Random rambling from an epic nerd, sometimes about writing, sometimes… not

One thing you should know about my real-life posts: I change the names of everyone except for Craig, Carla and Kimbo. These three constantly comment either in my journal or my twitter and are easily spotted, others don’t pop up so much online, and would probably like to remain unnamed. Some entries I’ve dragged over from LJ because they amused me, seemed relevant or I had completely forgotten about these events and wanted a record on my own website.

If you have read my previous (and very lengthy) post, you will know that I have one or two issues with a girl called Sharon. The shorthand is that she creates psycho-drama, and then angsts about it, which is a bit dull for me to be around. There is a follow-up to my alp-inducing awkward silence.

I wasn’t in work on Monday, I was using up the remainder of my paid holidays before the year end, so obviously I missed the post-party recap. Luckily my friends are happy to repeat themselves. They told me about a mad drunk woman that crashed the party, and tried to pick a fist-fight with every woman there. They told me about hiding behind the sofa to try and convince the mad drunk woman that the party was over and everyone had gone home.

And then they told me about Sharon.

Let us recap on how I left the party:

As the evening wound up, Sam and I were the first to leave. We announced to everyone we were off, and Sharon approached me, arms outstretched. I flinched. “What?”

“I was just going to hug you goodbye.” She said.

Without thinking, I replied, “Must you?”

Immediately after, Sharon locked herself in the toilet and cried for an hour. She apparently had to be coaxed out by everyone at the party.

Sam gave me a cautious look, once this information had been revealed, and Donna asked, “How you feeling? Guilty?”

“Validated and vindicated.” I replied. “Let’s just get this clear: Sharon was rejected for a hug by not a friend, certainly not her best friend, but by someone she didn’t even bother to speak to at the party – she got rejected for a hug from an acquaintance and this necessitated an hour of crying in the bathroom?”

Case dismissed. Sarah is right.

One thing you should know about my real-life posts: I change the names of everyone except for Craig, Carla and Kimbo.  These three constantly comment either in my journal or my twitter and are easily spotted, others don’t pop up so much online, and would probably like to remain unnamed.  Some entries I’ve dragged over from LJ because they amused me, seemed relevant or I had completely forgotten about these events and wanted a record on my own website.

I haven’t posted much recently. Life has been, if not drama-filled, at least busy enough to keep me offline.

I have issues with a girl at work. I have a friend at work called Sam, and to be honest, she’s a real-life friend, not just a work buddy. There is another girl called Sharon, who bothers me a lot. Sharon adores Sam, and really rather enjoys positioning herself between myself and Sam.

I’ll put my hands up and say that I’m a jealous person, but let’s ignore that for a second. I’m at least comfortable enough in my friendship with Sam to know that Sam likes me best. Also, I can recognise when I’m being jealous and petty, and tell myself to grow the fuck up. I have the feelings, it’s just I’m finally sensible enough to tell them to take a hike.

It also helps that Sam tends to slag Sharon off at almost any opportunity.

At the work Christmas party, Sharon met Sam and me at our hotel, so that we could travel to the party together. At this point, I had no truck with Sharon. Actually, quite the reverse. I didn’t know her very well, she was very new at work, and I had gone out of my way to be friendly to her. I hate being the new girl, I’m sure everyone does, and since nobody had bothered with me when I was new, I did know how hard it was to break into our circle of friends. So, I had always tried to strike up a conversation with her when I saw her, which led my friends to do the same.

As we stood outside the hotel, dressed in our finest, (if you’ve friended me on facebook, this is the night I was wearing my pimp-hat and tie) and waiting for our taxi, Sharon disclosed that she fully intended to use the night to cheat on her long-term boyfriend of seven years. This did not sit well with me. I’m all for monogamy. I’m such a fan of monogamy, that I find it hard to understand poly relationships. I do respect them, I just don’t get them.

However, cheating is an entirely different matter. Having previously invested myself whole-heartedly in a relationship, only to find out that the other party was screwing everything with boobs was not a pleasant experience, and one that I never want to repeat. I hasten to add that since I’m marrying scouseboy, it’s a certainty that I will not have to.

For awhile, I was silent on the matter, but Sharon was so insistent on the fact that she wanted to be snogged senseless (at the very least) by someone who wasn’t her boyfriend, I found myself enquiring whether, perhaps, she had considered that, given her current plans, her current relationship might be in an alarming state of disrepair, and possibly ending it might be kinder on both of them, and leave her free to pursue whatever it was that she wanted but appeared not to be getting currently. And yes, I really did phrase it as pretentiously as that. I’ve found the posher and wordier you go about things, the less likely you are to receive a slap and a telling off.

“Oh no,” said Sharon, “I do this all the time. He’ll never find out.”

