BFF'S

 

In some strange way, it seems that everyone around me is trapped in an abusive relationship.

 I have a friend who constantly succumbs to the whims of a man who is completely unworthy of her. He only calls when he wants something, namely instant gratification and someone to play nurse for the evening. If they go out, he spins a pitiful tale about  accidentally cancelling his cards, giving his last £20 to endangered dodo's or being forced at gunpoint to spend his entire salary on Hermes cuff links (he doesn't get paid much). So she accepts yet another IOU, knowing full well, he'll never pay her back. She spends the rest evening being upstaged by his iPhone.

When they go out with friends, he reveals the little secrets she thought were just between them, plays on her insecurities, flirts/sexually harasses everything around him, then laughs and tells her she's paranoid if she questions his behavior. To add insult to injury, she has accidentally been copied in on an email in which he demeans every fibre of her being- from how easily she forgives - to how he is certain of the fact that he could sleep with her boyfriend anytime he wanted to.

Yes, you read the last bit right, for imagine this scenario is not with some loser of a boy, but with someone you call a friend. How can behavior like this be so unacceptable from a man yet many of us are accepting this crap from our girls? I used to be afflicted with such bitches until I learned the value of my time and friendship. Having put together a highly scientific study of the human leech, I've come up with a simple check list that'll help you spot one before you're sucked dry (steady).

• They run a spectacular gamut of emotions in a five minute conversation; a conversation in which you are barely allowed to speak.
• They fell out with their old best friend for "no reason- not at all my fault-she suddenly turned psycho"
• You drop all of your plans to assist in her emergency- and promptly discover this emergency is which pair of heels make her look the most shaggable. 
• Keeping up with  her love life requires a librarian, a secretary and a small news desk.
• She insists on borrowing your clothes, though they are too small for her. She then tells you she looks better in them. 
• Others say shes excitable but you'll learn to love her. This simply means she is a dick, but you'll get used to it. 
• You know the name of her first pet; she forgot you had your leg amputated yesterday. 

Bad Bitches

Its been an age since I last blogged  and my, what a lot has happened in that time. 

In summary;

• I've restricted drinking to twice a week meaning 75% of the people in my life are now intolerable.
  
• I'm three glorious months into my health kick and have the self-righteous glow of a wealthy cleric. 
  
• I've moved into a wonderful flat, the only downside being an agoraphobic housemate who has been driving me crazy with her passive aggressive post-its and eerr...dirty protests... Rather than let her creepy whistling piss me off (much) I've decided to use her as my inspiration to work even harder. Yes, 2012 is about being happy, successful and at peace with myself.

So with this new ethos enhancing my life like Photoshop on Madonna's face, you can imagine my amusement at being labelled "over-confident" by three different men. One being a grotesque middle manager who's flirtations are met with deadpan put-downs, the other, an ex who I think has only just discovered fire, and most amusingly, a random date I had. 

This 'date' was with a guy, who despite having an MA in Philosophy or some other subject people who love the sound of their own voice like, seemed rather simple. He spoke only of his last Black girlfriend (alarm bells), who he took to the Seychelles and she dumped him on arrival. After I listened to him bore on about sending her hate mail, mild stalking, prank calls in which he tells her to fuck off and die, and putting photos of attractive girls on his Facebook profile to make said ex jealous, I decided it was time to put the cocktail down and conceal the nearest weapon under my sleeve. On discovering the entire relationship lasted 5 weeks, I told him to seek help (the only words I contributed to our conversation)  He then proceeded to tell me that I obviously hate men and have a massive ego.

After I finished laughing my fine ass off, I though I'd better come on here and vent some faux-feminist rage.

Yes, after all the things I've been through I am still confident. Sometimes, sometimes it's a mask that protects me from the vile creatures that inhabit this world, but mostly I am confident because I know I am a great girl. 

Now, if you're expecting me to lower my standards for you, or be bowled over when you act like a gentleman, or expect me to accept less than the best treatment from you due to your 'status'- then I'm afraid you'll have to suck my metaphorical.  

 Oh and Liz from Zimbabwe...call the police girl!

Yes (Wo)men

 "Advice is something we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't..."

Now I've thought about this one long and hard, and, although friends are usually the first port of call in a romantic crisis, they absolutely shouldn't be.

The reason we turn to our friends is because deep down, we know they will tell us exactly what we want to hear. Even I tend to favour telling a friend to 'give it more time', rather than tell her that the overwhelming sound of her biological clock is clearly obscuring the sound of her boyfriend's bullshit. When we ladies gather together, we seem to get geed up on this chick-flick mentality that there will always be a happy ending. Even Jennifer Aniston knows that's a lie!

