The dirty and the indifferent.

Know what it feels like to want attention, only to get it from all the wrong places?  Welcome to my world.  I don't know whether it's my non-threatening face, my tough stance against velour tracksuits, or just some 'Come get it while it's lukewarm' vibe I'm inadvertently throwing out, but lately I seem to have become the pin-up girl for a clique I really wish I wasn't cool enough for: The Dirty Old Men Club.  While guys my own age remain relatively indifferent to my charms, I'm getting hit upon by fellas who are a few little blue pills shy of being my Dad's drinking buddies. 

The first incident started innocently enough.  While dropping my son off at a birthday party, I was invited in for a coffee.  I sat down and chatted with the birthday boy's mother and a family friend for awhile, thanked them and left.  A week later the family friend, a man in his late fifties, arrived on my doorstep with a DVD in hand.  He explained that my son told him he was a huge fan of stand up comedy, and had put together a compilation for him.  I told my son to thank him and invited him in for a coffee.  The true nature of his visit was revealed when he remarked how astonished he was that I was still unattached, and I had to spend the next twenty minutes or so balancing my coffee cup precariously on one crossed knee while using my hands to cover the area toward which he was directing his compliments.  Once I casually dropped into the conversation the fact that my (fictitious) brother was a policeman and amateur boxer who would shortly be getting up, my guest took the hint and left, never to be seen again.    

You might want to reserve that sharp intake of breath I sense you were about to have...it gets worse.

After my landlord sent me an inspection notice, I went into panic mode and started calling professional cleaning services to ask what the going rate was for cleaning and sanitising a three bedroom petri dish.  Shocked, but unsurprised that every one of them said they couldn't do the job for anything less than a Brazilian kidnapper's ransom demand, I began mentally cataloguing my DVDs and wrapping my glassware in newspaper to prepare for moving day.  Then my mother reminded me that she knew a guy.  Nigel had been cleaning her apartment, and those of her neighbours, for the past twenty two years, so I gave him a chance. After taking a quick tour of the place, he quoted me half the next best offer, and I hired him on the spot.  It was only when I was seeing him off at the door upon completion of the job that I found out what my slovenly habits were really going to cost me.

'Listen,' he said, 'I know you must find it hard being on your own, so if ever you feel at a loss, just give me a ring.  My wife goes interstate to see her mother every second weekend - we could catch up.'  I slammed the door in his face and, needless to say, my newly spruced up house might have appeared spotless to my landlord, but it sure felt dirty to me.  I'll sum things up and spare you the horror stories of spurned semi-retired taxi driver advances and the grinning pizza shop proprietor who offered to throw in extra cheese for free, if you'll pardon the double entendre, lest I put you off whatever meal you might be trying to enjoy while you read this.  I marvel at the fact that I spent my mid to late twenties committed to a man whose football got more physical contact than I did, and never cheated on him despite the offers I got from men who were also in their twenties at the time.  Now that I'm single again, men my own age seem to be beating a path to the fire escape, while their Dad's chat me up at the bar! 

If there's a lesson here, I think it's that whoever you are, however old you are, the universe is a perverse old bastard with a wicked sense of humour who enjoys getting shits and giggles at our expense, and the best thing to do is to laugh it off and move on, which is what I'm going to do...once I'm done changing my locks and throwing out all my v-neck tops.
             

Making fate my bitch...

After a month and a half of publishing posts that have probably made dating site administrators cry themselves to sleep at night, I decided enough was enough and deleted my profiles.  Yes, my Online Doppelganger has been returned to the parallel universe from whence she came and I am once again completely reliant on good old Madame Fate.  I know some of you might be thinking; why are you limiting your options?  I honestly don't think I am.  In fact, I think that anyone who relies solely on dating/matchmaking services to find love, or a facsimile thereof, is destined to spend a whole bunch of quality time with their keyboard and a lot of Saturday nights on dates that leave them feeling like they're auditioning housemates for a Big Brother comeback.  Despite the tidal wave of advertising space they take up, there is no such thing as a guarantee that you will find 'lasting love' by filling out a personality questionnaire.  How many people do you think are completely honest in those things?  After all, sloth-like, couch moistening Dungeon Master just doesn't have quite the same ring to it as easy going, quiet living intellectual, does it?        

Femmish to English: a translation guide.

Expanding on yesterdays post, in which I reviewed an article on the apparently manipulative way women communicate with men in order to get what we want, I thought I'd make things easier for the guys out there still operating under the gross misconception that we are all evil puppet masters.  I'm positive there aren't many of you, and I trust that all two per cent of you will find the following informative.

FEMMISH TO ENGLISH: A TRANSLATION GUIDE TO COMMON PHRASES.

No (Femmish).  No (English).  I'm not in the mood now, but if you keep pawing at me I just might become inflamed with desire and ravish you (Mistranslation).

I'm tired (Femmish).  I'm tired (English).  Please be my servant (Mistranslation).

I'm sick (Femmish).  I'm sick (English).  I'm willing to feign an exotic disease in order to prevent you from going out with your friends on the wicked night of drunken whore mongering I'm certain you have planned (Mistranslation). 

