Today I move away from the negatives and concentrate on the positives. An amazing thing happened yesterday with my accountant.Twenty two years ago I worked as an apprentice baker at a large bakery. The bakers worked at night and the office girls, obviously, worked during the day. It turns out that meryl, my accountant, worked in the office at the same time I was there. I didn`t put the two together as one in my mind even though I thought she was a nice woman on both occasions . I`m just blown away how small the world is and how nice people go in and out of your life and sometimes one doesn`t really notice this until hindsight rears it`s head. Three cheers for hindsight! (the one thing I`m really good at).

Please people, appreciate the lovely folks in your life, even if it`s only inside your head.

This is the third instalment of my lunch date with beautiful Limo whilst enduring social anxiety.

I can`t actually say what it is that I was afraid of, or if I was at all afraid of anything. I know I`m not in a state of desperation, romantically speaking, so it can`t be that. Humans are a very social species and irrespective of what people say about liking their own company, it just doesn`t stack up. You`ve only got to look at the number of singles websites. They are full of people who like their own company, but seek more. I`m like that. Too much company with a romantic partner is never enough. Even jimmy barnes acknowledged that!

I remember past romances fondly and how I would be sick with desire in the first few months. Even as the passion faded in subsequent years, your soulmate(?) would always be in your head and heart, no matter what you were doing.

A person of significant learning once said that if two people (man and a woman) are trapped on a desert island for a substantial lenght of time, it wouldn`t matter who they were, they would fall in love eventually. Alas, if only my lunch date with Limo were to last a month or two. All my previous romances were the result of at least a month of close casual social contact with the woman, so meeting Limo for a relatively quick lunch was really never going to amount anything for her. I should have told her so I spose. Somehow I doubt whether she would have bought the whole story of my social anxiety. It`s not as if it`s like the common cold.

Limo is a unique woman. She`s very dedicated to her job yet professes to being jaded by bolshi self importance of her peers. She is very feminine, tough and composed, yet exhibits moments of emotional weakness. A few times I would have liked to give her a big hug to help her in some way, but the restrictions of copper wire and broadband links are huge.

Limo has been around the emotional block once or twice and she was/is very adept at reading my notes between the lines, except when I chose inconcise wording. That would throw her right off. I do believe I grew emotionally attached to kimo through our notes. I think she would say otherwise now, but I could be wrong. A lot of times she was very guarded with her feelings and desires and I don`t blame her for that. She did acknowledge that she was an old hand at online dating, so maybe the emotional firewall was always up.

I really don`t know how she does her internet dating so proficiently. Once I had made a connection with Limo, talking to other people felt kind of shallow and empty. The repetition of my dreams and goals seemed fraudulent in some way. I guess when the emotional memory of Limo subsides I will get back online and take advantage of my yearly subscription.

This is my continuing saga of a first date whilst enduring social anxiety syndrome. A raven haired beauty by the name of Limo prompted me to contact john malouff at the university of new england in armidale,nsw. I stress she didn`t do it knowingly. Unfortunately, she was blissfully unaware.

After the initial meeting at Limos office, we adjourned, via her work car, to a thai restaurant at the skywatch establishment (for the want of a better word). During all this time,I only stole quick glances at her for fear of making eye contact. I don`t know why, I just couldn`t. I do remember thinking that she looked smaller in person than in the picture she had sent me earlier. Clearly, this is ridiculous.

She ordered a vegetarian laksa. I told the waitress to surprise me. And she tried to with a lamb and rice dish. It was nice, but it wasn`t a surprise like I`d hoped. I was given a taste of kims vegetarian laksa and I really didn`t like it. I don`t think it went with the beer and the churning in my stomach. It didn`t look like she was enjoying it, even though she said she was.

I could have listened to her forever. Because I couldn`t maintain eye contact for long, she started to stare out the window while she talked. This was an ideal situation, for I could study her beauty in detail without the piercing glances of her eyes peering into my soul. I could keep the protective drawbridge up, yet still be in the company of this lovely woman.

