watching “Nercos: Mexico”, I then studied drug cartels for a bit.
The following day, Saturday, had me, the African guy, the big guy and my manager. I discussed visited Mexico with my manager for a while as he knew about the country. It’s only the big guy that really gets to use the television though he still needs our managers approval. Literally no one else touches the remote or even humours the idea of putting the television on, I’m not sure why this is, my only theory is that the big guy can be quite childish and complain, he’s said some very negative things about our manager. Sometimes the big guy puts on entertaining shows on NETFLIX but he also spends a lot of time watching football highlights on YouTube, it’s massively dull. He went a step further this time though and put on “Spicy Hot Wing Challenge” or something like that, a YouTube show where celebrities eat spicy food, it was loud and annoying, I asked the big guy why he was watching this dross, the celebrity was Maisie Williams, was he a fan of hers? I said this was the type of show for the lowest common denominator. It’s essentially a reaction video.
We then argued since he called me out on being so critical and talking down to him, I stood my ground, then went quiet, I was very angry. After a while, he started talking to me again and we both pretended like nothing happened.
The next day, Sunday, had me in with the African guy, my manager, the Koreaboo and WoW woman. I shouted a lot and threatened to kill the WoW woman every time she suggested she’d bring up my piss bottles to our manager. There was a lot of laughter and everyone made fun of me at various points, I stood my ground by saying I had £23,000 in the bank but was still mocked for living with my parents rent-free, I pointed out that I paid for internet, TV and my own food. I was also asked if I was a virgin, I lied. The WoW woman offered to introduce me to some guys, I declined, when I went on break, I started setting up a Grinder account.
My age was also brought up and how that made my situation worse, they didn’t think much of my inability to cook complex meals either. Told everyone that I voted for Brexit, UKIP and the Brexit party, I expressed my disgust of people who take advantage of welfare systems and how my parents worked. The Koreaboo asked about my culture and if my parents would take issue if I was gay, essentially, I said they weren’t violent.
I woke up around 2am, I couldn’t sleep any longer, I’d been down for 12+ hours. I browsed the internet a little then napped until around 6pm. I then showered and got dressed, I didn’t wear any makeup though since I wanted the friend I was meeting with to take some photos of me for the plastic surgeon. I dressed in dark jeans, my Calvin Klein top and sketcher shoes, they’re super comfortable to walk in though not fashionable.
The train journey would be long, I first arrived at Manchester Victoria, it was just before people would be flocking to stations for the morning commute, I then ran over to Manchester Piccadilly station, the first train took a while longer than expected to arrive into the station. I sweated a little and became breathless at times, I genuinely didn’t expect to make it in time but I did, with around 3 minutes to spare, it was also raining at the time, not off to a good start but now I could sit down on the train for the rest of the journey. I chose to split tickets so had a stack of 22. The train conductor said I should swap trains half way through but I ignored him since he was wrong.
My friend, Shippy, joined me on the train as we passed through his hometown and we were soon in Oxford. He dressed in a much more relaxed way than usual and I instantly perked up seeing him. We chatted while he completed the puzzles in the Metro newspaper. I came closer to learning Sudoku while watching him.
Oxford initially struck me as quite a beautiful town, there were a lot of old brown buildings, I also found it novel seeing so many bikes parked up, I’ve never seen that before, bike racks are usually empty from my experience. It was somewhat cold and rainy. It was a long time since both of us so we headed to Burger King, Shippy paid, I went for a vegetarian bean burger meal (large) and he opted for a large hamburger meal plus an extra hamburger, the restaurant was 3 floors and we went to sit on the top one, it was initially empty. As usual, Shippy ate very quickly, he finished his meal much sooner than I.
It started raining quite a bit and it picked for a while, after eating, he went to the bank to see if they had any new £20 bank notes, at the same time, I went to Boots to find a thing to tie my hair back for clear photos of my face. I found what I needed quickly, after paying, I turned around and my good friend was there, I thought he’d take longer at the bank. Next on the schedule for the day, we went to an old tower around the middle of the town, there was an entry fee and a narrow spiral staircase, it was a real workout getting to the top, when we did the wind was very strong, but we could see the entire town, Shippy named some of the buildings, it was quite the sight. There was a Chinese guy up there, I was concerned about contracting Caronavirus.
