ok, change of plan.

I'm still going for this, I've put too much into this, mentally, to back down now. But I'm bringing the date forward, to this saturday. My boss announced he needed people to work overtime on the weekend, and she volunteered. No-one else did, except, of course, me.

If I am to leave that place, and I am going to go through with this, I don't think I will ever have a better opportunity than the one that has presented itself to me today. I'm going to wait until the end of the day (which will be about 1pm) when we will both leave. And then, out of the building, I am going to tell her how I feel. We will be alone and there will be unlimited time for me to say what I have to say. If I were to plan the set of circumstances in which to do this, I don't think I could really do a lot better.

The only two things that can mess this up is if she's a no-show on saturday, or if the weather intervenes and I can't physically get there. If this happens then it's pretty much back the original plan.

It seems strange, but despite the thought of doing it terrifies me, I just want to do it now. Now I've ironed out the details of exactly when, and how, I am going to tell her, I'm ready. I'm just waiting for the time to come around now. I don't need more long hours to sit and visualise how it will play out, or plan my words, or speculate on the outcome. I just want it done.

I'm not even allowing myself to think of what happens in the aftermath, it doesnt seem relevant. It's almost as if the last few years of my life were building up to this point, stupid as that sounds, and as for afterwards....we shall see.

And that's it. I don't have a lot to add to this, it would just be more unneccessary words, like the stretch of unneccessary time between now and 1pm on saturday. It will be over soon enough, if I survive the wait. Bring on saturday.

I didn't make an entry over the weekend because there's only one thing I really want to talk about. I suppose there's only one subject that this can lead on to following my previous post. It is the girl who has hijacked my mind for the last god knows how many months.
If you were to pass her on the street, I don't doubt that you would barely notice her, especially not as anything special or unique. I would be willing to bet you probably wouldn't even score her more than a 6 or 7 out of 10. She would be part of the background, just another of earth's 5 billion inhabitants (or 8? ive heard both figures, how can they get it wrong by so much?? why is it never 6, or 7?). She's not the sweetest person you'll ever meet - I know people who are ten times kinder, or more understanding, or less judging.
But nevertheless she has somehow taken control of so many of my waking hours it's unbelievable. She makes me do things that I don't want to do - not anything creepy, I mean little things, like buy her random things i see in shops, or purposely mess up something on our computer systems so I have to ask her for help. It's not as if I'm oblivious to it at the time - it's happening, right in front of me, and I'm aware that it's happening. I know it's wrong. I just can't seem to stop it. I want her so terribly, so utterly, that it is slowly tearing me apart. And yes I know. I know how horrifyingly melodramatic and hyperbole that sounds, but I can't really put it any better.

I try not to think about her on the weekends. She monopolises my thoughts nearly every minute of my time at work so I try to claw back a little of my own when I'm away from her. She wasn't at work today and originally I was going to put off writing this to another day, one where I couldn't escape thinking about her anyway, but I may as well get it over with so it's done.

It wasn't exactly love at first sight. I'm trying to avoid using the word love, because I'm not sure it fits. Love, or my idea of love, is a mutual thing. It exists between two people that feel the same way about each other, and I am afraid I can't say that this is a description of my current situation (nor, I guess, can I say that it is not). But anyway, when I first met her she was just another girl. Sure she was attractive enough, but I didn't know anything about her - and surely love at first sight is a lie? how can it be love, even if it is an undeniable mutual attraction, when you have yet to speak to one another? that's all it is - attraction. Having said that I'm sure most people see it that way and it's just a stock phrase that's use for convenience. Mutual physical attraction at first sight is a rather less snappy way of putting it. What I'm trying to say in my own roundabout way is that you have to truly get to know someone in order to justify your feelings beyond finding them pretty to look at.

