OK,

this has been a long time coming, and so many posts I’ve read recently have fueled my desire to spill my guts over my take on this whole complex, amazing, mystifying, thought provoking and at times, strange, interaction between those who call themselves bloggers.

I guess I should start by stating some basic facts, and my position - especially since information subsequent to this may seem, at times contradictory, if not downright hypocritical.

So…

1. GeneralBoy is married. Happily married
2. GeneralBoy has never played any “away games” ( online or IRL ), and has no intention of doing so
3. GeneralBoy’s wife does not know about his blog

I choose to start the story with flirting.

There are people out there who are great at flirting, and I can’t deny that I have been charmed by the work of many a fine flirt. These people almost make an artform out of it, and they can use it to gain all manner of things - from approval, to a job, to a partner. Some do it for a bit of sport, some harmless fun, or an ego boost. But there are other flirts who are, well, just sad. They consistently punch above their weight, deluding themselves that they are impressing people who can’t get away from them fast enough. To watch there work is often cringeworthy - think of the Bubbles Devere character from Little Britain - you get the picture ( especially if you follow the link ).

I’ve heard it said that the most dangerous type of flirt are those that “pretend” not to be flirting, or use some understated technique so as not to appear like they are not flirting when they actually are. In my case, I never want to look like I’m trying, or desperate, and I blame this mainly on my rural upbringing. In that setting, people who talked themselves up were quickly pulled back to earth, and those that didn’t sold cars or became local councilors. I didn’t want to look like those people, always aspiring to look like more of a quiet achiever.

A good flirt knows how to sell themselves, and I can do that when I have to - but I am marketing a different set of assets. I am selling my honesty, flexibility, and agreeable demeanor. A good flirt is selling their ability to push your buttons and shag you senseless. All night.

So I’ll have a joke flirt with the cheery middle aged woman in the local bakery, or some young fluffy at the drive through, but only because I know it won’t be taken seriously. Since I don’t take myself that seriously, I certainly don’t expect anyone else to. Truth is, I’m really not that good at it anyway. So if you see me make a comment on yours or anyone else’s blog that appears like flirting, rest assured, it was a complete accident. This also means that if you flirt back I will more than likely miss the point completely. Don’t take it personally.

Enough on flirting anyway…

I notice a lot of talk about blog crushes lately, and I must profess ignorance to the finer points of this caper. That being said, I read a blog the other day that listed the 10 signs you have a blog crush… and I ticked 7 or 8 of the boxes in regard to two current, and two former favourites. Nonetheless, I just don’t see the comparison to the real world. Blog crushes seem too tenuous, too transient… maybe even contrived… but feel free to tell me if I have missed the point here, and how so.

In real life I have been prone to crushes, and they ususally get me into trouble. I don’t plan for it to happen - I just wake up one day and go, “oh shit… NOT THIS AGAIN!”. I now spot the warning signs ( for me ) when that “click” happens, but this makes it difficult as I will suddenly feel the need to put someone at arm’s length. This over-reaction was the undoing of my former blog. It creates a dilemma, a no-win situation for me when I meet someone I suddenly, unexpectedly, feel some deeper connection with. We could become friends, but I screw it up.

In the blog-o-sphere, for some reason, I feel a bit safer in this regard - but only because I have made a few rules for myself regarding my online conduct. I hope this explains to some of you why I have never e-mailed you directly, or started up an IM dialogue, or become involved in any other sort of direct communication. I hear you say, “gee generalboy, you are being a bit presumptuous aren’t you?”, or mockingly “I think we can just manage to contain our raging passion”, and even as I type it I am laughing at just how ridiculous I probably sound. But there are three main reasons I’m comfortable the way things are. Firstly, I’m a fairly private person, and slightly paranoid about being outed a second time. Secondly, I don’t want to complicate my life or anyone else’s by establishing a more intense, more frequent dialogue with them… no matter how much I may like them. You don’t know how many times I’ve been tempted, just to say something private, something more personal, that’s not in the public domain. But you can’t step back from that once it’s done.

And finally, it’s because I feel it’s crossing the line with what is acceptable behaviour as far as my wife is concerned. Make no mistake, having a blog she doesn’t know about, and becoming absorbed in the lives of a group of people she’ll never meet, is something that doesn’t sit all that comfortably with me. We have a pretty honest, open relationship, with ups and downs like anyone else. We communicate, we have been through the bad stuff… and survived it. Right now we are probably happier and more in love than we have ever been as a couple - despite our individual struggles to make sense out of the world and live meaningful lives.

