The Ramblings of Guise Dugal

So, there I was quietly sat in contemplation - what I was contemplating I can’t quite remember, though it was likely maudlin introspection or pining - when I felt a sudden force strike me across the back of the head, startling me to my senses. My hand held to the back of my head, I turned with wetted puppy-eyes towards my attacker, only to find a grinning Kittymao looking back at me.

“Tag,” she laughed, “you’re it!”

“But…but, what are we playing,” I whimpered, still checking for any drawn blood.

She sighed, frustrated at my ignorance and explained, “Look, The Pilver tagged me to do this meme thing, and now I’ve tagged you and you have to do it too. Here are the rules: 1) Link back to the person who tagged you. 2) Post the rules on your blog. 3) Write six things about yourself. 4) Tag six people at the end of your post by posting links to their blog sites. 5) Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their site. 6) And let your tagger know when your entry is up.”

“Six things,” I sighed as I watched Kittymao dart off in to the darkened hallways of the internet, “man, I hope they don’t expect six interesting things.”

Guise has been mistaken for a girl or a skinny young boy in three jobs based on his telephone and email writing, as well as used to get mistaken for a girl in person during a very podgy stage of his youth. This has actually led to comments by colleagues when I first meet them in person of “oh my god, you’re a guy?” and to some very interesting emails before they met me. I’m not quite sure how they managed to confuse me, other than I speak very quietly on the phone.

I’ll often go over and above for friends. I’m not a very social creature, in fact I’m more the type who will slink in to a corner and hope someone will notice, come over and talk so as to avoid the dreaded ‘mingling’. I don’t talk to people in person easily and as such, have very few face-to-face friends (the number, seriously, is weepable).

Quite often, I have to stop myself from thanking people just for talking to me, as if it is a major chore. I find myself doing it in instant messages at times.

However, I do tend to get very attached to the friends I have and can, sometimes, go a bit overboard for them. If someone asks for a favour, I’ll do my damnedest to complete it and try to add more if it’ll help. I go a bit over on gifts and presents, not to impress but because the idea that they’ll enjoy it makes me happy. I take a lot of pleasure more from making a friend or loved one happy than anything else.

Guise doesn’t take compliments very well. This is one that has led to me being shouted at a lot of times by people who were giving me credit mere moments before, in that I really don’t know how to take compliments. Criticism I can handle.

If someone says something good about my work, I’ll play down my role or try to sell the job as ‘nothing’. At the same time though, I don’t like being unrecognised for my involvement, I don’t want praise for things I do but just to be appreciated.

If someone says something good about me then I’ll tend to self-depreciate myself almost immediately.

Guise often wonders if he has missed out on life and if he’s past his use by date. This affects quite a few people, I realise, but there are times when I realise that the chance for me to do things with my life are slipping or have slipped away.

I have reached a point where it feels that the chances of starting a new life, start a family, moving away, gain skills and knowledge, etc. all seem to be things that are getting increasingly unlikely.

I am my own lie detector and sometimes give ‘false positive’ readings. This is something I have learnt from experience, that if I try to lie or wind people up, I give off quite telling clues. For one thing, if I’m pranking or winding someone up, I’ve been told I get a twinkle in my left eye (an eye I’ve had surgery on as a child) that tips people off, this was often the only way people in the office used to know whether I was leading them astray. I also blush a lot.

As for ‘false positives’, as a child whenever something had gone wrong and no-one took responsibility, I would always have a guilty look on my face, not because I’d done it, but at the thought I still might get told off for doing it. That guilty look still remains whenever there is a problem. I also can’t make eye contact with most people, even if I try I get the compulsion to look to the floor, I have to be very emotionally close to someone to meet their gaze - which is slightly amusing because eyes rate as one of my favourite physical features (though quite a way after necks, shoulders, collarbone…).

Guise actually hates himself. There are very few people that I would use the term hate for, the list is so far limited that I must really have a deep personal feeling towards it and it’ll usually be because of being wronged too many times or to a great degree. I actually have a great deal of self-loathing towards myself and would be one of the few people I actually do hate. I feel I’ve let myself down, physically, mentally, financially and relationship-wise.

Hm, tagging. Well, do I know six people who blog and haven’t done it already? I know, if you haven’t done it, consider yourself tagged and then tell me!