It's a magnet Jim, but not as we know it

     Magnets: aren't they just great? They're in everything, from toys, to medical equipment, to batteries, and even in your headphones. Personally, I like to put the two earpieces of my headphones together and let them repel one another, like two worms fighting. But seriously, they are amazing. So amazing, that our world is pretty much held together by them, the North Magnetic Pole and the South Magnetic Pole. There is however another type of magnet, something that is embedded apparently within us all, but the force is only strong in some cases. I am talking about The Weirdo Magnet.
     Never heard of it? Think it doesn't exist? Well as someone who apparently the force is very strong with, take it from me, it exists. I like to think that everyone has an internal weirdo magnet buried somewhere deep within. Some people are open with theirs and thereby attract the mentallers. Others keep theirs well hidden behind newspapers and angry looks and headphones. Mine, is apparently open to the public all day and all night, leading me to wonder if there is some Weirdo Magnet Monthly publication listing my details without me knowing. I have many, many tales of weirdo's being attracted to me, through no fault of my own, all of my friends can attest to that.
     Really, location doesn't matter. They will find me: on river cruises, outside pubs, on the street, shopping centres, other people's parties, friends of friends, you name it, they'll find me.
     It seems to happen particularly often on buses. To me, buses are the true Mecca for weirdo's, they seem to be drawn to public transport, buses in particular, like wasps to....well anything really. It's why I tend to avoid buses wherever possible. At least on the Tube, people don't really talk to each other, even when you are in a group with your friends. Being a Tube passenger, you can be totally undisturbed for the entire journey. Bus passengers however, are fair game, and some seem to be more enticing than others. Maybe it's because I am actually an OK kind of person. Unless I really have to be, I cannot be a total bitch to people, even to strangers who I don't know and will probably never meet again, it's just not in me to do. I think that because of this lack of bitch gene, I have developed a pheromone that sends out signals only picked up on by other unbalanced people. They see me they way the leopard sees a new baby caribou, the litter of the runt, easy pickings, a kindred weirdo spirit.
     It doesn't matter whether or not I put on my headphones, a stranger has actually taken them out of my ears so he could talk to me about texting his mother on his new phone that was over a month old but still had the protective plastic covering over it. It doesn't matter whether or not I pretend to read the giant newspaper that I have put in front of my face to stop people from annoying me, the weirdo will still get through to me. It even doesn't matter when I do both, and when I am sitting quite a distance away from someone, case in point being the odd man on the bus from Galway one day who was sitting across the aisle and two seats up from where I was cocooned with a broadsheet and my music. He decided to lock in on me, and I made the fatal mistake of making eye contact with him. Though I was only on the bus with him for fifteen minutes, it was long enough for him to tell me his ancestry (Cork born, Galway parents) why he was in Galway (Cork vs Galway hurling match) why he was wearing two jerseys (you guessed it, a Cork and a Galway one as his loyalty was divided) where he was staying (Claregalway) why he was staying there (cheaper than the city, even when you factor in the bus and taxi fares) Now, somewhere in between this and him getting off the bus, I must have zoned out, because when I came too, he was waffling on about the party he had been at where he was dressed as a Nazi SS Officer and how much he admired that Hitler fella.
     Much of my life is in fact taken over with the odd people, and meeting them randomly, it's an almost daily occurrence  and while I sometimes complain about it, I do in fact enjoy it mostly. Yes, it would be nice if I could get through at least one public transport journey or one day without being harassed by mentallers. It would be lovely to be just left alone every now and then. But I do quite enjoy the fact the people seem to make a bee-line for me (I'm talking about the mentallers here, no one normal really approaches me off the bat) and feel that I am someone who they can talk to, share the issues (be it personal or psychological) with me, and that they see me as someone who can empathise with them. And to be honest, it's pretty much the lunatics that make the world go round, how very boring life would be without them.

