For Thomas, wherever he may be.

   Like a cat that’s meows grow increasingly intermittent I will eventually forget to feed it altogether and it will die.
   My relationship with writing has always been a tenuous one; despite there being love I lack devotion. I tell myself that I will make time for it and nurture it often, but something else always seems to take priority, usually something useless. Whilst I was studying I couldn’t ignore its cries for attention and sometimes I didn’t even need to wait for the howl of a looming deadline, sometimes I would wake up and be anxious to chase the cursor across the page with rapid hands. These days I feel weary, I’ve lost confidence in my ability, I don’t entertain myself with pipe dreams of becoming a journalist or author because I don’t write. Most of the time I feel that there is nothing to write about, what is my opinion in a sea of others? Facebook is the worst for shallow, transparent, antagonism.  It’s like a shit in a swimming pool, disappointing yet inevitable. However like every other fucker I still find myself swimming about letting it contaminate me. I’ll scroll through reams of text, written by people I don’t care about and something will flick a switch and suddenly I’m irritated.  I should really find something better to do with my time… Well despite my melodramatic intro I’m here aren’t I? Here to give my two cents and to dispel a bit of my apathy. 

    Tinder. Have you heard of it yet? Well let me tell you something, if you haven’t you don’t want to miss the bus buddy. Tinder is the future, tinder epitomises this age of indifference and our constant quest for easy gratification. I’m hooked... I fucking hate it so much.  Seriously, I’ve installed and deleted this app so many times it’s starting to feel like the behaviour of some guilt ridden pervert, going back for that one last look through the peep hole. I know it’s wrong I know I will ultimately gain nothing but I’ll always have that lurid fascination.  I think the appeal is in its game like nature. I liken it to Pokemon, because you want to match em’ all. Well not all of them, some of the creatures that pop up are terrifying and have low hit points so you quickly want to run away. However, the game sometimes tricks you by showing you a much more appealing rare specimen (the equivalent of a Charizard) so you hit the match button, only to be thwarted by the returning monster from the previous round. Then before you know it, that fucking metapod has matched you too and you don’t know what to do about it. Then you receive a message from somebody you have no interest in and you’re suddenly consumed by the reality of being looked at in exactly the same way, by someone else on this malicious application. Curses! What cruel tormentor would create such a thing?  Each time I install this app my success rate drops and I find myself wondering what the fuck I am doing with myself.  Originally I managed to match a few attractive girls, we had some fun conversations and we tried to meet up. Nearly every time they lost interest at the point of contact and then funnily enough I did the same to a couple of people. I’m not sure why, maybe I am some kind of disgusting voyeur, happy to form an insubstantial connection with a stranger for an approximate amount of time, making sure that they can never know who I really am. Still that doesn’t explain why they lost interest in me… I’m currently happy to say I’m off the wagon and have no current desires to get back on it… Well after typing this I’m remembering all those beautiful women I have an opportunity to talk to.  Some of these women are 18…18! I’m 22 now, I’m getting on in my years, I may never have the chance to woo an 18 year old ever again, not unless I can trick them with my wiles on a sordid mobile application.  Jesus Christ I’m a sick man.

OK what other deteriorations have started to ebb at my already waning soul? I’ll go with alcoholism! Now this is an exaggeration because I’m not a rosy cheeked, yellowing inebriate with a failing liver. I’ve mostly got my shit together and I don’t drink every day but I would now classify myself as a ‘weekend warrior’. Binge drinking, you are my everything. I’m getting pumped to binge next week away because I’ve booked it off work! Awesome! I blame the 9-5 for this vice. Whilst I was a student drinking was compulsory, it may as well have been part of the curriculum, so we can excuse that period. The gap between university and employment was occasionally filled with consecutive days of merry antics though I couldn’t always afford to maintain this life style so I was fairly sober then. It was getting a job that effectively enabled me. In addition to giving me the funds to pursue this lifestyle it has also given me enough of a reason to get shit faced every Friday night. Each Monday I will already have a plan to drink with someone, somewhere the following Friday. It is what gets me through my monotonous week, knowing that for two days I’ll have a chance to destroy enough brain cells to forget about my terrible job. I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to seem edgy by talking about my weekend antics because literally everyone in my age group shares this hobby, for it is a hobby! Some people are better at it than others. I think this is gauged by your ability to stay conscious, avoid embarrassment and retain the contents of your stomach. I’m not entirely sure which outcome denotes success and which one failure but these are the predestined outcomes we all know and love. Though I think as a generation we take a little too much pride in our drunken antics, for example last weekend I was genuinely impressed with myself when I was able to chug half a bottle of beer immediately after spewing up a load of whiskey on my shoes. As I stood tall, smile brimming,  beer bottle raised above my head like some kind of vagrant trophy I was commending myself, thinking, ‘Well done Matthew, well done indeed!’

Well that was a brief snapshot of my life at 22, if I never decide to blog again I’ve got to admit I do enjoy it when I can be bothered to commit to it. Maybe that was always my problem; maybe I was expecting to get something out of it when I should have been just writing to entertain myself.