You know what disconcerts me?

People typing my name into Google and reaching my blog.

I am going to go through and find all the points where my first and last names appear together, and remove them.

Who is Googling me? It's more than a few people. Is it you, perhaps?

I would like people to Google me and find my website (see sidebar links).

I don't have anything to hide, and anything I really wish to remain secret, or anything too personal I obviously won't post on the Internet.

Still, it is disconcerting. I have devised a fool-proof strategy.

Regard:

Dear People Who Have Arrived Here From Google,

Hello. Welcome to my blog.

If, for whatever reason, you suspect that I may not want you to read it, kindly bugger off.

I thank you.

xxx

There. That should stop it.

******************

I have decided that I am too tired to date. Dates are tiring. I can't be bothered with it all.

It's too much work and I am too cynical at the moment. If someone really likes me I either think they must be a bit deluded, or that they don't really know me yet. If they don't like me I beat myself up. Neither is good for my state of mind.

Luckily I am going to therapy tonight so I will be a better person and emotionally available and secure and, um, chirpy in no time at all. I assume.

I think my options regarding men are as follows:

1. Ignore. Refuse all offers, declare myself a no-go area for the forseeable future. Perhaps start wearing dungarees.
2. Become a femme fatale. Go out with men, lead them on and then break their hearts. Perhaps take up smoking through a long cigarette holder and practice drumming long red fingernails on hard surfaces.
3. Look for the nearest person who will love me and rely on them for all affection and self-esteem. Do anything they ask me to, ignoring the advice of my friends. I suspect this will involve becoming very good at household chores and maybe being about seventy-million times meeker than I am. Which is not at all.
4. Sleep around.

Hmmm. Numbers two and three are definitely out. My nails are too short and I am rubbish at both household chores and being meek.

A combination of one and four, I think. I will try to draw the line at dungarees, though. Also sleeping around will be a lot trickier if I start wearing dungarees. I will refuse all offers of emotional attachments, and only sleep with people I feel nothing for.

I will explain this all in therapy tonight. I am sure my therapist will think it's a champion idea. Healthy, I think.

I am nervous about tonight. I have no idea what to expect.

I went to counselling when I was at uni, after certain horrible experiences that I had relating to someone who may or may not read this blog and who doesn't deserve to have my pain highlighted once again. The counselling was good. I loved my counsellor, she looked like Cate Blanchett and seemed to be geniunely moved by what I had to say. I hated the first few sessions, though, because I felt I had to justify why I was there. I seem to recall repeating "I'm fine, though!" in a somewhat high-pitched voice. "Sorry! I shouldn't be here, really! Because I'm fine!" And I rarely use exclamation marks, so that was odd.

That was different, though, because that was free. A service provided by the university. My CBT is not free. Not by a long way. My Dad is paying for it, because my parents want to make me better, they want me to stop cutting my arms.

It is so strange writing that. It is strange that it is true. The urge to delete it is overwhelming. I don't want you to think I do that.

I am scared she is going to ask me why I react to things like that. I'm scared she's going to ask me why I feel so scared of being hurt by the world that I have to get in there first and prove that nothing and nobody can hurt me as much as I can hurt myself.

I am scared because I'm not sure that knowing why or what triggers it will make me stop feeling so hopeless. That the solutions won't really be solutions.

The thing is that as long as I have resisted help, I have been able to console myself that there is some out there, and that it will save me. If the help doesn't work then there is nothing left but to live with it.

Which seems impossible.

So, to sum up: I am scared that therapy won't help me. I am scared that my obsessive dungaree-wearing will hinder my soon-to-be promiscuity. I don't want to go on any more dates.

Oh, and Google disconcerts me.