I`m not entirely sure as to what I added to the conversation. I only know it wasn`t much. My biggest problem with anxiety is that long, drawn out descriptive sentences are completely off limits in a date such as this. Telling her of my dreams for my 10 acre block were a complete no-goer. I was content listening to her passioned filled dreams of  fixing her "renovators dream" with all but michelangelo doing the ceiling,

Even though the conversation was largely one sided, I thought the lunch date wasn`t going too badly. Hollywood has documented far worse lunch dates than this.

It all started in may 2006. I met online, a yet-to-be-seen brunette beauty by the name of Limo. Her wit and intelligence leapt off the page as soon as I saw her message. My initial message described myself, among other things, as a part time greenie. She asked; "do I plant trees three days a week and cut them down on the other four". This may not seem to be very interesting for most people, but for a shy, socially anxious person as myself, it was an event to behold. It was a simultaneous explosion of excitement and fun and the need for favourable acceptance completed in this new (for me) online romance parlour. It was my first message ever and I was stoked.

To most people, this is a simple exercise in human relations, but for me, it was a leap out of my comfort zone. At 43 years of age, I am a sufferer of social anxiety. It is actually a poorly know syndrome affecting up to 3% of the population at any one time. It began to manifest itself when I was 12 years old, and since then I have led a life of denial and of just getting by.

My reabilitation has just begun, thanks to this beautiful professional from Dubbo, NSW, for more or less rejecting me. She really did me a favour. It was probably her ignorance of my physical tendencies during anxiety that led to the destruction of our relationship that never really began in the first place. I don`t  hold any blame or malice toward her at all. Even though I believe I am an intellect equal to her, she rises a few rungs up the Darwinian ladder when social skills are added to the mix.

Our online chatting really struck a chord with me and I would think of precious else. I would go about my day compiling the next note to Limo in my head until it was perfect in my eyes. Two and a half months went by with Limo and I sending notes back and forth. The mood  of the writing waxing and waning as our lives ground on. Limos notes were few and far between in my eyes. I could have read one a day easily and still had want for more. I told her that her notes made me smile on the inside and out. I still stand by that description of what they did for my soul.

The day of reckoning approached slowly and unfalteringly. It seemed to take forever, but in reality it came too soon for this fragile online relationship. Limo suggested that I come for lunch at Coonabarabran. I accepted instantly in my head, unknowing that our tenuous friendship wasn`t quite prepared for my social anxiety. She wasn`t to know. How could she know? In my messages, the real, passionate, loving, needy jethro was at her literary disposal.

The knot in my stomach started about two days out from the lunch. I was adamant I wouldn`t let her know what I was feeling because I`m led to believe that women prefer confidence in their man. Social anxiety doesn`t really allow this to blossom on the first date.

As I arrived in Coonabarabran, the manifestations of social anxiety began. My whole intestines were tied in a knot, my heart was thumping everywhere in my body (except my genitals) and I wanted to get the hell out of there asap. I needed alcohol quick. After two beers I was slightly better, just freezing cold. Probably a bad mix for a first date. I watched the clock on the pub wall tick down to 5 minutes to 1pm. I strode purposefully toward her office, hoping that a focussed mind would turn me from a walking statue into the funny, passionate guy that I really am. Thankfully, she wasn`t there at first. It gave me time to adjust and try to calm down in her spartan office. God only knows what the fairly ordinary looking secretary was thinking. I quickly wondered if she was in on the whole deal. It was too late for anymore thinking as Limo literally burst through the door in her can-do now style, and in an instant she grabbed me and gave me a rather hurried embrace. She did appear a little nervous at first, but I think she calmed down pretty quicky after she saw I was a walking anxiety statue.

Limo is a beautiful woman. A rounded face with ever so slightly chubby cheeks. Her facial features are delicate and smallish, especially her nose, which is in contrast to mine. When she pursed her lips I could see the toughness of her character reveal itself. I liked her immediately.