Hrmm. I shrugged it off, and decided not to think about it. It wasn’t my relationship, she wasn’t my friend, just a work colleague, and there are no attractive men at work, except for my baby bro, Charlie, who is, in fact, gay. I moved on.

The work Christmas party became an immense psycho-drama, and it was at this point I decided that I disliked Sharon. There were several reasons, and the first to occur was her keeping herself between me and Sam. Sam and I lost each other after dinner, because I’d gone out for a cigarette with Kimbo, and couldn’t find her when I came back in. When I finally did spot her, she was talking to a guy who she had almost had an entanglement with, before deciding against it. As I approached her table, Sharon grabbed my arm, and told me that Sam had requested that I didn’t bother her, that she wanted time alone with this guy.

Sam and I had discussed the guy in question in great detail, and given her vehement hatred of his behaviour after the entanglement was stopped before it could get started, I suspected that this wasn’t the case at all. Besides, Sam’s body language (crossed arms, leaning away from the guy) hardly said that she was in seduction mode. However, Sharon dragged me away, and I decided to catch up with Sam later.

I found Kimbo again, and we went for another cigarette. In the meantime, Sharon snogged one of the IT guys (and if you’re picturing Richard Ayoade, don’t, this guy is closer to Gareth Keenan than Moss). They decided to snog on one of the walkways behind the function room we were in. What they did not factor in to their snog-haven of choice was just how much traffic it saw. The walkway was directly opposite the lift, which meant that every time someone went out for a cigarette, they saw Sharon and the IT guy snogging away.

As it turned out, I was the first one to spot them. I told Kimbo, who told Charlie, who told everyone. That’s sort of how the gossip circuit goes at work. Feeling rather piqued at Sharon, I found my own team and told them. They told Fourth West, and it all went on from there.

About an hour later, I caught up with Sam, she was finally alone, but before I could speak to her, Sharon barrelled over, stood in front of me, and informed Sam that she needed to speak to her right now. Pause. Pointed look. Alone.

Repeat every time I go near Sam.

By this time, I was in a filthy temper. This was for a myriad of reasons. The irritation of the moment was a girl called Kirsty who kept stealing my sexy pimp-hat and plonking it down on a sweaty, balding head of the guy she fancied. Repeat all fucking night. By the end, I’d had enough, and set a senior partner on her. He’s nice, and he likes me because when he shouted at me, and I stayed calm and dealt with him sensibly, unlike most who cried. I sent him over with my terms, either she gave my hat back, or I get to take her dress. She’d got an integral part of my outfit, the least I wanted was part of hers. The Senior Partner laid out my terms, and Kirsty looked fearful as she returned my hat. So scared was Kirsty that she did not steal my hat again until the Senior Partner had left the building.

At this point, Sharon reappeared. As far as I could tell, she spent the night alternating between snogging and groping IT guy, and crying in the loos on Sam’s shoulder. Everyone was talking about it!

She knelt down in front of me. She held my hand, and I recoiled, her fingers were sweaty, and I didn’t want to think what they’ve been touching recently. Then she started talking to me. I don’t know what she’s going through, she’s in a loveless relationship, she and her boyfriend are miserable together, she’s just looking for love, who am I to judge her when I know nothing, blah, blah, blah.

To sum up in the style of fandomsecrets, “tl;dr: CRY MOAR”.

I mustered my most superior tone, and said, even though it wasn’t entirely true, “Sharon, I’m not judging you, but if you think I am, then you must know you’ve done something wrong. It’s none of my business what you get up to. You’re not even my friend, so why would I care if you cheat on your boyfriend?”

I was judging her. Of course I was. But when a brilliant and cutting response presents itself, you cannot be hindered by the truth. Besides, the rest was true, it was none of my business, and she isn’t my friend.

Additionally, I was no longer judging her on cheating on her boyfriend. I was judging her on her behaviour in general. I’d come to notice that she was creating a drama by cheating on her boyfriend, then she was angsting about it to complete strangers for attention. I was friends with people like that when I was a teenager. I was bored of it then, and age has made me no less unkind towards that kind of attention-whoring.

The whole party atmosphere had somewhat soured for me by then. I was bored, my other friends were exceptionally drunk, and no longer making sense to anyone but each other. I tried to find Sam to say goodbye, but only managed to get within three feet of her before Sharon appeared and grabbed her away.

I ended up walking home, and getting some lewd comments shouted at me. I can’t remember verbatim what was said, but it involved some kind of bodily fluid being ejected on to my naked top half. Charming. £50 on an outfit well-spent.

Since then, I’ve not had much to do with Sharon. She annoys me. She carried her psycho-drama on in work, to the point where the IT guy has refused to take her calls, and will get anyone else to deal with any problem she has with her computer.

