Saturday 27th July

Bit difficult to remember all of this as was almost a week ago (I should really try and update these more quickly).

I nipped into town during the day for a few things & tried to take the opportunity to talk to more people as I went about my day, however I was in a bit of a hurry so was more focused on getting what I needed and getting home.

I spoke to a girl in John Lewis when looking for a shirt and commented on her pretty bright flowery dress and told her I liked it and that not many women would pull that off but she gets away with it because she is hot. Yeah.......I said that, not like me at all, it just came out during the convo and I had a total cringe moment and felt mega awkward. But she laughed, went a bit red and said "I bet you say that to all the girls you meet". We spoke a bit more and it wasn't till she turned to one side I saw the engagement ring. Never mind. We spoke a bit more which was pretty light hearted, probably for about 5 minutes.

Spoke briefly with the girl serving me in Boots, initially she over charged me then kept putting my card in the reader the wrong way so I joked that she was trying to rip me off then deliberately putting my card in wrong because she didn't want me to leave & wanted me to hang around and she thought it was quite funny.

Saw 2 random folk walking through our main shopping centre dressed as Darth Vader & a Storm Trooper so I shouted "Don't think you'll find the droids your looking for in here". He took his toy light sabre out and came at me, randomly the storm trooper gave me his........and I stood in a shopping centre having a play light sabre fight with a random guy in a costume with loads of folk looking on, before getting a photo with them & leaving.

Was served by a cute Irish girl with awesome glasses at the optician and its probably my worst experience of trying to talk to someone (since I came on this forum) so far - couldn't get a word out of her. just yes/no answers, no smile......nothing. She was just literally focused on her job. Oh well......

In the evening I had a party, can't really remember much as the drinks were pretty cheap, and thuus pretty smashed (woke up at 6am, fully clothed with my shoes, under my covers with the TV & light on and a sandwich stuck to my face...) but what I do remember is socialising without a care in the world. I deliberately made a point of meeting and greeting all the females there (99% of them all friends or partners of friends) with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Wednesday 31st August

Nothing really major here but something interesting to me. Was out for a meal to say farewell to friends who live abroad back briefly for visiting. Again, greeted my female friend with a hug & a kiss on the cheek. At the end of the night I got huge big hugs goodbye and a kiss on the lips (she's married) with her husband joking looks like she wants to go home with me instead of him - she played along and kissed me again; it was all in total fun.

The reason I put that in is I've always had this fear that whenever I greet/close proximity etc with woman I have this fear they will recoil/think I'm ugly/push me away etc - it probably stems from being bullied by girls when I was younger. I've also always been aware whenever I even go in for a friendly hug and kiss on the cheek its ME who gets really nervous in fear of any of the above happening. It never has since School, and that would be around 8 women if not more I greeted in the same way those 2 days with nothing bad happening.

Even more so my married friend... I know its all friends etc but maybe I'm not really that grotesque after all.......and all this stuff is all in my head. I think the big problem I have is all in my head and the only thing holding me back is me. Probably lack of self confidence/self esteem and a poor image of myself, this is something I'll start a topic about later as I think its quite important. I'm also out again tomorrow shopping/socialising so I'll try update quicker.