The long wait of Lady Sybil Vimes.

Alas he said no... or rather he was probably saying no. Very odd reply which I originally took to mean he was turning me down, but has been interpreted by several friends as meaning that he didn't realise I was asking him out. But although I like this ego comforting theory I suspect said friends are just being nice and the delicious lecturer was trying to let me down nicely. Jolly embarrassing either way and I have found out how truly horrible it is to ask someone out and have them say no... actually this is the first time I ever have. Nasty stuff it turns out but I can at least console myself with the thought that I am jolly unlikely to ever see him again which is wonderfully good at overcoming my total sense of embarrassment and sorrow.

Sadly I did like him rather an awful lot, and although I had no reason to think he wanted to go out with me he definitely did enjoy my company. Gosh I miss him now... I really do feel a sense of loss, almost as though I have lost a good friend, for I am one of those people who likes to have a backup daydream, a storyline of sorts one can tune into when needed, like when waiting for a bus or during a dull lecture. And for the last two months or so he has been part of my daydreams. But now all of that is no more and though I am, or rather will be when I can stop cringing at the memory of asking him out, glad that I had the guts to ask him out (after all it was worth a shot and was the only way I could have ended up dating him), I still miss his presence in my life. It reminds me of the scene in 'Love in a Cold Climate' by Nancy Mitford where Fanny is asked if she is in love and replies in the affirmative. Her questioner answers that of course she is, for otherwise what on earth would she think about when alone?

I have not had much luck with men since splitting up with my ex and it makes me rather sad sometimes. I am attractive, slim and rather pretty, clever and interested in lots of things, but although men do seem to like me they don't ask me out... Apart from a boring tory boy only my cute friend in London has asked me out since last summer. Actually the latter is lovely but rather a flirt and though we could have some fun together, and indeed might well do over the summer, that will be all and no relationship or even real dating will come out of that. Meanwhile my flatmate is practically living at her boyfriend's house and my best friend's married lover has told her he is leaving his wife for her... Plus I did like the lecturer chap so very much...

I have several times expressed my desire to be like Lady Sybil and find my Sam Vimes, but I have just realised that Sybil lived alone and without love until her 40s (or possibly late 30s) before suddenly meeting Vimes. While their relationship is jolly romantic and certainly worth waiting for, all of a sudden I don't like the notion that I might have to sacrifice myself to a similar fate of being dateless and without a love life until I hit 40... Not a happy thought but not at all sure what to do to avert it. After all the only thing one can really suggest to combat that is not to wait for men to ask you out but to do the asking, and as I have just demonstrated that does not help things as the horrid men say no! Perhaps turning to the example of Becky Sharp really is the way to go... at least she didn't mind not being in love but focused instead on herself and having a wonderful time...

My Benedick or Much Ado About Nothing?

I decided just to go for it and ask him out... He is my lecturer but we are reasonably close in age (I am not an undergraduate) and he is not going to be marking any of my work and the lectures have finished. I was planning to wait until after the exam but after my last lecture with him we had a long chat and he was so nice and seemed genuinely happy and interested in talking to me too so although I didn't have the nerve to ask him out then and there, which would have been the best thing to do, I emailed him shortly afterwards. The email was succinct and cute, and I just asked him out for coffee. It has been over a day now and I keep checking my email account but he has not yet been in touch... Have asked various people and they seem to all agree that there is a three day rule for this sort of thing and if he hasn't replied after three days then he is either jolly rude or is saying no without replying... I feel sick and very nervous which seems ridiculous!

I have never asked a chap out before and can now understand why more boys don't ask me out: it is terrifying and horrible! I am v nervous that he will say no because I like him so much and over the last few months he has rather become my fall back day dream man which has been lovely and totally made me move on from my ex. So I dread losing that which I will have to if he says no. I am also rather nervous about him saying yes as I think I will be sick with nerves before meeting up with him, silly but true! Also bit embarrassed at the thought that he might feel the need to check with his head of department that it is okay to date me, or even just tell him about it if he says no, that would be embarrassing... However, I am v pleased that I have done it and really I have nothing to lose as he won't be around next year so I wouldn't have to keep running into him or anything if he declines.

Dating is so difficult and I really feel like the world of fiction has not prepared me for it. If only I could be a glorious heroine and have men fall at my feet. Shakespeare though had rather a good line on it, I have been thinking especially of 'Much Ado About Nothing' recently for as he there showed there is nothing like finding out someone likes you to make you instantly find them much more attractive and like them back. Oh wonderfully handsome and horribly intellectual lecturer, are you going to be my Benedick?

Bridget Jones 3 and a Secret History.