So, when I first became aware of her existence she was just a temp working at the other end of the office. Then, one day, due to turnover in our little part of the office, she became part of my team. I was actually the one selected to show her the ropes and explain briefly the tasks she would expect to carry out during the course of the day. It wasn't even then that I became enamoured by her. Then, a couple of weeks later I think, I made a disastrous mistake. We had sort of become friends, I guess, and we went on a night out (I think it was payday and someone was leaving or something) and we spent alot of the night out together. She told me some things about her life, and I guess I just got it into my head that she was interested in me. I jumped the gun. Not that night but a couple of days later, I awkwardly asked her out, and she awkwardly said no (not there of course! she said maybe, and then later no....by email. ouch). She said she was with someone, but it was kind of obvious that I had just misjudged the situation and she wasn't feeling what I had imagined. I was a little downtrodden but as I said, I had gone ahead way too early and so in a way this saved me from feeling terrible because I hadn't had enough time to really know her. Things were a little uncomfortable for a couple of days, but after a weekend had passed we were back to the point before I had made this mistake. That was May or June last year, and since then we've become....well I was going to say closer, but that's not really it. The relationship has sort of been the same but we've just learnt a lot about each other. So yes, actually we have sort of become closer I guess.
I couldn't say exactly when my current feelings for her became clear to me. It's been a long time now anyway. I'd describe the countless things that endear me to her but it's pointless - I imagine they are very particular to me. I try to tell myself that it's nothing, it's just inevitable that someone as detached as me would form an infatuation with a girl he works closely with, and that works just fine until I see her, and speak to her. Then it all just crumbles and I capitulate.
I've made a sort of shrine to her on the wall next to her bed. A letter to a company that she's written and signed. some hand written notes about training. a doodle that she idly scribbled on my pad whilst she was speaking on the phone. Some leaflets she was given on the street by a crazy guy. Little things that are special to me because they were created  or discovered by her. But I think this sort of sums up how I've dealt with this situation for the last few months - clandestinely recording my feelings without even a thought to act upon them. The earlier rejection obviously set me back but it's more than that - these past few years I've allowed myself to be ruled by fear. I seek the safe route, the route that offers the smallest chance of failure or exposes me to the least amount of danger. The rejection is nothing new, I've made awkward passes at a couple of girls that I thought might lead somewhere. They failed because I expected them to fail - actually no. They failed because I knew that they would fail. I went into the familiar, doomed conversation each time knowing how it would end precisely because I expected to fail and that just made it even more awkward - a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I've obviously learnt from choosing this route how it will end - by taking no risks I will will gain no reward, I can't just expect things to fall into place with the risk undertaken by other people.

It's not as if I have absolute cause for despair. She flirts with me sometimes (not in an obvious, I want to be with you sort of way.....I can't really describe in what way it is). Sometimes she's commented that I look hot, or that I've done something that she admires. She clearly doesn't find me repugnant or irritating. But I don't know how she really feels because I'm scared of making my feelings known because of the obvious potential consequences. She is single, as far as I can tell.

So I came to a decision. My career at that place is going nowhere. I like my job but I can't do it for the rest of my life - I can't even do it for another year the way things are heading. If I sit on the sidelines, pining away for her, acting as if she's just someone i kind of like because we get on, continuing down my current path, then I am just waiting for an inevitably bitter end. She finds someone else and I have to sit there knowing full well that I never even took a proper swing at it. She gets a better job, or she moves away for other reasons, and I remain there, lingering on. Either way there can be no happy outcome from it. So, just for once, I'm going to put it all on the line. Not in some half-hearted "so....do you...you know....want to do something, sometime" kind of way, the sort of middle ground that lets her know I'm vaguely interested but giving the impression that it's all the same to me, as I did before.

Valentines day is coming up. I know it's a tacky, artificial day created to sell cards and flowers and chocolates. I'm even aware that it falls on a saturday this year so I won't get to see her on the actual day. But it gives me a definite day on which to do or die. I'm going to get something delivered to her desk as is the tradition - not saying its from me, I'm going for bravado of sorts, but not exactly a suicide mission. It's just to set up what happens later, it sort of cements what I'm about to do and makes sure that she's aware something may happen. And then I'm going to ask to speak with her for a minute, and then when we are alone, I am going to tell her. I'm going to tell her how I really feel, that I want her. And how I've been driving myself insane over these past few long months, afraid to tell her how much she affects me in case I get rejected. And I'm going to tell her that I don't care any more about that, that I would rather take the plunge and just find out where I am rather than sit and wonder and wait. I'm going to ask her if there really is someone else, or if she's just not "into" me in that way, or if there's a chance that we can be together.