We then went towards the river, the path was very muddy and we got out jeans messy along with our shoes but it was fun to trod off the beaten path, when we reached the river, we could see it overflowing, it was cool. After this, we sought refuge from the increasingly heavy rain, there were several coffee places littered around but I went for the one closest, a Costa Coffee. I bought a tea for him and a latte for myself, it was comfy, I expected to do this again later in the day so we could just talk for ages, as it was still early in the day, I wanted to get a move on and go to the local museums before they closed.
The main museum was pretty good, like a mini version of the British museum, it reflected most regions of the world, I think I would rank it above Birmingham. We also visited a natural history museum, I really enjoyed seeing the skeletons due to reading “Sapiens”, the dinosaur skeletons were the best I’ve ever seen. I didn’t really appreciate the artwork much, I think I must learn more about fine art.
We had a wander around town and checkout a few buildings and started counting the number of PRIDE flags, there were around 20 we spotted.
We spent a lot of time in a bookstore, I wanted to checkout the fiction section but instead we found ourselves spending a lengthy amount of time on the lower floor reading non-fiction, he was very interested in DIY and languages. I was surprised to learn he was familiar with the alphabet of one particular language though he wouldn’t divulge the details of how he learned, curious.
Shippy received a text regarding a serious and urgent family matter and had to get home by 6pm, so I escorted him to the train station at around 5pm, it was very important so I understand him needing to leave and would have liked to have offered him more support. My train left some time later, so I went to the nearby cinema to watch the Sonic film, it was decent. I ate a medium popcorn, I was very tired on the trip back home and went to sleep easily.
On the Monday, I went to sleep 7pm, that was after the activities mentioned in my last entry. On Tuesday, I woke up around 7am, I browsed the internet a little, went to ASDA, watched “Dragon Quest: Your Story”, I felt out of energy around noon, so just went to sleep. I slept for over 12 hours again, when I got up, I finished “Bioshock: Infinite”, the ending was disappointing, I then went to sleep again so I’d be well rested for my day out with my friend in Oxford.
All in all, I spent more time asleep than awake. When waking up at 2am on Thursday, I transferred my Pokemon from Pokemon Bank to HOME.
My final night shift of the cycle was great, it was just me, the Koreaboo (new guy) and the World of Warcraft woman. The night started quiet, I didn’t say a word to the Koreaboo, I then went into the kitchen for my break, when I came back, I heard the two others talking about Magic the Gathering, I interjected and was able to speak with passion to the Koreaboo, this then translated to me often chatting with him throughout the night. We now get along, I even divulged personal details to the two of them, I told them about my piss bottles, pouring it into my flatmates milk and wanting plastic surgery. The Koreaboo brought up his Korean wife getting work done for 15k. Towards the end of the day, the two of them helped me look for new glasses, this ended with me saying that I don’t mind wearing womens glasses and that my top was a womens top, a top is just a top (my jeans and shoes are also obviously womens clothes too)
The following day was very productive, I went to the dentist and found that I need another 2 fillings, my appointment was 30 minutes late, in addition to this I bought tickets to Oxford to spend the day with my good friend, Shippy. Lastly, I arranged 6 laser sessions for my lower face, they had a promotion going. I dropped around £400 on everything, my Mastercard credit card isn’t working, so I paid for everything up front since I just assumed none of them accepted AMEX, had to take some cash out of my ISA to make sure I have enough to pay off my bills this month.
Didn’t buy glasses though as while I’m prepared to buy fancy Prada ones, I am holding off until the company confirms that I can get a 100% refund if I don’t like them.
My night shift on Thursday was uneventful, just me, my manager and the big guy. The taxidermy woman called in sick. It was quiet as always, nothing to do after midnight apart from chat to each other. My manager had a long meeting with one of the heads of customer services.
