Confused

Okay. Now I'm confused.

I mentioned yesterday that I'd contacted someone who had apparently unfriended me on Facebook some time ago. On the basis that he appeared to have implied that he hadn't unfriended me, I sent him another friend request.

It appears that he has since deleted the friend request.

Either that, or Facebook is so screwed up that it has deleted the request for him.

Which puts me back to square one. I still don't know whether there really is a glitch in Facebook that unfriends people, or whether it's just a convenient excuse...

Or maybe its just me. :-/

Facebook auto-unfriend revisited

Back in January, I wrote about my suspicion that there is a bug in Facebook that causes it to unfriend people with no input from the people involved.

Judging by the fact that that post is currently the 4th most read post of all time on my blog, and the number of variations in search terms relating to Facebook auto-unfriending that show up in the statistics for my blog, a lot of people are clearly asking the same question.

With that in mind, I decided to contact one of the people who "unfriended" me several months ago, leading me to write that blog post in January. This is someone who I have known for a few years, and it genuinely surprised me when my girl profile was unfriended by him, particularly as he is still friends with my boy profile and his wife and several other friends remain friends with both. I even spoke with him at the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia festival, where I was obviously in girl mode...

Knowing that there could have been a genuine reason why he might have needed to unfriend my girl profile because of other people, I sent him a message firstly stating that I would be fine with the answer either way, briefly explaining the whole "is Facebook doing this?" issue, then asking if he had unfriended my girl profile.

In his answer, he not only said that he hasn't unfriended anybody in quite some time, but that other people have asked him the same question!

In reply, I said:

I hate to think how many people have had friendships damaged by this screw-up on Facebook's part!

I think that the message here is that if someone appears to have unfriended you on Facebook and you can't see a reason why they would have done so, it would probably be a good idea to contact them to see whether it was deliberate or whether Facebook has decided to randomly discard your friendship.

I'm yet to work out whether this means that C's unfriending of me was deliberate or not. Her political antagonism would tend to suggest that she would have done it deliberately, but her claim not to have a problem with me suggests that it might have been a Facebook glitch. If it was a Facebook glitch, that glitch may well have been the difference between going back to the cafe nights, at least occasionally, and not going since September last year.

I have read a few newspaper articles about being unfriended on Facebook having lead to assault and murder. I have to wonder not only whether this apparent Facebook glitch has actually caused assaults and perhaps murder, but also how many people who suffer from depression (as I do) it has affected, and whether it may even have led to suicide. That's a lot of real world implications for a computer glitch!

A $2.50 fluke

I've been wearing the same orangey red nail polish for about 5 weeks now. I started wearing it recently for the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia festival because it works well with 1950s style outfits, and continued wearing it because I quite enjoy the reactions...

Not that I get a lot of reactions, but when they do happen they can be quite funny. Yesterday, I had a 90 minute meeting with a work client who had never met me before. He didn't say anything about them, but I lost count of how many times he glanced at my nails. :)

This nail polish was one from a random selection that the salon has, and with me using it frequently their bottle is now close to empty. I was starting to think that I'd soon have to choose something else.

Today, I went to a pharmacy that I rarely go to, because I was after a box of Blackmore's Radiance, a skin and hair supplement that I've been using for years. The place I used to get it from most often no longer carries it, and it's generally overpriced at Priceline where I can get it if I really have to.

While at the pharmacy, I decided to browse the beauty section. As I gave up looking and headed towards the registers, I spotted a stand of cheap nail polish with a familiar looking bottle shape. I only saw one bottle of my favourite red, but at $2.50 I probably would have grabbed more if I'd seen them. I might have to go back again soon and have a more thorough look. :)

Cafe, not quite yet

It seems that I'm not as ready to go back to a cafe night as I thought I was.

I couldn't get there last week because I'd already booked work for Tuesday that prevented me finishing early enough to get there.

I knew that I would finish early enough today, so I did my usual preparatory work last night including epilating my face, shaping my brows and shaving around my hairline.