I would have no trouble with Miss R. reading 90% of the content of this blog, or reading any of the comments I post on other blogs. In fact, that is that last thing that goes through my head before I click the “submit” button. But there is a part of me that needs to express thoughts and emotions, and experiences, that sometimes I don’t fully understand. I know some of these may be painful for her to read. There are also things that have happened to me in relationships past that remain unanswered. Some I have blogged about, many I haven’t. Of course, some of the scenarios are just plain funny, or ridiculous - a failed threesome, a non-existent relationship with an obsessive born again christian scientist, and a bizarre love triangle at age 13 to name a few.

I love telling these tales and the reactions I get, but deep down I guess I seek some sort of opinion on my actions. I constantly ask myself what I should have done - not in a “beat myself up” sort of way, but more a philosophical “what did this teach me?” sort of way. I need to hear from other people who relate to my situation, who have been there - who perhaps chose a different path to mine. Is it therapy? Yes, absolutely.

Numerous times I have considered switching over to a “public persona” style blog, as a few of you have. While this would certainly ease my conscience vis-a-vis my wife, I know that it would seriously compromise what I can express. I would have to pull my punches, avoid whole areas of who I am and what I really think. It would be me not rocking the boat, and not revealing anything weird or awkward about myself. It would be lying by omission.

Sometimes I feel the urge to just archive all these words, burn them onto a CD, lock them up in a bank vault, and never let anyone read them until after I die. Sometimes I think this is all just bullshit and wonder why anyone cares, and why it should become so consuming. Sometimes I feel like posting a blank page, with no words, and nothing but a picture of me stading naked, staring back at you.

And sometimes I just want to write. Need to write. For no-one but me.

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Hmmm… maybe I should call it “mental health Tuesday” today.

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This is the most I have been able to type this weekend. It’s not that I have nothing to say, it’s just everyone wants a piece of me. This is about my tenth failed attempt.

Will try for eleven later.

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Two things happened today that make me question what people make of me the first time I speak to them.

First up, the artsy looking chick in the coffee come lunch bar. I paid the other girl for my cappucino, and the artsy girl brought it over to me when it was ready. She said “your coffee sir”.

“Sir?” I sniggered internally. I’m soooooo not a “sir”! I’m just some dude working in the city pretending to know shit and dressing appropriately and not smelling like there’s a goddam cheese factory under my armpits. Nothing more. It makes me laugh to think of her seeing me riding my dragster along the esplanade running path of a Sunday, sporting a two day growth, daggy sunglasses, and a paint spattered tee-shirt.

The second thing was as I walked past the all new breakfast booth in the all new building this morning. There was a moderately obese, rosy cheeked, startlingly plain woman sitting there, sipping instant coffee and scoffing down a cinnamon donut. As I approached she looked up, and as someone who actually believes in manners, I smiled and said “gidday”. Well. She looked at me like I’d handed her a turd on a plate! No smile, no reaction… nothing but a blank, bovine stare.

My instant reaction was to think, “crikey sweetheart, it’s not like you can fall back on your looks to get a smile”. But then I thought, c’mon GeneralBoy. She might be having a bad day. She might be really underconfident. She might even think you have some fetish for chubby, donut chuggin’ chicks with no personality! Yikes!

So I will try to be nice again next week, and let you know what happens. Maybe I will even introdruce myself.

“Hi”, I’ll say. “Soooooo… you really like donuts, huh”?

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Typing a decent TWT post is impossible at the moment, I’m being constantly pestered and had to go to the city today. But fear not… I will attempt a retrospective post in the next couple of days, where I will reveal to you an evil, evil, time wasting conspiracy I discovered today in my local Bunning’s hardware store.

OK, someone else wants to waste my time now…

TTFN…

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Yes, there was a post before this - but I was overcome by a case of blog paranoia as I lay in bed awake at 3:30am, and I disabled it.

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I took a look around our new old building today. I have a window with a great view of the large concrete slab that is the building next door. Every other window has a better view than mine. *Sigh*.

The new toilets are great. They have a central fountain and string quartet and new taps, and no one has wiped snot above the urinal yet. So that’s good. Mmmm.

I saw a nice girl outside the coffee shop, she looked like she was about to ask me directions to somewhere. She didn’t. Oh well.

The new lifts have TV’s in them. They only show ads. I waited 5 minutes for Ren and Stimpy to come on but it didn’t. Then it showed the weather. Fine.

I still can’t find the courage to ask Mikey where Raul, my Barrista dude, is. It’s been 4 weeks. I don’t think he’s coming back. Dammit.

I updated some content on a whiny customer’s website using the CMS I built for them and trained them to use. I will double thier fee next year.

