Hello dear and dedicated blog readers!
I hope you have all been doing well, and be sure to leave a message in the guestbook if you were here. It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for me since my last blog post, and I’m still learning to navigate life after love.
I have come to realise that love and romantic relationships play too big of a role in my life. Of course I have some life, I go to university, spend time with friends, go out, party etc, but it all feels like a distraction from the goal of finding a lifelong partner. While this might seem fine, the way it manifests itself results in being obsessive about relationships while not in them, but then asking if the grass is greener while in them.
This is especially bad because when you live for someone else, you forget yourself. Unfortunately I have done just that in the past and I am hoping that through these questions I can fall in love with myself, and also remember who I am and go do things I enjoy again.
If you are someone who is close to me in real life, you are probably as sick as me of talking about relationships when you ask how I am, so lets hope this is the last time I open my mouth about past relationships, and actually talk about myself!
Well without further ado: Here are my 36 questions!
A: The key part of this questions is invite, meaning I am not expecting them to actually say yes, so there is no pressure to perform because they likely wouldn’t. There’s a lot of options here because it could be for networking or it could be for fun. So I think I’m gonna try and pick a middle ground and go for one of my favourite artists: Sycco.
They’re a Brisbane based pop artist that made it big through triple J unearthed, and since 2022 (my musical awakening) I have absolutely loved her stuff. I actually had the privilege of meeting her in person at a set she did in oxford art factory, and she told me that I “had the best vibes in the room for the whole night”. I don’t lie when I tell you that was still to this day the best night of my life.
Either way, it would be super cool to talk to her about her music, both because she’s really chill and because I’d love to perform with her, even tho its’s not really my style.
A: NOOOO Absolutely not. I value my privacy way too much. I’m already so anxious about my image, now imagine having people on your back who will do anything to hate you. Sounds like a nightmare. I’d much rather be known in the community for doing a good thing or being a nice person, but not actually being a public figurehead. Just one of the little people that makes things a little better.
A: I used to be so bad for this. Fortunately I have gotten a lot better at this and have learned to trust myself and almost enjoy calling people now. Of course I still have a script in my head of what I’m going to say, but I definitely don’t rehearse it before I do it.
That is unless it’s something problematic, like a breakup call in which, yes I do. I cant believe I used to rehearse ordering a small chips from the local fish and chip shop. Lowkey embarrassing but we laugh now.
A: Ooooh ooh okay I like this question. Okay heres the dayplan: Getup at 5AM and go for a run. Don’t feel tired when I wakeup, but definitely not enthusiastic to run. Run anyway so I have a good mood for the rest of the day. Maybe do some dancing while I’m at the park.
When I get back, watch some youtube/tv and go out and have coffee with my brother at a local café. Have the best coffee and croissant of my life.
Get back and then clear off my admin for the day so I feel productive before going out on adventure. Go for a walk somewhere in south Sydney or somewhere green and just chill out and walk for the day.
Hopefully have a partner at this point that I may have walked with, and go home and have sex in the middle of the afternoon. I don’t know what it is about it, but it’s so pleasant to just sit there but not go to sleep after having sex. It’s so nice.
Then have a refreshing shower and make an afternoon matcha with a little honey, that doesn’t taste remotely powdery and is actually homogenous. Then after that go out with some friends and go see a movie, or better watch a theatre production, and eat dinner at a restaurant before. Then go home and go to bed before midnight.
I think the funniest thing about this is that all of this (except the sex with a trusted partner) is actually possible right now, and describes thing’s I’ve already been doing. Maybe I already am the person I want to be. Huh.
A: Gyall I’m literally a singer. I’ve literally been singing on and off all day, I’m singing right now. I was also singing phantom of the opera with my brother in the car on the way to spotlight. I like to believe that my perfect falsetto combined with the 42 degree weather (climate, this isn’t you.. don’t change) had nothing to do with his increased annoyance with me.
A: Does it have to be my body? Cuz if so I would love to retain the body of a hot 30 year old woman. To stay attractive for the rest of my life and have men chasing after me for my whole life would be so validating. Like old enough to not be fresh to life, but definitely retaining beauty. But I cannot imagine retaining the mind of a 30 year old. How would I learn and grow as a person if my mind stayed the same. I’d rather be a demented baddie than a sharp ugly. No one would listen to me if I was the latter anyway.
Honestly kinda concerned by my answer to this, might need to review this later.
A: Not really, but I really hope it’s sudden. I have a vague feeling it’s going to be in a car accident, but we’re entering a new world, so I’m certain that it’s some strange things that’s not even imaginable at this point. I haven’t really thought a lot about dying tbh.
A: My partner is me :( That said when I look at myself in the mirror, I think that we’re both twinkish, we both have great taste in pants and we both have some freaky gender shit going on.