The Friday night shift was more of the same, we were joined by the African. I don’t remember many details but it definitely became very quiet at times due to lack of conversation. The big news is that many of the Africans holidays have been refused and he’s essentially been told they’ll be firing him after his 6 month contract expires. I’m outraged, I like him and he deserves better. They’re also not allowing him to switch over to the day team, their reasoning is simply that he was hired for nights, it doesn’t even matter that someone wants to swap. Both my manager and the big guy go to the gym. I mentioned flat hunting a little, both my manager and the African think I could be putting more effort in.
The group watched Narcos on Netflix.
My Saturday night shift saw the World of Warcraft woman missing from action, just me, my manager, the African and the new guy. I literally did not speak a single word to the new guy today, he didn’t make an effort with me, so why bother, I observed him talking to others though, seems disingenuous and up himself, like he’s talking down to people. At the start of my shift, he and my manager went away to chat for 90 minutes, they called it a one-to-one, I was furious, due to how little work there was, it would all be done if I hadn’t wised up and stopped working after a while. Though somehow, the new guy still managed an entire shift not doing a single email and only taking one call.
When my manager and the new guy disappeared again, I started bad mouthing him to the African, but his Islamic faith prevented him from doing the same. He made an attempt to convert me and I’m interested. I opened up to him a bit about my social anxiety, the piss bottles and he pressed me about my childhood, what do I think was the cause of my stunted development, I explained some aspects such as Pakistani culture and religion mixing, the children around me being inferior due to their immigrant backgrounds and my poor relationships with my parents. He didn’t judge or take offence, he’s a smart guy.
My clothes were dirty and I didn’t shower.
I’m concerned I may have a form of memory loss. I was unable to enter the office due to forgetting my pass, I waited 10 minutes for my manager to open the door for me. When I took my coat off, I found that my pass had been around my neck the entire time.
My plans for next week involve travelling to a far off town to hang out with my friend.
I decided to make the most of my Wednesday, the final day off before I head back to toil, I woke up around midnight and played some “Bioshock” Infinite but then I went back to sleep around 5am, I then woke up again around 9am. I then showered and headed into town to get my eyebrows threaded.
The woman was different to usual, she was friendly but took off hair in the areas I was trying to grow my brows. When it came time to pay, I handed her my card but she said it was “cash only”, I tried to leave my phone while I went away to use a cash point but she said I could keep my phone, that was nice of her. After this, I wandered around the town centre a little, I popped into a WHSmith and a clothing store, I was looking for a hat, didn’t buy anything.
I went back home and then a short time later, I took a 30 minute walk to the nearest KFC, it was near the B&M Bargains store I used to work at, I sat in and had a boneless banquet, I felt a bit like Ebin, this might be something I usually do, it’s nice to travel and eat something special, I enjoyed the atmosphere too. After I was done with my meal, I checkout out the nearby stores in the retail park, there was “ASDA”, it didn’t have a clothing section so I just walked back out, I heard an alarm go off, I walked back in and milled around the security area, a male staff member eventually said “It’s just the fire alarm, love”. I then checked out “The Range” but again didn’t buy anything.
At home, I relaxed for a few minutes but it was early in the day and I wanted to do more, so I took a train to Manchester, I first went to Primark but didn’t find anything nice to buy, I then went into TK MAXX, I spent more time here and ended up buying a Calvin Klein top for £30. It’s got a nice design but it’s an “athleti-leisure” top rather than just a normal comfy one.
I then went home, after around 90 minutes in the city centre, I washed my hair and then saw my cousin for the first time in month, we chatted about work and then my sister arrived, she made some disparaging remarks about me, I quickly left. I went to sleep around 7pm.
On my first day off, I slept until around midnight, as is the norm. There’s a lot of sleep to catch up on. When I woke up, I watched some of the XFL, I went to sleep around 7:30am on Monday morning, I figured I’d take a short nap then be able to get up at a reasonable time, everything would be fine. I was wrong, I ended up sleeping until around midnight again, I entertained myself by completing “Bioshock”, it’s a game dated in many ways but it was simple and didn’t hurt my head, I got quite a few trophies out of it, feel like I should’ve followed the walkthrough more carefully so I could’ve gotten the platinum.