Hi diddly dee, a spinster's life for me

So I've only gone and ruddy done it. After what has felt like years of interminable waiting and mooching off others, I am now shacked up in a great little apartment in London, with only myself for company. Yes, I have reached the stage of personal maturity where I am now living on my own. Do I love it? Hell yes! Have I been lonely? Hell no! Do I think that living on my own and effectively cutting myself off from society will have an adverse effect on me and turn me into an even bigger lunatic? Resounding Hell no! I've always wanted to live on my own. For me, it has been a very personal goal, not really an ambition per se, but more of a want, like when I wanted to move to London. Granted, it took me nearly four years to do that, but I did it! The same with this, ever since I discovered what it was like to live on my own, all those years ago in Galway. And what a place to make that particular discovery.
     But in getting to this quite grown-uppy place, I had somehow managed to regress through the years and found myself almost re-living my pre-adult life to actual adult life. (Yes, I said pre-adult. I am no longer using the word teenager to describe myself or my friends around the ages of thirteen to eighteen. Teenager for me, evokes the goth-haired, be-hoodied, gangly, spotty, acned, hipster, mobile phone, dip-dyed hair we see today. And yes, while we were just exactly like them but without all the money and annoyingness that we see in most of them, I like to think we were slightly more mature and grown up than they are. But I guess that's what all pre-adults feel like...) Anyway!
     The first stage in my never ending story of how I got to live on my own, began when I managed to secure a job here in London. As I was fortunate enough to have my sister living here along with friends I had collected along the way, I had a solid base upon which to build my new life. While waiting for my then boyfriend to move over, my aforementioned sister graciously invited me to come live with her and her boyfriend until I got myself set up and settled in. Instantly, this felt like moving back in with my family, a place where even though I did feel like I belonged, I also felt that my freedom was somewhat limited. Now, don't get me wrong, I will be eternally grateful for my sister taking me in like this, but I did feel somewhat restricted. A bit like a pre-adult who has been given a week to have their home house to themselves while the family goes on holidays somewhere (why the pre-adult didn't go with them is anyone's guess, maybe they weren't going to a cool enough place, who knows, you pick the reason) only to be brought back down to earth and being reminded that they are in fact under the thumb the minute the family comes back to the house. They had a taste of freedom, and then it was pulled from under them. I had moved out of home when I was eighteen, lived with friends, lived with a bunch of Aussies in a tiny two-bedroomed attic apartment, lived with another friend, then strangers, then my boyfriends room, then my own place, then my new boyfriends place, and so on. Having gotten used to pottering about my own space and living by basically my own rules for quite some time, it was hard to re-adjust to living with, essentially, a family unit again. It did my sisters head in, it did her boyfriends head in, it did my head in, however I like to think it gave them basic training as to how it would be if they had a child, or a bold puppy that broke things. It was hard on everyone. 
     Pre-adult stage over and done with, after wrecking my London Family's head for nearly two years, I decided to branch out and move into a house where friends where currently living. This, would be my London Student years. It was almost exactly like when I first moved to Galway, I was living with two of my best friends and two guys that we had already known for years. Not exactly pushing the social experiment boundaries, but come on, we were only eighteen, and we did our best. My cousin already lived in the house, I had bonded with and become good friends with one of the other house-mates over an afternoon of frozen margaritas in Covent Garden, and had known the other house-mate through various visits. The room was a bit grotty. The house itself, not through fault of my house-mates, but through the obviousl maltreatment by previous tenants and neglect from the landlord, was a bit of a kip. But I still loved it. I felt like I had just made my first real foray into the adult world. Bit deja-vu-y but at the time, it was just what I needed. I needed to re-establish myself as Laura, not someone's girlfriend or sister or buddy, but as me, and finally find my feet again. And I did that, with roaring success! Old friends introduced me to new friends, as I did to them. People I had known for years were living at the top of my road so I had friends to drop into! I was responsible for paying proper rent and bills and buying food! I had a nectar card! I had re-useable shopping bags! Je suis arrivé!!  
     However, I feel, in retrospect, that the house was a stepping stone. It cemented the now amazing relationship I have with my sister, which has gone back to being more than just a family tie. We both now know we shouldn't live with each other, but love and adore and enjoy each other when we meet up, yet go our separate ways home. It was also a stepping stone on the way to me finding my literal Happy Place. I have my internal Happy Place, it's my Fairy Bubble (one which my sister told me to "eff off back into" one Christmas. See, told you, we shouldn't live together) but I needed to have my own place. My Happy Place with a postcode if you will. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I moved out of my Stepping Stone quick smart, and through a series of marvellous misadventures spanning a spell living with Jesuit priests, going to France and living like a refugee with a Kiwi, French and Spanish person all in the same room), I managed to wind up in a lovely house. One with a lovely bed, a lovely fat ass TV, lovely bathroom, lovely garden, lovely super secret side entrance, lovely kitchen, lovely couch, lovely storage space. But the most lovely thing of all, is when I come home, I am greeted by no-one except myself, by the smell of last nights dinner that I cooked and is now packed away to eat later, by the clean smell from the bathroom from my cleaning products, by the non-mess that I have made, and get to spend time with myself, reading in silence, watching whatever rubbish I want on TV, or simply lounging in my own house listening to music. I'm happier than I have been for a long time, and seem to have finally reached a place I never thought I would get, London Contentment, Tooting. I intend on enjoying my career as a Liver-Alone for a good long while, its been years in the offing, and now that I am here, there's no getting rid of me. I want to depend on myself. I want to enjoy my own company. I want to learn a little bit more about myself. I want to enjoy my own space. But most of all, I want to clean up nobody's mess but mine!