h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, not quite, not many fish in the Manchester Aquatics centre. However I did have my first scuba-diving lesson last night and it was great fun. My anles really hurt, swimming with big fins takes a surprising amount of effort, I did kind of think I'd be all smooth and graceful, like you see on telly but it wasn't, mainly because I have the grace and poise of a drunken elephant. Can't wait until next week!

The grace and poise of a drunken elephant, hey? Must be fun to watch thàt Nah, I don't have the right to laugh at it, 'cause if I'd do the scuba-diving thing, it would be with the grace and poise of a drugged T-rex.
Anyway, I thought I'd pop in again, I hadn't checked out the plca for ages. How have you been? Glad to be back in Uni, obviously. And why the nickname? Been on vacation?
Greetz!

Hiya mate, good to have you back. The name is from Dido's newest song and yeah, I went down to see my best friend and it was beautiful and sunny and I spent most of my time on the beach. Also me and my friend have a really close relationship, whenever I see him, he always kind of dominates my thoughts for a while - in a good way though. How is it where you are?

Here everything's okay. More work then last year, but nothing I can't handle I've been running around a lot since august, though, because my boyfriend lives in Leuven, and he studies in Brussels, and I live near Brussels and study in Leuven, quite stupid, isn't it? But he's worth it...
I don't think I've heard Dido's last song. The last one I remember was 'White Flag', but it isn't that one, is it? But it's a nice line, especially if it could be about your holiday
It's nice to have somebody who's that close to you, although I have the impression that he confuses you sometimes, no? Maybe I got that wrong

No, its two singles after White Flag, off a very good album. As for my best mate, he doesn't confuse me, I always know exactly where I stand with him, and that's very important to me, but he challenges me. When I'm feeling depressed or miserable he'll challenge me to do something and get out of it - being around him makes me a better person. I don't know if that sounds wierd but that's the way it is, and when I come back from seeing him I usually need to think about what happened. It is very nice to have though, especially when go to see him in nice sunny weather

When the album had just been relaesed, I have have thought of butying it, but I didn't really like 'White Flag', so... But I have her first album, and I really like that one. My favoutir song is the last one, 'Take My Hand'.
It is really nice to have such a friend. People like that are quite rare. Most 'normal' friends just want to hang out, 'best' friends are people you van talk with about everything that's important to you, but friends that 'challenge' you, that keep you thinking... Well, not everybofy has that. Lucky you!

Take my Hand is probably my favourite track off No Angel, I don't know if you are a Dawson's Creek fan but my favourite character had a snog with his boyfriend to it and it was beautiful.
I'm lucky in that I have a few friends who challenge me, all in different ways, it is so good to have that sort of relationship with people and I can't think of a higher compliment than 'You make me a better person'

Hehe, this may sounds weird but I'm NO Dawson's Creek fan, but I've seen every episode Let me explain: I've started watching when I was in the middle of discovering my sexual orientation, so I was really interested in everything that happened to the character of Jack. And yes, I heard 'Take my Hand' when Jack kissed Tobey on the boat, but it was one of my favourite songs long before that But I don't think Dawson's Creek is such a good show. There were some very good episodes (remember 'Crossraods'? And I liked the final too), but there wasn't any continuity in the story. One season you're told that Joey can't sing, the next she's in a band. One season Pacey is a sailor and he loves that job and is good at it, it's the thing he wants to do, the next season he's a cook - again with the same passion, and the season after that he's a salesman. When we first meet Jack, he's an artist, later on you never hear a single word of his drawings again. And how they handled the character of Jack! They were so proud of having a gay character on their show, but they never dared to give him a full-grown relationship, or if he had one, they didn't show it. Oh, my mistake, they actually did, in the very last epi when they were sure they wouldn't lose any viewers over it.
Nah, can you see how strange I am? I'm saying I don't like the series, but I know the entire storyline and have seen every epi I'm a weirdo.
Oh, and about very good friends: as a matter of fact, I have had a hell of a Dawson's Creekish week, but because of that, I've discovered that some people are really supporting me a lot more then I realised before. So YAY! to our friends, hey!

Yay, friends rock! I'm exactly the same as you with Dawson's Creek, I only watched it to find out about Jack. The episode where he comes out to his family is what prompted me to come out to my friends. I did like the idea of him and Doug in the last episode

Yeah, they were kinda cute The final was one of the best episodes, anway (they finally used some of the backstory). You don't have to tell, of course, but how did that coming out to your friends go? My (ex-)boyfriend is having some major outing-issues, and I'd like to support him, but I just don't know how, so I'm just collecting other stories right now...

Kinda of in a rush actually. I was going through an insanely bad time in my life, my family kinda fell apart and I was the one who started it and I just decided things couldn't get any worse so I may as well get it out of the way. As it turns out I was right, things didn't get worse, they actually got a lot better. It wasn't too bad at all, I found out who my real friends were, some people gave me a bit of grief but I coped, I just didn't doubt myself - that's what got me through coming out and also it gave me strength to face the family problems as well because I realised that I was stronger than I'd ever previously admitted and I could face the big things and be okay

Dzeez, thanks. I think I'm just going to copy it and send it to him in a mail - if that's okay with you. With me it was actually kind of weird. I had told some of my best friends, one by one, over a few months of time, and all of the sudden, everybody new! A friend of mine got drunk, and told the rest of the school about it, and only a few weeks later, an aunt of mine read an e-mail I had sent to her daughter, and she told the rest of the family. So in a few weeks time, both my friends and my family all new it. But I realise now that that was actually a good thing, seeing that nobody really made a problem out of it, I was much more at ease after that.
How's uni going, actually?

