Hilda saves the day

So I went on one tinder date.

The guy, who I shall name Alex, because that is his real name and he doesn't deserve anonymity or a pseudonym, had pretty nice pics on Tinder.  Curly blond hair. Frameless specs that made him look smart. A young son. You couldn't tell he was short in his pics.

And let me just say, I was here to make Tinder work for me. I was here to single handedly champion a change of tune in Tinder, to turn Tinder around and make an honest woman out of her, an honest, love-of-my-love, boyfriend-material finding woman. And i told him in no uncertain terms that I was old fashioned, liked to get to know people before becoming 'romantically engaged' and steered him off every line of dirty talk.  I should have known better. Tinder is a scantily dressed hussy that yells COCK tourettes like at passing cars and she will not be tamed ... but I digress.

So firstly, he says can we meet in Ponsonby because it's half way between his house and where I live. So okay, I'm not Cinderella, you're not coming to my balcony to sing me fucking songs, it's Tinder, alright I'll accept this.

We meet at Malt, which is henceforth going to referred to as the dates-of-doom zone, because all things bad happen there.

When we arrive he is really hung up about not having to wait for me on his own, okay, so he times it so we arrive at exactly the same time. He's short. He has the ruddy complexion of a pack a day smoker. But he's not all together awful looking, the kind of looks that would grow on you if he had a SENSATIONAL personality and whopping big... heart.

He buys us each a drink (tick) and we go out to the patio.
We sip our drinks while he talks.  That is pretty much the whole date right there.
He talks, about himself.  I listen, try to be pretty, interested and i'll be honest, come-hitherly.  It takes me 24 hours to look back with horror and hate myself for how I handled my own boredom and discomfort, it's like nothing happened for women's lib since the 20's.  But the truth is, I want him to like me. There I said it, is that such a crime? I haven't been on a date since my last breakup, and I just wanted to go out, and feel like I'm attractive, and a guy could like me.

He is kinda funny, at first, and I tell him that he should do stand up, I've worked in comedy, I'd know. This is like giving a shot of rocketfuel to a twelve year old, he is giddy with urgency to use more of his 'material' on me.

He asks questions only to rapidly interrupt my replies with stories of his own. Like that I play music, well he plays music, yeah he writes songs, yeah they're really good.  He challenges me to a 'lyric off' and I pull some old lyric out of my memory banks. Without comment he launches into a soliloquy of his own. I have to admit they're not bad. But he follows this up with a raving review of his own talent. Raving.

He asks me if I like to look down on people. He says he does. And he tells me likes to have issues with people. He tells me a story about a girl at work, who has a big rack, who he has an issue with, for nothing, just to have issues with people.  Less of this is a joke than you'd hope.

I ask him about his son, and he says: he was an accident, I didn't want him, I'd only known the girl three months then I was forced into fatherhood and I resent it.

Wow.

Not a whisker of 'he's the most important thing in my life/I love him more than anything/he's amazing'.  The standard response you expect from all parents.  I'm starting to wonder if he's a sociopath. Wouldn't be the first.

He tells me how he's watching a detective series, and it's made him really good at reading people and how he feels like he is becoming a detective now, he's gotten so good at it.
I nearly cough cider out my nose.

At some point within the first thirty minutes, he kisses me.  Without asking, or any lead up to let me know to prepare myself for incoming saliva. He pashes me the way you eat a way too big apple. Mouth gaping, lips chomping.  I let him kiss me, stunned. In a bar, crowded with people. Cinderella is dying.

From there he moves to hand on thigh.  Not a little bit of hand on thigh, a full palm and fingers that rub up and down, up and down the length of my thigh.
He says, you're really lean and fit.
I let him rub my thigh.

He says he has no money, and is bad with money, on roughly six occasions. Despite working in IT... which honestly, if you can work in IT and be broke, nigga you got 99 problems and finding a girlfriend is only one.
Oh yeah, he lives at home. Sure, he moved home after the break up, but it's been two years. He's 36.

And then when I ask if he wants to have another drink, as in DO we have a second drink or call it a night, he shoots back 'yes, but only if you're paying for them'.

