Evening

I had a nice evening tonight. I was supposed to meet an old friend of mine, but for reasons unknown, she didn't pick up the phone the three times I called her, and she failed to respond to my text message, so I guess she had better things to do. I really don't like to be stood up. It is very damaging to my (quite possibly overinflated) ego.
In any case, not seeing her freed up the first part of my evening, so I hooked up with my brother and some friend of his to pass the time before the next point on my social calendar.
A friend of mine whom I have never met before was passing through Stockholm today, and we decided to meet up, since we were going to be in the city at the same time anyway.
I proceeded to meet my friend and his two companion on Mediterranean time, meaning just after dinner, around 23.00 o'clock.
We ambulated a bit, and then proceeded to go to a bar I had visited a couple of times when I was younger. It was your average high-school club. The people, women and men alike, were young, drunk, scantily clad, and apparently willing to do anything to get laid. Not a place I would normally visit, but as my friends were clad in shorts, we wouldn't have been able to enter any other establishment. In fact, we were barely able to enter this one. I also wanted to give them a taste of seedy underbelly of a normal night out for the people from Stockholm's B-(and C and D, for that matter)List.
Whatever damage my ego had previously taken had now been restored by the hungry looks from inebriated women with naught but a thread to cover their abundant décolletages.
I am almost certain that I could have taken home almost any of the numerous women from this almost seedy establishment. In fact, I'm certain that any of the four of us could have done the same. (I guess that would be men, in the case of my friend sister, but who's counting).
Being able to take someone home for some fun in the sack, and wanting to do it are two very different things. Even if I didn't already have a wonderful girlfriend, I'm not sure any experience with any of these people would have amounted to more than some uninspired thrusting and friction, followed by shameful sleep. None the less, I still felt like a dirty old man, looking at these young girls. Hell, I might be a full 10 years older than some of them, and it made me feel out of place. My age, had I chosen to wield it, could have been another weapon in my arsenal of bedding ready, willing and able maidens.

We spent around an hour there, had a couple of beers and talked about nothing in particular. It was nice to finally meet a person that I have talked to and known for a long time, but never seen In Real Life (or IRL, and the abbreviation goes).

Ego

I haven't been updating in a while, because I've been on a lovely vacation to the swiss and austrian alps. I'll do a writeup about it later, and tell you all where it is.
Today, however, I am home in my native Stockholm. I arrived here yesterday, and I plan to stay roughly a week to visit friends and family and do some other stuff.
This is the first time I've actually been to town since I left Sweden last year, and I can say with certainty that I do not want to come back. Even on a perfect day like this, I feel less and less connected to Sweden. I feel that each time I cross the Swedish borders, I belong less and less.

I had the opportunity to meet my brother's lovely girlfriend again today. We've known each other for some time, but I hadn't seen here for a year or two.
We were sitting on the roof of my brother's appartment building (in the middle of town, very nice), just having some drinks and talking, and we got to talking about old times.
She told me about some time on a school trip, where the girls in her class had been positively enamored with me. There had apparently been tissling and tassling behind the scenes about me.
At some point there had even been a game of strip poker (which I do not remember), and my shirt had come off at some point (something I could totally see happening), and I had apparently caused quite a stir.
Now, I'm an easily flattered boy, but I absolutely love hearing about these things. I mean I know it was 10 years ago, but it is such a boost for my confidence. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I feel great.
Even though it is lovely to hear now, I would have liked even more to have heard it at the time.
I remember my mom telling me that she had run in to an old classmate of mine at the supermarket, who had conveyed similar sentiments, and the same thought came to my mind that time too; what if I had been told this at the time.
When boys are you, we are told that girls aren't interested, and boys are supposed to chase, and if we are lucky, a girl might give us a smidge of attention.
This is wrong.
Something I wish they would tell all boys at a young age is that girls are exactly like boys. They want attractive people just as much as boys, and they seem just as willing to give everything up to get what they want. If life has taught me anything about women is that they only difference between the genders is just that, gender. Other than this physiological difference, women and men are quite the same, and anyone who tells you any different either hasn't explored life properly, or is lying to your face.

Another quite dissapointing thing happened today, though. It didn't quite offset the wonderful confidence high I got from the comment about the school trip, but I had expected it to play out very differently. I sent my ex, who is a very dear friend of mine, a message saying that I was in town, and would she want to grab a cup of coffee or something some time. Now, my ex is very down to earth, and I expected this to be absolutely no problem at all, but I got the response that meeting me might not sit well with her boyfriend, and thus (and in all perpituity it seems), we could and should not meet.
I was very saddened by this, because I really like her as a friend, and I was hoping that something like a boyfriend wouldn't get in the way of us meeting up. I mean, I'm not letting my girlfriend get in the way (not that she would, she's wonderful), and I certainly wasn't planning anything clandestine.

Apparently the blogger spell check isn't working today, so you'll have to make do with whatever mistakes I made.
I will update as this week progresses. Hopefully I'll get more wonderful information and less rejections.