Perhaps she will say no. Perhaps she will say yes, and then we spend some time together and I'm not good enough for her. Perhaps she will laugh in my face. But I will know. I'll know that I've done it properly, and I've given it a true chance, and whatever will happen will happen. I'm not going to go into it expecting it to fail, because there is a very real chance that it won't. I'm going to ask for what I want. I don't have a great deal to offer her - I'm not a rich man, or a popular man, or a model. But I am crazy about her and I will do anything I can to make her happy, I will give it everything and I will do anything to show how much she means to me. If it's not enough - it's not enough. That's life. I'm perhaps not the strongest human being on this earth but I will survive it, after my last relationship I feel like I can survive anything that this throws at me. Perhaps, even if she says yes, and we become a couple, later it turns sour and she breaks my heart. There was a time when I would literally do anything to avoid that happening again, but now I will willingly accept it if it means that I have given it a go and I have lived. It's better to do this and be broken than to remain as I am, broken regardless.

Whatever happens I won't let it be awkward. If she says no it will hurt like hell, but it will be ok because it's real - I have truthfully said what's in my heart and if she doesn't feel the same way, that's the way it is. And obviously if she says no, that can be it, closure. I can leave for somewhere else with a shred of dignity, not slink away wondering "what if I had been braver".

Because this is what it's about, in a way - bravery. I will be scared, terrified even, going into saying what I have to say, of course - but surely that is the definition of bravery, overcoming your fear to attempt to change something for the better. When I was going through the day in my head earlier, I was physically shaking because it is so daunting. In many ways it will be the bravest thing I have done in my adult life. But I will do this, and I say this with certainty. I can't keep going on the way I have done, it's no way to live. I will just fade away to nothingness. In the past, I've said many things like this, and yet when it comes down to it - that moment that decides whether you will do something, or just let it slip away - i've chosen the easy way, the way of fear. But I have never been more sure going into something that I will follow it through to the end. I will not walk away from this. Even if I get halfway through what I'm telling her, and it is not going to end well, I will finish it.

And I realise the irony of writing several hundred words about my proposed actions with bluff and bravado before actually doing it, almost as if I'm inviting myself to bottle it and show how broken I really am. But I will go through with it, and I will find a conclusion, one way or another. I have promised myself that much.

Anonymity

I was thinking about anonymity today, specifically: is anything we ever do on the internet truly anonymous? I mean  I know that certain companies, for example my service provider and this site operator, must presumably have a record of my ip and the pages I visit, and edit, and so on, but precisely how anonymous is something like this to joe public?
If someone who knew me looked at what I wrote yesterday (without being told who wrote it) I have no doubt that they would identify it as mine. I am told (by teachers at school, by my boss at work) that I have a distinct writing style. Although I didn't allude to any specific detail of my life in the post, the sum of it narrows down the options to a point where it can belong to only one person evnetually (assuming, of course, that everything that is written is true, or is percieved to be true).
And with this in mind, I came to the inevitable conclusion that no, this isn't anonymous. I am here, for those that wish to find me. But this lead me on to thinking: exactly who would set out to trace me? what would they hope to gain? I may have few friends, but I have even fewer enemies. I have nothing, material or intellectual, of practical value to anyone else. so I amended my previous conclusion with this in mind, and came up with: I am here, for those who wish to find me, but nobody does.
In light of this I guess I don't have to be quite so clinically careful about what I write here. So long as I don't name anyone specifically, or give my exact location, these are just words on a page, of value to no-one else. So whilst it may not exactly be anonymous, it is private by virtue of the fact that it is meaningless.
 A lot of what I have written so far is not exactly spontaneous: it is an amalgam of thoughts that have rattled around my head for a while. I've always wanted to put it down in writing to give it somewhere to go, sort of, so I don't feel as if it just sits rotting in my mind until it grdually dissolves into nothingness. Part of the reason I began the blog was to record what may one day vanish from my brain, and although I wouldnt be conscious of it going, the thought fills me with sadness in the present. This is why I have written what is below.