Things is, you already know whether or not he is an arrogant twat who is unworthy of your time and if so, stop repressing your instincts, stop the delay tactics and the whining and do something about it!  If, on the other hand, you know he's 95% perfect and was just having his man-bitch monthly, then please don't subject your friends to hours of analysing his every mind-numbingly inane move. It comes across as self indulgent gloating, especially when one has the audacity to subject a single friend to this without supplying wine and cheese.

 If your partner is pissing you off you need to tell them, no one else. Don't expect to change your Shrek into Daniel Pimentel. You can't polish a turd but you can roll it in glitter. But, if said man remains a stinker, don't be afraid of pulling the chain, on your own, just like your parents taught you.
 Seeking advice is a false sense of security blanket. It's securing someone else to blame when things go wrong. It leads to self doubt, which in turn, is an act of self sabotage and is about as healthy as a deep fried Christmas pudding.

So let's have a little more confidence in ourselves, a little more faith in our significant others and save the bawling for genuine crises. (Like 6 lb weight gain!!)


Photo is Girl with Balloon by Banksy

Big Men...

I'm often baffled by the notion that women prefer bad boys. Who and where are these 'women', who are gagging to be ball and chained to some unimaginative, inattentive, arrogant oaf? Apparently they're more exciting, like you never know when they're going to remember their wallets or which one of your friends he's going to poke.

Who is perpetuating the myth that if we stick with the bad boy, he's going to transform into a man worthy of a hallelujah? He won't. That's the thing about dicks: they're thick, selfish and  utterly useless after a short spell of exertion.

This is going to be a really unpopular statement but: I find SATC's Mr Big really irritating. I fail to see why this womanizing, cradle-snatching, late-for-his-own-wedding, commitment phobic man is attractive? 80 percent of the Carrie's girly lunches were spent moaning about Big's cheating or disappearing acts. I remember watching at 15 thinking, "do women still have these conversations at 40?" 40, for sods sake! If only Carrie spent less time neighing and whining, and more time building her self-respect, she would have got her dream wedding instead of his.

So, why is this extremely wealthy playboy with a dodgy ticker, so appealing to women? ...oh, wait!  Mr Big probably isn't the best example. He's bad-ass in an Ivy League way, and when an apology is accompanied with the gift of your own walk in wardrobe, it's hard to stay angry. But why aren't there many thoroughly good, totally faithful and beautiful boys in the movies? Ones that don't die at the end of the film and go on to have a library named after them. Men with a heart like Forest Gump but without the er... never mind. How about less movies where women are winging on about some Alfie wannabe and a little more recognition for the nice guys. It's taking a lot of women FAR too long to discover that relationships are not supposed to be shit   unfulfilling. Remembering a woman's favourite perfume, restaurant, song and flower is pretty sexy in my book, so give me Aiden any day!

Showmantic

"If I had to choose between loving you, and breathing, I would use my last breath to say I Love You"

If the above quote made you feel all gooey inside, you should probably stop reading this and go here instead.

Don't get me wrong, I adore romance in all its tacky, scattered rose petals, chocolate covered, champagne guzzling glory. What I'm not keen on is an entire commercially driven day dedicated to public displays of affection between: couples who are far too old to be tonguing each others dentures in public, couples who think it's OK to dry hump against you on the tube, couples who obscure your view at the theater with their stupidly large Valentine's teddies, emo tweenagers who bandy the L word about like they invented it and, most vexing, the Kooples

Lets be real. Valentine's day is all about the showmance and nothing else. It's dead behind the eyes like a lonely atheist on Christmas day and, like chrimbo, it's all about bragging to the other kids about what you got from 'daddy'.

I don't want to celebrate anything that doesn't come with a day off work. I don't want to feel obliged to do something special just because Hallmark wants me to and I don't want to feel like a sour faced rixatrix if I'm alone on the day. I want to fill (almost) everyday with romance, every Sunday morning with sumptuous breakfasts in bed and make Valentine's day redundant...we're in a recession after all.

Having said (or ranted) that, I'm not averse to receiving plenty of roses tomorrow, and I don't mean the shitty chocolates either... ;-)

XxX

The F* word...

I was watching some stand-up last month and the comic came up with the following brilliant, but very crude comment on the state of modern relationships:

“I’ll tell you why teenage pregnancy is so high these days, fingering has gone out of fashion”

Ok… I’ll let you recover from that one… He has a very valid point though. Despite being comfortably out of my teens I still feel pressure to conform to this skip all the bases, casual- multiple –monogamy culture. Being a rebel, I don’t conform but there is undeniable pressure to do so. If you don’t you’re seen as backward, will probably be left behind on the scrap heap, be rubbish when you do meet ‘The One’ or you are simply the anti-Christ of feminism.

