WillWybrow.com

I am pretty sure if I proof-read everything I said online, be it entries here, instant messages or Facebook wall posts, I’d never actually get anything posted. Every time I read over something, there’s always something wrong with the wording or the tone, or it won’t flow right, or a bit won’t make sense, or I’ll realise I’ve tried (and failed) to be witty. I can’t possibly be trusted to self-moderate, because I either have to do none and live with thoughts as they pour out of my head, or everything gets moderated all to hell and I basically have to start over.

Probably nobody else gives it any thought. It’s just me, worrying excessively about how I sound in informal situations on the internet. But when, for example, I’m talking to someone I don’t know very well, or I am trying to get to know someone, I wonder about the formality of my tone, whether people will understand what I’m talking about (because when you hang around with the same people all the time, you can sometimes forget that not everyone will “get” turns of phrase that are idiosyncratic only to your group of friends), whether I am being too boring… I was seizing up with anxiety the first few times I @replied to Eleanor because I don’t know her that well. What if I’d said the wrong thing? Something accidentally offensive? Something that sounds stupid? Something condescending? Something arrogant? Why does everything I say sound so wrong all the time?!

Unfortunately, this is not a problem that’s limited to just online-land. When I am in a social situation where I’ll really want to make a good impression on someone, I start self-moderating my speech. It doesn’t happen so much with people I already know, or people who getting on with seems less important. The self-moderation-to-the-point-of-self-censorship happens usually at the point just before I open my mouth to speak to someone. I’ll realise — not that I’ve got nothing to say, but what I have to say is just a pile of worthless words that nobody would ever want to listen to. So at that point, I’ll have caught someone’s eye, maybe look like I have something to say, come up short and have to look away awkwardly, or I’ll just be gaping at the other person’s face not doing anything. Then I’ll get surging feelings of inadequacy and self-pity and stuff, and feel a load of regret for not just doing something.

I only barely got the hang of small-talk after working for two years through sixth form at a supermarket on a checkout. Even now, after commenting on the weather or the traffic with someone out in public just to stay polite, I’ll sometimes look back with horror at how foolish what I said sounded. Then my eyes will involutarily and painfully roll back in my head and I’ll give a little groan of agony whilst I’m walking away from a total stranger who probably had to wince a little at how ridiculous whatever-the-hell-I-said was.

My only in with people is laughing at their jokes or agreeing with their opinions on stuff. During that period, as long as I don’t come off like a guffawing retard with no sentience behind the ugly giggling, I might feel comfortable enough that the other person thinks I am ok, and then I can grab that tiny interpersonal crumple zone and plough into conversation, hoping the crash isn’t too bad. Otherwise I will be waiting for them to mention something that we have in common and build on that, but that limits the people I can get along with easily to the kind of person who talks a lot and about themselves.

I’m not going to proofread this entry because it’ll never get posted. If there are errors, read around them. But if anyone’s reading and thinks either “yeah, this happens to me,” or “this is made up, nobody really listens to each other anymore,” or even, “it’s ok, Will, we’ll wait for you to become friends with us in your own time,” by all means comment and tell me so!

I don’t know if I really have the dedication to keep this up… Lately I’ve not been passionate enough nor able to concentrate enough to get much down on the site; I just want to bask in my doom and quietly feel sorry for myself a lot.

I’ll probably do something big to the site soon, overhaul it and archive the blog to a subsection if I can’t keep it up. I’d hate to be one of those people who sits around with an unused blog. It’s not like I’m going to be able to carry on with it for longer than two more months anyway. We’ll see what happens.

I kinda miss the pseudo-anonymity that I used to have before the domain change. When I get out of this mess I am going to resume writing under an anonymous guise and leave this site as something more professional looking.

You’ll know where to find me. Just look for my colour.

The things I did last night include:

• Worry about a meaningless wild bird that lives in the guttering on our house
• Write a reverse-anonymous note to someone (where instead of the recipient not knowing who sent the note, they’ll not know that it’s meant for them! My life is thrill after thrill)
• EV trained my new, young Pokémon Platinum Pokémon by trading them to my completed Pearl and fighting tediously for hours on end
• Discussed the distinction between atheism and what could be called antitheism

Things I Did Not Do Last Night

• Go to sleep

Silly me!

Nightlong conversation. Overdue coursework. English.

Nightlong conversation. Dawn-timed fire alarm. Duel.

Nightlong conversation. DVDs and viri. Failure.

Nightlong conversation. Degenerative self-loathing. Death.

Yesterday, I went to this. It was an event for players of NDS Pokémon titles to receive a legendary Shaymin and meet up with fellow players to have some fun.

I won’t go into too much detail, but it’s enough to say that the day filled me with a special kind of happiness and satisfaction that only comes from meeting a slew of new people just because of a single shared interest. It’s the kind of feeling I had to a lesser extent while getting to know the Warwick Atheists. I also experienced something similar when I went to Hemel Hempstead in 2005 for that year’s Click Convention [I am in the group photo linked on that page, that's how I looked in '05], but of course I was too young to really appreciate it like I appreciated yesterday.

Some more things might come of it, too. I won’t say too much now in case nothing comes of it and it all ends up being a massive disappointment, but let’s just say that I got the phone number of some guy.

Sorry I’ve been quiet here recently. Hope everyone is enjoying the Easter holidays and I’ll be back on the internet proper within a week.

Not really been having complete thoughts recently. Not big or important enough to make a full blog post necessarily worthwhile (as somewhat evidenced by my latest attempt). I have been trying to get the most pressing ones into my Twitter feed, but sometimes they are too big or detailed to fit into 140 characters. Yet they are still too small for this place.