Languissant D'armour

 One of the things that occupies my mind the most, certainly during the week, is....well, for want of a better word, romance. I don't think it fits particularly well (can it be romance if the feeling is not mutual?), but my thoughts are pre-occupied with a particular person for long stretches of time.
I have actually thought about how to structure this, and I concluded that it would probably best to start with where everything (not just my romantic life, just life in general) went wrong.
When I was 15 I met my first girlfriend. In a fittingly nerdy set of circumstances, I actually first communicated with her via msn messenger. She was "in love", if you can be confident that a 15 year old has a true understanding of the word, with a friend of mine. we shall call him Zach, if for no other reason than I have never liked that name. Zach was a sort of prodigical genius when it came to certain qualities: he was already an acomplished programmer, his understanding of maths and science were admirable and he had a certain charisma. Something about his manner exuded a certain confidence, as if he always had the upper hand, always knew something that you did not. Although we were friends, it was not an equal relationship as he always gave the impression that he associated with me on a whim; he didn't actually get anything out of it but he continued the friendship anyway, just because he could, and I was willing.
Anyway, she had somehow tracked him down on messenger and that is how we were introduced. At the start I had no idea who it actually was, other than someone in the same year as me in my school. Gradually I got to know her, and learned of her true identity. And then I decided that I wanted to be with her.
She was very petite (I'm no good with heights, perhaps 5'1?), and she was foreign. She had long dark brown hair, biscuit-brown flesh and big, expressive chestnut eyes. It was an old commonwealth state she had emmigrated from so she spoke english, but with a very peculiar accent - this was one of the many quirks that made me like her. In some ways she had an endearingly innocent view of things, but she was not naive.
It's been many years now so most of my memories of this period have long since fled my mind. I couldn't tell you how I managed to wean her off Zach and want to be with me - I wish I did. And make no mistake, this was inititated by me, if I had made no moves to go beyond friendship then I don't think she would have engineered it herself. One of the few momories I have retained is being 15 and walking, at 2am, from my village to hers (something like 7 miles away) just to talk to her for 10 minutes. Perhaps this plauyed a part, I cant really say now.
But anyway regardless of how it happened, it happened. We became a couple, to the fury of Zach. To this day, I don't actually know if he grew to love her as I did (he had rebuffed her advances long before we came together), or if his fury was reserved for the fact that I had "stolen" her - that she now no longer pined for him. It never actually devolved to blows but the end result was a hostility that remains, to the best of my belief, to present day.
The hatred was once mutual. He made his feelings towards us clear, and did many things to attempt to make us uncomfortable or embarrassed, and I loathed him. But it was a long time ago and my hatred, like many of my feelings, has long since gone. I do however still fear him, and I feel no shame in saying that. He was truly possessed at times back then with a scarily intense hatred, and I don't doubt that he will ever hate me for what I did. Zach is perhaps the only person that I would now go to extreme lengths to evade, for I fear that there is a chasm of difference in our capabilities. His cunning was extreme, and more than that; he had passion, a drive, that allowed him to apply his ability to truly effective ends. If we were unevenly matched back then, this will have been multipled a thousand-fold now. I used to have passion, and where perhaps I lacked in technical ability I could compensate with desperate emotion. I don't feel that any longer. No, I have no desire to meet that one again.
So, I haven't even given this person who was once my world a name yet. I will call her felicity (which if I recall correctly, literally means beauty), and fel for short.
Fel was my first love. She was how I learned the intracacies that define femininity. And, more than anything else, she "got" me. Yes perhaps there is a little bit of rose-tinted glasses coming into play here, but without any doubt we were well matched. We shared the same nerdy interests, we found the same sort of things funny, and I am sure that there was a time when we actually needed each other - as in, we would be lost without one another. We were together, in total, perhaps 2 and a half years. I broke it off (which I will get to shortly) and I regret it more than anything. It took me another 3 or so years to realise it; at the time I felt nothing.
To explain what happened, I dropped out of sixth-form at the end of the first year. I had tried to approach my AS level courses with the same degree of dedication as my GCSEs (which is to say, none: I spent not a second revising for either set of exams). The difference was that I had the ability to coast through my GCSEs with no effort (I ended up with an A, seven Bs and a C. and a U. that was for electronics where I didnt actually show up for the lessons, and attended the exam only because I would have had to pay a fee if I was a no-show). AS level study is a completely different matter and I failed utterly. I wasn't exactly thrown out, but I was politely asked if it would be better for all concerned if I didn't attend the next year. My attendance record, to quote my sixth-form head, was like a "patch-work quilt". So I left,and I got a job working for a rather dull branch of the government. Except it wasn't dull when it was your first experience of working life, when everything was new and novel and exciting. With me working, and her attending school, it felt as though we were drifting apart, that we were living two separate, and incompatible lives. It was then that I met who was to become my second girlfriend.
It was strange, how it happened. We had sort of become friendly around the office but I didn't really harbour any romantic feelings towards her beyond general lust for women that every red-blooded male has at around that age (it's pretty obvious, as I just left sixth-form, so I may as well say I was about 18 when we got together). We spoke to each other a lot by company email, and one day she invited me for a drink after work. Even at this point I didn't realise that she was interested in me romantically, I just thought it was a friendly drink - i didn't know any better at this point in my life, though looking back it's rather awkwardly obvious now. Anyway we got kind of drunk, and she kissed me.