I finished work early, as expected. I was so convinced that I was going to go that I took off my shoes and socks to allow the sock marks to dissipate shortly after I finished work. Around 4pm, while waiting for my son to finish with the bathroom so that I could straighten my hair and start getting ready, I went onto facebook. Big mistake!

While looking through my news feed, I found a photo that had been posted to encourage people to come along to the cafe night, with a comment of "you never know who will show up". Unfortunately, the photo contained both C and the central person from the sub-group who went out of their way to reject me.

The idea of going to a cafe night and both of them being there was too much for me to cope with. I simply shut down.

Cafe, perhaps

Following a couple of recent posts, about trying to work out where to go out, and clarifying things that have happened at the cafe nights in the past, I've been told by one of the regular attendees that C claims not to have a problem with me.

Based on her previous behaviour, I have some reservations about the accuracy of that, but I'm now giving consideration to trying to go to a cafe night and see what happens.

I'm a little nervous about trying to go back, because if all goes well, I may go more often again, but if things turn pear shaped it could make it impossible to ever go back.

I guess I'll have to decide whether to do the full retro outfit, something more modern and mundane or something in between ~ with 5 to 6" stilettos of course. :-P

Bright red nails at work - revisited

In a couple of days time, my blog post about the first time I wore bright red nail polish at work (in boy mode) will be 2 years old. The second anniversary of the actual event slipped by last Saturday without me realising it.

I've come a long way since then. Now, I think nothing of wearing bright red on my nails at work all the time.

Yesterday, I had a funny little incident at work. I was with a client whose girlfriend is visiting from overseas. She saw my nails from the cab of his truck and decided that she wanted to see them up close. When the client and I were heading into my office, his girlfriend came into the office with us, and wanted to play with my hands! It took about 20 seconds of her holding onto my hand and admiring my nails before he could convince her to let go so that I could use the mouse on my computer. When they left, she made a comment that I didn't catch, and he said that she wanted to my long fingers and long nails.

Still no negative or confrontational responses, but certainly some funny ones!

Cafe nights - a clarification

In my last post, I mentioned that I no longer feel welcome at the local cafe nights. This generated several responses both here and on Facebook, and I thought that I should clarify the situation.

The short summary is that I have several ongoing personal issues and I don't want them to impact on the group, because I believe that what the group was created to do is a good idea and I don't want it to fail.

Stephanie suggested that I take my girl friends to the same place and let the others see that they weren't needed to have a good time. There are two problems with that.

1. That's not the sort of person I am ~ I get on okay with most of the members of the group and, even if I didn't, I wouldn't want to be nasty to them like that, because I know how it feels, because,
2. That is exactly what was done to me once by others to show that they rejected me. I sat alone at the reserved table for most of a night, only to discover that 3 or 4 others (including someone I thought was a friend for over 20 years) had deliberately sat elsewhere in the restaurant just out of my sight. It was an incredibly hurtful thing to have done to me, and it achieved nothing except hurt, as to this day I still don't know what I was supposed to have done to cause their behaviour.

That sub-group (who seem to have since disappeared) went out of their way to make it clear that they rejected me but were happy to socialise with the rest of the group at the time. It was made very clear that I was the problem.

In spite of that, I wanted to ensure that the nights would continue and the only way to do that at the time was to continue going regularly while a core group of regulars was established.

Late in 2011, ahead of changes to my work circumstances, I got very busy for a while, working over 80 hours per week for several weeks. I stopped going to the cafe nights, not only because I was too physically exhausted but also because of ongoing political antagonism from one other member of the group (who I'll call C) and a frequent feeling that I was being sidelined.

I don't think that I've ever mentioned the feeling of being sidelined before, in part because I have never been able to work out whether it was entirely in my head or whether it really was happening. It is a hard feeling to explain, but I often felt that others in the group would turn away from me to converse, ignoring me and leaving me on my own in the corner. That feeling was present for part of the night almost every time that I went to a cafe night, and while I know that it did physically happen, I don't think that it was intentional on the part of most of the people who attended.

The political antagonism was harder to deal with. For a long time, I didn't mention it either. At one point, I considered C to be a friend. Over time, however, the fact that we had different political opinions seemed to become more and more of an issue to her, and while I was prepared to accept that she was a socialist and just try to avoid talking about politics, she seemed to increasingly feel the need to attack my moderate opinions and beliefs.

