Romeo and Juliet

No, not my budgies but apparently my parents? It seems my parent's marriage has more than one version of a Romeo and Juliet story, something I found out today. Minus the dying at the end. There's no dying. Just a bit of feuding.

First, the story I know so well is that my parents come from different religions. Dad's Catholic, Mum is Church of England (so Protestant). Neither are practicing but both have (had) mothers who are more religious than their children. So while neither family disagreed with them getting married, when it came to picking a church for the wedding well... It got complicated. Both mothers refused to set foot in the other's church.

It was solved with a deal, that my parents would marry in my mother's church and christen any kids in my father's. From what I had always heard, this was the biggest issue regarding setting up the wedding and was solved with a minimum of feuding.

But now I found out there was more feuding than this. Completely unrelated but still feuding.

Firstly, some family relations- My mother has 3 brothers, the oldest of whom is my Uncle P. My father has like, a whole bunch of uncles, the one I know most about being my (Great) Uncle T. These are the main players in this feud.

So before the wedding- but after my parents had met, my Uncle T and his brother tried to go into business together. They set it up and needed a loan. This is where my Uncle P came into it. He was a bank manager at the time, in charge of the loan division.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Uncle T went to Uncle P's bank. A very weird thing as they didn't live in the same areas. Uncle P refused the loan and well... Uncle T didn't take it well. At all. Especially when he couldn't get a loan from anyone else as he'd been refused at the bank and his business went under, costing him a whole lot of money and his (already bad) relationship with his brother. He wasn't bankrupted but I'm told it was close.

He blamed Uncle P. Loudly. And with threats of suing. Uncle P thought him an idiot and hot head, which he wasn't shy about sharing around. Especially as Uncle P had to step out of his position for a while due to the fuss Uncle T was raising.

When my mother put the pieces together while organising the wedding and realised that hot head her brother was complaining about was the Uncle of her future husband who also wasn't pleased with this nitwit of a banker well... it wasn't a great day. From what I've heard they had to be separated at the wedding so they didn't even see another. Everyone had to keep silent about it (which is why I've not heard about it before my Mum mentioned that my Uncle P ruined my Uncle T today) and we've never had a family thing with both sides of the family there.

So just when I thought I'd heard all of Mum's family history stories, she comes up with this really interesting one! And okay, the Romeo and Juliet comparison is reaching but idk about what other romance story fits.

Well That Was New

I realise I've not posted much on here about the last oh, two or three months of my exchange. In fact I've barely posted anything on it for two main reasons. 1) I was too busy living it and I SUCK at keeping a diary, even an online one; and 2) I've had to think over one of the more major things that happened that I've barely talked about to anyone.

Namely the thing where I basically, kinda, nearly, had a boyfriend.

It's been tough to sort out. Firstly, we were good friends. Very good friends, having lunch every Wednesday. I miss our lunches so so much; they were a major feature of my week. We'd talk for hours on whatever topic we liked usually only leaving because it was dark and I had to walk the twenty minutes or so home. He was definitely one of the two close friends I made on exchange (the fact that the other one was also male has only added to my following confusion).

But I don't know if I actually liked him like that. I know he liked me like that- he pulled me aside (in an overly dramatic fashion on a day we weren't scheduled to see another) to admit that he thought I was hot and if I hadn't been an exchange student, he'd have asked me out. It was a very very nice thing to hear.

At the time, I told him I would have accepted if he had asked me out. It's still true; I would have said yes. I suppose that must mean I do (or did) like him like that but... it's kinda hard. I don't do sexual attraction so there's none of that. He's very cute (if young- about my brother's age!) and I really do like him. But like I said before, I had another male close friend in Exeter and well... there's not much difference in the way I feel about these two guys. Only the second guy lives in Sydney and goes to my uni.

But I never invited the second guy to my room for drinks like I did Exeter guy (nothing happened! Jeez =P) and I didn't cry when I said goodbye... admittedly I was going to see second guy again but I miss this guy more. I know we couldn't work out because he's not willing to do long distance...and neither am I. There's an element of logic in my thoughts that was always there so I'm also kinda wondering if that helped- if knowing that I couldn't do a relationship stopped me even allowing myself to consider the possibility. After all, I didn't even think about romance until he admitted he thought I was hot. Well, I mostly didn't think about romance.

Urgh. I'm confused. There's a major reason I'm not bothered with romance and it's because it's so CONFUSING. If only this was a story and I could write the damned ending!

Also I need to sort through photos. There's so many photos...