.. and that was my time wasting Tuesday.

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Two hours ago a surfing buddy turns up on my doorstep after essentially disappearing for nearly a year. I open the door, and Paul’s just standing there. He lunges toward me, gives me a big bear hug, and I invite him in. Not a word in the 11 months - not an e-mail, not a text… nothing.

He’d been working in the mines, but he missed his kids - so he was back. I said I’d seen Jen, out walking the dogs and at the shops a few times. I didn’t tell him how she turned up on our doorstep the day after she kicked him out, but never visited again despite Miss R offering “an ear if she ever needed it”. She never said what happened. Neither did he.

The extent of our socialising was little more than a fun new year’s eve a couple of years ago, but aside from that, I only knew Paul from the beach. He started surfing a nearly spot where some may call us “locals”, soon after he moved his family here. We get on well, but like many people I surf with, the friendship is a bit one dimensional. This is not uncommon - and it’s why there are many people I know in the surf with whom I don’t socialise.

He’s been living away from the coast, but wants to get back here. He’s staying with a friend of a friend, in his spare room - but it’s a very temporary arrangement. He’s looking for somewhere to stay until he gets on his feet again. He has six grand from the mining job, but no job here yet. We take our coffees outside, around the back of the house. I’m sure he looks at the poolroom a little too long - but makes no enquiries as to its availability. I make no offer. I know Miss R has exams soon. I know we have one shower, and one toilet. I know there is a fold out sofa in the poolroom. I say nothing. I avoid the topic.

We catch up for about an hour, then he says he better let me get on with some work. As he’s leaving he tells me absolutely nothing in his life is certain or predictable at the moment. I say I sympathise, but not from personal experience. I do not even know how he came to be where he is now. I don’t feel I know him well enough to share my house with him. It’s very awkward.

So I say it was good to catch up, and I mean it.

I wish him luck and assure him something will come up soon.

And I still wonder what I should have done.

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I’m gonna let you in on a fundamental facet of my personality.

I am not a team player.

Never was… never will be.

That’s not to say that I am a sociopath, or perfectionist, hermit, nerd ( well OK, maybe a bit, I mean sheesh.. you read the paper dart post… make up your own mind ), disagreeable, or difficult. I just prefer to do things on my own, my way.

Despite this fact, I can work with other people, and I find it stimulating when you find a bunch of like minded people and you all get on - and everyone pitches in. The project I worked on with Cat was bloody hard work - in fact we did a 21 day straight stint that ran through Easter AND Anzac day without one single day off. You get to know people pretty well when you spend that amount of time with them - when you see the late nights, the fatigue, and the tantrums.

I did work in an exemplary team once comprising 8 individuals, and I’ll go out on a limb and say I doubt I’ll ever experience that again. We spent 4 years together, working toward project deadlines, freaking out and stressing as they approached too fast, and celibrating frantically once they passed sucessfully. We formed a very tight group, and we became very protective of each other and anyone who threatened the harmoniuos relationship we’d forged. I could not count the number of contract and full time employees who didn’t make the cut - something was just wrong - and they seldom lasted more than a few weeks. Yes, we were harsh - we expected a lot of newcomers. One of the newcomers will be the subject of a future post, and I’ve spoken of her before. I’ll say no more about J at this time though, other than she made the grade. More than.

Of course, I lie to get the work when they ask me how well I like working in a team at interview. I’ve done this routine enough times to know what they want to hear, and I can spout it forth with such faux enthusiasm you’d think I’d shagged each and every former team member I’d worked with. Most of them I never did.

So when I find myself in a volatile group, where I am expected to be a “team player” but there’s no cohesion and little direction it normally doesn’t phase me. I do my thing, and I don’t care about the other stuff. I deliver what I am contracted to deliver, and I get paid for doing so.

But what I refuse to do is carry the can for a “yes man” who is out of his depth. Someone who refuses to communicate important details to you, who has no management skills, who writes little notes on pieces of paper and then loses them. Someone who comes in every day and asks you “soooo, what are you working on at the moment?” ( isn’t it your job to tell ME? aren’t you the manager? ), and who within earshot of you will tell a customer “I don’t know why he hasn’t done that yet”, after pulling you off “that” to appease another customer who jumped up and down first.

I will not support backstabbing, lying, spineless, malicious, incapable, incompetant fools who refuse to accept any responsibility for the outcomes of their own mismanagement, and look for someone - anyone - else to pin the blame on. Whether they sign my contract renewals or not.

No, I am not a team player.

And I’m damned proud of it.

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