She lurks around myself and Sam of a morning, but we’re not particularly welcoming. That’s just our way. We have a routine, get in at 7.30, meet at 8am for a twenty-minute break, during which we put the world to rights and smoke many cigarettes. Most people aren’t in work by them, why would they for a 9am start? But Sharon noticed us, and started coming in earlier, which annoyed us. We don’t like our routine to be interfered with, even by people we both like.

Sharon has since said various things that I don’t like much or don’t interest me. She told a story where the punchline was her slamming a heavy oak door on a cat and breaking it’s leg. My response was, “Wow, I personally would have been ashamed of animal cruelty. I guess it just goes to show there’s all sorts in this world.”

Last week she gleefully told us that she had met a man in town, buying a slice of pizza, or something, and two hours later they had wound up having sex. But there’s more! The thing that delighted her about this story is that she gave him an STD.

Honestly, she’s proud of that.

On Saturday, Charlie threw a house-warming party. Sam and I met in town beforehand, so that I could prepare myself for being nice to Sharon, who was, unfortunately, also attending.

My problem is that when I don’t like someone, even the smallest things will generate more hatred. I have tried to be nice, but it’s just no use. On Friday, I sent an email around work, that essentially said that Sam and I had bought a card for Charlie and Adam (Charlie’s boyfriend) for their new house, and would anyone like to sign. Sharon sent back:

“Thx hun will try not 2 4get 2 com dwn b4 end of wrk”

I stress the word email. She had an entire keyboard to use. *le sigh* Anyway, she did “4get”.

I honestly tried to be nice to her. She’d had her hair cut, and she took a compliment from me on it, which sounded quite natural. Possibly because she mis-heard me. Charlie’s flat was roasting so I stood by the open window, and Sharon joined me. I said, “The air’s nice,” which she heard as “Your hair’s nice”. I did contemplate correcting her, but it seemed petty.

Of course, I couldn’t manage to be polite for all of eternity. She did many little things that made me annoyed. She when I went for a cigarette, she draped herself over both her seat and mine, ensuring that I could no longer sit next to Sam. When Sam and I did get to speak, she stood between us, and talked over me until I gave up and found Kimbo.

We put Singstar on, and Kimbo and I got competitive. We always do. She went first, then me, and we were fighting over who got the first Singstar of the night. Everyone else plays for fun, Kim and I play to beat each other. It’s not arrogant to say that we’ve got the best voices of our group of friends. We’re not great, but we’re good.

Everyone was polite about singing, everyone got a round of applause. Kim and I got even more competitive, and we decided to tackle the harder songs. I took “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5, while Kim took “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers. Our friends threw a couple of compliments our way, and told Sharon, who had never seen Kim and I sing before, that we would still be here until 4am, still trying to beat each other.

At this point, Sharon started screeching and yowling whenever Kim or I tackled the higher notes. Then someone new turned up, I think she was called Lauren. She also had a good voice, and Kim and I expressed concerns that we would be beaten. We joked about putting her off and heckling, but did no such thing. When she finished she got many compliments, mostly from Kim and I, who were impressed that she could not only sing a rather difficult and high song, but also send and receive text messages at the same time.

When it was Lauren’s turn again, Sharon continued to scream over Lauren’s voice, and when that didn’t detract from the performance, Sharon danced her over-sized ass in front of the screen, effectively preventing Lauren from seeing the words, and making her score drop like a brick. Lauren looked miserable, and her boyfriend looked pissed off, but neither said anything.

I wanted to say something, it’s one thing to steal attention from your friends, it’s another to steal it from a stranger. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t exquisitely bitchy, so I just glared at Sharon, and gave Lauren loads of compliments, telling her she’d done an awesome job, despite the fact that people were making it difficult for her.

Sam nabbed me, and we discussed the merits of Singstar. She asked what was the point, since nobody could hear the singer. I said that usually you could, as most Singstar parties didn’t have a screaming wanker in the background.

“Meow.” I glanced up, and Sharon was glaring at me. However, she shut the fuck up after that.

The party progressed, and Sharon commented that every bloke there was shaggable. Regardless of whether or not their girlfriend was sitting in earshot. She also claimed that she had in fact snogged my very gay little brother at the Christmas party. In fact, she stated this in a loud voice, in front of Charlie’s friends and siblings, and, most notably, his boyfriend.

As the evening wound up, Sam and I were the first to leave. We announced to everyone we were off, and Sharon approached me, arms outstretched. I flinched. “What?”

“I was just going to hug you goodbye.” She said.

Without thinking, I replied, “Must you?”

With those two words, I created an awkward silence so beautiful and pure that I was able to close my eyes and pretend I was on an alp. It was so blissfully quiet that even I began to have second thoughts.

“I don’t… um… hug…” I began, only to be interrupted by little Kimbo leaping into my arms. “You.” I continued. “I don’t hug you.”

At this point, everyone except for Sharon started trying to hug me. Even strangers appeared to want to hug me goodbye.

All in all, rather a good night.