I like to set myself little goals in life, so that I can enjoy the masochist thrill of failing to achieve them. Right now, my goal is to feel comfortable doing completely ridiculous things - although I'm not sure if it counts as self-confidence when you're just ignoring everyone who looks at you funny. I suppose OkCupid feeds into this to an extent.

According to the people at Myers-Briggs, I am what they like to call an INTP. I don't really see it, myself.

There are the things I should be doing, and the things that I would be doing if I could only justify doing them when the things that I should be doing remain undone. And that is why there is a third category - things that I am doing because I cannot justify doing things that I would be doing, but I also cannot bring myself to do the things that I really should do.

Things I should be doing include: studying harder at University; looking for work; looking for a house; winning friends and influencing people; giving to charity; writing letters to men of state.

Things I would rather be doing include: rounding the horn in a three-master out of Dover; touring Europe with a folk combo; road-tripping across the Deep South; manning a research station in Antarctica; managing a small secondhand bookshop; singing Puccini at the Met; hiding-out on a farm in the Southern Tablelands; hiking through the Grampians; hunting the Yeti; hunting the Architeuthis; hunting the Sasquatch; producing taut supernatural thrillers; biking to Albury; learning the bass; scuba-diving; lavishing something upon someone; rolling dice with the crew of the Flying Dutchman; hosting a popular variety programme; editing a magazine; learning to tango; going on picnics; jet-skiing; swashbuckling; and visiting Sweden.

Things that I actually am doing, right now: Going for walks; reading the odd book; buying things I don't need; editing my OkCupid profile; eating pasta; memorising the articles on TV Tropes.

And that is that.

So the purpose of this section is to get me to own-up to a variety of activities that I take a little bit of pride in, even if only secretly? My actual skill level is probably not all that important.

Well then! Mario Kart 64. I like to draw, I like to write, I paint (badly), and when I can get enough enthusiasm together I'm actually a pretty decent cook. (Not "MasterChef" good, but I can follow a recipe, and I don't tend to burn anything other than eggs. One thing that I am definitely not really good at is frying eggs).

Like everyone else, I own a guitar. I'm not great at it, but I can muddle my way through the odd folk song. I would start busking, but I'd rather not contribute anything more to the world's misery. Music is a great hobby, though - it provides limitless expression, but costs nothing at all. Some pirated audio software and a couple of Alice Coltrane samples, and you're set.

Shabby, bleary-eyed, and probably singing.

Well this section is so silly that I can't help but go the reductio ad absurdum.

Books: Lewis Carroll, Italo Calvino, Jack Vance, Virginia Woolf, Arthur Machen, H.P. Lovecraft, Herman Melville, Solaris, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Franz Kafka, Shirley Hazzard, Shirley Jackson, Philip K. Dick, Umberto Eco, Graham Greene, Patricia Highsmith, Dashiell Hammett, Portnoy's Complaint, Lemony Snickett, Seamus Heaney, Jorge Luis Borges, Katherine Mansfield, Ian Fleming, Anais Nin, Nightwood, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Marco Polo, Supernatural Fiction, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Under Plum Lake, The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Richard Sala, Alan Moore, Jhonen Vasquez, Asterix, Peanuts, Jamie Smart, Douglas Adams, James M. Cain, Kobo Abe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Tank Girl, Modesty Blaise, Angela Carter, Greeks, crazy French theorists, The Canon

Music: Can, Bjork, My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division, Miles Davis, Kate Bush, Charles Mingus, Slowdive, The Pentangle, Bert Jansch, Fairport Convention, Anne Briggs, Air, Radiohead, Wire, Sleater-Kinney, Minor Threat, The Raincoats, The Slits, A Tribe Called Quest, Lee Perry, Rough Trade, The Fall, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughn, Julie London, Frank Sinatra, Debussy, Handel, Meredith Monk, Public Enemy, GZA, Erykah Badu, Curtis Mayfield, Sly and the Family Stone, Ellen Allien, Jan Jelinek, The United States of America, Silver Apples, Portishead, Broadcast, Stereolab, Clark, Pivot, Triosk, The Avalanches, Gang Star, ESG, Stevie Wonder, Funkadelic, The Kinks, Pulp, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Elizete Cardoso, Elis Regina, Francoise Hardy, Francoiz Breut, Serge Gainsbourg, Delia Derbyshire, Big Star, The Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3, Galaxie 500, Talk Talk, The Knife, Scott Walker, The Divine Comedy, dub, Wayne Shorter, Dead Can Dance, Bulgarian Choral Music, Fela Kuti, Ali Farka Toure, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Roxy Music, Sally Shapiro, PJ Harvey, The Breeders, Yo La Tengo, Prince, Cocteau Twins, Talking Heads, The Jesus and Mary Chain, minimal techno, Barbara Morgenstern, Pink Floyd, Massive Attack, The Smiths, Liars, The Fiery Furnaces, Billy Ocean, Kylie Minogue, Jan Jelinek, Fennesz, Heavenly, The Field Mice, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Beach Boys, Les Baxter, Sun Ra, De La Soul, Slayer, Mastodon, Iron Maiden, Gojira, The Chills, The Incredible String Band

