Now *THAT*'s Paranoia
Seeing as I did my little diagram in my last post to demonstrate that I'm, well, a tad more paranoid than your average bear (or indeed any other furry land-dwelling mammal) I thought I'd make this post both a practical example and place to share my flailings.
So somewhere along the line yesterday, as I sat refreshing facebook over and over (no, I don't have much on at the moment.) and it occured to me that I'd sent Matt a message on his wall quite a few days previously to which he had not yet replied. I then looked through my wall posts and my texts and worked out that it was a few days shy of fortnight since I'd heard anything from him at all. Based on my previous experience and that of my friends two weeks of radio silence is the modern young man's way of saying 'You're dumped, I hate you now'. So much of yesterday was spent in an absolutely foul mood, moping about in the flat, stomping about in the park, desperately craving a glass of wine (a craving I resisted because I know that sitting on my own drinking is not a healthy way to deal with negative emotions). I sent him a neutral little poke of a text to remind him of my existence just saying basically 'hello and how are things?' and recieved no reply. So from pretty much noon until midnight no matter what I tried to do my mind skipped around on a very unpleasant path. All the usual things popped up. I imagined that I'd somehow said something horrific and he was furious with me and determined to cut me out of his life. I imagined that he'd realized that getting to Cardiff is much more difficult than staying in Bath and decided to make use of his ample dating opportunities in his own city (I even had a prime suspect, a backup suspect and a nebulous cloud of possible suspects - based on names that popped up on his facebook in various places). But mostly I decided that he'd sometimes discovered that I am actually a hideous idiot who's personality is the equivalent of having your face massaged with cheesegraters. So at about midnight I sent him a text saying something along these lines:
'By the way, if I don't hear from you by this time tomorrow it will be two weeks since I last heard from you and I will start assuming that you are dead or that your hands have dropped off. It's better that I assume this because otherwise the only explanation is that you don't want to talk to me for one reason or another. Do let me know if you're not dead, otherwise I will begin the mourning process. I look good in black you know. Missing you'
(it was a long text). In the cold light of day it looks even more arsey than I intended it to sound.
Anyway, I got a text soon after asking if I was still awake, and upon telling him that I was, he called me. Turns out he's just been insanely busy with work and applying to uni and that he hasn't wanted to start a text conversation that he hasn't got time to finish. He appologised profusely and I started to feel like an absolute dick (for the most part). We had a very nice conversation and it's all good now.
All of my thoughts about him having someone else or being pissed off at me or just hating me were completely unfounded, based on no real direct evidence and all were rather unfair to him. I really need to get a handle on the way that I interpret situations.
Oh and by the by, I really do reccomend Stephen Fry's podcasts. I'm listening to one right now and it is simultaneously one of the most interesting, stimulating and comforting thing I've listened to in a very long time. Go here now: StephenFry.com