My Brother and Her

So having justified to myself why it's a good idea to spend hours of my life typing rather unromantically onto a computer screen with my legs propped on my desk and a bottle of wine no more than an arm's reach, I guess I should come to the point.

My long-awaited and rather amazing boyfriend suggested that I write down what I was feeling after I recently showed a little too much of my crazy side in one go. And complex is hardly the right word. Everything in my life at the moment is a megalopolis of crazy.

Perhaps the biggest thing that's bugging me is my brother. Ever since I came out to him in 2007, we've gone from strength to strength in our friendship. In fact, this summer he said one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me, when he asked me "are you coming out with us?" to which I replied "sure, I'll give you and your friends a lift" and he said "that's not what I asked".

Admittedly, he ruined it slightly by adding the word "moron" on the end.

The thing is, he's dating my flat mate. She's my age, three years older than him. And that in itself isn't a problem; I'm genuinely over the moon that my brother has someone so wonderful, and vice versa. The problem is it stops my brother and I getting on.

Everytime he comes "to visit me" I never see him. Every time I suggest going for a drink when she's around "he's busy". He spends all his time ringing her, so that even when she's not around, he's too tired or tied up doing work he could have done earlier to spend any time with me.

Typing this, I've realised just how selfish this sounds. But at the same time, it's as if he's taking my friendship for granted rather than as any other friendship on which you have to work to stop it freezing to death.

I wish we could go back to the old us - going out for a pint when we fancied it. And it's not even the spending time together, I find it increasingly difficult to talk to him.

Maybe that's just a symptom of spending less time with him. But I can't help feeling that it's because he's dating my flatmate.

A Problem Shared

Ever since I started trying to keep blogs in 2006 I've had problems trying to marry the idea of publishing your innermost secrets for people to read. As it turns out, I've nothing to worry about because no one seems to read them.

Blogs always seem to me as if you kept a diary, photocopied it and passed it around school.

Even if you're not ridiculed for pouring out your innermost feelings onto a website, and let's face it, there's something more romantic about carefully writing out your emotions rather than typing it onto a screen, what if no one reads it? What's the point in a blog if no one reads it?

And I'll be honest, I wouldn't read a 21 year old university student's feelings for "fun". Especially not when you can follow celebrities on Twitter, where you only have to read a sentence rather than hundreds of words at a time.

So if no one reads it, what's the point in a blog?

Maybe it's just in the hope that someone, somewhere might take an interest in your blog above the millions that are out there. Maybe they'll say something helpful. Nice. Or funny.

Personally, I think it's just that "a problem shared is a problem halved", and blogging feels a lot more like sharing than writing in a diary and bottling it up.

Let's hope so anyway.