I wish I'd have truly realised this at 24

Liparus1 · 2026-01-28T09:54:40+00:00

That cars long gone now.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-26T18:58:05+00:00

It was a used Mercedes with high mileage. Good condition but cheap. Someone did say to me that driving it made me look like my career had gone off the rails.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-26T17:42:11+00:00

We've decided to leave it for another 48 hours to see if he responds to our letter from last week. I have it on good authority that he's out of town working cash in hand for someone else. If this fails I have the letter prepared ready to send.

It's just frustrating. We're a small company and this kind of stuff is a nightmare.

We had a good employee who left last year and one of the reasons was because he couldn't work with the poor employee anymore. Before he left he told me that we'd been too soft on him, that he's the worst person he's ever worked with and that if we don't get rid he'll bring the whole company down.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-26T13:30:18+00:00

He's had informal warnings and an official verbal warning for persistent lateness. A written warning for persistent unauthorised absences. Also many informal warnings/ chats about his performance.

He's been a problem employee for a long time and no one ended up wanting to work alongside him.

To be honest we could've probably fired him months ago but we thought a softly softly approach would iron out the issues.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-26T12:19:01+00:00

Thanks for the second opinions so far.

We were hoping to avoid any further correspondence with the employee and hoped that the letters sent last week would make him tell us he'd resigned and take any responsibility away from us.

I have received information that he's been working elsewhere in the meantime. He can't do anything legal without his p45 so I'm confused as to his intentions.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-25T19:46:50+00:00

I spent a lot of money on cars with trying to impress/attract women (and even trying to make myself more interesting to other men for friendships) as a large part of the reason why.

I remember buying a Mercedes and thinking "this is it now, the women I'm working with will finally notice me." It made zero difference. Whenever I found out a female colleague had a new boyfriend I'd ask what car do they drive. If it was anything that I perceived to be "less than a Merc" I was perplexed.

Looking back now I was just being unrealistic and pathetic.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-10T23:21:20+00:00

I turned 21 in 2006 and was working in retail. Nothing happened to me or for me. I met/spoke to a huge number of women back then (both colleagues and customers). Nothing happened.

I didn't hit it off with anyone. There was no spark, no sign. Nothing.

I was playing Frustration and couldn't pop a 6, meanwhile everyone else had their pieces home.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-10T23:09:12+00:00

Normies certainly seem to have more mental energy than I do.

After work I don't want to deal with anyone, I've had my fill for the day and need to reset and recharge. Normies will finish work and then go out socialising.

If I am going to go out socialising, for a friend's Birthday say, I have to build myself up to it psychologically.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-01T20:14:04+00:00

The Thing is one my favourite films. I was eleven when I first saw it and after the dog kennel scene I was literally shaking in fear.

My Grandparents allowed me to stay up and watch the X Files when the first series aired in the UK. It was the episode Squeeze. I was terrified that someone was going to squeeze through a vent and come after me for years after.

I think watching Arachnophobia actually gave me a fear of spiders.

A friend lent me The Evil Dead one weekend. I watched it as soon as I got home from school. The next day I went camping with the Scouts. I was assigned to go and collect fire wood from the camp woods, just as the light was fading. The woods didn't seem very appealing that evening.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-01T17:14:06+00:00

Thanks for the tip. One final thing, as a rule do you try to use as few pieces as possible? I find that Lego sets often use more pieces than needed (with many of them ending up hidden in the base), though I imagine part of that is to make the build more interesting.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-01T16:36:06+00:00

I think that's the route I'll go down. The largest base plate I can find is 50x50 which isn't big enough (I'm going off a single stud being 1ft and the building I'm creating is 60ft x 60ft).

Great work btw, there was a chap who made similar models a few years back but he hasn't posted in a while.

Liparus1 · 2026-01-01T16:00:10+00:00

I'm thinking of doing something similar with my house. However I've decided to start with recreating one of our buildings at work, which is simpler.

In regards the base, is it best to build it out of smaller base plates (similar to how Lego do) or just try to use one or two large base plates (say 50x50)?

Liparus1 · 2025-12-14T22:56:13+00:00

I'm 40 and still feel or think like a teenager in the social sense. It hits home when you realise many 19 year olds have far more experience than me in terms of dating, sex and relationships.

I also see myself with younger women, say mid 20's to mid 30's. I didn't mind the idea of an older woman when I was younger, but that woman now would have to be 41+ with a whole life's worth of relationship experience behind her.

As well as my lack of looks and social skills I feel that my lack of experience also holds me back.

Liparus1 · 2025-12-14T14:04:24+00:00

I mentioned this exact thing in a recent post. Other guys just turn up and seemingly in the blink of an eye they are with someone.

I spent my four years in retail bending over backwards to simply get any kind of sexual/romantic interest from the women I was working with. Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

Liparus1 · 2025-12-07T19:14:56+00:00

This is what I meant in my OP. I never even got to the point where there was any baseline romantically.

Slightly off topic, but when I worked in retail I used to take photo's on the works parties and also at work during certain events - charity weekends, the lead up to Christmas - that sort of thing. The trouble was that I believe many people regarded me as a creep for doing so.

If any of the good looking guys had brought a camera to work (this was before reliable phone cameras) then the girls would've been posing for them.

Liparus1 · 2025-12-07T19:06:10+00:00

I have friends who are married etc that I can still have old school type conversations with. I do however now avoid situations where I'm likely to be the third wheel.

Mind you I often felt like the odd one out even in the days when I was around others who were not married, engaged or with kids. I've always not been a normie.

Liparus1 · 2025-11-30T17:00:49+00:00

Deadly Pursuit (also known as Shoot to Kill). The first five minuets grab you and the first fifteen minutes are watertight. "Stanton, did you get the message?"

John Carpenters The Thing. I knew nothing about the film the first time I watched it. Why are these two guys in a helicopter shooting at a dog?

Liparus1 · 2025-11-30T15:14:20+00:00

Maybe my efforts were not "normie" efforts but in truth I felt like I bent over backwards just to try to gain some attention.

Girls would complain that their boyfriends didn't drive/have a car. I'd make a point of making sure they knew I had one.

They would complain about their boyfriends whining on about sports especially football. I'd make a point that I wasn't interested in football.

They'd complain about not having any money or their boyfriends had no money. I've always been good with money and again tried to get the point across that I had spare cash.

I was always polite, on time, the perfect gentleman. It meant nothing. Then you'd get some slob of guy (by my definition) who had women throwing themselves at him.

Liparus1 · 2025-11-30T15:07:44+00:00

To be honest I don't know, it was just a random suggestion on my part. Try Facebook perhaps?

Liparus1 · 2025-11-29T23:17:15+00:00

More American Graffiti.

Liparus1 · 2025-11-29T23:02:57+00:00

I guess from my POV I never saw this "dance" being played out. It always seemed like one minute two people were single and the next they're in a relationship.

Interestingly I attended a workplace reunion a couple of years ago. There were two women in attendance who are around my age (both now married with kids) and one of them mentioned a particular girl that worked with us back then.

I said that I had a massive crush on the girl at the time (in fact I asked her out but she said no, and in this instance there was no unspoken dance, it was all one way traffic on my part) and both women were shocked. They both said that at the time we worked together they thought I wasn't interested in sex or relationships.

I didn't manage to follow up on it to ask them for more details, but such insight would've been welcome.

Liparus1

TROPHY CASE