I love you (Femmish).  I love you (English).  You are the poor bastard I've decided to stick my talons into and render useless to other women from the neck down (Mistranslation).

I've been thinking about you (Femmish).  I've been thinking about you (English).  I've been sitting around in my pyjamas for the past two days, tracking down your house on Google Earth and contemplating the thousands of methods I could employ to hurt you if you didn't call soon (Mistranslation).
 

Please help me with this (Femmish).  Please help me with this (English).  Please drop whatever it was you were doing immediately and come do my bidding (Mistranslation).

We need to talk (Femmish).  We need to talk (English).  I''m pissed off, pregnant or about to propose (Mistranslation). 

What a cute baby (Femmish).  What a cute baby (English).  Brace yourself...Daddy (Mistranslation).

I like your mother (Femmish).  I like your mother (English).  Your mother and I are going out to scout for reception venues later (Mistranslation).

I thought you'd like this shirt (Femmish).  I thought you'd like this shirt (English).  I'm slowly but surely trying to change everything about you, starting with your fashion sense (Mistranslation).

Your friend is mean to me (Femmish). Your friend is mean to me (English). Your friend is at the top of my 'People to alienate you from in order to have you all to myself' list (Mistranslation). 

You're being a Douche (Femmish).  You're being a Douche (English).  I have resorted to childish name-calling because you were right and I was wrong, and I hope that doing so will illicit a half-hearted apology for daring to showcase your intellectual superiority (Mistranslation).  

I'm reasonably certain this guide will help, but should you still be unsure what a woman means when she uses any of the above phrases, there is one simple, sure-fire solution...

JUST FRIGGIN' ASK!



   

 

                                    

From the Oh my friggin' God files...

The jewels I find while playing Google Search Bingo never cease to amaze me.  This morning I discovered a site built by men, for men, for the altruistic purpose of helping them to better understand us women.  The particular article I happened to stumble upon attempted to explain the differences between what women say and what they mean.  Not one to cast a shadow over journalistic integrity, the author duly credited his source - a female spy named Pamela (nothing remotely suspicious about that pseudonym).  'Pamela' put her life on the line to clue the author in on the fact that we subtly manipulate our language in order to hide that we're asking for something.  Apparently, guys are so dumb that they won't realise they're doing us a favour and consequently won't ask us for one in return.  'Pamela' went on to provide some helpful examples.

If a woman says: 'I'm so tired!'  she means: 'Can you pick me up from work?'  If a woman says 'I feel sick,' she means 'Don't go on a lads night out tonight,' and if she says anything with the words 'Mother;' 'Hair;' or 'Work' in it, she means 'Not tonight, baby.'  I know a few of my male readers, and they are all sharp, witty, intuitive guys, so the following message is not intended for them, but rather for any men who find women so confusing that they need to rely on 'self-help' articles to communicate with us, (and I seriously hope such a creature doesn't actually exist).  When we say 'I'm so tired,' we mean 'I'm so tired.'  When we say 'I feel sick,' we mean 'I feel sick, swap bodily fluids with me at your own risk.'  As for using our mothers, our hair or work to get out of sex, I honestly don't think that's likely in the twenty-first century unless your 'girlfriend' lives in the magic, 52 inch black box on your wall. 

The rest of the site, featuring articles with titles like 'How to impress a woman without spending all your money' and 'What's stopping you from sealing the deal,' are enough to send any female writer worth her salt into multiple blog-gasms.  I was torn between wiping up the coffee I kept spitting and highlighting all the lampoon-worthy passages, (I haven't seen so much blue since Avatar).  I can't say that the site made me angry; it wasn't thought provoking enough.  It didn't make me sad, either; I have too much faith in the wisdom of the majority of the male population for that.  The only way I can think of to summarise the way it made me feel is with a time honoured expression that crosses cultural and gender boundaries alike...

HA, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!                

      

Swearing to keep it casual.

No, this isn't going to be a manifesto on the prevalence of F Bomb dropping in polite society, of which I am a fan by the way; today's post was inspired by a conversation I had with my friend Carla last night.  Several months ago, she went out on a few dates with a guy, began to have feelings for him, then cooled off when she suspected he might have been lying to her about seeing other women, amongst other things.  She told him it was over, then spent the next couple of months being bombarded with text messages.  After bumping into him recently, he explained his situation quite plausibly and she decided to give it another try.  Although he hasn't stated it outright, Carla knows he wants to keep things fairly casual, and she says she is okay with this, but I know her.  Having a 'Special Friend' isn't going to satisfy her for long because she is a very moral woman with a lot of love to give the right person.  Personally, I don't have a problem with it; I've enjoyed no strings attached relationships in the past and can't swear that I won't again (with a surface dwelling guy this time), but my question is this: can a certified, ticket-holding commitment fan train herself to enjoy something more casual?  Obviously, for reasons I don't need to go into here, an ongoing fling can be a blast, but if you're the sort of person who has a blueprint for the future that involves growing old with someone, how long will it be before want turns into need?  My regular readers will know that, when it comes to my own romantic future, I'm a big fan of leaving things in the hands of Madame Serendipity.  If I find someone I can happily see myself legally bound to for eternity, great; if it turns out I'd prefer that he kept his shoes under his own bed, that's cool too.  But I do worry about Carla.  I've told her just to do what feels right, because all to often we're so busy playing monkey in the middle between our head and our heart that our gut is left sidelined, excluded from the game.                   

