You're (Not) My Favorite Waste of Time

A funny thing happened at the Sainsburys tonight: I didn't buy cupcakes or scones or jam tarts or anything else on buy one, get one free or some other offer not just because I feared bingeing on them – but also because I realized there'd be just as good a chance I'd get bored of them and they'd sit in my cupboard until I had to throw them out. (For budget reasons, I'm trying not to waste food.)

Yes, if I like something a lot I will happily eat it multiple times a day. But if I'm not that enamored of it (and if it's sweet, I'm always enamored of it – or used to be), it just sits. At the moment, my refrigerator still contains more than half of the American chocolate I brought back from my US jaunt, plus several Seeds of Change chocolate bars I'm eating my way through slowly (they beat the American chocolate). And in the cupboard I still have a bag of Trader Joe's peanut-butter filled pretzels (good, but frankly not that filling so I don't opt to snack on them very often) plus a handful of packaged biscuits looted from my Army ration packs from the two jobs with the squaddies.

I won't lie – I stood in the supermarket tonight quite literally terrified as I was eyeing the goodies. How could I ever choose, and what if I couldn't and bought tons and ate them all? I felt the familiar resentment I feel whenever I have to make choices about food – why can't I have it all, and why can't I be normal and not want it all in the first place? I feared buying and I feared not buying – because not buying means deprivation, which at some point usually leads to a binge.

And then I looked at the ingredients and I looked at the goods themselves and thought: These probably aren't that great. Prepackaged cupcakes with sickly sweet icing are really no substitute for one good cupcake with buttercream icing. I've had the packaged mini Victoria sponges and they're really not that good. Scones? Well, I did buy one package of the ones with the best ingredients I could find (as opposed to the buy one get one free option, which I don't need).

Then I hunted down the Sun Maid raisins I'd come to the shop for in the first place (I like them in my porridge, and Sun Maid is the only brand I've found that doesn't add oil or anything else), and left.

***

I have had two ridiculously posh – read, inhibited – boyfriends (BN2 not in this category), but never have I seen anything like Friday night.

O had flaked (girlfriend problems) and I didn't feel like being on my own. The nice Jewish boy had said I should let him know if I were around... and so I did. Long before any cava sangria had been consumed (and waiter, claiming to be charmed by my Spanish, gave us about four free shots of some alcohol that tasted like creme brulee in a glass), I think I knew where this was going, and I think I just decided I didn't care. (Frankly, it's all eerily similar to the binge mentality – freak out, freak out, freak out... and then just surrender and deal with consequences later.)

Of course, leave it to me to choose someone to behave badly with who has absolutely no idea what he's doing. Is it really possible for a man to reach the age of 37 and be just that clueless? I don't mean just bad -- it was that, too -- but just... clueless. Poor guy.