October 9th 2026
I’m a tad fed up at the moment because I think one of my neighbours is stalking my swan-feeding activities, so I’m having to be a bit clever about it.
I’ve been reading up on the subject and apparently, food left lying around can attract rats.
Now, I like rats and all sentient creatures, but I do understand that most people don’t necessarily share my enthusiasm for the entire animal kingdom.
I was chatting to Paul, who lives on a canal boat, when said neighbour walked past just as I was telling Paul the story about his wife shouting at me from the bridge last week. Excellent timing.
Phil, I’ve noticed, also does some rather odd nighttime manoeuvres. He’ll walk around a corner for a few steps, then double back on himself. When he saw me talking to Paul, he sort of disappeared behind a bush for a while before reappearing a few minutes later and continuing on his way home.
Half an hour ago, he walked past my house giving it the side-eye.
WTF?!
My name is becoming mud!
I can just imagine him and his shouty wife gossiping to the neighbours.
That Kate is always on her own.
I’ve never seen her with anyone else.
Well, she is a bit odd.
Can’t string a sentence together, that one.
Talks to the boat people, you know.
Terrible person, feeding the wildlife.
We should make a complaint.
I’m not going to stop feeding the swans altogether, but I will cut down. This isn’t because I feel intimidated; I do understand the rat issue, and I don’t want to give anyone a legitimate reason to complain about me. I’ve even started feeding the swans their peas and oatmeal in a plastic tub so that none is left floating around in the water.
However, come winter, I shall be back in force because my darling signets will not go hungry.
I haven’t done anything this week apart from the usual. Groundhog Day, etc.
Jackie asked me last week if I wanted to meet up this week, and I said yes. Unfortunately, the closer it gets to actually meeting up, the less I want to do it. I haven’t messaged her because I just don’t want to go.
If she contacted me again, I’d probably force myself, but my preferred friendship style is to build a bond online first. With Jackie, it’s been a few messages and then we meet IRL, and immediately we’re having one of those conversations where we ask each other what we’ve been doing for the past week.
I really struggle with this. I hate myself even more when I get home and start berating myself in the weird way that I do.
- Shouting things out.
- Touching things twice with just the right amount of pressure.
- Sometimes I even make faces.
Anything to forget my latest social interaction.
I’d much rather do the chatting online first and then, when we meet up, dive straight into the nitty-gritty. I want to skip the polite chit-chat and get to the bit where we actually talk about something. Spending the first hour discussing what we’ve both been doing is excruciating, and I’ve learnt that it stresses me out no matter how many times I try it.
There’s also the hope that if people get to know me online first, they’ll be more likely to like me in real life. By then, they’ve had time to discover that there’s an actual person in here, even if she does struggle to produce a sentence when required.
Currently, I have my two online friends, and I’ve chatted to Paul around five times. And that’s it.
The great thing about the boat people is that they leave.
Paul has now gone, but he’ll be back around Christmas, so perhaps I’ll be able to relax enough to actually enjoy a conversation with him.
Although, to be fair, I hate conversation which is a bit of a drawback when you’re trying to make friends.
I think part of it is that people like Paul are lonely and need people around them, just like me, although perhaps to a more limited extent in my case.
Yes, it’s other people’s neediness that makes me feel slightly more comfortable, and they have been my targets for a couple of years now.
And I suppose that’s one of the advantages of having AvPD for as long as I have. You eventually get to know which situations work best for you, which ones make you want to crawl under a rock, and which ones allow you to have some human contact without spending the rest of the day recovering from it.