After my work circumstances changed, I found myself taking forced holidays. The combination of stress, depression and exhaustion flattened me. I did virtually nothing for a few months. My weight went up, my interest in doing anything went down. I went to cafe nights infrequently, and even after I started working again I struggled to do anything except work and basic day-to-day necessities.

When I did make the effort to go out to a cafe night, I didn't enjoy it. The political antagonism happened every time C was there, the feeling of being sidelined was there every time and I couldn't bring myself to leave before the group photos at the end of the night. The latter was a problem because I needed to get my sleep patterns sorted out by getting to bed earlier than I was, but others in the group wanted the evenings to end as late as possible.

As far as I can figure out, none of the other members of the group have a problem with each other or with me, except C, who is still there almost every week.

The main thing that is stopping me from going back at present is the fact that there's a real possibility that if C is there and starts up about politics, I may snap, throw something at her or pour something over her head and storm out. I don't want to cause dramas for the group or for the restaurant, so I simply haven't gone there.

What to do, where to go

I have a bit of a quandary at the moment.

I want to go out more often, but with the whole drama with not feeling welcome at the cafe nights any more (the person who convinced me to stop going no longer speaks to me and has since, fairly unsurprisingly, un-friended me on facebook), I'm at a loss as to where to go for outings other than occasional special occasions such as IMATS, Halloween and the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia festival.

I want to make more effort to try to get to my nail appointments en femme, but even that seems to be difficult a lot of the time because of work and not getting to sleep early enough.

I'd also like to get out shopping occasionally, but recently it just feels like too much effort to get dressed up just to go out shopping for an hour or two. That's silly, really, because I used to do exactly that, and I enjoyed it!

I'd also like to get to meet-ups with other members of Beauty Heaven, but there haven't been any that I know of recently in Newcastle or Sydney.

Very out on Facebook

On the Thursday night between getting my nails done and going to the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival, I went shopping with my family and noticed an unusual number of people do double takes at my bright red nails, which led me to post this joking comment on my boy profile on facebook:

Guys, looking for a way to get reactions from people?

Tattoos not doing the trick?

Piercings all over your face not doing the trick?

Outrageous t-shirts not doing the trick?

Try long fingernails painted bright red. Even guys with tatts and a face full of piercings react. :-P

Enough people know that I really do have long nails and know that I'm a crossdresser that there was a long series of joking comments in response to that.

I followed that up with a post about the fact that I was planning on going to Kurri Kurri, and another after I got back, both without any detail about how I was dressed. One of my comments on the latter post was:

I'm not sure how people would react if I posted a photo. ;-)

Several of the comments in response to that came from people who are also friends with my girl profile, and one even made reference to Alice. Sometime around 1am Saturday, I decided to post the full length photo, albeit without the link to my blog. Trying to be a little bit subtle, I originally uploaded it visible only to me, then set the date and time of the photo to the previous Sunday afternoon when it was taken so that's where it would show up on my timeline instead of when it was uploaded. I later made it visible to about a quarter of my friends, all of them people who already knew about me and probably would have seen the photo elsewhere. Some time later, I changed the setting to be visible to all of my facebook friends.

There have been a number of comments on the photo, including one referring to Alice, which I replied to from my girl profile... Almost immediately, my girl profile got a friend request from one of my work clients... Considering that my friends on Facebook include one of my neighbours who has never said anything, my father in law and many other friends, relatives and work clients, I guess you could say that I'm now very out on Facebook, and there have been no directly hostile responses and so far just one unfriending, by one of my wife's relatives, which may or may not be related to the posting of this photo.

I don't think I'll start looking at rationalising my profiles down to one just yet, though. I now see that as a possibility, but probably not any time soon.

Kurri Kurri - a day out

After all of the dramas getting ready, I ended up arriving around 2pm, knowing that the Best Dressed Parade that I had intended to enter wasn't until 3pm. What I didn't know was that they closed entries for it just before 2pm. :(

After finding a parking spot a couple of blocks from the event, I found my way to the Miskonduct stall and said hello. I then went in search of a few other people I know, starting amongst the market stalls on the grass of the park. After saying hello to a couple of other people, I was told where some friends' cars were parked, and I set off in search of them.

