Thanks all for your replies, I knew you would all come good!

I think you point it out rightly Wally , he doesn't have a lot of free time, I know that and accept that and that's how it will be for the next six months. I've said I'm happy to take things slowly and steady if needbe but it's that lack of clarity. I don't want to start dating other people and then he says, oh, I thought something was going on between us. Yet if I ask if something is, I don't get a clear answer. It's like going round in circles!

But I'm going to do the play it cool thing. I am due up to his town in a few weeks time, I'll see how I feel by then about things but I am slowly starting to get and about a bit more here.

No, he's very much single - that thought did cross my mind!

I know, I need to just leave it and act all cool. I know he is very busy and I know why (due to his job and forthcoming promotion), I just like people to be honest and direct with me.

Never mind, it's not exactly as if I'm fighting them off with a stick anyway!

I am male, yes. And of course you're new ;)

Okay, the situation is this.

About six/seven months ago I found this random number in my phone of this guy. Not sure who he was, so I thought, hey I'll text and see who it is. Anyway, once he'd replied I vaguely remembered who he was although not sure where on earth I got his number from (I think it was from mutual friends, although we don't seem to have any!). So we kept texting on an off, I was living about 40 miles away. Was nice kind of stuff, how was your day, what you up to at the weekend etc

Anyway, eventually we decided to meet up as we seemed to have a lot in common and I was going to his town for a concert. Plus I was just about to move ready for my new job so it seemed like a good idea. We met up and it was great, but nothing special, but did really like him. We kept in contact, as I was then just moving for my new job, although now again about 40 miles away different direction. We met up a few times again for dinner (as I can go via his town to get to visit my parents) and all was wonderful. So I thought...

Then he just went quiet. I text a few times, rang a few times. Nothing. Eventually I got a response saying he was "busy". Okay, fair enough, he is and I know he is so I said, tell me if you're not interested. He asked what had given the impression he wasn't (!) but things seemed to be okay.

Then he went quiet again when I asked if we could meet up again, as I do occassionally work in his town with my new job. Nothing again. So I was a bit rude when he finally replied and told him either to stop leading me on and just say "not interested" or else tell me what is going on. Then I got rather angry when he couldn't make up his mind - out of frustration more than anything else. I'm still getting used to a new job and a new town and new surroundings and it wasn't the best of timings.

So... not sure what I do now? I have apologised for my rather unprofessional outburst, though not for what I said as I don't think I'm wrong that he seems to have been leading me on. I do like him, I'm happy to make the effort as he works lot longer hours than I do. I just wish he would say either way, but he doesn't seem to be able to and that's more frustrating than an outright no!

Come on agony aunts and uncles of PGF, DanB needs your advice :-x

My viva lasted two and a half hours but felt like five minutes. At the start they asked me to summarise through the thesis highlighting the main ideas and the 'story' of it - so how I went from one section to another, what motivated it, why I was interested in that.

Then they went through chapter by chapter asking more specific questions, so where I wasn't clear I had to clarify what I meant, or justify why I had chosen a given approach compared to others. When it came to the chapters on my 'novel' work, we went into greater depth - less because they hadn't understood it but the external was actually genuinely interested as it was quite an unusual approach I took.

Afterwards we discussed where my work could go, so if someone was coming to it and wanted to continue it what direction I would advise them to go.

Then I went away for a cup of tea and came back half hour later to be told I had passed :)

I would check the conditions of your uni. Many will have a deadline about such things (mine did). I think it would be highly unlikely you could defer it for quite so long but you will need to ask your registry.

Keep at it, it'll soon be done, and it will be such a wonderful feeling I remember it well :)

Yes

I mean No

I mean Maybe

I need a poll to answer.

Between starting my PhD and finishing, I put on 4 stone (not all due to the PhD, a bad relationship didn't help!). I've lost 2 stone of that since though. Now jsut got to shift the rest...

Sorry, I should have perhaps said I did a PhD in statistics and work as a statistician for a living - whilst I'm always happy that people should want to use statistics (and I try and people to get to use more!) sometimes it isn't appropriate. In this case, it's nice you'd like to try something but it really will just give you results that lack any meaning. Sometimes another method actually will have far more meaning, such as displaying the results graphically.

Now I just have to get the people at work to stop using dodgy statistics to get their point across, despite being totally misleading

:-s

Teek, I think it was probably friends, family and fellow people who like "dressing up".

Oh dear, looks like our beloved Garryck only managed 35 votes!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/constituency/b16.stm

At least he didn't come last :)

In which case, just do it visually and scrap the statistics, your results will be virtually meaningless.

I would love to stay up like last time but I have a real job to go to in the morning :( I want to be a PhD student again!

Hoping to see our very own garryck dressed up as gee gee!

How strange. Are the options for "no" and "cannot" different in some way? And I guess "maybe" isn't going to be all that helpful a response either.

Are you sure you're up to the intellectual rigour of a PhD?