Copy it all you want, I don't mind. I think if you make a big deal out of things, other people will do the same. When I told my aunt she asked me if I was okay with it, I said "yeah, it took me a while to get my head around it but I'm okay" and her response was "Then if you are okay with it so am I because I'm only bothered about you - if it was upsetting then we'd have a problem, but it's not, so we don't" and then she gave me a big hug. It was nice to say the least
In general Uni's going great, I'm loving my course and where I'm living. This and next week however are a little rough, I have 2 3000 word essays to be handed in in a fortnight, so I'm on mad study mode

Oh and another thing I'd say to your friend. All the people who know him, his friends and family who he is and I'm guessing most of them like that person. If they like him, they probably won't have too big a problem with him being gay because that is just a part of the person they like, they just haven't realised it yet. When I had people who reacted badly I said to them "I was gay two days ago when we were laughing and joking with each other, the only difference between then and now is then you didn't know I was gay, now you do. The person I am hasn't changed in the past couple of days just because I told you" and it helped

I have allready said that to him a couple of times, maybe not in exactly the same words, but the message was the same. But the strange thing is, that he isn't all that worried about the reactions of the people he knows. Not rationally in any case. He says he's quite sure his parrents and his friends will accept him, he just has some... I don't know... an irrational fear-thingie going on. That's what I liked about your former post, that you said it had made you stronger. The biggest problem with B is that he's a very closed person, he doesn't talk all that much about himself. He only has two really good friends (besides me, and I don't know what I am to him anymore), but from the moment he feels things are starting to bother him, from the moment he feels bad about himself, he starts quarreling with them, so that they take a distance for a couple of days or weeks, the time he needs to get calm again, and after that, he just goes on, without really having talked about or having solved his problems. Those two friends are the only ones he ever told he was gay, so they allready now, but that's not my point here. The point is that he really isn't used to letting people 'in' in his emotianal world. But when having a relationship, you simply can't hide it any more, and I think that's where he broke off...
Lol, I'm sorry for rambling on about this :-p

Don't worry about it, I can ramble with the best of them
I think I cn understand what your friend is doing, I used to be like that myself and I have a few friends who are still like that. With me, if my family hadn't have fallen apart, I don't know if I'd be like I am now. It is hard when someone is reclusive like that all you can really do is support

Support - indeed, but that's quite hard when not knowing if you are a partner or just a friend. But I'm afraid I know what I am. 'Just' a friend. Not to heavy on the 'just', but the relationship is over. *shrugs* If he isn't ready, I can't force him of course.
Have you allready found a show to more or less take Buffy's place?

No, I've kinda abandoned TV altogether, still watch the occasional episode of The West Wing and Six Feet Under but I don't have the time these days I'm either diving, doing Uni work or working at a cinema. I'm lucky if I get two nights a week off these days.
As for not being sure where you fit, I'd say you tell him where you see yourself - as a friend and that any relationship ffom here on in is on those terms.
Good luck

Well, untill I have your e-mail, I'll just answer here once again
About tv: I haven't got tv in my dormroom, but I download the shows I like. And there is a great new show on abc, I don't think it's broadcasted anywhere in Europe yet. The show is called 'Lost', I don't know if you've heard about it. A plane crashed on a tropical desert Island,and the pilot - right before he gets killed - tells one of the survivors the radio was dead and the radar broken, and since they were changing course to find a closer airport to get things fixed, they were thousands of miles off course. If rescueteams are looking for them, they're looking in the wrong place. Furthermore, there seems to be something very strange going on with the island (some big animal that nobody ever saw, but that makes strange noises and knocks down entire parts of the forest, a polar bear on a tropical island, the crash itself is a very strange story...), and in this strange context, the survivors, people that didn't know eachother before, all with their own stories and secrets, have to learn to work together. So you have a mix of an adventure story about a group of people surviving on a desert island, a story with supernatural elements, and psychological drama (each episode is centered around one character, that you get to know through flashbacks). And oeh! Dominic Monaghan - the actor that plays one of the hobbits - is on the show too! He's hilarious.
Ok, enough exagerratedly enthousiastic stuff for one day Just keep in mind, if they start showing Lost in the UK, consider having a look at it :-p
Oh, and about the ex-boyfriend, yesterday he was acting like a bit of a jerk - and maybe that's good, if I can get mad at him, maybe I can get over him a little faster. Problem is that part of me actually thinks he's doing this on purpose, actually to get me to get over him. If you wanna hear the entire story, I'll write it in a mail to you - if we actually succeed in exchanging adresses, that is...

Grrrr, my email-adress has also been removed. Just remember: my name is jonathan deleener (without space) and look at the other thread.