I caught up with Heather, who I went to school with, and who had been in the best dressed parade last year. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that she caught up with me, as she saw me and came up behind me. I changed from my flat shoes to my heels while standing in the shade chatting to her, and a guy wandering past asked if he could take our photo, which we agreed to. I haven't seen that photo on line anywhere so far, but I have to wonder if he had any idea that I wasn't the woman that I appeared to be. :)

Because of where I had been told some of my friends were parked, I did a loop of much of the area, in heels, looking for them. Sadly, because it was such a hot day, many of the people that I had hoped to see had already left by the time I arrived.

Because it was so hot and sunny, I ended up returning to Miskonduct's stall, changing back to my flats and getting only fleeting glances of the best dressed parade from the shade of their pop-up gazebo.

After that, I wandered around a bit more in my flat shoes, including walking past the stall of a guy that I know but wasn't intending to approach. I made the silly mistake of looking towards him, saw him looking at me and worried that he would recognise me, all in the space of a few seconds. Obviously, the fact that I looked at him and he saw my reaction meant that he looked closely enough to recognise me. He then followed me to the stall next to his and said hello. :)

I left around 5pm, while most of the market stalls were packing up. On the down side, aside from the random guy who took the photo of Heather and me, I don't think that any other photos were taken of me while I was there. On the up side, when I got back to my car, the sun had shifted and my car was fully in the shade of a large tree. Yay! :)

The day out also included another new experience for me. Driving in a full petticoat. I'd never done that before! It was awkward getting into the car and getting comfortable, but getting out was as easy as climbing out in the usual ladylike manner then swishing the skirt and petticoat back and forth a few times to get everything settled into place.

After I got home, I got my wife to snap a few full length photos against a backdrop of a dilapidated wall with peeling paint, and I snapped a few other photos myself. I need to remember to get photos while I'm out and about, as I have a bad habit of forgetting!

Yes, I do plan to go to the Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival next year. Not only am I hoping to be better organised, but a major new freeway will open later this year that will reduce the time it takes to get from here to there by almost half compared to the heavy, slow traffic that I experienced on Sunday. I might even get there both days! :)

Kurri Kurri - Preparations - on the day

Sunday started later than planned. As usual, I got to bed later than intended and consequently got up later than planned.

I was committed to going. I was going to get there no matter what.

Which was fortunate given the number of things that went wrong. If I hadn't been so committed to going, there were several things that went wrong through my preparations that would have had me give up in disgust.

I was standing in the bathroom wearing little more than a lightweight dressing gown, dripping with perspiration while trying to do my hair. I struggled to get the rolls rolled and pinned right. I think that I had at least 3 goes at each roll, including re-doing the centre one after doing the third one. I also couldn't get the back to take a curl, and in desperation saturated it with setting lotion, twisted it in a spiral and clipped it up out of the way in a loop on the back of my head using a sectioning clip. I also pulled my fringe up out of the way using a sectioning clip while I did my makeup, then used my straightener to fix it afterwards. The result was frizzy, particularly the rolls, but I was beyond caring! When I unclipped the back, it was set in a tight spiral that I really should have brushed out a bit, but I was so worried that it would lose all of its curl that I decided to leave it as it was.

Makeup want fairly smoothly aside from the considerable time that it took to get the eyeliner right.

The "one size fits most" pantihose that I mentioned getting turned out to be "one size doesn't fit someone my size". I was clearly too tall for them and had to work them up my legs enough to get the crotch seam and waistband into place, and the faux seams which were supposed to start at the heel ended up starting several centimetres (an inch and a half to 2 inches) above the back of my shoes. Aside from that, the legs looked okay, but the top tore on one side just below the waistband and the material pulled along the crotch seam, making a row of holes.

I can usually make pantihose last for dozens of wearings, so this disintegration was somewhat upsetting for me. Realising that the parts that would be seen were still okay, I decided not to pull them off and throw them in the bin. They've now been washed and I still haven't decided whether to chuck them or not ~ I know I should but I probably won't until I have some that fit properly.

