Who do you think you're talking to?

In the last few months I've built up quite a collection of your blogs that I like to read, but this morning I thought I'd go adventuring again and see what I could find. I didn't find any new good people to stalk but what I did notice, and have noticed with all of your blogs too, is that I tend to search through the stories to try and determine who the person is. Obviously I don't mean name and address, but what makes the ticking. Personal stories show tidbits but I don't think many people try and describe who they are.

Which is what I'm going to attempt now.

Now, I realise there is a big difference between how others see us and how we see ourselves. I'll try and chuck in both.

Hi, my name is Adam.
When I was younger, I decided that the whole life after death thing sounded pretty suss and so realised that the only way to exist afterwards was in people's memories, the stories they told about you, etc. It sounds heavy for a kid to think, but it was fairly positive, it determined that all my dealings with people were going to be pretty lovely. I wasn't obsessed or anything, it meant that if things got crap, I put in a lot of effort to make it all good.

So, I was lovely all over the shop and fairly well liked as lovely people are.
I went from a little poorer class multicultural primary school to a poncy single sex, 'everyone but us drives a fancy car and has expensive shoes' highschool. I didn't know a single person whereas everyone else grew up toegther, I'd say about 90% of the school was greek or italian and had a lot in common. It took me two years to get over the shock of it all.

After two years I nutted out some mates and things got good. We were stupid and everything was made into a competition. We spent all our time making up games to beat each other at, and by the end of our school years we all how our things we were the best at. I was by far the fastest, could jump the highest and had totally no fear to do stupid things because I was too scared to show any weakness.

I wasn't real good at sports though, mostly through a complete absence of any practice. The school would practically bully everyone into playing extra-curricular sports and so I would resist on principle. It now means that playing anything these days, I'm am all speed and gusto with no skill.

I didn't go to the Year 12 formal because I didn't know a single girl until I went to Uni. I was suprised with how normal chicks were and totally comfortable I was - especially after 6 or so years wondering....

I don't retain knowledge of stuff, so if you listen to dudes talking, they spend a lot of time talking about details and specifications of stuff. I've never known footy stats or car specs or the best way to build a pergola. I learn by listening rather than reading. I did alright at uni because I forced myself to go to all the tutorials. Chicks talk about people more, I like people far more than I like to know which market motorbike model was fastest in 2001.

So, in terms of good lovin', being lovely either gets you no chicks or girls that have been hurt. These girls taught me to be less lovely, after a while I'd completely OD, break up in the most lovely way and then get myself the hell stalked for a while. I liked a lot of people but didn't have a real close group of mates because we all seemed to live so far from the place.

I hung out a lot with my high school mates instead. Together, we spent a lot of time not picking up any girls. Together we were freakin hopeless. We had no pub or nightclub skills at all. It's freakin funny now.

I got a lot out of my uni because they had absolutely no reputation. So, knowing their students couldn't compete with other students for jobs based on name, they just put a good bit of effort into getting everyone work experience. It was at that work experience that I finally had an awesome group of everyone to hang out with. I worked for a year and in that year there was a lot of us similar ages, and we all drank a lot, and bonded like nothing else. There was a lot of people in this gang and everyone brought more people and it was all very incestuous and totally awesomely excellent.

Family life for me always sucked. My mum is crazy aggressive while my sister and dad are not. Even though I was really pretty nice to everyone, I couldn't, wouldn't let my mum bully me like she did the others. The thing was, I'm hardly confrontational. Every time she'd beat me down and every time my well thought out arguments would be massacred. For years, it seemed like every couple of weeks my mum would go skitz, everyone else would run for cover and do exactly what she wanted, I'd call her up on it, we'd have a massive fight, I'd relent because I didn't want to be kicked out, everyone would be moody and then things would be back to normal.

My parents got divorced when I was still at highschool and I didn't tell anyone for a long, long time. Not because I was ashamed, but I just couldn't be bothered with people wanting to be all consoling and that. It was in the days where divorce was all over the TV and whatnot but no one actually knew anyone divorced. Things between me and my mum were pretty good while she had a focus for her aggression.

She got over it after a bit and then things were worse than ever. Thanks to the work experience though, I had spare cashage and so moved the hell out. Quickly. A friend had been lamenting that her grandfather had moved into a home and her family had to drive out and look after it every couple of days, blah blah blah. So I rented the whole house for $50. Freakin awesome!

Had my own place, had a life enriching group of friends, had cash, life was beautiful.... little did I know that the family who owned the house I was in would become a massive freakin nightmare. They were all crazy, but the girl I knew became the worst stalker I was ever to know. I am far less lovely now.

I can now pick stalker potential in someone really, really quick.
Since then I've had a few massive hangyouty groups, a million different jobs, different girlfriends, different houses. I used to be a different person dependent on would I was hanging out with... it was exausting and scary and so now I'm the same person all over the shop, whether with new people, at work or with my funnest friends.

I put effort in being fun for people and I'd like to think everyone's fairly comfortable around me. I'm good at saying stupid funny things to new people I meet which is usually fairly well received. The people I love, I love totally.... and then OD.... and then love them again. I go hermitise every now and then. I know that people like me, but I still get jealous when people go on and on about other people that don't treat them real well. I used to be real nice to people, really over the top complementry, and while I was always being sarcastic no one ever seemed to realise that. People responded well initially, then got over it. The tide turned when a totally outspoken friend said I was syrupy. Whoa, like yuk!

I've come to tease people a lot more since then, which people seem far more comfortable with. I think I've become far less lovely and maybe slightly more challenging, but still with extra funness. I think I'm smart, but I'm not very quick. As such, I had some good quick responses which I could use for anything. They have been known as 'Adamisms' and apparently are totally, completely way contagious. Since I've become a bit more teasingy and less nice I haven't really developed as many responses to stupid stuff people say so I'm not as quick as I used to be.


And this, my friends, is me, today, in this particular frame of mind. Later dudes!