I might not be Cinderella, I might not be fucking Sleeping Beauty, I might not behoove the tender adoration of prince like suitors, but JESUS CHRIST dude, have a little class.

I sip my way through my second cider and then say something about having to go.
He wants to walk me to my car. I relent. We stand by my car readying for the awkward first date goodbye which is like a police line up for the other person to fire their assessment of you at you (will it be 'talk soon' or 'call me'?)
And then he kisses me a-fucking-gain.

This time it's not even as good as apple-eating, he opens his mouth and stands there, half a foot shorter than me, with his open mouth clamped on mine like a circus clown giving really shitty CPR to a pole.

And I, I try to kiss him back, properly.
Like THAT will make all the difference, if we can just get one kiss right, it will have been a success, in your face singledom, I had a date and the kiss rocked.
But no. Trying to make the kiss work is like trying to scoop a live fish out of custard with your tongue.

And he won't stop! I pull away and he pulls me right back. He's got his me jammed tightly against his sweaty little body with his tight clamp arm, and he's holding me in so tightly my neck hurts as he persists in doing clown CPR on my fucking face!

Then, after the fourth attempt at pulling away, as he is whispering in a lecherous way that 'we should go somewhere' (!!!) something rises up from the depths of my self-preserving stomach, and in my newly found Swedish accent and cut him off with:

Oh yah, oh no yah, yah yah NOOOO, I really have to go now, yah...

When I say Swedish accent, bear in mind I've never been to Sweden or met a Swedish person.  The entirety of my Swedish accent has a direct lineage to the Swedish chef on the muppets.
But it works. I think out of shock more than anything else, he releases me from his wrestlers hold and looks at me with a collision of resentment and confusion, (which I'm sure isn't an unfamiliar feeling for him) and says curtly: what was that?

And still in my Swedish muppet accent, I reply: Zat was Hilda yah, I've got material too. yah.

And as he's muttering that he doesn't THINK THAT WAS APPROPRIATE, Hilda or I, hard to say who, burst into laughter that bends me over at my waist, climb into my car, start it up, and drive away laughing so hard my stomach hurts and my eyes water.

He texted me when I got home, great right?
Yeah nah. he texted me to tell me he was 'tumescent'.
I'll save you from having to google it, it means 'swollen and throbbing'.
And you KNOW that little weasel has used that word many, many times before.

But hey, I made a new friend that evening, a new life-preserving, say what you mean, check in with your gut, don't stand for bullshit, friend by the name of Hilda.  Hilda the Saviour. Has a nice ring doesn't it.

Every Guy on Tinder

I'm on Tinder.
You are judging me but I'm not.
I figure, if you want to meet a Great Guy... scratch that, if you want to meet a guy who's unique breed of crazy and annoying you can tolerate, who finds your unique breed of crazy and annoying tolerable, then you gotta meet guys, full stop.
Kiss a few frogs isn't that what they say?

And I'll tell you the truth, it's fun, the pre-dating, swiping phase. It's fun like Candy Crush is fun. It fills in time when you're too lazy to do anything else and don't want to think.  It requires next to no physical exertion or brain activation, it satisfies your voyeuristic urges, and your sense of desire to connect with others (whilst connecting with nothing but the WIFI), and your tribal urge to feel desirable and like you belong to a group, whilst judging and discriminating against others from your lofty perch -  which if we're honest, is a sport that everyone loves.

It kind of feels like a game, a bit like 'dating bingo' like if you just swipe left and right enough times in the right combination your Great Guy is going to manifest.  I like to think I'm actually 'improving' at Tinder, honing my skill at making snap judgements based on ten words, an age bracket and three pics.  I'm hoping to level up soon.

But here's the thing: every guy on Tinder is a variation of exactly the same guy.  Really.
To the point where I'm having to question if every guy in the WORLD is a slight variation of every other guy.  Which is a wholely depressing thought, if they are, and they're like the guys on Tinder.

But then I think it's more likely that a certain type of guy a) isn't in a long term relationship by the age of 30-45 (begs many questions) and b)Tinders.

Which naturally begs the question, what does being single at 35 and tindering say about me? But that is for another post, this post is about Tinder profiles say about 'them', because you know, why not mine that for hilarity.