A: In honesty, I’m so grateful that I had a very ideal childhood. I wasn’t spoiled so I learned respect and humility, but I also was cared for greatly and had a very good support network. As such I succeeded throughout primary and high school with the bare minimum level of bad experience required to learn but not suffer. I know many others that had problematic upbringings that have left them scarred and hurt into their adult life. I have been lucky to develop most of my problems later in life.
A: Maybe not anything in the way I was raised specifically, but there were somethings I would’ve like to be different. That said, I do not regret anything about the way I was raised.
Once again, I believe that everything in my life has happened as it was going to happen, and I was never going to do anything differently, and I’m still proud (mostly) of the person I’ve become today.
A: This is gonna test my touch typing ability. When I was 6 my parents divorced. My dad cheated on my mum and they split up. Since I was 7-8 I have lived between these houses with both parents remarrying. I spent primary school moving between schools because the public education system was failing me, went to a private school and then got way further ahead of my peers when I went back. I made a group of friends in primary school that were not as good to me as they should have been and I am still thinking of their actions to this day.
In high school I got very competitive and dated a girl I thought was smart, but then we broke up and hated each other and then I was bullied by every girl in my school for a year. This was only fixed when I met a very lovely but tormented girl who I dated for 4 years till my first year of uni, and who filled my life with joy. I did very well in high school and got very good grades.
We broke up in my first year of uni, because she found a new life and decided that she didn’t want me in it anymore. (4:00 timer up) I then tried to find peace and convince myself that I was good enough for someone. Then 6 months later, I was good enough for someone, and I found another very lovely person, but I then found that they loved me too much and I couldn’t do that either so we broke up. So now I’m here
A: I tend to think of this question materially usually so I’m going to challenge myself. My old answer would have been that I would want the ability to transform matter from anywhere in the universe into whatever I willed it to be whenever and wherever I wanted. But now I think it would be genuine empathy. I tend to understand what people are saying to me, but I struggle to put other’s emotions before my own unless I truly love or care about them. Maybe. Idk that doesn’t always line up with who I am.
A: If I keep going the way I’m going, am I going to be kind. Am I going to help someone. Am I going to mean something to someone. Am I going to change someone’s life for the better. I don’t care about being forgotten, everyone gets forgotten eventually, I just want to know that when I die, I created meaning for someone, and that I actually helped someone for them, not just cuz it was beneficial to me.
A: I’ve had a lot of dreams but I generally find that I’m quite non committal when I actually try to start doing them. That said, I’ve always wanted to perform in a professional production of something. Perform at the Sydney lyric theatre in a musical. I just don’t have the skill yet and there are others who want it more desperately than me, and there are some who have nothing else. And me, well I have my degree to lay back on and find what I enjoy slowly. I hope I’m doing the right thing.
A: I want to say that putting on a solo show was, when I put on a production as a part of the talent development project. That was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in terms of confidence. I remember selling tickets for the show initially and thinking I’d probably be able to convince a few close friends to come, and yet everyone in my local community, even people I barely knew, rallied around me to support me. My friends made me a poster and heaps of people signed it.
I remember two months after that my show a teacher came up to me to tell me that my show really meant a lot to them, as they knew student’s my age that were struggling and had killed themselves, and it was so important for them to see the way I experienced the world and the things I felt. They cried. That was one of the most meaningful moments of my life. Not seeing that something that I did had done something for me, but that it had made a change for someone else. It made someone else FEEL something. That something I did meant something outside of my own mind, and if I forgot it, it would still be there in someone else. That something I did mattered.
A: Openness and humor. I like to be friends with people that make me laugh and that make me feel like I’m funny. I also like people that are willing to be open to my opinions and ideas, because they can be a bit unusual at times.
A: I have already mentioned a few and I don’t wish to repeat myself here, when I have already explained their meaning well enough to me. To linger on one thing too long is to devalue the importance of everything else.
One of my most treasured memories was from when I was dating my first real girlfriend. I was 15 and we were at the Lithgow show, our annual local festival that took place at the sportsground. Our relationship was a secret to her parents so we had to say she was going with some friends, but it was anything but. We got there and it was so wet, but we were hanging out with the showrunners daughter and her boyfriend, so we had a little room we were allowed to stay in when it got too wet.
When it stopped raining we all went out to the show and had a good time on the rides and got sweet licorice sticks until it started to rain again. The others went inside but me and my girlfriend started dancing in the rain. It was the first time we were really able to hang out like this. I was dancing like a good, and running circles around her, and she was laughing so much.
