Impatience

I think that generally I am a nice guy, but at the moment so many things are niggling at my plans that I am starting to lose it, and the first to suffer are always those closest to me, as they will invariably be the ones who I see most of, but I am trying hard to stay calm and only release the anger at those who truly merit it.

My financial plans have been rocked by a succession of small delays, hidden costs, problems and hiccups, which are having a progressive knock on effect, and if I can't start booking flights soon then the costs will go up, making things seem even worse.

At present my home PC is down for the count, needing a major overhaul of its interior, which is preventing me from updating the many files I have and so I am feeling a little lost at sea with no way of getting my bearings.

Realising that I have been let down before on more than one occasion when I have travelled to a foreign country, I am far from happy about making plans to visit far flung people in places that I cannot even pronounce properly if they are only able to write to me once every few months.

With less than six months to go I do not feel at all confident in making long reaching plans to someone that will only contact me once more before I leave the UK, { especially if that person only writes a line or two saying that they want me to chat with them on MSN. }, and so I hoped by telling my various international pen pals when I was planning to meet them, that this would encourage them to make slightly more effort in keeping in touch with me.

However, in true 'best laid plans' style almost the reverse seems to be the case, and so now I am seriously considering scrapping certain extended legs of the journey as the person who I am meant to be meeting there is now displaying signs of unreliability.

As evidence of my growing frustration and annoyance at this undesirably high level of neglect I now recently gone through my contacts list and anyone that has not contacted me in the last few months have been simply deleted from my contact list, and thus will no longer for a part of my plans or receive any more contact from me, {unless they write back a seriously decent and continuous amount of emails in the near future}.

This may seem like a hard line to take, but I am not risking getting stuck on a chicken wire bus in the middle of nowhere trying to argue or defend myself in a foreign language just to prevent myself from being evicted by the local authorities all because there was a last minute change on someoneelse's part and they couldn't be bothered to tell me til it was too late.

And so, if anyone is reading this who is, or who knows of, a pen pal of mine that has not contacted me in several months and is still under the much deluded idea that I am going to take the time, money and effort to go all around the world right to the very front door of someone who can't even be bothered to send me a progressive, informative or companionship building email at least once a month, then I have only a few words of comment to say to you.

" WAKE UP - SMELL THE COFFEE AND START ACTING LIKE A PROPER FRIEND !!!  "