Here is an Entirely Truthful, Uncensored Summary of Every Guy on Tinder:

"I'm an all round good guy/genuine guy/loyal guy"
"I like the outdoors"
Me on a boat/with a fish/kissing the dead fish/untangling line/fishing
"I'm into sports and barbecues"
Me jumping off something
Me with a chick/chicks, we're drunk/laughing - I know chicks
Me and a performance car/classic car/motor cross bike
Me in a flat peak cap
Me with a bunch of my mates, posing, drunk, I'm the ugly/fat one
"I like barbecues, sports"
Me throwing up gang signs like a white guy/giving knuckles to the camera/flipping the bird
Me with my eyes closed - I'm crazy/fun (drunk)
Me with my tongue out - I'm crazy/fun (awkward)
Me at a wedding
Me at a beach
Me taking this selfie
Me hunting
I'm can't spel or now grammar
I like fitness/running/karate/keeping fit/eating healthy (it's stunning the high percentage of guys who like 'eating healthy'!)
Me with a living/dead lion/tiger/kangaroo
Me in Thailand
Me, I'm Indian
My tattoos of skulls/my tribal sleeve
Me hiding my receding hairline with cropping
Me with a beer/magnum/rum and coke in a glass bottle
I'm 6'3 - FYI
I'm 5'11 - I don't care
"Live is for living" "Your only get on life, so live it!" "Loving life" "Live your Life!"
Me in my sharkies/aviators/wanker at a house club glasses
Me - I'm bald
Me in a suit "I own a business'' "I'm successful" "Rich" "I work odd hours" "In Singapore"
Me in my league team t-shirt/generic hallensteins t-shirt
Me surfing/wind surfing/SUP'ing
"I'm fun, easy going, down to earth"
"Don't want no drama, had enough of that" "Don't want negativity" "no baggage"
No pictures of my face
Me at a gym looking painfully muscular
Me in dress up, as a woman
Me and my dog or sometimes cat (this one is totally acceptable)
Me holding a beer, with a gut, giving a thumbs up
"I'm a DJ"
"Looking for a down to earth/easy going girl, who lives a laugh, likes to go out but also stay in and Looks After Herself"
I'm a geek and afraid to meet women in the real world/have a lazy eye
Me with a C grade sports celebrity
Me looking great (then) and looking my age and overweight (now)
Me with my kids "my kids are my life"
Me pretending to hump a dude
Me and my mates, really drunk
Me drinking/drunk

And that's it ladies and gentlemen.

And now in the interests of gender equality I will admit that my Tinder profile is in fact, a collection of trotted out cliche's as well!  Fitness, nature, food, I mean, I've tried to jazz it up with a bit of cleverness, a three syllable word, a little wit.  But I just have to hope that my genuine smile and reasonably attractive physique will radiate through the generic-ness and catch the eye of the one of the rare outliers on Tinder, you know, the Great Guy who just simply hasn't met his match yet, and I'm it, before the bomb explodes, or the chocolate gets me.

Wish me luck and stay tuned!
I do in fact have one real-world, funny in a bad way date to report on, but will save that for the next time I'm stuck at home with nothing to do, which will probably be tomorrow because I'm on lock down with my beloved cat for seven days after her major surgery.
Ho ho ho!

The Can Opener

Here is a poem.

It doesn't have anything to do with dating or men. 

Or does it?

Is it all one gigantic, ironic metaphor...??

No, I don't think so.

I am cursed in two ways:

1 - dolphins avoid me - I'll tell you about that later. 

and 2 - I am seemingly forbidden by the gods to possess a working can opener - one that cleanly, evenly and completely opens a can at first try. 

Forget all that, I can't even find a can opener that even opens half a can. 

It is in no small part a bane to my existence. 

I even went all out and purchased an expensive, top-shelf can opener from Steven's.  Might have been Millies.
The packaging claimed 'opens every can, every time'

It never opened one can, not one time.

I still have it. 

I still try. 

It never opens.

I dig chopped tomatoes, refried beans and tuna out of jagged slits with a butterknife.

This is not how life should be.  

I contact Steven's, or was it Millies to explain my plight. 

They CC'd me in on the company's reply, which clearly was not meant for mine eyes.