I ended up using a crotchet handbag that I've had for many years. It is the closest to 1950s style of any bag that I have, but by the time I put my purse, keys, phone and high heels in it, I needed a separate bag for my brush, makeup, etc to leave in the car.

The red bangle worked well with the dress, as did a pair of earrings that my wife gave me for Christmas.

I wore a pair of flats that didn't really go all that well with the outfit, and carried my high heels so that I could put them on and wear them for part of the time while I was there. I'd initially thought that the dress would require a choice between three pairs of Tony Biancos ~ orange suede, sand suede and nude patent, but in the end it turned out that the orangey red Siren heels were the best colour for the dress.

Kurri Kurri - Preparations - Saturday

Having ended up with 2 separate outfits (the skirt that I got on Saturday and the dress that I got on Wednesday), I decided sometime around Friday night that I'd do a trial run of hair and makeup on Saturday, and if it all worked well I'd go to Kurri in the skirt and top outfit Saturday and save the dress for Sunday. If the trial run didn't work, at least I'd be in a better position to get things to work on Sunday.

2012

With that plan in mind, I started trying to do my hair in hot rollers. I had made an attempt on Friday night and it just didn't work. I had a couple of attempts at it on Saturday and became increasingly frustrated because it just didn't work. I didn't even get as far as attempting makeup.

My hair was heavy with setting lotion and hairspray by the time I decided to attempt the 1940s three roll style that I had worn home from the Lindy Charm School last year. I struggled because I hadn't practised and my hair is so long that starting the curls basically has me reaching straight up at the limit of my arm length.

Saturday's attempt wasn't great but it convinced me that at least I could do that style. I also figured that the majority of people would either not know or not care that I was mixing a 1940s hairstyle with a 1950s outfit, 1900s style parasol and 2010s high heels. :)

Kurri Kurri - Preparations - Wednesday

On the Wednesday before Kurri Kurri, I had my regular nail appointment, and as planned, got my nails done the same slightly orangey red colour as I had them done for the Lindy Charm School last year. Note that the photo here was taken on Friday, 9 days after they were done. I'm fairly impressed with how long this polish lasts!

Unfortunately, for a number of reasons mostly relating to working far too late the night before, I didn't get to the nail appointment in girl mode. That meant that I also didn't go to try on the cream and green dress that I had seen on the previous Sunday.

What did happen, however, was that on the Tuesday, Miskonduct posted a photo of a new dress that had just arrived. I loved the look of it, and immediately realised that the dominant orangey red and cream colours of the dress would work well with my colouring and with the lace parasol. While some of my jewellery such as the earrings and bracelet that my wife had made would be the wrong shade of red for it, some of my other jewellery including the bangle that I bought on Sunday would work with it.

And so it came to pass that, after my nail appointment, I again drove to Miskonduct. I tried the dress and loved it. Even with only the foam travel forms, I could tell that it would work for me, so I got it. :)

Kurri Kurri - Preparations - Sunday

Oops.

It's taken me a week longer than intended to get to a follow-up of last Sunday's post.

Now I have to try to remember where I was up to.

After my trip to Miskonduct the previous Saturday, I went looking for a white parasol on the Sunday because the cream lace one that I got from Tree of Life last year simply wouldn't have looked right with the outfit. I managed to find a cheap chinese style one that should work okay with the skirt.

I also spotted a cream and green dress in another shop that looked like it might work well for me and go with the cream parasol, but trying it on in boy mode with foam travel breast forms, no body shaper and no hip padding was a bit inconclusive, particularly in a dressing room with no mirror. I decided that I'd try to get back there in girl mode on the Wednesday ~ if I managed to get to my nail appointment in girl mode, I'd go there afterwards.

While I was out and about, I also found a narrow red and brass bangle in an antiques shop. The colours looked like they would work so I picked it up too.

In the meantime, my wife made me some earrings and a bracelet inspired by 1950s style jewellery. The bracelet was partly my idea, inspired by daisy chains.