You know, I think an uncle once told me his finger was “half dead.” I was really freaked out by it at the time. I was small. Now I wonder if he wasn’t experiencing the same thing I am right now. The loss of sensation in the strip of my finger makes it feel a bit dead. The patch of dry, flaking skin up the side of it also doesn’t help matters. A friend compared its appearance to the onset of zombism, which I thought was amusing. Maybe one day I will be able to tell some children that my finger is half dead. Children will be virtually insane by that point, since we know that every year, they get worse.

I find it very depressing when I read the comment-responses I goaded out of the people who attacked me. It is also a bit scary, but I tend to not let that interfere too much with things. It’s just disheartening to know that there are people out there who don’t even know me, yet are trying so fervently to ruin my life. My solicitor says that if we have to go down, we should go down fighting, but I am not so sure. At least if I were to go in early then I could end things on my terms. I hate the feeling of not knowing what is going to happen. Why are they doing this to me? Well, I know why. It’s funny. Kind of the very best definition of “butthurt” — attack guy, get fought off, sulk a bit, press charges, ???, profit. Everything feels so chaotic.

I finally have finished all the missions in GTA:SA. I like it more than I liked what little I played of GTA IV. I don’t know why it’s such a good game. Maybe it’s because the characters are just so likeable. My favourite is Wu Zi Mu. He was a lovable guy. I will play IV soon.

I went on some rollercoasters! It is the first time I can say that I have been able to properly appreciate them. I would go as far as to say that the levels of fright before, excitement during and satisfaction after were all perfectly balanced. It was an excellent experience.

It’s my birthday soon. What do I want? Oh, one or two things. Nothing that I could ever have, of course.

I guess I have run out of thoughts for now.

This is going to be a good one, guys.

For one, Smallville resumes broadcasting. I’ve refrained from mentioning it on my blog so far because I haven’t that much to say about it… it’s a TV show, it’s not to everyone’s taste but I am enjoying it. But Season Eight is the first season where creative control has not been in the hands of the original creators of the show, so I am anxious to see what developments will be made.

Next, Death Blossoms, a new Rise Against single, will be out for Guitar Hero: World Tour. Of course, it will be made available as a torrent online; what isn’t? But for a brief while, it’ll only be out on the game, a game owned by my generous housemate… Perhaps he will let me buy the single (and the other two Rise Against songs released at the same time) and play them all, one after the other, on his console.

Finally, it’s the Warwick Atheists’ formal-dress social. Starting out at a nice(ish) place to eat in Leamington, the guys in their suits and the girls in their dresses will undoubtedly move on to the pub and wind down the evening in the dying noise of Wetherspoon’s. A classy end to a shitty term.

It’s about the only thing I am looking forward to in the near future.

Suddenly I feel so reassured about court proceedings. When you look at the average coherence of the comments by his friends, you get gems like the seemingly out-of-nowhere “sad” call (which, by the way, I love as an insult because it doesn’t make any sense) because of my hilarious post on shoelaces.

You also get comments so delightfully riddled with poor grammar, spelling, ideas and arguments that all you can do is hope these kids get called as witnesses — all they’ll do is strengthen my case.

But seriously… fair enough telling me I am wrong when I say Lee Evans is a worthless hack, but coming here and calling me a liar? I should be making a much bigger deal of her crappy spelling.

I’ll let it go this once.

I am quite looking forward to receiving my charge sheet tomorrow. With it will come a magistrates’ court date, and that means I’ll have loads of information about what to expect in the coming weeks. I think we can all agree that being more informed is a good thing.

But what I am most looking forward to is when I get into real court. I’m going to put it in my Facebook status updates and loads of people I haven’t spoken to in ages will poke their noses in and ask what’s going on. And I’ll be really sour to them because they’re only making out as though they care because going to court is an exceptional thing. So, fuck them. I’m just going to practise snide, cutting remarks that’ll irk them by not explaining, and maybe they’ll feel a pang of guilt for not caring before or stupidity because I’ll make out that they ought to already know.

When I am on the inside, some months from now, I am going to get a ghost writer for the site so I can update everyone about what’s going on. I have a couple of people in mind; they know who they are. Presumably you are allowed to write stuff in prison, so I’ll have something to tell you guys.

This update is really disjoint, so sorry. I’m off out now — see you guys later.

W.

I have started to be a little more honest and open since Post 334. I admitted to being frightened on my blog, and I confessed to being upset on my walk home when the police caught me. Mainly the tears were frustration for my lost glasses. The point is, I have failed to be honest where it counts.

In my selfish attempts to reassure the more sensitive of you, I sugar-coated the whole ordeal slightly. So, I am making the following amendments:

• I am definitely going to prison
• I stabbed the “victim,” Elliot Bedworth, seven times
• The wounds were: one in the upper left arm, one slash across the left shoulder, a cluster of three puncture wounds on the far left of the back, two in the shin
• He knocked me over backwards and landed on top of me - I was using the knife with my right hand and hitting around his massive body
• The shin wounds probably happened as I was lashing out at him after he got up off me
• My memory is pretty hazy regarding the whole thing, and there are some things I don’t remember
• There were no witnesses or CCTV cameras
• For all of these reasons, and some more, legal matters at this point are not about getting me “off the hook” — they are about damage reduction

Because there are (or were) some bits that I couldn’t recall exactly, I only let myself tell the police “I don’t remember” — I won’t tell them anything that I’m not sure about. My only weapon here is the truth, and if I give that up then what’s the point in defending myself?

On Friday I will get my charge sheet. My solicitor basically said that it’s going to be GBH with intent. He also said that my chances of getting that reduced are small. Well, he didn’t say that, but it could be reasonably inferred.

Also, my time-frame estimate was really far off. Things would happen much sooner than I predicted. This could all be over and done with in a third of the time I thought I had left.

It’s coming, guys. Get ready.