A public holiday today. Doesn’t make too much difference to me as most of my time is rather unproductive work wise these days, much to my utter disappointment. Been up since just past 8, which on a whole bottle of wine and two beers last night isn’t too shabby me thinks. So far I’ve made soup, eaten said soup, and watched A Beautiful Mind. I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it – it is definitely a feel good movie and has achieved that effect. Very unproductive day, and yet quite content for it to be so.
Most days however I feel the constant weight of boredom threatening to drown me, which is ridiculous considering how many options I have. XBOX 360, PS3, PSP, DS, and more than a few DVD’s to watch. Books galore. Internet (well, when my signal holds).
The movies I’ve seen before, and I’m not a great fan of reliving movies too often. The games – I like the idea of playing them more than the actual act itself – my current TV set just makes everything look super shite so I couldn’t be arsed trying to strain my eyes reading vital text in White Knight Chronicles. Both the PSP and the DS require an update on the current games library. Books, I’m busy with Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, but there’s only so much I can read at a time. Aside from that, I find Lord Henry’s musings on life to be quite unsettling in the way they resonate with me, and as such I can only digest small doses at a time. Internet – there’s also only so much of that I can handle before it all starts to look and sound the same. There are only so many FB games you can play, and so many meaningless conversational exchanges on IM’s you can have. And when you actually manage to have a meaningful IM natter, it’s usually cut short by time constraints or my failing 3G signal.
It’s not so much that I’m bored through nothing to do, it’s that I crave interpersonal interactions. People. I need people. Adjusting to a lot of change lately and being a newbie in the city means I don’t have a social circle as yet, so it’s a tad frustrating atm. This should get resolved soon enough though – last night saw me at Outer Limits in Fourways to see where the boyfriend works where I stayed for about an hour and had two beers. I ended up chatting randomly to no less than 6 people. It’s what I love about Jhb. You can start a conversation, jump in to one randomly, “connect” with somebody for anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, and go your separate ways after the chat with no feelings of obligation or false pretences or friendship in the pipeline. You only realise why everyone not in Cape Town says Capetonians are clicky when you leave it. Jhb people are great – you’ll never be short of entertainment here and quick connections as long as you’re prepared to step out of your front door. If they could move the Jhb people to CT, CT would be perfect. Or move the mountain here. Mine dumps do NOT count as mountains contrary to the quaint belief of a friend who lives in Pretoria.
Anyway, that constant feeling of boredom / frustration seems to be abating as I get small doses of human interaction and the days and weeks ahead are looking up as a result.
Oh, funny aside – two of the women I chatted to last night are engaged to be married. I was very proud of myself – I didn’t offer condolences once ;)
Yeah, I always found that whole Capetonians-are-clicky argument to be rather perplexing. Until, after some consideration, I realised we are. As a born and bred Capetonian, that realisation kind of sucked.
ReplyDeleteIn the UK I'd have no problems just getting chatting to a bunch of people out and about - but wouldn't dream of doing that here (unless it's a work thing - in which case I'm supposed to schmooze). If I tried that at some random bar here I'd probably end up with third degree burns from the scathing "looks" I'd get.