Five reasons being single kicks arse.

Whether it's the gorgeous conditions we're experiencing here at the moment, or the migraine medication I've had to choke down because of them, I'm feeling extraordinarily positive today.  Relax, I'm sure it won't last, but as long as it does I thought I'd share with you a revelation that came to me while I was laying outside under the clothes line with a wet towel on my head: Being single kicks arse!  Don't get me wrong, coupledom is great and as relationship statuses go, I'd obviously like to be able to tick the box that says 'Taken,' but there are some things you can do that are much more fun when you're sans partner.  Here is my top five...

1.   EATING LIKE YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO LIVE.  I love my food.  Whether I'm relishing a plate of Beef Burgundy that's been slow cooked over the course of a day so that it melts in my mouth like cotton candy, or scarfing down a bacon cheeseburger prepared by a sweaty sixteen year old, I consider dining nothing short of a religious experience.  But when I'm dating someone, I pick the healthiest item on the menu because I'm terrified that he'll see the woman I was several years and several kilos ago, itching to bust out of her skinny prison.  Ridiculous as that may sound, I'm reasonably confident I'm not alone.  These days, I'm enjoying every meal as though it's my last day on Earth; even if it does mean running until I can feel my heart beating in my throat.

2.  BEING 'UN-LADYLIKE.'  It is a widespread misconception that all us ladies live a neat, clean, pretty, orderly existence, while our male counterparts are free to burp, fart, swear and scratch to their hearts content.  I am proud to admit that I am not someone who helps perpetuate this myth, much to my mother's chagrin, but to those who find the idea of expelling gas and screaming expletives in front of a man more mortifying than finding half a cockroach in your lasagna, I encourage you to enjoy your freedom while you can!  Burp the alphabet in a posh restaurant.  Throw caution to the wind (so to speak) and eat nothing but curry for a week.  Listen to talk radio on your way to work, just to see how many disgusting adjectives you can come up with to describe the callers.  Go forth and offend, my sisters!

3.  BEING COMFORTABLE.  What good is that hot pink, lace G-string if there's no one there to see it?  Unless you happen to enjoy the sensation of having underwear elastic nuzzling your colon, slip on the adorable Snoopy briefs you bought for five bucks at K-Mart, and bask in the breathable cottony indulgence.            

4.  INDULGING YOUR WANDERING EYE.  Let's face it, we've all been guilty of doing a double take when a hot guy with an aesthetically pleasing posterior walks by, but the stealthy way you need to operate in order to do this while you're in a relationship can be exhausting.  As a single woman however, you have the freedom, nay, the obligation to perve with abandon!  You owe it to your coupled sisters to do what they would do if they had your chance! 

5.  GETTING DRUNK AND SINGING BAD KARAOKE.  Not that singles are the only ones who do this, but getting fired up on Tequila and belting out 'All by myself' and 'You oughtta know' takes on a whole new significance when you know there's not going to be anyone to hold back your hair when you're worshipping at the porcelain altar later on. 

I don't know about you, but I plan on doing all of the above things this weekend - I might even do a couple of them simultaneously!  If you can think of five things that are more fun to do single, let me know!   

  

High school never ends

Rereading my last post, wherein I lamented the return of my chronic shyness, has lead me to reflect on a time when it was at its peak: my teen years.  Why would I want to do that in a blog about the horrors of dating past thirty?  Allow me to explain.  Adolescence is like a glorious sort of limbo; you're not a kid anymore, but you're not a grown up.  You can do all the fun things like date, party, eat crappy food and drink without having to worry about kids, work, rent/mortgage, bills, etc.  Then when you hit adulthood and take on all the responsibilities that come with it, you can always look back fondly on that time and know that you didn't miss out on anything.  But not everybody has that luxury.  Some people, and this is purely a hypothesis, you understand, spent their teens hiding from the tough kids in the library, writing poetry about one of the hundreds of boys their hormone addled heart was fixated on and cursing the fact that they won their dad's nose and jaw in the genetic lottery.  Anyone who inhaled sharply at this (purely hypothetical) account of adolescence will probably be familiar with the following scenario. 

