Before I read any of this monster of a thread can I just say… before I get bogged down in too much detail by reading the thread…
Me and her know the situation. She has made a few things clear. I am of the understanding that I have personal issues to resolve. It’s post christmas and many of the office problems are out of the way… more room for me to sort this out in my head.
The external problem is pretty much sorted out… We are going to continue to be friends and effective work colleagues.
I will respond only to the OP in this post due to time concerns.
Please explain and/or quote the part where I was a jerk to her former boyfriend? Her former boyfriend and I get on well… and always have.
She didn’t for a long time. Not until a few weeks ago.
I fucked up I know. I told the guy I fucked up. He told me a lot of what I said to him had credence. He told me I’ve done him a favour. Me and Him are on good terms now.
She has done nothing but be a good friend to me and get on with me. Unless she is evil and is doing this despite or because I’m obsessed (which is a matter of opinion still… judging by other replies) she does not see that about me.
Her EX. This only restarted because she became single again. I am not such a knobhead as to act this way with someone with a boyfriend… she seemed to rekindle her friendship with me since breaking up. I mistook it for interest. But now I know it was not.
Lobsang,
I just wanted to say: props to you for coming back and explaining yourself. I was really glad to see your response, partly because you have shed some light on some of the issues raised, and partly because you came in at all to what must have been a difficult thread for you to read and post to. I was half expecting something horrible, it would have been so easy for you to either stay away, or to do a big ugly flame-out. It really shows your critics that you’re not the spineless fool that you’ve been made out to be in this thread, and that despite possible mistakes you have the maturity to re-evaluate and take responsibility for your actions, and still stand up for yourself.
Good show, mate.
Give the poor guy a break; he lives on the Isle of Man; if that isn’t having the odds stacked against you, I dunno what is.
Well…it’s kinda cute.
I hope she rosined up her bow before she played you like a one string fiddle.
when the text message was finished, she would have asked you to send it, and you would have. She KNEW that. She was getting back at someone and used you to do it so that if confronted by the target you would have stumbled out an excuse like “it was written by someone else and was never meant to be sent to you” which, if was said to me, would sound like complete twaddle.
> Scribbling notes furiously <
duffer, thank you. Really. That was very useful. I’ve got 3 relationships I’ll be evaluating with this lense, and I think you’ve just helped me out of a rut.
I was gonna say something along these lines but, as a Yank, didn’t feel I had the right to. But I think I speak for us all that it would be worse if he were from The Isle of Wight! (I know the joke’s wearing thin, but it tickles me)
Lobbers, I think you really do need a new scene. I was in a similar position many years ago–couldn’t seem to get my life on a track that didn’t require beer and/or the girl. My solution was to run away. For the most part it worked. I was able to look at any lingering personal issues as “all mine” and unrelated to old acquaintances, places and attitudes. Kind of like changing a dressing and seeing where the injuries remain by where the pus is still seeping through…or something. Can’t you just grab your savings and run to The Big City and start over? Massive change can be SO refreshing
TwistofFate You have me and her wrong on all counts… She would have said something like ‘better not send it’ I would have said ‘I agree’ and if she had said send it I would have persuaded her otherwise. She was not getting back at someone. If confronted I would not have said it was made by someone else… and I HAVE not.
What kind of ‘typical bloke’ do you take me for? What kind of ‘typical bitch’ do you take her for?
bobkitty I had not even seen or had not been aware of this thread until ten minutes before my first post in it… These days I rarely do vanity searches or look in the Pit.
jackelope I’ve seen her puke up. The infatuation is still there.
duffer I am a tool, and I am content to be so.
featherlou BOO!, p.s. I do like who I am and where I am at this moment in time. She has made it clear she wants my friendship not my companionship. I can see worthwhile future and a way to get there.
PookahMacPhellimey You are right. All I have been doing is verbalising my thoughts, putting them into words. And from the first mention of ‘therapy’ I’ve had the normal healthy cynic’s opinion of it.
Guinastasia My father isn’t counseling me. If anyone ‘the girl’ is. (prefer not to refer to her by name)
hajario I have stopped drinking.
all I am not stepping away. I am standing by this girl as a friend. P.s. I’m hungry… Pie and chips for tea. And maybe later I’ll go out for a walk with my camera, tripod, and new telephoto lens.
I don’t see her as being a qualified counselor.
And the jokes write themselves, folks. Have fun with your ‘bird watching,’ chief.
Ha BOOM BOOM.
No I really meant it… night shots of douglas y’know?
(The Key)
But it’s too late now.
Good Egg Neither do I. But we talk.
Well, colour me surprised.
I still think this relationship with this woman doesn’t sound like a very good idea, but that’s not my decision to make. If you’re content to be a tool, have at it. Just don’t blame all women when you do tool-ish things.
Just so long as you don’t take it as mean-spirited. We all live with our decisions and if you’re aware and content, have at it. And good luck with it. god knows I’ve been there.