It said 'get her to show you how she's trying to open the can, i'd like to see this! haha'

As if I

I

I was the one with the problem. 

From this experience (on going to this day) comes this poem:

*Ahem. 

I just want to open a can
Be it tuna, tomatoes or spam
Without making a mess
Splashing my dress
And just about cutting my hand

Believing our fate could be changed
We searched like two people deranged
For an opener we could trust
That would work, and not rust
From our money we did not expect change 

In Steven’s we came across yours,
Its catchphrase, we thought, worth applause
‘Opens every can, every time’
To our ears, was sublime
A fast purchase, then straight out the doors

Excited we stood round the can
The opener held firmly in hand
The handle was turned
And a lesson was learned
The can-opening did not go as planned

The wheels turn quite well at the start
As she gracefully makes the tin part
But then at the turn
The opening is spurned
And two points hold our food in the dark

Opening tuna for lunch causes stress
A partially opened can, must be drained with duress
So I pushed on the lid
And with a great bid
The oil swiftly ruins my dress

We are at the end of our ropes
You’ve more than just dashed our high hopes
For little we knew
What mental harm it would do
To see our cans remain partially closed

We’ve tried the ones that are cheap
And we’ve tried the expensive ones too
But it seems we are cursed
There can be nothing worse
Than a can that won’t open for you 

I just want to open a can
Be it tuna, tomatoes or spam
Without making a mess
Splashing my dress
And just about cutting my hand

A World Built for Two and a Half

I've been thinking some things for awhile and had nowhere to put them.
And then I remembered my blog!

Oh firstly, do you want to know where I've been?
In my very last post I said that I had a crush on a guy in my wider circle of friends, a real crush.
Well he had a crush on me too, and we fell madly in love.  That is not just an over-used adjective. We fell MADLY in love.  When he kissed me my vision went blurry and the world swooned around me so that I was liable to lose my balance, that's not just poetry, that really happened.

My body wanted out of my skin around him, and him me. My temperature rose, my heart raced and raced.  I wrote songs about him. He gave me big beautiful expensive presents, and pulled me into his embrace without notice, many times a day.
Me him and him me, the whole lot. Two people head over heels in love. It was the single most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, while it was.
And then it started to scratch a little bit like wool does sometimes.
And then the neck started to feel too tight, and you'd pull it away from your throat and think, aha, that is what's buggin me today.
And then someone, hard to say who, washed it on hot and it shrunk, so the sleeves wouldn't reach the wrists, and the hem didn't cover your back, so that the cold came in.
That damn cold, so hard to ignore.
It didn't happen all at once, The Ruining of Your Perfect, Favourite Jumper.
It happened in tiny little wafer thin slithers, so that you'd think, oh well, and keep going.
Until finally there I was standing in the doorway with no jumper at all.
And there is so much empty space.

There is much more of a beautiful, sad story that could be told about that, but that's not what I've been thinking, per se.

I've been thinking and had nowhere to say it, that I hate that all my friends have had babies.
I hate it in so many ways, and I think it is abhorrent and terrible.

When you are growing up, as girls, into women, having the times of your lives together, bonding, drinking, dancing freely to loud music, being in love with each other, sharing clothes, helping each other decide on hairstyles, getting your periods, having crushes, no one ever mentions to you, not even once, that one day it will all STOP.
You're dearest, beautiful, talented, incredible, free, sexy, wild, dancing, crying with you, understanding you, laughing friend is going to die. All of them.  One by one. Die to you.
No one talks about it.

When your women friends have children, they no longer listen to you.
You have spent years, often decades, trusting that those women will listen to your stories, listen to you recount everything from your love affairs to your ingrown hairs, and then suddenly, they don't.

They look like the same person, very much.
But mid way through every sentence you will ever say from now on they will interrupt you by acknowledging something about their new child. The child is usually present, and the thing being acknowledged ranges from how amazing/beautiful/funny/cute/creative/talented their child is, to just some plain story about their childs doings, or to just 'look at him/her'.  And you are expected to also shift every ounce of your attention to the child and be... awed? Interested? Appreciative.