Say you're a single woman in her mid to late thirties.  Your love life has hit a slump, as has your social life, and you find yourself transported back to a time you thought dead and buried, wondering whether things would be better now had you done something differently then.  Maybe that guy in seventh grade whose timetable you memorised just so you'd be able to bump into him would have liked you if you'd been 'normal.'  Maybe if you'd tried to make yourself look prettier, he would have asked you out.  Then you would have had your first kiss a lot earlier, and probably dated a few more boys before graduation, which would have made you a bit more streetwise when it came to choosing guys post high school.  Maybe then you wouldn't have fallen for the wrong guy, had your heart broken, and ended up alone at a time when it's statistically less likely for you to find love.  The solution to this problem is to remember that high school was twenty plus years ago, and that time and Karma make excellent bedfellows.  The hot bad boy you drooled over when you were fourteen?  Years of smoking and sunbathing have probably left him looking like an imitation leather purse from South East Asia, which is where the hot girl he married has to visit him while he does time for drug trafficking.  The Thor lookalike with the biceps that could crack walnuts?  Decades of throwing parties you were never invited to have undoubtedly given him a beer belly that could double as an end table.  The cool guy with girls dripping off him like diamonds, who held you in the same esteem as dog leavings?  It's hard to woo women when child support takes three quarters of your income.  The past is a great place for a vacation.  Visit the old haunts, marvel at how different they look now that you're an inch or two taller and a great deal wiser; but if you stay too long, you'll never leave, and fun as The Breakfast Club is to watch, who wants to be stuck in eternal detention with those arseholes?                                    

My glittering anti-social life.

I was scrolling through the friends list on my Facebook page when I came to the realisation that I had more Facebook friends than regular friends.  I know I'm not alone there; most profiles have a one to two hundred strong friends list, and nobody can say they've actually met that many people, but what if I was to tell you that my tally came to a grand total of eight?  Yes, you read right, eight.  I then did some investigating into why my social circle was so small, and once again, my trusty laptop provided the answer.  The grid list that pops up on screen whenever I open up a new tab revealed something startling: I was addicted to social media.  Saturday nights for my flesh and blood friends (all three of them) consist of drinking, partying, eating food that doesn't come flat-packed in cardboard and meeting real live men.  A kid-free Saturday evening at Mel's is usually spent adding to the list of people I follow on Twitter who will never follow me back, eating pizza that could double as a steering wheel for Mario Kart, laughing at dating site profiles, and posting hourly status updates on Facebook (8.00 p.m: ate dinner...9.00 pm: watched Buffy...10.00 p.m: hid the painkillers...you get the idea). 

My shyness has been with me for as long as I can remember, and the reason I find it difficult to let go of, believe it or not, is that it has been as much a friend as it has an enemy.  Had I not been too shy to go out and play with the kids in my neighbourhood as a little girl, I probably wouldn't have fallen in love with writing as early as I did.  But who's to say I wouldn't have fallen in love with it anyway, at some point?  I have spent the past few days dreaming up dozens of plausible sounding excuses to get me out of going out this Saturday night on what my regular readers will know is the first date I've had in over a year.  Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?  Well, the madness doesn't stop there.  My best friend Corrina turns forty in two weeks time, and has invited me to her party.  Given the fact that she is the closest thing I've ever had to a sister, and that we've known each other since we were eleven and twelve, you would think I'd be dress shopping and writing a speech.  Instead, I'm sweating bullets at the thought of her twenty plus guests seeing me out of my jeans and judging my style.  I'm letting something I can control take control of me and jip me out of what will probably be an absolute blast.  What's worse is that I did actually manage to kick the shyness habit for a long time.  Once high school was behind me, I went wild.  A large chunk of the first half of my twenties is a blissful blur; I made all the mistakes and faux pas I should have made in my teens, and then some...it was awesome!  Somewhere around the time of my thirty seventh birthday, however, a toxic relationship (I call it a relationship because I can't think of a PG euphemism for it), and dozens of other little things ganged up to wage an all out assault on my ego, which resulted in me bowing to the irresistible temptation to throw in the towel and weld my rapidly expanding bum to the couch.  I've since dropped all the weight, but can't quite seem to shift the ten kilos of self doubt that's crushing down on my brain like a bag of cement. 

To put it simply; I know I'm a cool, interesting, funny person with a lot to say; the thing that's intermittently holding me back is that I'm terrified no one else will listen.  I feel utterly ridiculous just reading that back; I've spent the past four weeks or so telling you all to get off your arses and get what you want before someone else grabs it, yet I'm stuck posing for the before shot in a self esteem wonder drug ad!  Okay, enough of this.  This post was really just to let you know that we all have our down days/weeks/months/years, and that they do pass; whether these dark times stroll off at an infuriatingly leisurely pace, or streak by and jump out the window to a grizzly death is up to one person, and one person alone.  I am now about to tear that person a new one, thereby forcing her to take those dark times and send them to the Bermuda Triangle in a single engine plane.       

                         

Flirting, for dummies?

Every now and then, I like to conduct dating related searches on Google.  Not because I'm stuck for material, but because I find that cyberspace is an inexhaustible wealth of semi-useless, half baked, laughable information.  The articles that interest me most are the ones riddled with words like 'Guarantee,' 'Secret,' and 'Power.'  I found just such a gem this morning.  The authors begin the article by appealing to guys who have trouble getting beyond the friend barrier, and guarantee that once they have this beguiling arsenal at their disposal, women will be clambering over one another to get to them.  And it isn't just weak willed or easily charmed women who'll fall at their feet, either; they claim that any woman will want the lucky guy who happens to spend his hard earned cash on this thirteen C.D seduction course.  Allow me to do a quick summary of the first five techniques on the Lothario's list, and give you an average/sober woman's point of view on them.

