100 things (71 - 80)

These ten will be dedicated to the things I don't like about myself, not in a spirit of being down, just because I thought I would do the next 10 about things I like about myself, and starting with the bad is a better way round to do it. 71. I am very bad at keeping in touch with most people - I can never work out whether it's because I just don't have that much in common with them or whether it is just a social awkwardness thing about leaving it for so long that I then feel like I should have some big news to share when I do and I will never live up to the length of time it has taken to get in touch. I believe this to be genetic as my brother is exactly the same, only much worse. 72. I am lazy. I tend to think of it as laid back, but as my weight creeps up and the filing mounts and even the things I want to do don't get done, I really have to accept that I am a lazy person. I do the least amount possible to get by unless I am really inspired by something (although this mostly relates to my working life rather than my personal life). I don't feel bad about it most of the time, but occasionally I do wonder whether life will drift past me as I lie in bed and whether I will regret the time I have spent watching detective dramas in years to come. 73. I can be a horrible bitch, and when drunk, even more so. Despite the fact that I generally like people and get on with them, I do find myself drawn to their negative points, probably because I see the same negatives in myself, which bring me on to: 74. I am pretty hypocritical. I hate it when I can see someone using a trick or technique I use to get by, which is possibly because I am scared that I am that transparent and that people are looking at me and thinking the same thing. I also judge people on their looks, assuming people who are pretty will be vain and making wild asssumptions about people who spend any time or money on their appearance. 75. I have an overinflated sense of my own uniqueness. When Derren Brown did his show about pretending to be psychic and pretended to be able to analyse people's personalities from a personal item of theirs but when it came down to it they all had the same description, I immediately thought: 'that would have caught me out'. Not that I believe in psychic ability, or would have thought that he had somehow divined the inner workings of my mind, but I am convinced that all my foibles and insecurities are specific to myself and assume that other people all know what they are doing and I'm the only one who isn't sure. However, this also means I think that I am cooler than I am and get frustrated with people who don't appreciate the same things as me because I can't believe they will settle for the 'crap' they like when there's so much good stuff out there. 76. I can be very manipulative, which annoys me because I never really realise I'm doing it and it's only afterwards that I think 'that wasn't really called for, I should have just admitted that I was wrong instead of trying to spread the blame' by which time it's too late to change it. 77. I can be really uptight - despite having a pretty laid back attitude to most things, there are some aspects of life which really grind my gears and I find it impossible to chill out about them, such as unwashed hands, the whole other people eating thing and numerous other petty irrelevances. 78. I am nervous and inhibited in many aspect of my life, and despite attempts to 'face my fears' they all seem so petty and pathetic that I can't even bring myself to think about them most of the time. 79. I am very worried about being like my Dad, who never passes up an opportunity to get a laugh, even if it means saying something hurtful about someone. I know I sometimes take it too far with the Boy Wonder and it makes a hole in my heart when I turn fun into annoyance by taking it one step beyond amusing. 80. I have an immense talent for self-pity masked as introspection and reflection whereby I lose all sense of proportion, blowing small incidents up into terrible tragedies as though feeling bad about something absolves me from the responsiblity of having said or done it.