I peered over the shoulder of the guy sitting next to me on the tube last night. Young City high-flyer type, with a portfolio on his lap. He had his Filofax open and was looking for a number - the bit of the page I saw looked like this:

David - 07xxxxxx
Drug Dealer - 07xxxxxx
Duncan - 07xxxxxx
Emma - 07xxxxxx

I have a sneaking suspicion that the entry in question was probably a joke, or some sort of effort to look "cool". It was quite funny, though.

Yesterday, C got a response to one of his personal ads, from a guy. I've had a lot of responses from one site, even though I've said all I'm looking for is friends. I probably won't reply to a lot of them though - I'm not being funny, but do people actually learn to spell any more? Do guys really think they'll get a response from a note saying "Are you up for three sums?". No thank you, I never was any good at maths.

Despite feeling really good about my new job, I'm still quivering over the money situation. I know that all my fears are unjustified, that I won't end up destitute or on the street or anything. It's just that I know how crappy I'll feel, not being able to go out whenever I like. Thing is, I hardly go out at the moment anyway, but C and I have been talking about moving our social life up a gear - just as I'm about to become unable to afford it. How depressing. And I'm not really talking about much, just going out to clubs a bit more often.

Well, I have been budgeting carefully. If I can keep my grocery shopping to �35/week, I'll be OK. I'm going to be spending every penny I make, maybe a bit more, and I won't be saving anything or paying into my pension, but I won't starve. And I have that �1000 I saved from my bonus as a last resort. I'm sure it'll all be worth it when I'm rich and (in)famous ;-)

I have also been having daft ideas about making extra cash on the side. Writing, or something. I'll have to think about that one.

Anyhow, I really hope that C gets a result from his personal ad, and soon. Part of me is pretty keen for him to get it over and done with! Last night we talked about how he's had subconscious feelings that doing this is "wrong", but (IMHO) a lot of it is social conditioning. Hell, I feel it too, about a lot of things: about my decision to get the snip, about my choice of job etc etc. "Oh no, you shouldn't be doing that! It's not right!" While I'd always encourage C to go with his gut feeling on this, it is hard to shake off the social conditioning. And what we're doing isn't "wrong" as long as we're both comfortable with it...

I started re-reading The Ethical Slut this morning, on the bus (while sitting next to a girl my own age, who was reading the bible - how ironic!). That book is a work of genius - I'd quote from it now if it didn't involve getting it out of my bag and possibly drawing loaded comments from my colleagues. There's one great quote in there, from a chapter challenging common negative terms about having multiple partners. Of the word "easy", the authors simply say "Is there, we wonder, some virtue to being difficult?".

:-)