1.  SMILING; THE BIGGER, THE BETTER.  Seems an elementary gesture, I know, but apparently a lot of guys are doing it wrong.  The solution?  Practice smiling in the mirror!  To really get that hottie to notice them, fellas should get used to smiling as widely as they can manage.  Here's a scenario for you, ladies: you're sitting in a cafe, minding your own business, when the complete stranger at the table across from you flashes you a grin so wide it looks like the corners of his mouth will split.  Would you think a) Gosh, that guy is sexually attracted to me, or b) Gosh, I think that guy might be the escaped homicidal maniac they were talking about on the eleven o'clock news last night?

2.  LET HER CATCH YOU LOOKING.  Now that the ice has been broken, the next step for our socially awkward loverboys is to wait until the object of their desire looks their way again, flash her another smile, lock eyes with her a moment, then look away.  I'm tipping that the chances of success with this technique would vary, depending on the reason for the lady in question's appraising glance.  Either she's sizing up his boyfriend potential, or she's trying to memorize his features for the identikit picture she plans on making at the police station later.

3.  WAVING.  The authors tell us that this technique is best performed in conjunction with techniques one and two, as a cheeky but non-intrusive way to say hi.  I can't speak for any other woman reading this, but I'm not bothered at all when the one moment of my day when I can unwind, sip an iced coffee and forget about school, bills, appointments, food shopping, work, hastily prepared dinners and upcoming visits to the Principal's office is gatecrashed by a dude who has to resort to waving like a lunatic at unsuspecting women in order to get layed.

4.  WINKING.  Good news; this is something a guy can do anywhere and at any time, whether it's from across the room, or during a conversation.  Winking at her from across the room says, I'm very interested in you...so much so that I've been following you for the last three weeks. If a woman says something funny, all a guy has to do is wink at her to let her know he understands this is her way of creating a moment for the two of them to share.  Just when I thought that the only guys who still did this were the kind who were immortalised in films like A night at the Roxbury.

5.  ASKING: 'WHAT'S THE STORY THERE?'  The authors assure any guy who hasn't clicked the big red x in the corner of their screen by now that this question is an ideal conversation starter, and can be applied to anything his 'quarry' (yes, they actually use that word) is wearing or carrying on their person.  If she's wearing a pretty bracelet, asking 'What's the story there?' will net the enquirer a run down on the lady's shopping habits, thus discouraging her from communicating as she otherwise would, with the back of her hand.  I wonder how much further the conversation would progress if the answer was 'I stole it back from the guy who mugged me earlier, just before I bludgeoned him to death with the rock I've got in my handbag?'

My main objection with these sorts of tutorials is the motivation behind them.  Given that the self-proclaimed 'Dating Coaches' flanked their article with ads for the aforementioned, thirteen C.D set seduction course and other social refresher classes, I'd say that they were less concerned with self-help than they were to helping themselves to their unwitting customer's money.  I know it sounds as though I'm just being mean to get a laugh, but don't misunderstand me; I love to be flirted with.  It's flattering and like any other woman, I will respond well if I'm interested, but the thought that there are actually guys out there who are so down on themselves that they will pay a so called expert to teach them how to con women into liking them genuinely saddens me.  Guys: adopting a formulaic approach with a woman is more likely to piss her off than it is to woo her.  Even if it does work, she will eventually see the real you, and if the sweet talking pick up artist is the guy she, inexplicably, wants to wake up next to everyday for the rest of her life, you my friends are in for heartbreak.

     

The young and the hopeless

Quick question, readers: is a thirty-nine year old woman being nervous about going on a date completely insane?  Scott and I have been chatting for a while since we met on a dating site, (no, he isn't the dud I discussed in 'Did the Internet kill romance?'), and I know a little apprehension is understandable, given the fact that my last date was just over a year ago, but can someone please explain to me why my brain is already swimming with worst case scenarios?  He is sweet, gorgeous and six years younger than me.  All that should be cause for celebration, right?  Once again my frontal lobe, that pesky little part of the brain responsible for, amongst other things, reasoning, has let me down by going into overdrive.  Sweetness, it tells me, is an act he's putting on, either to get into my pants or to lull me into a false sense of security long enough to get me into his car and drive me out into the middle of nowhere, where I'll become the seventeenth victim in his cross-country homicide spree.  The fact that he could pass for Taylor Lautner's older brother, it scoffs, is only going to make it even more humiliating when he sees me in daylight and marvels at what good lighting and a strategic camera angle can do for a profile shot.  All that has my palms sweaty enough to render holding precious objects dangerous, but it's on the subject of age that the internal bashing really starts.