Now, this was a shock. I'm not, by my own estimation, a physically repulsive individual, but I'm not an adonis either. My school crowd was a fairly nerdy bunch and this was actually my first experience of being desired, pursued even, by a female. I guess this, coupled with the increasing feeling of alienation between me and Fel, convinced me to break it off and start a relationship with girl #2. In the spirit of my first paragraph I will actually dare to use her real initial; I will refer to her as K.
K was maybe 5'3 in height. She was chubby (not exactly fat, but certainly chubby). She was 3 years older than me, and had twinkling eyes, short brown hair and I guess I would describe her more as cute than sexy. I mean to say that she wasn't ugly, but she didn't tick the boxes of what I would consider my ideals of conventional beauty.
Now K introduced me to many, many things. Fel may have been my first relationship but K was my first romance in the real world. She had had many boyfriends, she had lived away from home; she was a woman.
I'm glossing over huge portions of the story, partly for brevity, partly because of my failing memory and partly due to shame. I did many things during the course of the relationship that I am truly ashamed of now, that I wouldn't admit to anyone, ever. not even here. The upshot of it is that when we got together I don't think I was actually in love. I was just overwhlemed that someone else had wanted me to the point of actually making an advance, and I had gone along with it. I was intrigued by her world experience and she obviously had many qualities that I admired. But I was not in love.
We actually lived together for a while. We rented a stylish city apartment close to our work, the rent for which was comically unrealistic and resulted in us running up sveral thousands in debt after our 6 month lease expired. Partly because of cost, and mainly due to the fact that I was really too immature to live away at that point, we stopped living together at that point. I returned home, she rented a house in a nearby town. We didn't break up at this point.
Anyway I took her for granted for a large period of our relationship. You hear men bemoaning the fact that girls seem to stick to men that treat them like shit, but it's strange: at the time it sort of makes sense. You can see why they stay. But even she had a threshold for it, and a little over the three year mark she had had enough. She broke up with me, over the phone.
Ironically, it was around this time that I actually realised that I did indeed love her. It was actually before she broke it off, I remember that much, although for long before I can no longer say.
Part of the reason that I am writing this now is that tommorow is the third anniversary of the day I knew it was over. I have a train ticket on my wall dated 31 January 2006 that I found in an old coat. This marks the journey that I made to beg her to stay with me. And beg I did. I had no thought for dignity at that stage; I begged and I pleaded and I bawled my eyes out in front of her. But it was to no avail - the damage had been done at that point. It was too little, too late. And that, I can say with ultimate conviction, was the worst day (or period I guess, it obviously carried over to the oncoming weeks) of my life. Heartbreak is something that you can never hope to describe, but when you feel it you are left without a shred of doubt that it is so. It was such a shock: I just couldn't believe that anything could hurt as much as that did. it consumed me. For a period of maybe 4,5,6 months I can honestly say that I did not care whether I lived or died.
And you would think that this would turn me into some sort of persistent, crazy stalker, always begging her to give me another chance, always seizing every opportunity to show that I wanted her back. But I didn't. I can't even tell you the last time that I saw her, and after the day of the train ticket I didn't ask her to take me back. That day had been utterly surreal but it left me in no doubt that it was over, and would never return. If you will forgive how cookie-cutter it was, she said to me "if you truly love me, let me go" - and I did. I don't know if she still lives around here but I suspect that she has moved away. I hope she is with someone who makes her happy now.
So, at the beginning I said that I would describe where it all went wrong. It was not when K broke it off with me, even though it is almost exactly 3 years now that I have been single since this. It wasn't the long months of me treating her like shit. It wasn't during the relationship with K at all. It sounds really weird to say this, but the relationship with the only girl who truly broke my heart was a mistake. It should never have happened.
This is a very cliched way of putting it, but if I could go back in time and change just one decision that I made in my life, it would be the decision to break up with Fel. As much as I eventually fell in love with K, it just wasn't on the same level as my first love. Fel is the only female to have truly understood me, to be able to look at me and just read what I was thinking, or how I was feeling. And I broke it off, avoiding heartbreak with the turmoil of my new relationship, thinking I was moving on to bigger and better things. I know that we shouldn't live in regret, but I can't help it. I just feel like that one decision has horribly impacted on my entire life beyond that point and it leaves me feeling utterly despondent when I allow myself to dwell on it.
She was living in, or near, London with her new partner the last I heard. I was kind of aquainted with him long ago and I know him to be a fundamentally good guy. When I last spoke to her (maybe 2 years ago, on the internet, very briefly) she said that she was happy. I truly hope that that is still the case, for she deserves to be.
I've often played it through my head how it would pan out if she contacted me and wanted to meet up, to talk about old times. I don't think it will ever happen, and in a way I don't want it to. I guess I have moved on, in some ways, it was so long ago afterall. Perhaps it's best to leave the past in the past.
I was originally going to continue into the present day to describe what's happening (or isn't...) in my current romantic interests, but this is the first time that I've poured this out into writing and it's left me feeling kind of drained, and hollow, and numb. And I think I've written enough already. I'm glad I have done this now anyway, if for no better reason than  I won't have to do it again. I will get round to writing about my current circumstances, but another day.