Why are we rushing to get to the bit that ultimately lasts about 3 minutes? And why is everyone giving it up so easily, worse still, criticising those who chose not to? You don’t have to be a man of the cloth to believe that sex should at the very least be with someone you know reasonably well…or at least their real full name because I’m almost certain you didn’t pull William Windsor in All Bar One.

Going in search of some random, sweaty, meaningless encounter just sounds a little bleak to me. A lonely generation of shallow, unhealthy, Twitter obsessed people looking for something to fill the void. I’d rather not, thanks. I'm no nun (I don’t think I'm kinky enough for the role) but what is the point of all of this indiscriminate sexing?

Are we so pressed for time that we can’t participate in little romantic gestures any more? We even have the time saving magic of text... But then I forget the messaging rules, never more than 15 a day and you can only put kisses at the end if they do something exceptional unless they respond with a kiss first, in which case you have the option of reciprocating…YAWN. True romance is dead. Here is it's tombstone and underneath lay a thousand sonnets written in vain.

Every trend comes to an end, so I hope that this one does too. And soon. I don't want to cut to the chase, Kiss chase is the best part! So let's bring it back along with heavy petting, sharing your last rolo and making puppy dog eyes at each other over loveheart sweets. I don't care what everyone does privately but I'd rather not be part of an age-group that has record STDs. It's just not sexy fresh.

Besos Xx

So hard...

London Underground at rush hour…looking around at the old man who hasn’t been offered a seat, the disinterested mother ignoring the fact that her feral offspring are disturbing us ‘would be in a better mood if I wasn’t so late and hung-over’, city workers, one can’t help but wonder, when did we all become so hard?

This morning whilst making the unnecessarily complicated transition at Kings cross from the Piccadilly line to the Northern, a lovely young man smiled at me as we crossed paths on the stairs. Rather than smile back immediately, my initial thought was, ‘what the devil are you looking at?’ Then I remembered the skilled make-up job I had completed between Turnpike Lane and Caledonian Road, and I thought, ‘oh yeah, I’m looking pretty cute today, better smile back’. But alas the moment had passed… and I realised my pre-elevenses self is a bit of a…well… you know.

In my opinion, state of modern women today leaves a lot to be desired. Scowling when men hold doors open for us, drinking ourselves to the point where we could be mistaken for someone with severe learning difficulties, using obscenities (yes, I say some pretty crude things myself but very rarely swear.) Scary pregnant women, with the threat of impending under-carriage down-pour, splattering on your beautiful shoes, brusquely demanding your NON FREEDOM PASS SEAT as her horribly large (no, I’m not sorry for that one) abdomen casts an expectant shadow over your Evening Standard. Undercuts and Dr Martins? Lord! Where has that feminine softness gone? Bring back the pretty dresses and flowing hair (weave allowance permitting.) Feminine charm is alluring and very powerful in the right hands so why are we so opposed to it?

How far does this modern ‘edgy’ attitude transcend into our romantic lives? Too darn mutha double-dutching far, I’d say. All of this power-suit wearing, ball busting, androgynous, feminist overhang from our parents making eyes over teeny portions of food in some Thatcherite eatery.
Yes women are equal to men…in terms of intelligence. There is no need for us to be drinking pints and adjusting our underwear in public. We are not men and why the hell would we want to be? I cringe at the thought of having to endure a random semi or worse still…smegma.

Wearing pink in the office does not make you a bimbo. Wearing stilettos does not make you a loose woman. Using your feminine wiles to get your male colleagues to help you with your work load is fine because in life you must use whatever advantage you have to get ahead. I’m not suggesting that this is the only power that women have. Far from it. It just seems to me that we are displaying overtly masculine behaviours, with our (not myself included) foul mouthed, binge drinking, rugby playing, shagging around, gave birth at my desk-to hell with maternity leave-if baby needs me tell it to hit me up on my BBM, ways. If that is feminism then I don’t want it! Testosterone and women is just plain ugly.

So let us embrace the fact that we are different from men. Lets not judge a woman who is content to be a housewife. Lets be nice to our female colleagues and stop this passive aggressive back stabbing. Lets accept compliments gracefully, and smile when doors are opened for us, and not be offended when a man wants to pay the bill. After all, men are here to ensure our happiness so what’s a flutter of the eyelashes in return?

XxX