A six year age gap might not seem huge, but I'll be forty next year.  There are couples whose age gap is wider, Deborah Lee Furness got Hugh Jackman and Demi Moore wakes up next to Ashton Kutcher every morning, but there are two key differences between these women and myself.  Deborah didn't have to worry about a teenager ruining the romantic mood by playing goth metal when she and Hugh first met, and all the expensive skin creams in the world aint gonna change the fact that the only thing Demi and I share is a sir name.  I was discussing this with my mother yesterday, and by discussing I mean obsessing, and she told me I was being ridiculous; I was beautiful and that I had nothing to worry about, but what else was she going to say?  "You got your looks from your Dad's side of the family, but don't worry; I'm sure he won't be concentrating on your face if you wear a tight dress."  Am I alone here?  Have you been K.O.'d by self doubt?  Let me know...it will give me something to ponder between slathering on youth serum and hiding all my 80's C.D's!              

Who says I'm not cool?

Sitting here in my pink hoodie, ugg boots and p.j's reading over yesterday's post, (yes, I am that obsessive), it occurs to me that I should expand on the ending a little.  Rather than just tell you to focus on what's cool about yourself, I should provide a practical example, so what follows is a list of some of the stuff I think is great about me and that should make me irresistible to the opposite sex. 

*Note: I have had roughly four hours sleep, so you'll forgive me if my train of thought seems somewhat scattered.  Hey, I'm not Anthony friggin' Robbins!

1.  I don't wear trackies/sweats.  Maybe it's because I lived through the seventies and saw first hand the devastating effects of velour tracksuit addiction, but the only time this behind is clad in fleece is when it's lying in bed in the middle of a Melbourne winter.

2.  I have a pathological hatred for soap operas.  The appeal of the derivative, repetitive, mind raping phenomena known as 'Daytime Drama' has always escaped me.  How many times can one woman marry into the same family/stand trial for murder/return from the dead?  Maybe it's because I have some semblance of a life (such as it is), but the thought of surrendering an hour of my time to this crap makes me want to rig my T.V with a truckload of C4 explosive.  Want to watch Saw five for the seventieth time, Babe?  You're on! 

3.  I'm not a neat freak.  I suppose this could also be considered a bad trait, but when it comes to being house proud, I did not take after my mother.  I dust once a month, or when the top of my T.V unit starts to look like winter in Switzerland; I iron my jeans by chucking them in the dryer on high, and my kid and I have enough odd socks to start a dating service for hosiery.  The lucky dude who ends up with me won't have to worry about putting a beer can on the coffee table without a coaster, and as for executing a perfect three-point fold before hanging up a bath towel?  In my house, it's a bonus if the damn thing isn't on the floor!

4.  I can be immature.  I may be celebrating my fourth decade of existence next year, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start listening to talk radio and eating All Bran.  I know what a Meme is, I still laugh at a well-timed Michael Hawk joke, I think monthly left over pizza breakfasts are mandatory, and I shop in clothing stores where the person serving me was probably an amoeba when I graduated high school.  Got a problem with that?

5.  I can laugh at myself.  This should come as no surprise to my regular readers, who will have guessed by now that my blog is a giant exercise in comical self-flagellation, but I think it's absolutely imperative to a person's well being that they don't take themselves too seriously.

6.  I'm not a princess.  Ever wanted to let out a ground-shaking belch without reproach?  Enjoy the odd distasteful joke?  Want to borrow my IPod before you go for a run and not have to scroll through Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and Celine Dion tracks?  I'm your girl.

7.  I have a vocabulary.  I enjoy conversation; it's good for the soul, keeps the brain active, and allows me to interact with people on a personal level.  It's also a way of letting the world know that I can, and indeed have, read a book, and that I think syllables are a terrible thing to waste.

Well I'll be damned; I do feel good about myself again!  Give it a try and see if it works for you.  Better yet, post your list on my Mad Mel Facebook page, tweet it to me, or leave it in the comments section.    

      

A cure for a social disease

Are you the only single adult in your family?  Do people look at you like someone branded the word 'Desperate' on your forehead whenever you show up to a party alone?  Are people commenting on the stench of failure that seems to permeate your skin?  What you have is a fairly common condition, of which I am a fellow sufferer: Sympathetic Hyper Interested Tool Syndrome.  This condition is suffered largely by singles thirty years of age and over, and the source of infection is most likely to be a friend, relative, co-worker or acquaintance who is either married or in a steady relationship.  The following symptoms are the most common.

-  Acute anxiety when faced with the prospect of attending a formal event, such as a wedding, alone.  May be accompanied by nausea, excessive perspiration and diarrhea if the bride has an unattached relative, friend or embittered ex-boyfriend she wants to introduce to/throw at you.

-  Sudden, sharp decrease in self-worth.  This is usually brought on by one sided conversations with a close family member, more than likely a parent, on the direct correlation between your lack of marital status and your socio-economic predicament.

-  Sudden, sharp increase in body temperature, brought on by either rage or embarrassment at unwanted, unwarranted and often insincere sympathetic gestures from attached friends and acquaintances.  False sad expressions, pats on the shoulder and the 'Aww,' noise appear to illicit the strongest effect.

If you think you might have this potentially crippling affliction, don't despair.  There is a relatively painless cure.  Simply perform the following three step procedure, and you will reap the benefits for life.  Note: Repetition of the procedure may be necessary in severe cases.