Suppose I should have just quoted featherlou. That’ll learn me to read all but the last post close enough to catch it. :smack:
Maybe the shock in all of this isn’t the thoughts going through Lobsang’s head; rather it’s that those thoughts are written out for all to read.
I think many people have these kind of thoughts, but we don’t typically share them with the world. They’re born as thoughts, and they die as such. What’s freaking a lot of people out is that Lob’s verbalizing them. And that’s one of the things people are commenting on.
Another thing people are commenting on is how Lobsang may be perceived by the RL people around him. We can’t know for sure entirely how he’s being perceived, as none of us are at his job, at the pub, with him with his friends around.
However, we can read the subtext of all of his “obsession” posts: she’s manipulating him. And that is the one thing he is failing to see.
So Lobsang: the obsession? Whatever. Many of us at some unfortunate time put a person on a pedistal, and we soon begin to feel this is the person we “Love.” But most of the time it’s just a pretty (or handsome as the case may be) face, hot body, generally very attractive person who flirts with us. And this makes us feel good about ourselves at a time when we need the boost.
I remember my “obsession.” In high school I was a very pathetic creature. One semester, I sat next to a very pretty girl. She befriended me. She even flirted with me. ME!!! A year or two went by, and she continued to be friendly to me at a time when very few girls would, let alone a pretty one. Also, a lot of my friends and peers were getting girlfriends, I was not, and I began to see this particular girl as the only girl who would ever show me the time of day, and thus, my only chance at a relationship.
I thought about her constantly. Probably had many of the same thoughts go through my head that you’ve put down in your numerous posts on this topic. So, one day after graduation, I felt I had to let her know how I felt. I had to. So I took the coward’s path, and wrote a silly note, pouring out my feelings, and put it on her windshield with my phone number. If my life were a movie, this would surely be the part where every one in the theater cringes.
She never called. I continued my pining for a few months, now more along the lines of “Woe is me, I’ll never be loved, nor will I ever love again”-type bullshit. I still thought I loved her.
But, she was not in my life anymore, as we had graduated, went to different schools, and didn’t hang out at the same places. And soon I quit thinking about her. She wasn’t there to feed my self-esteem. But for those 2 years in high school, I saw her everyday, she would talk to me, and her pedistal grew higher.
After I got past this girl, I had a few other cringe-worthy moments in the field of love, lust & crushes. My point here is, though, if this girl had stayed in my life in any way, those cringe-worthy moments with the other girls would very likely have never happened. She had to be gone for me to move on.
Eventually, the heinously cringe-worthy moments disappeared from my love life, and they gave way to your run-of-the-mill “normal” relationships and heartbreaks.
This post is getting long so I’ll just say one more thing: you need to get this manipulative person out of your life. Quit defending her actions, quit justifying your “new” post-holiday relationship with her as acceptable. She is the one thing standing between you and “normal” relationships and “normal” heartbreaks. You may think that this is the best you’ll ever have, but you’re wrong. You may think that this is okay for the time being, but you’re wrong. Quit defending her. Quit being around her.
Happy
I like what you’ve posted here, Happy. I just want to add one thing: The problem gets worse–much worse–if you wind up sleeping with her (or him, as the case may be). Throw sex into a manipulative relationship, and you complicated matters to an exponential degree. And yes, I learned that the hard way. 
Ah well, lessons learned, sadder but wiser, better to have loved and lost, and all that.
The hell of it is that 12 years later after I’ve moved on with my life and married a wonderful woman, the actual heartbreak doesn’t hurt anymore. Heartbreak comes with the turf, and if you treat it right, it makes you stronger. It’s the manipulation that gets me, specifically the knowledge that I let myself get played for a sucker. That’s what still twinges after all this time. OK, it’s not something I really dwell on, anymore, but when I see something like this thread, oi, it brings me back.
I like that. Have you tried stopping it right down (maybe even adding a neutral filter or using a slower film) and taking a long exposure shot? It should make the ripples on the water average out to a misty blur, but everything else will stay pin-sharp.
I will try that. But wouldn’t the boats be a blur? The ones that are moving in the water.
Try this:
Lower your ISO (judging by the noise, it looks like you’re shooting at something like 800 ISO or above.)
With a few exceptions, night pictures do not look best at the dead of night. Try taking the picture a few minutes after sunset, while there is still some color in the sky. You’ll get a much more pleasing bluish background rather than an informationless black. You’re looking for an effect [ulr=“http://www.tonysweet.com/RcntWk/Summer_05/VictoriaBC05/%20%20%20wharf_5.jpg”]similar to this.
So, set your camera to ISO 100 (or however low it can go), and go out there 10-15 minutes after sunset, put your camera on a tripod, and snap away. At f/8, you’ll be looking (and I’m guessing here) at about a 1 to 4 second exposure.