Change gon' come. But where?

Buongiorno a tutti!

It's been a while since my last post. Bet you all thought I'd given up didn't you? Well you'd be wrong there people. I'm still very much alive and kicking. It's just been a bit of a weird time.

I've been back from Madrid just over a month now. And I knew it would probably take me a bit of time to find my way back into the upright swing of things here after having lived a horizontal Spanish lifestyle for two years. "Give yourself a bit of time to readjust" I told myself. However, after five weeks back in the big smoke I still feel strangely disconnected.

I've just come back from a week visiting dear friends in Sheffield and on the train ride home yesterday I sat deep in thought about why I feel the way I do right now. Cue eureka moment. I just don't want to be in London anymore. I know in previous posts I've extolled the virtues of my great city, and all of this is still very much true. It's just I don't think it's true for me anymore.

I must have changed a lot more than I'd realised in the last two years, but I feel as if London hasn't. Or maybe I haven't changed at all and London has. Or maybe I have just realised things about myself I already knew all along. I don't know. I just know that I don't really fit here anymore. The things I loved, and in some ways respected, about London in the past (its non-stop pace, unapologetic materialism, work always comes first mentality) now completely turn me off. Even the dating world here is grossing me out somewhat.

In my last post I introduced you all to the wonderful world of Grindr. Now, all last week I was cruising around on it in Sheffield and the difference in attitude of the guys up there was such an eye opener. Most of the profiles I read in London are so exacting you'd need an MA just to initiate a conversation, whereas the ones in Sheffield were just so much more relaxed and human. I know it might be a bit silly to judge a city on a dumb gay iPhone app, but it's just an example of that London mentality which now is beginning to seem so alien to me. There doesn't seem to be any time for living in London. I've been back for five weeks and in that time have only managed to see some of my closest friends once or not at all. You need a PA and a Gordon Gekko style filofax just to hang out with the people you love here! I'll always have a special place in my heart for my hometown, and I'm so so proud I was born and brought up here. I've just fallen out of love with the place.

So, I know I don't want to be here anymore. Where am I going to go then, I ask myself. I'm still on track to take my masters in Geneva next year, but after that I'm a little lost. I'm done with the UK, but Spain (and a lot of Europe) is too one dimensional It's scary but also exciting not knowing exactly where the future is going to take you. I'm looking on my new found geographical clear mindedness in a positive light. The world is my oyster!

On the love front things are still pretty quiet, but stay tuned. There's speed dating and gay bashment nights in the offing. Fertile feeding ground for these fingers of fire (I meant in the typing sense and nothing else you filthy beggars!)