1.  Go to the place where you are at your most relaxed and find a comfortable spot to sit.

2.  Shut out the negative thoughts that are stabbing away at your brain, and reflect instead on your best features, such as your intelligence, creativity, and sense of humour.

3.  Confront the person responsible for passing on the disease, and say: I like the way I am.  I don't need your pity/assistance/cast-offs, and I will not let you give me the S.H.I.T.S again! 

*This post is for my best friend, Corrina.  You go girl!    
         

My son, the love philosopher

I don't think there's a person in the world who hasn't suffered low self-esteem.  Even if your last name's Kardashian, I'd bet my limited edition Buffy box set you've encountered that little ol' devil somewhere along the line.  Fortunately, life usually finds a way to cushion your fall just as you make the proverbial twelve story leap.  My air mattress came in the form of my thirteen year old son, G.  I had just received an email from a friend of mine who was honeymooning in America and, while I was (and am) absolutely stoked for her, I'm ashamed to confess that the attached photos of the blissed-out couple posing in front of every damn Hollywood landmark Google Maps ever listed did bring me down somewhat.  We were both in our thirties, (I'm three years older, but there's no point dwelling on that), we both had children, and you could fill two equally huge volumes with stories of the mistakes we've both made, so why had it worked out so well for her and not for me?  Yes, I was coming down with a serious case of the 'Why-not-Me's.' 

One of the reasons I would make a terrible criminal is that I am so easy to read, which is why G was able to see straight through my 'I'm fine' routine within ten seconds of entering the room and sitting down next to me on the couch.  He glanced furtively at the pictures on my laptop, then put his arm around my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek.

'You're beautiful, Mum.'

I hugged him, grateful that I forgot to take that little white pill all those years ago, and regretting the verbal barrage I'd unleashed upon him earlier for failing to clean the crack den he called a room.  My son is the single most brutally honest person you are ever likely to meet.  He will give you his unbiased, uncensored opinion, like it or not, so I took the compliment as more than just obligatory pity.  I kissed his cheek and sent him off to bed, proud of my free range child raising philosophy.

'It's your age that's the problem!' 

If anyone has a windowless barn available for rent, let me know.

                     

Five reasons I'll probably be single forever (data gathered from various sources)

1.  I'm too picky.  I've waxed lyrical on this subject before, but I thought I'd address it again because my mum, my friends, and even complete strangers are constantly saying 'Loosen up,' 'Broaden (my) horizons,' 'Be more open minded,' and countless other cliched phrases that, loosely translated, mean the same thing; You're forty next year, take what you can get. 

2.  Statistics are against me.  Apparently, I was born in the wrong decade.  According to a study I read online, Aussie Baby Boomer women were spoilt for choice in the 1970's, thanks to the male-centric immigration policy back then.  Nowadays, the women outnumber men in most of the capital cities, and it's the mining towns that are guy heavy.  Great.  So all I have to do is pack my kid and my dogs and move to Coober Pedy...and stockpile a lifetime supply of Panadeine Forte to stave off the heat migraines.     

3.  I have 'baggage.'  The charming guy who said this to me wasn't referring to any of my previous relationships, nor to any residual emotions left over from them.  He was referring to my child.  This filled me with ire for two reasons.  Firstly, while I take my role as a mother very seriously, it does not define me as a person.  I did not hand in the keys to the lady mobile and trade it in for a station wagon.  Secondly, anyone close will tell you that my son is as dear as my very soul to me, and that I would cheerfully lay in the path of a Mack truck if it were to guarantee his well being, so I naturally bristle when a complete twat compares him to travel goods.

4.  I'm a challenge.  Regular readers of this blog will know of my strained relationship with Internet dating sites.  I won't bore them by reiterating it here, except to say that one of the major things wrong with even the 'legitimate' ones is that they are essentially sex classifieds.  Don't get me wrong; I have no plans to enter into a vow of celibacy, at least not voluntarily, but the amount of people on these sites that list 'fun times' as their primary objective for being there is truly staggering.  Just a hint: arousal starts in the mind.

5.  I'm me.  I'm weird, contradictory, opinionated, argumentative, ever so slightly immature and more than likely to end up in traction if I even attempt to walk a straight line in any shoe with a heel higher than a stub.  According to one friend of mine, this renders me poisonous in the social circle she inhabits.  Nice place to visit, not sure I'd want to live there.  Neighbourhood's too exclusive.

Am I destined for a lifetime of spinsterhood?  What are the five reasons you think you might be doomed to be a 'forever alone?'  Let me know in the comments.