What's more, they don't know that they're interrupting you.  In any normal circumstance to continually cut someone off and talk only about yourself is considered rude.  But women who have new children, they don't see how much it hurts you.  How much you desperately need them to be present with you.  And how painful it is that it never comes.  There is an unsaid agreement, that you never agreed to, that you would Take The Back Seat, now and forever, to their lives, with their new child.

They don't come to you.
You go to them.
Their time tables are so busy.  No. No. Not busy like how the childless 'think' they're busy, (this is exactly how it was described to me) they're really REALLY busy.  And you wouldn't understand. And with a sweep of the dish cloth, whatever is going on in your life is marginalised to a mere inconvenience in the face of the mountain of Real Stress and Responsibility that they have.

You are expected to find their children incredible.
Even, even the women who when they were your childless girlfriends agreed that other people's kids were hell on earth and to be avoided at all costs, even those women get amnesia, and fully expect you to find their children's every snot bubble and tiny digit, incredible.

Let me tell you a story on this matter.  Several years ago I ran a stop sign and hit a moving car going 100km an hour.  Both cars flipped and spun out of control, the other car coming to a stop by hitting a bus stop. Both cars were written off and all of us were jarred and emotionally scarred. Remarkably, no one was harmed.  But as you can imagine, it took quite a large psychological toll on my life and was a significant life event that changed the shape of my being.
Because I was embarrassed, for making such a terrible mistake, I took my time telling people.
I was on the phone to one of my best, and my oldest women friends, and I said, I have something to tell you, something big has happened.  And as the words "I crashed my car" trailed out my mouth, she interrupted me with a squeal of delight to tell me her two year old daughter had just blown a spit bubble.
I didn't tell her about the crash. I gave up. I asked her about the spit bubble. Her babies spit bubble, had become more important than my life.

Women with children tell you flippantly not to have children if you don't really like or want them, which I don't.
But we all know that a person with children can smugly discuss the abstract concept of not having children with all the arm waving philosophy they like, in the comfortable knowing that they have already reproduced, done the deed, sealed their fate, continued their line.

Women on my end of the stick however, who have neither a good relationship, nor any prospect of one, nor any real affection for children, have to take that decision like a very bitter little pill, ever day of their lives, never knowing if it is going to be the medicine that allows them to fly, like they hope to god it is, or, unfortunately a poison that damns them to a life of searing, alcoholic regret.

I am not a person who believes that children are miracles.
The process of creating one, cell by cell, is rather miraculous yes.
But the children themselves, they are not miracles.  A miracle implies something wondrous, awesome, other-wordly.  Children are destructive, irrational, sometimes violent, selfish, unpredictable, conniving, manipulative little devils on speed that suck the energy out of their carers, drain their money, erode their brains and consume consume consume.

And I believe that most people have children to assuage their existential emptiness, to have 'purpose', to have someone who will forever (or until their thirties) need them, someone who will love them and be unable to leave them.
People have children just because it's 'the done thing'.
People have children to have something to shape, walking, talking play dough with their eyes.
People have children to feel important, to get attention, to feel special, to be loved.
I don't think these are good reasons to bring an entire person into being.

And it really annoys me that society reveres this choice, makes of it something so sacred and untouchable that nowhere are we allowed to say 'bad idea homie'.

And lastly, I do not like what the children take away from my friends: all their possibilities.
I have an exceedingly smart, talented bunch of women friends who now spend all their mental and physical energy being the cleaner, the pumpkin masher, the table wiper, the driver and singing inane, repetitive nursery rhymes over and over and over.

No one tells you it will be like this.

In the sad true words of that soppy misogynist loving songstress Lana del Ray: the world was built for two, only worth loving if somebody is loving you.  So sign up.  Join The Club. Put spermatozoa to ovum and create your very own, genetically personalised greatest show of all... come one, come all, to witness and be awed... just don't expect a part in the show, you're hear to bear witness, not to be heard. Can the childless all please take their seats... the show is about to begin.

