ABOUT ME.
Two or three things I know about myself.
This post is all about me. Like Thoreau said “I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.” Although sometimes I doubt if I do know myself very well. I feel as if I don’t have enough perspective.
Basic information:
gender, male;
time of birth, Spring 1970;
height, 1.70 metres;
mass, 56 kilograms;
build, slim/slender;
shoe size, 43;
waist size, 76cm;
physical appearance, gaunt.
Where I live. A city in Northern England that used to be a Victorian mill town. I don’t know what it is now. There are so many derelict buildings here, left over from the 19th century. Mills, warehouses, churches. Sometimes it feels like I am living inside the carcass of some large creature that died many ages ago.
What I live for. Cold winter sunshine. The cherry blossom trees in about the first week of May, talking to people who take talking seriously.
Dress/fashion. My clothes make a fashion statement. And that statement is: I don’t care about fashion. I avoid coloured clothing. I prefer black, white and shades of grey.
Diversions: books, music, films.
Personality and general mental characteristics. For what it’s worth (which isn’t very much), when I took the Myers-Briggs test, I got the result of INFJ, or maybe INTJ.
In the past I have been taken to be ‘shy’ or ’socially anxious’. Evidence being not participating in things or relating to other people. But, almost all the things I encounter in life, I have no interest in. So it would be wrong to attribute my non-participation to shyness. Wrong but an easy explanation for lazy others to accept. And people are lazy like that.
Similarly social anxiety is failure to engage socially for fear of what might happen. Where the what might happen is that you end up interacting with people who are rude and uncaring and uncooperative. The problem here is that I am right about this: people are rude and uncaring and uncooperative. So my failing to engage with them is entirely justified. It is not some kind of mental shortcoming that I have. Also all the people I ever meet I find to be unfriendly and disengaged. I think I am the most friendly person ever.
Two things people say to me: (1) “You think too much” and (2) “you ask a lot of (ie too many) questions”. And I don't deny either of these, I take them as compliments. (Although that might just be some kind of humble brag on my part.) I say to them: “you don’t think enough” or “you don’t ask enough questions”. - I get fussy about doing things right. Or well. Or better. Irrespective of my actual ability to do things well. Which, most of the time, isn’t up to the task. A lot of the time my fussiness can come across as me being a smart-arse or a malcontent.
Some odd mental preoccupations.
1. Often it feels as if I am trying really hard to do something, but I don't know what it is. Whatever it is I spend a lot of time and effort on it.
2. I find myself thinking “no, I’m not going to do this anymore; I’m not going to play a game that I don’t know the rules of”. This is in the context of how I relate to other people. Including big things like work and ‘relationships’.
3. About friends I think: I would rather be understood than liked.
4. Education: I don’t want to be taught stuff, I want to be taught how to learn stuff for myself.
List of things I am interested in:
- saying things clearly;
- doing things properly;
- talking it over;
- thinking things through;
- looking at things for the first time (again);
- trying to find out what it's really like;
- talking to people about the things that really matter;
- taking things apart and then putting them back together;
- trying to make a difference;
- making complicated things simple (where possible);
- making simple things complicated (where necessary);
- being part of the solution not part of the problem.
Moral/political views. Left-wing, anticapitalist but I also like to call myself conservative. But only in the sense that I like order and organisation.
Attitude to work. I love working but I have mostly hated all the jobs I have ever had.
Current employment status: funemployed.
Average number of hours of time per week spent on the following activities:
Going out ‘socialising’, less than 1;
talking on phone, zero;
cleaning and shopping and washing, 8;
thinking about the best way to spend my time, 10;
listening to podcasts, 20;
listening to music, 14;
reading novels, 12;
watching TV: less than 1.
Podcasts I currently regularly listen to:
Nick Abbot - Frank Skinner - No Such Thing As A Fish - Jason Manford - The Rest Is History - Three Bean Salad.