I stayed up on Tuesday morning, I had plans, I went to ASDA to buy some basics, I’ll be back again soon since I didn’t buy enough. I also called three estate agents. The first said they had no 1 bed/studios available and that I should give them a call in a month since they think one of their tenants is moving out, the second call was to an estate agent querying a letting I saw online, the next wave of viewings is next week and I’ll be given a call then. The last estate agent had a studio available for me in a modern building close to travel links, it was close to perfect and I wanted to view, we arranged 4pm, he said he’d email me confirmation but it didn’t arrive so I went to sleep after eating around 2pm. I attempted to make contact again by emailing in so the guy would definitely have my correct details in case he misheard me on the phone but he didn’t reply with the flat number until 3:52pm, I don’t know if I should try again tomorrow of if it’s too late, I’m already considered a timewaster.
I planned on only napping again but the same disaster reoccurred, I woke up around midnight again, I watched “You” as recommended by the Taxidermy woman from work and a studio Ghibli film “Tales from Earthsea” as recommended by the other one. I’m also playing through “Bioshock Infinite”, I’m enjoying the graphics.
Other than trying to find a flat, I’m also in the process of organising a trip to Japan with a random guy online.
Below is a picture from New Orlando’s Fried Chicken.
The two night shifts before my time off were pretty fascinating. The first one saw me do a shift with my manager, Koreaboo and the World of Warcraft woman (can’t remember the name I previously gave her), she’s come back from holiday. I spent most of my time talking to the woman, the Koreaboo sat away from us all for some reason, he was very quiet, only my manager would occasionally speak to him. It’s only natural, he’s extremely normal/middle class compared to the rest. He did bond with my manager over their experiences trying to get their spouses into the country/obtain nationality.
I was animated and shouted a lot, my manager was winding me up about my middle name. We had a one-to-one at the end of my shift, he asked why it wound me up so much and I didn’t want to get into it so just said me and my father don’t get along. He also warned me about how I speak to others, there were concerns raised by other managers about my attitude/the way I speak to others. It seems that when I’m chatting with my friends, people who can overhear don’t like what I have to say, I’m very close to being involved in disciplinary proceedings with him and a manager. I feel like the Koreaboo complained about me being too loud since earlier in the night my manager said I was giving the Koreaboo a headache. Not happy about this, I feel comfortable expressing myself but apparently that’s a crime.
The other night was very similar except the conversation dried up sooner and the African was in too. We split into two groups, myself, the WoW woman and the African. On the other side there was my manager and the Koreaboo making small talk occasionally. We had a spirited conversation about jumping from heights, I felt that jumping from a crashing helicopter or burning building would give you a chance of survival, everyone else disagreed, after an hour, my manager said “the Koreaboo is an engineer, why don’t you ask his opinion”. I was friendly and civil, did more to include him than anyone but he doesn’t help himself, he’s fairly dull due to being a normie, unrelatable and boring. I can also see he’s faking his performance stats. I get along perfectly with the new guy, he’s still trying to move over to the day team, there’s a guy on the day team who wants to move onto the night team because he’s being treated the way I was at my last job, no one cares about his brilliant customer service skills or the rate he works at.
On the way to work, the male train conductor called me “love” twice and on the way back in walked through the historic storm, the train was cancelled so I had to take the replacement bus service. It was just me and two other people, the driver was a complete bastard, at one of the stops a man tried to get on, he had cash to buy a train ticket but the automated machine would only accept credit cards, he was refused entry to the bus but not after the driver threatened to call the police.
My youngest sister has moved out, I heard this from my father, I don’t know the full story. It’s now just myself, my parents and the oldest of my younger sisters that live at home, she’s the one who hates me.
Played some Bioshock since it’s free with PS Plus, it’s OK, hope it’s not too lengthy.
Human Garbage 