Round three, ding ding ding

I signed back up to findsomeone.
What happened was, I was lying in bed doing all sorts of nothing on the computer feeling bored.
Then one of those online dating ads came up on the side of my screen, you know how the rockerfellers are monitoring my every move and all that... yeah so I slide on over to findsomeone to check out some boys.
A bit like how you might go onto countdowns website and check out the price of ham.  You don't even necessarily want to eat ham, just checking the price.
And all the faces that pop up, honeys!
So I sign back up, fuck it.
And search again... and where are all those honeys..?
Nowhere to be seen.
Total decoy profiles, I just know it.

Anyway so I'm signed up now. And I think with better self esteem than last time. So this time when some average guy doesn't reply to my message of interest, i won't crumple.

But it's very de ja vu. 
I mean, it is actually the same hundred profiles I have seen before.  Either we chatted and I decided they were too stupid/weren't the same enough (too into rugby and barbecues)/said some dodgy innuendo.... Or they are just ug boots.
Or five foot eight.
Or Christian.  Lotta christians!

One guy, who is unreasonably tall (we're talking just shy of two metres here, but not going to let that bother me), said hey you were here before and you disappeared, why'd you come back.
And i said i don't know really, don't have much hope for finding anyone.
And he said me neither.
And i said, well that's good then. Hopeless. Things can only go up from here.

One guy is a pirate.
Or at least, his profile name is something pirate. And we've shared a few 'aaargh me hearty' messages.
Here I am thinking, sense of humour, tick.
And then he says something about massage and think of me.
And i'm like, GODDAMN innuendo.
I'm no prude, but three messages down you're already insinuating that you're going to rub me all over?!??!
Don't know why I have a problem with this, but I do.

And god forgive me, but some dudes can't spell.  And it's so off putting.
I mean, I'm not talking about words like restaurant, or mississippi here. I'm talking four letter words.  Like 'busy'.  Is it wrong for me to judge?

Never the less.  A couple seem decent and things are a stirring.
And so now I'm in that same old predicament of actually having to do something. As in, go out.
Leave the house.
Forgot about this bit.

So tentatively have a 'drink' date for tomorrow, he left a message on my phone and already gets points for having an nice voice. Who doesn't like a nice voice. And he does waka ama, so you know brothers got a body.
And a maybe sunday date, or should i say, if i go up north for a surf, catching up with him up there.
So many difficulties inherent in this situation.
Bikini. That's one.   Arrgh that reminds me to wax!
And, I go purple when i'm cold.
I'm not pretty purple.  I struggle to hold it together on the best of days... but purple...

And besides all this there's a guy in my wider circle that I have a real crush on. As opposed to a fake, it's all a mirage, internet crush on.
Although it could all be a mirage, because it usually is.

So stay tuned. There's bound to be some funny out there somewhere....

“ Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are. ”

—Eckhart Tolle

Don't have a cow man!

I thought I would tell you one of my favourite jokes.

Two cows are standing in a field and cow 1 turns to cow 2 and says:
'Hey man, have you heard about that Mad Cow Disease? I'm really worried'
Cow 2 turns to cow 1 and replies:
'Yeah man, I've heard of it, but I'm not worried'
'Why not?' Asks cow 1.
'Because' says cow 2 'I'm a helicopter'.

Disclaimer:

The cows in this joke are fictitional characters.

No cows were harmed in the telling of this joke.
By telling this joke I am not implying that mad cow disease is a trivial issue.
I am actually not making a political statement about mad cow disease at all, it is simply a joke.
I do not mean to imply that I understand the challenges of a cows life. 
I do not consider myself an authority on cows, diseases, diseases of cows, or cows with diseases.
Try not to take this joke too seriously.
Try not to take yourself so seriously.  Just try. 
Cows around the world, do not need to feel minimised or marginalised just because I have mentioned them in my blog.  in fact, cows don't need to have any feelings because I mention them in my blog. I am not The Leader of Everyone and Everything in The Whole World.
If you don't like my jokes, just ignore me.

Cows who read my blog should not read into this joke any hateful, negative, or judgemental sentiments that are in fact, not there.
If cows should do this, then it is said cows who are responsible for their own silly misery, and I would hereby like to officially state that I Don't Create Your Feelings.  You do.  With your mind. So be careful what you beleive.

And if anyone like to know my REAL opinion, instead of thrusting one upon me... the truth is...
I like cows.

Happy, crazy, silly old cows.