The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. I went to the beach today with some people from the social group. I drove. I gave a lift to four people: an autistic English woman called Bea, the Greek girl I sometimes go rock climbing with, a South American guy, and a Polish man I'd never met before.

Bea was upfront with me. It made a refreshing change to have Bea sitting next to me instead of my girlfriend. My girlfriend always says "LOOK OUT!" whenever there's a car in front of me, and expects me to brake immediately. Bea doesn't say anything. Maybe that's because she's too polite. Maybe it's because she's autistic. Whatever it is, I like it.

Bea was talking about music the whole time. Bands she'd been to. "I went to see a Nirvana tribute band and at the end of the concert, the singer smashed his guitar on stage, and I was shaking my head thinking, no dude. Just no." I was trying to listen when I saw a road sign that said 80 while my speedometer said 100. I did wonder why we were going faster than the other cars. I was fined two months ago for speeding on the same road. I had to pay €50. It's a burden, being the driver. I wish I was the passenger instead.

We arrived at the beach. There were a bunch of people already there who I didn't know. I hated it, I was like, "Great, more names to remember." Vasiki, Youssef, Margos. I introduced myself to one guy and then five minutes later, I introduced myself to him again because I didn't remember his face.

Denise was there. She's the organiser of the social events. She loves yoga. She says she used to hate yoga but then she went to India and had some revelatory experience that made her change her mind. I'll have to ask her about that, it sounds quite interesting.

We'd been there five minutes when Denise said, "So who's up for yoga?" So we all did yoga on the beach. Halfway through I got up and left because I needed to do a wee. I can't concentrate on downward dog if my bladder's pestering me, can I? I went into the sea to do a wee there. The water was cold, as usual. The sea's always cold, isn't it? The waves were quite high and that, plus the fact the shore and all the sunbathers were only a few feet away, made me stressed and the wee only came out in small shy spurts. I had to try to relax to get the wee going again. It took me a few minutes to do a wee that would normally have taken seconds.

I went back and finished doing the yoga. At the end of the yoga session, we had to pair up and make a heart-shaped pose with our partner. Everyone paired up until the only people left were me and a muscular German dude. I thought, 'I'm not doing that'.

After yoga we had a picnic. We were all supposed to bring food to share. About half the people had brought crisps. I pulled out a packet of crisps too. I'd also brought some apricots to be fair.

I wasn't relaxed. I felt stressed having to remember people's names and facts about them. I was sat next to an Italian woman called Cristina. I was like, great, now I have to think of something to make conversation about with her. In the end, we somehow got talking about my former career as an essay writer. I told her I've written Master's theses for money. She was amazed. "You could write mine," she said. She's studying tourism at Girona University. But I found out her thesis has to be in Spanish, so there's no way I'm writing that.

I talked to a guy called Cesar. The last time I saw him was a month ago, when he was telling me that gaining muscle is 80% diet, and other bollocks, like "no stress, good sleep, lots of water, all really important to building muscle". It's all rubbish I reckon. The only thing that matters is lifting weights and eating calories. But today Cesar had big biceps so when the fuck did that happen? "When I go the gym, the only thing I do is rings," he said. The gymnastic rings? Whatever he's doing, it's working.

I looked around. The men all had abs, muscled chests and muscled shoulders. Do they all go to the gym every day? I go to the gym every day but I still have fat around my belly. Maybe it's because they're in their twenties and I'm in my thirties.

The girls all had flat stomachs and straight backs. They were all sitting around in bikinis. But I don't feel horny much anymore. I don't know if it's age or because of the finasteride I was taking. In a way, it's a relief, because my eyes are no longer drawn to women's breasts like they used to be, and it's not appropriate for a man to stare at a woman's breasts, especially when he's fifteen years older than them.

Bea had brought a game called Bananagrams with her so we played that for a bit. I won 2 of the 3 games and she kept saying things like, "Oh my god, you're actually good at this". I went back into the sea and did another wee. A teenage boy was swimming ahead of me. I tried to keep up with him just to prove I could. He shouted something to me in Spanish and smiled. He said something like "Big waves, right?" I didn't understand what he said so I just said "Si". Then I thought I saw a big white thing in the water. Terror pumped through my veins as I pictured a jellyfish's tendrils brushing against my pale flabby body. I started to swim back when I saw (or imagined) another white thing under the water. I swam back with panic, feeling like I was half drowning. My heart was beating fast. I got back to the shore. I was exhausted. Breathing hard.

It was getting late so I drove everyone back. We said goodbye. I walked with the Greek girl for a bit because we live in the same neighbourhood. She pointed out the building where her boyfriend lived. I felt too mentally exhausted from being social all day to put effort into the conversation.

Got home. I looked in the mirror and noticed my thinning hair. Six months from now, I might receive a fine for speeding but that's life I guess.