This is my first experience of a blog, really, so I don't know how to start. I've barely even read a blog before, let alone created one. I'm not even sure why I am doing this.
So, a blog is on online diary of sorts, I have gathered this much. We are off to a bad start already, as every single diary i have ever started is dutifully updated for perhaps a week or so before I lose interest and forget about it. I don't know if putting it online will change this at all.
I haven't entered any personal information, and I don't want to. I'm not doing this for validation, or recognition, or to fill a void that's missing in my life. I won't advertise it anywhere. I won't even acknowledge its existence to anyone.
Obviously I'm not going to give my name, or my exact location, or anything like that. To date I have managed to avoid showing up pretty much anywhere in search engines and I would like to keep it that way. I haven't even used any of my previous online aliases in setting this up, so I have started with pretty much a blank slate.
Due to the above I'm sure that this won't be read by anyone, so it seems rather pointless introducing myself at all. But I guess there is some sort of comfort in following the traditional, so I will describe myself as much as I am able.
My name is good dog. I am in my early to mid twenties. I live in a semi detached house in england somewhere. I work in an office, in administration. I am single. I am a smoker, but not really much of a drinker. I am of average height, and average weight. I like music, and computer games, and films, and sport, and various other things that other people like. I am human. nice to meet you.
So, introductions over. I guess the overriding feeling I have at the moment is that of being overwhelmed - I think I have a lot to say but I don't really know where, or how, to start (to prove my point, I think I have been sat here for ten minutes wondering where to go next).
I guess I started this blog because I'd like to think that this will help me sort through my thoughts and give me some vague sense of organisation. I am a very solitary individual, I don't actually discuss my thoughts and emotions with anyone else "in real life" (god i hate that phrase), so why not throw it on a random page on the internet and cough out another few strings of 1s and 0s onto the already overcrowded internet?
On one hand, I'm not exactly a hermit - I work five days a week, 9 to 5. I have what I suppose you would call "work friends" - people I generally get on with at work but don't really see outside of it. I have a couple of friends from my school days that I see very, very occasionally. But on the other hand, I am far, far from what you would call "normal" by an average persons standards. The vast majority of my time is spent in my house, either here on the internet in my study or in my bedroom reading (and failing horribly to master french). I don't like "going out" - I despise clubs (and kind of dislike pubs since the smoking ban), I hate being drunk beyond a certain point, I am plagued by fear and self-doubt whenever I am not in familiar surroundings. And besides that I don't really know enough people to do normal people's things very often anyway.
My life is a story of wasted potential, sloth and apathy. I am reasonably intelligent, and yet people with far less natural ability will always be more successful than me because they want it more, and apply themselves. I find it hard to really care enough about something to achieve anything. The things I really want I am too scared to pursue because I fear rejection and ridcule. I am a failure.
And yet, I don't despise who I am. I really, really like me. To explain,  I hate the circumstances of my existence (although I acknowledge that it is ultimately my own doing) but I like my own character. I have many failings, but I have many good qualities also. I am, in the natural order of things, a decent and good human being. I have the capacity to love, and to empathise, and I can be warm and generous. I am proud of who I am despite the fact that I am nothing.
I think I've said enough for now. This ais already a huge wall of text as it is, so I guess I will break it off for now and return later with more rambling thoughts.