Diet. Almost completely vegetarian. Staples foods are: wholemeal bread, porridge, muesli, potatoes, rice, Quorn products, pasta, beans, nuts and pulses of many sorts. Basic flavouring is olive oil and salt.
I quite like to cook but my rule is that it should not take me longer to cook something than it does to eat it.
Physical activity. I get some pleasure from random stretching and weight-bearing activities although some of these are worryingly reminiscent of stress positions that are used as torture. I go running at about 9km per hour for on average about 3 or 4 hours per week. In bursts of 1.5 to 2.5 hours at a time. I get bored running the same routes though. I have planned out four routes (north, south, east and west) which take me to different places in the city. I recently (early 2022) learnt how to swim so that I can do something which doesn’t stress my knees so much. But I don’t like swimming so much.
I never walk up stairs one at a time, always two.
Comfort zone.
Indoor I am OK with temperature as low as 16 C. Although I would need to be sitting down with a with a hot water bottle under my feet and a rug over my legs.
Poisons. I am not a user of any sort of drugs not even tobacco or alcohol.
Ambitions.
[1] “To become immortal. And then to die.” (Only kidding! Quote from the movie “A bout de souffle” by JL Godard.)
[2] To make a full cinematic film version of Wagner’s Ring operas.
[3] To get a straight answer to a straight question.
[4] To properly understand a completely different world-view perspective. Imagine I could understand what it was like to be a Christian and to believe that Jesus Christ was my saviour (without actually becoming a Christian myself). Or to understand what an extreme racist believes.
Bad habits.
[1] As I walk along I look straight at the faces of other people walking past. Meantime they look straight ahead as if avoiding the gaze of others. Which kind of works out I guess. Because as long as I'm the only one who is a face-looker then there will be no embarrassment caused by the meeting of gazes. Sometimes I feel as if I and I alone have been granted the privilege of looking into the faces of others. As if the reason they don't is because they have been forbidden to do so.
[2] Writing interminable nonsense on this website.
[3] Reading novels endlessly and indiscriminately. As long as they are well-written I don’t care what they are about.
[4] Whistling.
[5] Fretting.
What I want.
In general I don’t want anything that money can buy. I mean big houses, flash cars, foreign holidays. That kind of thing. If someone offered me a million pounds I’d turn it down. Seriously I would. But there are some things that I do want. For example three things that money can’t buy. Apart from the obvious one the other two are: trust and understanding. By trust I mean the being able to rely on the good nature of every single human being to the extent of safely leaving your doors unlocked. By understanding I mean being able to understand difficult and complicated things like economics and science.
List of some things I don't like.
- Dogs (although there is not much I find more amusing than a dog with its head stuck out the window of a moving car, ears and tongue flapping in the breeze);
- Spiders;
- Things being in a mess;
- Half understanding things (I’d rather understand something not at all than only half understand it);
- Being lied to (especially (maybe even only!) when it’s an insignificant lie);
- Cars;
- Street advertising.
Sorts of people I don’t like are people who:
- don't queue up properly (and more generally people who think that the rules don’t apply to them, people who aren’t ‘house-trained’);
- are bad-tempered (I don't mind if people are in a bad mood but they shouldn’t take it out on other people);
- treat other people like objects;
- drop litter or pollute or generally are uncaring about the environment;
- smoke;
- play the lottery (or, more generally, want to be very wealthy);
- take drugs of any sort (with the exception of alcohol in moderation);
- are credulous or superstitious or don't think about anything past its surface.
Sorts of people I like.
(This list originally in response to the question “who would you like to meet?”)
- people who need people (they’re the luckiest people in the world. ... aren’t they?);
- introverted, subtle, thoughtful, unexciting, non-outgoing people who’d never in a million years advertise themselves on the internet;
- people who aren’t dumb enough to want to meet someone like me;
- shiny happy people (holding hands);
- everyone else.
[This post last updated 24 June 2025.]