Apparently the rumours are true and Helen Fielding is indeed writing Bridget Jones 3. I feel this is a huge mistake as dear old Bridget and her hapless guide to life epitomised the gloriously new days of singleton back in the 1990s and trying to drag her into the year 2011 and turn her into a yummy mummy (oh the horror!) scream out cash cow rather than literary endeavor.

Still at least Bridget has at least passing luck with men, I am still delightfully single though horribly and overwhelmingly in love with one of my lecturers... he is rather dishy and although ironically not a very good lecturer I do adore him. I am sure he has barely noticed me beyond very nicely answering all my questions, but then again who knows... Not entirely a desert on the man hunt as did have a jolly lovely time with a beautifully blonde boy at a party last week, most yummy and from Denmark I believe. Also been asked away by an old love interest to spend the weekend with him, but not so sure how I will reply to him. The idea of a fun weekend is most appealing but am not personally a great fan of one-night stands.

Busy with uni stuff recently but have just read the almost excellent 'Secret History' by the very badly named Donna Tart and the disappointing 'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro which has just been made into a film starring Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan. The latter was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize several years ago and I had heard terrific things about it, but I found it to be written in such a plodding dull way that although the central idea was most interesting I found it quite hard to stop myself skipping chunks of it. While the characters were all irritating, especially the narrator who seemed far too nice and forgiving of everyone else to be real. I suspect I found it so tedious largely due to having read a review of the film which gave away pretty much the whole plot. Roger Ebert is a fine film reviewer (in fact I think him the very best) but he did spoil this book for me.

On the other hand I got totally engrossed by 'Secret History'. It is about a group of elite students at a prestigious university who are all linked by a dark secret. That description makes it sound a bit slushy but it is very well written and the characters are all amazingly realistic and wonderfully flawed because of it. The students are all studying classics as am I and so I particularly loved all the little classical references and quotations in ancient greek.

Not sure what to begin next... I think perhaps 'The Chrysalids' by John Wyndham. 'Never Let Me Go' was likened to it by one of the reviewers and I can only hope that Wyndham made a better job of it!

Sam Vimes and his Lady Sybil...

Oh gosh I do hate Valentines Day when I am single. I have spent all day seeing couples everywhere, even when I went shopping I kept seeing couples holding hands and then the men paying for lots of lovely underwear and perfume and chocolates for the women in their lives... Arrgh!!!

At times like these I think of all the wonderful men in literature who I find deliciously romantic, Sam Vimes being at the top of the list. This is deeply ironic as he wasn't at all romantic, but what happened between him and Sybil felt so deep and just incredibly special. A real proper connection exists between them, they love each other truly and deeply and yes I do believe passionately, he just doesn't go in for gestures. Just as well he has Sybil as I am a girl who adores romantic gestures!

Last night I watched Braveheart and cried. I always cry at the end, I love it and his fight, but above all the deep and abiding love he carries for his dead wife. Rhett Butler speaks to me as well, he would have gone all out for a Valentines Day with Scarlet and would have done so because it meant a lot to her rather than because he liked roses and chocolates. Oh gosh what I wouldn't give for a man like that who made my heart beat hard and fast.

I am very intentionally not thinking about Germanicus... I have been an awful lot recently and I do hope it is because of St Valentine and his bloody day. I go round and round lots of different issues in general but then last night I got very upset. My flatmate and her boyfriend were giggling and having a lovely time in the other room and I suddenly felt hugely lonely. I felt this urge to get back in touch with him but then I remembered that I had tried to get us back together and he had said no... It is about time I took that as closure and moved on.

However, I refuse to mope or be in the depths of despair (a charming Anne of Green Gables reference there) and so I am going to my friend's flat (she of the married man affair fame... still to hear from him on whether he is going to give her up or leave his wife.... she has now been waiting almost 6 weeks!) and we are going to eat lots of yummy things and polish off a couple of bottles of champagne, pink to match the special day!

Love?

I am lonely... I would really like to stop thinking about my ex and to move on and find someone else. I do like that I have time now to do my ironing and read as many books as I like but I would love to have someone who cared about me and wanted to have dinners together a few times a week. To be the automatic person that I would take with me to the theatre this weekend since I have managed to blag some free tickets, the person I would call when something wonderful happened and the person I fall asleep with at night.

Bridget Jones would be appalled in public but would secretly agree that having a man around is jolly nice. My flatmate has been around a lot recently as her chap has been away but he got back this weekend and since then she hasn't been here and I have been a little lonely. Tonight when she got in she had her bf with her and I have listened to them giggling through the wall ever since. I am really pleased she is happy and begrudge her nothing, it just makes me realise more and more that I would also like to have a boyfriend around.

