Preparing for a date.... Logistical Nightmare?

Tonight I am going on a date with a lovely Italian man and I feel (in this order):

• Nervous
• Excited
• Happy
  
• Cautious
  
• Vulnerable
  

The added pressure of the evening include the fact that most people in the damn town seems to know one or both of us thanks to our jobs. Can you imagine being on a date and having people you know coming over to chat and ask awkward questions? Bad News! This makes the venue choice is a bit of a mission.

1. Meet at 8 and go for a drink a gorgeous wine bar (none of my customers, lots of his!)
2. Head off to a unknown location for dinner (he is choosing venue and I've been warned that there will be none of his customers but some of mine)
3. Go for a drink in a lovely bar at the river. (Possibly frequents by our customers but unlikely)
   

On top of this I have the usual stressful crazy date preparation to get through!

My Date Preparation (up to and inc. tonight):

• Consider outfit and realise I have nothing remotely suitable in my wardrobe
• Rush out to buy some gorgeous black trousers that I 100% cannot afford
  
• Give my self a facial

- 1 Day before

• Pluck eyebrows
• Exfoliate
• Try on outfit and realise the gorgeous new trousers are too big.
  
• Panic and run over all the bad men I have ever met in my life before convincing myself that Mr Italian is not like any of them.
  

- Day of Date (morning)

• Set out the suitable parts of my outfit for quick change later
• Set out a contingency outfit
  
• Rush out before work to change the trousers for a better fitting pair
• Arrive late and flustered in to work and proceed through my day more stressed than necessary
  

- Day of Date (p.m. - 1 hour to get home, ready and back out)

• Have a super quick shower (I am great at these!) - max 5 mins
  
• Jump into my outfit (that now hopefully fits!) - max 5 mins
  
• Blow dry, straighten and back comb my hair - 25 mins
• Start Make up, natural but flattering - 10 mins
• Run for the bus which will inevitably be late - 10mins
• Continue Make Up while on the bus - 5 - 10 mins
• Run up the High Road - 5 mins
  
• Arrive looking windswept and no doubt awful with a big smile (fashionably 5 -10 minutes late)
  

So here goes, hopefully it will be a good night - I think it will - I hope it will! Wow, how stressful is dating? Shoud it really be this tough?

“Sir, the noblest prospect that a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to London.” Samuel Johnson

I was well aware throughout my time at university that if I wanted to get to heart of the music music business I would eventually have to move to London.

Not only that, I WANTED to come to London, and I was ready to give up my almost perfectly constructed life in Scotland and hit the ground running with my career.

“I came to London. It had become the center of my world and I had worked hard to come to it. And I was lost.”
V.S. Naipaul

London as a city has been everything I could have hoped for and more. In the average week you communicate with literally 100s of cultures, and I’m sure that the phrase “learn something new everyday” was coined in this mad, confusing and strangely formed city.

While I love London and wouldn’t change my situation for anything (well, OK, slight exaggeration) I have felt so lost. Not career-wise, just life-wise.

I have a small but lovely friendship group. This ‘group’ consists of two people; Andrew – a 2nd generation Scot, whose parents come from two towns very close to where I went to University – and Jacob, a boy who was born in London and raised with firm Polish traditions.

To make friends (and some much needed extra money), I took a second job in a pub, Pickwicks Wine Bar. Here I have met lovely people that I can chat to if I see them on the street, but no close friends that I could ring a go for a coffee with. (Something which has been very much part of my social life for the last few years.)

In Scotland, it would not be out of the ordinary for me to go for coffee with different friends 3 or 4 times a day. I've always found coffee shops the perfect places to catch up and gossip over a steaming hot latte and a berry muffin. I miss this more than anything.

My amazing Canadian friend Melanie and I used to have regular study breaks from Uni and head round to Beanscene, or to Costa and just rest, relax and let out the majority of our emotions – I say majority because I remember all emotions being aired, other than anger.

Here, there is no one to do this with. I go home from work and if Andrew and Jacob have plans; I sit in my house and idly watch TV. Bored.

I’m lucky enough that Andrew often takes pity on me and I now consider him one of my very good friends.

I feel like an intruder into his and Jacobs lives. I know that they don’t mind me spending time with them, but I know as soon as I leave them, they are back to the way they should be and I am certainly not a part of that.

I’m a very social person and this constant boredom is really getting me down. I miss my friends, my support network so terribly.

Without them around me, it's almost as though I don't have my proper identity. No-one here really knows me and I don't really see how I can ever expect them to understand me.