It started to pour so we went inside, and she got really tired, so she laid down in my lap and I just held her. She slept there for ages. She was so beautiful and I stroked her hair in my lap as she clung to me. I remember her wet black frizzy hair frazzled all over my jacket. I remember the ugly mustard yellow couch cushions contrasted against the thin cyan curtains behind us. Come to think of that that was actually our favourite colors. I remember thinking in that moment “I will never forget this moment”. I never did
A: I have a couple picks for this, but I think the recency of a lot of them makes them stand taller. While I would like to name one of them, I have told it’s story too much lately and I’m sick of telling it. I am hoping this will now be the last time I tell it.
So my worst memory was when I went as a + 1 to a date between my ex and a 39 year old she just met. It was about 3 weeks after I broke up with her, and a lot had gone on, and despite still being in a situationship at this point, we hadn’t talked for a week as she had blocked me after I accused her of trying to manipulate me. Despite this we had an audition together this day, so I knew we would see each other again.
I got to the audition and she was ignoring me throughout the audition, so I chose to engage at the end. After the audition, I went up to her and told her I needed to drop off the rest of her stuff the next day. She said that was fine and she wanted to talk
We went outside and were about to talk when a 39 year old Spanish man came up to us and started hitting on her. He offered her a hit of the joint, which she accepted (she doesn’t smoke) and then he offered to take her out which she agreed to. Fueled by jealousy and also worried for her safety I asked her if she wanted me to come. “You can come if you want” she said as they were walking away. I followed.
I began to inquire about his background, and was trying to suggest him to go into the city so he would go away. He asked her if they could hold hands which she was okay with. I was sweating with anxiety and jealousy.
I wanted him to go away. I started hitting on him and asked to hold hands. So there he was, in the centre of us, walking down the streets of marrickville at 10pm at night.
He starts talking about how everyday he wakes up with a young girl in his bed and how he doesn’t go to strip clubs because he doesn’t find them attractive.
I have no shame. I make uncomfortable jokes. I hear an engine rev at the lights. I scream as loud as I can “that guy has a massive penis”. I think it was meant to be funny.
We end up at a bar, the two of them sit on the other side of the table and I sit on my side. We all get drinks. She starts playing games with us. She is the master of this house. He stays because he thinks he’s going to get to sleep with her. I stay because I think I can win back this I broke up with. She stays because she’s getting validation. I’m determined to ruin this. I start saying more uncomfortable jokes and making fun of him. She is so embarrassed of me.
We all get drinks and she starts whispering in his ear. I’m messaging my brother asking him want to do. He tells me to leave. I can’t. The guy tells her that she had a motorbike accident, and she starts giving him a backrub. I can.
I standup and tell them to finish my drink cuz I’m too uncomfortable and want to go home. She reminds me she still wants to talk. I ask if we can talk outside. She asks me to wait. I sit down. I do.
We’re all finished our drinks except for the guy. He still has half left. I ask to try his beer cuz I’ve never had it before. He asks me to get one for myself. I insist on trying a little. He agrees. I take his glass. I drink all the beer in it.
He asks to get another round but my ex and I agree to leave. She exchanges numbers with him and ensures it works. We part ways. Me and my ex one way, and him the other. It’s over. Thank god.
I tell her that was strange, and then ask what she wanted to talk about.
“How have you been” she asks.
“Ehh, not great to be honest, I haven’t been dealing with it all too well. How about you” I ask
“OH MY GOD, I’ve been so annoyed! I downloaded hinge and these guys are BLOWING UP my phone” she says, showing me the two digit red icon at the top right of her hinge app.
“oh… okay” I let out.
We get to the station. I want to go home with her. She offers. I don’t go.
I go home. She messages me telling me she was glad I came and she had fun. I don’t reply.
She messages again “hey, everything okay?”
I don’t reply.
I’m walking home. She calls. I pick up.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine”
“okay, just wanted to check”
I hang up.
I don’t sleep that night. I have the longest anxiety attack of my life.
The next day I drop off her stuff. I get on the train with her on the way to her work. She is friendly. I can’t be.
I tell her that I was super uncomfortable about what happened last night and that I don’t want to be a third on any other dates and I don’t want to know about her hinge or her dating life. I tell her that I don’t think she has my best interests in mind. I tell her I don’t trust her anymore.
She tells me that’s awful and she would never do anything to hurt me. She tells me I have a victim mindset and not everything is about me.
I tell her I don’t believe her. She starts to cry. She goes to get off the train. I say I’m sorry. She says I’m not. I tell her I’m not. That is the last thing I said to her. I blocked her on everything. I have since been contacted through whatsapp, a friend of a friend, gmail and been messaged through a payphone. It should have been over a long time ago, but I do believe it is over now. And if it’s you that is reading this. Stop trying to contact me. Let me go. I need to grow now. You need to grow now. It’s over. Goodbye.
END OF FIRST ACT