Movies: Night of the Demon, The Shining, Alien, A Touch of Zen, Jacques Rivette, Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Alfred Hitchcock, Powell & Pressburger, Peeping Tom, Hammer Horror, Cat People, The Italian Job, Casino Royale, Hudson Hawk, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Showgirls, The Exorcist, Greta Garbo, His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby, Children of Paradise, Grand Illusion, Re-Animator, Brain Dead, Bad Taste, Evil Dead, Drag Me To Hell, All About Eve, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Noir, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Man Who Would Be King, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Carnival of Souls, Project A, The Prodigal Son, Zu Warriors, Lady Snowblood, Lone Wolf and Cub, Akira Kurosawa, Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Pierre Melville, Delicatessen, Branded to Kill, David Lynch, melodramas, Buster Keaton, Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Brick, The Company of Wolves, Conan the Barbarian, Stardust, Enchanted, David Cronenberg, The Incredibles, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Passion of Joan of Arc, Tarantino, Basket Case, Mel Brooks, Monty Python, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Stroszek, Spirited Away, Stanley Kubrick, A Shot in the Dark, Ealing Comedies, The Coen Brothers, Musicals, 50s Science Fiction, The Thin Man, The Wages of Fear, Eyes Without A Face, Shaft, Foxy Brown, Espionage, Exploitation, Blow-Up

Television: Black Books, Spaced, Futurama, The Simpsons, Dexter' Laboratory, Angry Beavers, Glee, Conan O'Brien, Shaun Micallef, John Safran, Farscape, Star Trek: TOS, Get Smart, The Singing Detective, Quatermass and the Pit, The Mighty Boosh, Rocko's Modern Life, Roger Ramjet, Looney Toons, Filmore, Kim Possible

I don't actually watch much TV these days.

Comestibles: Italian food, shepherd's pie, chili, ginger beer, liqourice, sarsaparilla, fudge, Earl Grey tea, beans on toast, jam sandwiches, cheesecake, cinnamon donuts, Szechuan chicken, turkey sandwiches, bacon bone soup, ANZAC biscuits, cream horns, bullseyes, humbugs, Werther's originals, Mexican food, apples, milo, peppermint, Cornettos, Golden Gaytimes, croissants, dijon mustard, capsicum, port, sour cream

Things that do not fit in other categories: I like the Goons. I enjoy the comedy stylings of Maria Bamford. I've started buying The Wire regularly, but I keep forgetting to actually read it. I bought a copy of Overland but I threw it across the room after reading an article on the need for a Republic followed directly by an article on the Whitlam Dismissal. This should be taken as an example of my profound apathy, rather than as a suggestion that I actually care about these things. I tried to be "aware". It's expensive, and you spend too much time worrying about the state of your shoes.

Oh, and I have semi-crushes on Carole Lombard and Joan Fontaine.

This could all have been inferred from context.

Caffeine, biscuits, going for walks, bothering people, whining and sitting about.

Ethics, philosophy, aesthetics, puns, amusing anecdotes, shoes, egalitarianism, history, authenticity, social responsibility, the Greater Good, what I'll be having for dinner, and all the other big issues that preoccupy idle young men. So, mostly myself.

I hate this section. Nothing. Nothing! I'm all alone, damn you! I'm a cockroach! I'm an empty husk! Didn't you hear the crunch as you brought down the boot?

No but seriously, I am just a homebody. I have a couple of friends I like to hang-out with, and I get dragged to bars and nightclubs and stuff sometimes, but I'd rather go out for coffee or see a movie or something. I'm pretty boring, really. I spend most Fridays browsing the internet or reading a book.

I could answer seriously and come across as a creep, or I could answer with something cutesy and come across as a fool. As it is, I've answered with an analysis and come across as cynical, slightly pretentious, and simultaneously too insecure to be honest and too honest to just leave the box blank.

Ironically, however, by refusing to answer in such a way I have in fact admitted (implicitly) that I am hopelessly neurotic.

Oh just do it! What have you got to lose?