There is a man I like so very much and would love to go on a date with... but he is one of my lecturers and has not shown any interest in me. We both regularly arrive early for our two lectures together a week and chat together before other people arrive. He is so lovely but I have no idea if he is even single, and even if he were I don't feel I can ask him out incase he felt it was inappropriate... Gosh I do adore him!

A fool for love.

Recently I have  taken to thinking of my ex-boyfriend a good deal and about our relationship. I can't yet write that I forgive him or that I wouldn't care if I suddenly saw him again but I am a lot happier and calmer than when we were together latterly. I read a very interesting article in The Times about a study conducted over a few years whereby people kept diaries detailing their sex lives and how they felt about the amount, frequency, etc of it all. My sex life with Germanicus almost always left me wanting more...

I am now, some months further on, able to admit that he is a good person but he was never terrific in bed. Yes there were some good nights under the sheets but then we were together for years and so you would hope that there were some good nights. But mostly he was very boring in bed. I tried lots of different things to spice up our sex life: candles, incense, massage bars, different places, positions, sex books and so on and on and on and on. Those things did all help but mostly they would just help the first time or two and then he would revert back to his normal, and dreadfully boring, routine.

In The Times article there was one case in particular that hit me hard and that was of a lady in her fifties who was looking back on how her marriage first started out. She commented that when she and her husband were in the early years of their relationship they couldn't get enough of each other and had sex every opportunity they had... I would love to say that I have experience that with someone but the truth is I haven't and would like to. With Germanicus I certainly felt that way but sadly he wasn't keen on terribly frequent even in the very early days and certainly not later on either.

At the time I was forgiving and later as I thought we would be together for ever I was a little sad, but now I am anticipatory and excited as I hope to go out with someone who feels that way about me and who I feel that way about also. There are currently four chaps I rather like and so we shall see if anything is soon afoot, I do hope so! Valentines is only a week away but I have already planned a night of champagne with the friend who is still (almost 5 weeks!) waiting to hear from her married lover and lots of jolly anti-valentines chatting.

Men and boys.

I adore book shopping in charity shops. One finds so many hidden treasures and not only are you helping a good cause but you can try out books you would not normally have bought because they are so very cheap. A good 2/3 of the time the books I buy in charity shops end up being given back but the whole experience sits very well with me and although not on a par with the excitement and joy I feel when browsing through a second hand book shop the delights of the charity shop are numerous.

Recently I found the relatively new Tony Parsons book 'Men from the Boys' in my local Oxfam and having read both the previous two books in the series about the rather hopeless Harry Silver I forked out my £2.99 and gave it a shot. I was disgustingly disappointed...

The first about Harry Silver was 'Man and Boy' and although I found it jolly irritating in places it was all centred around a splendid idea: that of a youngish married man who had a one-night stand and then faces divorce, and as his world crashes around him he is left for a while to bring up his son alone. A very interesting concept which was well handled and led to much speculation about the state of modern man in our culture of divorce as shown by Silver and paralleled against his father who had had a long and happy marriage and been more of the old fashioned able to change a tyre and put up a shelf sort of man.

The second book was 'Man and Wife' and didn't work as well as the first but was still rather interesting as it focused on Harry's second marriage and how that fit in with his relationship with his son, his step-daughter and his ex-wife. As I said it was not as good, but it did still work.

However, the third book 'Men from the Boys' is rubbish... it does not work at all. I always found Harry Silver a very irritating character but I could still feel empathy with him in the earlier books, but in this one Tony Parsons has made him into a parody of useless 20th century fatherhood and he fails at everything. The book is dreadfully boring and I only managed to finish it by skimming a good deal. Parsons has always struck me as the poor man's Nick Hornby but in this book he is totally bargin bucket.  Although I didn't think his other two Silver books were remotely high literature this one is dreadfully bad and I am rather appalled it was even published.

Men are most peculiar creatures and the appeal for me of the first two Silver books by Parsons was the idea of the struggle for manhood of some 20th century men. An acquaintance of mine clearly struggles with this for though he appears very camp indeed he is straight and at great pains for the world to know it. Last night at a wonderfully fun party (no action for me sadly) he admitted to me that the girlfriend he mentions from time to time was all a lie... I immediately thought he was going to come out of the closet to me but instead it turns out he is pretending to have a girlfriend because he has slept with one of my friends who then took to pestering him to sleep with her again or go out with her afterwards but he is interested in her best friend but thinks her too good for him and so the best way to avoid situations was to create a fake girlfriend... As I say men are strange creatures!