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

Hiya Hellbound, great to hear from you! I've been thinking of you lately, for the silliest of reasons: someone gave me a HUGE bag of sweet, juicy oranges, and every time I eat one, I wonder how you're doing. , aren't I?

Something you mentioned in your reply to me really struck me: "I say 40 years has left him with severly entrenched suburbanism". That's the kind of attitude I notice whenever I have to deal with my parents or sister or anyone from the old neighborhood. Where I grew up, people weren't rednecky- the people who weren't in the mafia were Irish cops or firemen. But I can relate to that suburban attitude- it's why I packed up and moved to the city as soon as I was emancipated!

I'm still sorry that it turned out you and K had so little in common after all, but I am glad it came to light sooner than later. I know that the longer things continue, the harder it can be to walk away: you wind up feeling obligated to someone because of past acquaintanceship or even guilty for not being compatible with them!

Hope you're carrying on as well as you can in spite of being so bored and surrounded by developments and subdivisions. God, I hate that. If I couldn't live in the city (where at least things are old and interesting and there's some CULTURE) I'd move to a log cabin in the country, I swear. No suburbs for me, ever again!

'Kaz, I'm not sure if I'd consider it racism exactly. I'm not sure what it is though. I think I get like that too though. Like somehow it makes me special that I'm talking to them. I think people should talk about this phenomena more openly to figure out what it is, what it means, if it is damaging to anyone, and such. Things on Hootoo can get sort of hot, but maybe there's somewhere elsewhere on the web where there are moderated discussions.'

Hellbound, I was embarrassed after saying what I did and unsubbed, but I have just come back and read this. I would be interested in finding out what causes this and whether I can change my thinking.

The interesting thing is that when I was younger I never noticed colour, I remember having to think once who was the black guy they were going on about, cause I didn't think in those terms.

Maybe I just got caught up in the political correctness bandwagon. At college at spent all my time with the arabs and the black south africans on scholarship and then I moved to Plymouth which was very white at the time. I missed the multi-culturalism I had experienced in my college days. I was pleased to move to London as I thought I would get it back, but its difficult to make friends outside of school and work, I also started to experience racism from the black gangs, I suddenly felt isolated in my whiteness.

Maybe I am trying to overcompensate?