       

A rom-com for the socially disadvantaged

Occasionally, I like to re-read my old posts and review/mentally bash myself over them, and going over the sub-psychotic venting I did in 'Romantic comedies in real life' gave me pause.  Back when I was young, unpopular and dumb enough to believe in movie love, watching socially disadvantaged girls stomp the queen bitch into dust and make out with the hottest guy in school as the credits rolled gave me hope.  So what if I didn't have Molly Ringwald's non-threatening, unconventionally pretty face?  All I needed was razor sharp wit and a cool wardrobe, and that six foot tall Thor lookalike in twelfth grade was all mine.  By the time I finished high school, my greatest social accomplishment was setting some sort of world record for having the most derogatory nicknames.  By the time I'd reached adulthood, and Molly and her thrifty chicness had been replaced by Julia Roberts in her Bordello Barbie costume, all the romantic illusions that John Hughes had fostered in my delicate adolescent psyche were in the cylindrical filing cabinet, along with my mother's dreams of me getting a non-government funded tertiary education.  But was it really fair of me to blame movies for my social ineptitude?  Would I be relying on them for inspiration if there wasn't something fundamentally wrong with my thinking in the first place?  I think not, which is why I've come up with a synopsis for a romantic comedy for non-conformist/anti-establishment/pissed off at the world types like me who are too jaded to sit through Pretty in pink, and don't meet the age requirement to endure The notebook.  Enjoy.

Ann Arkie, (see what I did there?), is resigned to dying single.  A dead end job as a helpline operator at a sexual dysfunction clinic for the elderly, a mother who keeps trying to set her up with desperate illegal immigrant cab drivers and a teenage son who suffers from selective profanity disorder are just a few of the obstacles life has thrown in her path.  The latest is that Sam, the father of her child, is getting married on Ann's fortieth birthday.  He informs her via text message that his intended wants her to be at the wedding.  Not as a guest, but as insurance that their boy Fred won't pull an Andrew Dice Clay in the middle of the ceremony.  For reasons she can't even begin to fathom, Ann calls her ex and tells him she'll need an extra plus one, because she wants to bring a date, then spends the next two months plumbing the murky depths of Internet dating sites for boyfriend stand-ins. 

She approaches the exercise like an audition, deciding that so long as they meet her age requirement, she won't say no to anyone.  Seven weeks, five days and thirty-nine dates later, Ann is sitting on her living room floor with a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, scrolling through the phone numbers of all the candidates.  By the time the alcohol has petered down to roughly a teaspoonful, she has narrowed the list down to the three least objectionable choices: A twenty five year old exotic dancer who turned up to their date in costume; a method actor/fruit picker/Dungeon Master; and a Mensa member who got them ejected from the movie they were seeing by throwing popcorn at the screen and yelling: 'If there was such a thing as magic, a guy with a six hundred i.q wouldn't have to live off his mother's disability!'  The following afternoon, Ann is transferring a call to the helpline while filling in at clinic reception when a courier comes in to ask for directions.  His supernaturally gorgeous face, and the fact that she is nursing the mother of all hangovers combine to distract her, and she presses speaker instead of transfer, allowing the unfortunate octogenarian on the end of the line to broadcast to all and sundry that his wife's calloused hands can no longer relieve him of his flaccidity, despite the hours of effort she's putting in.  Ann bashes down the transfer button and sends the courier on his way, positive that the next time she sees him will be when he's accepting his ten thousand dollar prize on Funniest Home Videos.  Just as the receptionist returns from lunch, and Ann is thinking she might skip the meal in favour of going to the ladies and drowning herself in the toilet bowl, Adonis returns and asks if she's free for dinner on Saturday.  She tells him she already has plans, but gives him her number.  

The wedding day arrives and Ann is sitting at the back of the church with Fred on one side and the show boy who won the date with a desperado contest on the other.  Ann neglects her duty as chief censor in favour of mentally recalling last night's sublime conversation with dreamy delivery boy, asserting that his utter perfection is what makes him completely wrong for her.  As the processional music starts and the bridesmaids make their way down the aisle, Fred loudly, and repeatedly likens them to 'satin f%#king marshmallows.'  The sound of the bridezilla clearing her throat bounces off the walls, unceremoniously jerking Ann back into the real world, and she claps her hand over Fred's mouth.  The bride takes her father's arm in a vice like grip and is poised to set foot on the red carpet when the church doors open, creaking like the lid of a hundred year old Transylvanian crypt.  Ann, like everyone else in the church, is too scared to turn around and actually witness the verbal skewering the bride is giving her cousin for daring to show up late.  Once the tirade is over, the errant relative is tersely directed to his seat and the bride finally makes her way up the aisle to her groom, who Ann could swear is trembling.  The 'happy' couple begin reciting their vows, and the shell shocked groom is barely managing to choke out his lines when he is given some unexpected assistance from the audience. 

'I Sam take you...'

'SHIT BISCUIT!'

The voice is unmistakable.  Ann whirls around to find dreamy delivery boy blushing just as brightly as his now scarlet-cheeked cousin, and is so stunned that she forgets all about Fred, who takes the opportunity to leave the pew and run up and down the aisle, repeating the choice phrase to the tune of Here comes the bride.  The three of them are ejected from the wedding, and run out of the church to begin their perfectly imperfect life together.

So, what do you think?  Have I created the next Bridget Jones Diary?  Should I run off and pitch this to Drew Barrymore's people, or should I just continue posting written commentaries of my brain flatulence in the hope that someone similarly afflicted will sympathise and sponsor me so that I can fund my EBay addiction?  Leave me a comment and let me know!