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!
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Friday, August 22, 2014
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'
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:
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Be it tuna, tomatoes or spam
Without making a mess
Splashing my dress
And just about cutting my hand
Sunday, August 3, 2014
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.
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.
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