Perfecting the subtext.

The older I get, the more I realise just how ridiculous girls can be.  Spending the weekend with my sisters, one who has just turned 14, the other almost 18, I was reminded of the high school politics that dominate our social lives for the better part of year seven through 12. Over the weekend, as I drove my youngest sister and her band of friends around, I was invited to step into the world of the “tween” and observe their truly bizarre social rituals. Listening to their banter about boyfriends, other girls in their year, the teachers they hate the most and what’s hot at Glassons this winter, I started to silently criticise before realising that on many levels, my own friends and I have not evolved very far beyond this dynamic.  The topics might have progressed beyond “Omfg you have a crush on him!” to “Well have you slept together?”, but the heart of our conversations are essentially the same. My realisation was only heightened later that night as I sat on the phone to my friend carefully brainstorming a polite let down response to a boy who had asked her out.  His text, which was painfully casual, was the result of a typical crush developed during group hangouts that had eventuated into the inevitable offer to buy her dinner. Despite this gentleman being an absolute catch (seriously he can ask ME out whenever he’s ready) he is just not my friends type and thus we were left to carefully craft a polite, subtle way to spell “no”.  

So, here I was, having a little giggle to myself at how simply ridiculous some of the conversations my sisters friends were having, while MY friend and I, two grown women are drafting and re drafting a message that realistically only had to say “thanks but no thanks x”.  It is interesting that in a world where the exchange of information has become so instantaneous through imessage, viber, snapchat, instagram, Facebook, Facebook messenger and whatever other social media tool you can dream up (dare I say it, Tindr) this message had to be crafted so not to offend the receiver whilst completely shutting down his request. Its not easy stuff people! Ironically, it is probably our human behaviours that get us into these sticky situations. It is natural to respond positively to a little extra attention, however, clearly the ego boost is rarely worth the consequences! People enjoy sending let down texts just as much as people enjoy receiving them. So true to our ridiculousness, which seems to have been at work since a young age, we managed to draft a script that effectively turned the offer down without so much as an utterance of the word no. Hopefully, this poor bugger can decipher female subtext or we’ll be right back where we started in one week’s time.

Happy Friday readers, have a wonderful weekend.

Xo

Farewell Paris, Farewell Patrick.

Although I am a little late to address the news, I am just one of the many women across Australia mourning the death of Dr. Patrick Reid. Having fallen behind on Offspring during my travels, I dedicated my down time in Paris to catching up with all my favourite people. So much had happened to Billie, Nina, Jimmy and the crew in my absence! Sadly for me, I already knew the ill fate of Patrick thanks to bouts of emotional Facebook friends revealing the tragedy through various status updates and Instagram posts (not happy Jan).  Watching the final few episodes knowing I would have to say goodbye to Nina’s baby daddy was truly agonizing, and I am a little ashamed to admit I spent my final night in Europe sobbing over the death of a fictional character. Why did they have to kill him off? And in such a heart wrenching fashion? Honestly Channel 10 it was just awful. It got to the point where I wasn’t sure whether my distress was caused by Patricks death, or because my two month trip around Europe was drawing to a close.

My answer came on the flight home the next day. Settling into my cramped window seat, I flicked through the In-flight entertainment guide to see what Maylasia Airlines had to offer.  Funnily enough, the Asian Film category had plenty of options, while the “Old Favourites and New Releases” were neither favourites or that new. Fortunately an old faithful appeared and I watched the SATC movie for perhaps the 8^th time. With Paris and Patrick still on the mind it was confirmed that it was my tendency to become ridiculously attached to television characters that was causing me to be so sullen. Paris would be there next year, Patrick was gone forever. This notion got me thinking that it is pretty incredible how attached we can become to fictional characters. Somehow, they do not only entertain, but they manage to captivate us with their fake names, fake lives, fake loves and most significantly their fake losses (need I remind everyone about the death of Mel in season 3 of Packed to The Rafters…). As mentioned, I have seen the first Sex and The City movie almost a dozen times and I STILL got emotional watching Carrie accost Mr. Big in the street after he leaves her at the alter (so to speak). The sheer heartbreak of her standing there in her Vivienne Westwood screaming how humiliated she is, is always enough to reduce me to tears. But why? When we know it’s just a script, played out by people who we somehow feel are a part of our lives. Take Carrie and Nina Proudman for example. I know I am not alone when I say it is easy to feel as though we know these characters as our friends or even as our sisters! Perhaps in a way we do, and it’s the literary genius of the likes of Deborah Oswald that manage to integrate aspects of our friends and families into the characters of their shows, just enough to make us fall in love.

On a happier note, rumour would have it that Patrick (aka. Matthew Le Nevez) is off to Hollywood, so at least we will get to see his pretty face again. However I doubt that he will ever have the chance to play a role as charming, loveable and mysterious as the amazing Dr. Patrick Reid. May he rest in T.V. peace.

Xo. 

Be careful what you wish for.

Just recently I have come to fully understand the term "emotionally slutty". Revealing too much too soon is not only a trick for young players, but it would seem, that it is extremely off putting. Before you make any assumptions, please note that the emotional slut in question is actually male, and I am the one looking for an escape route - pronto. My latest fling began as usual, a kiss, flirty banter, a few late nights chatting, but quickly progressed at a speed that would shock even the most romantically inclined individuals. Somehow, I landed a guy that took everything a girl thinks they want to hear, and shoved it into one completely overwhelming conversation. After hastily hanging up the phone, cutting off the last of his “I miss you's” with a definitive click of a button, I immediately had to call my best friend to unload the emotional baggage that had been dumped on my personal carousel. Forget hand luggage, this guy packed for a year abroad and was ready to settle in for the long haul. Did I mention we’ve known each other for a weekend?

This has left me wondering, what happened to that happy medium? The cute guy that plays hard to get but is secretly really into you. An autopsy of my recent love life reveals a string of extremes. Absolute dick heads, and loved up obsessive types. When did it become okay to drunk dial and word vomit your inner most feelings into the receiver? Here is a hint: Do not reveal the end of a film during the opening credits. It simply disappoints audiences and leaves you with little incentive to watch this space. And yet, I can’t help but think this is some sort of emotional karma for sitting here wondering why guys my age are too arrogant to say how they feel. Suddenly, the saying be careful what you wish for is ringing in my ears.

Considering I have many friends, my self included who have fallen victim to alcohol and confessed their true feelings to an unprepared fling, should I be so quick to judge? Prior to this, I was excited by the prospect of having this boy in my life. He’s cute, in a dorky way, incredibly charming and most of all hilarious – and yet now that the mystery is gone, I’m ready to jump well and truly back on the single lady train, which, lets be honest, I never really disembarked in the first place. Fortunately for him, my best friend has convinced me not to write him off, but instead to wait and see what a little bit of sobriety brings to the picture. And fortunately for me, this train is en route express to sunny Europe where the trivial issues of the single girl will be a mere blip on my sun tanned radar. 

In the real world.

Occasionally we meet people who make us smile days after our first encounter. Even more occasionally, you will find your self wishing you could see them again, or re live the time you had together, no matter how trivial, because it simply made you happy. The funniest way about feeling like this is that sometimes, you never expect it. Every girl has a type, whether they know it or not. If you ask your friends, they will easily be able to speculate as to which type of guy you make a dive for when you’re out, or who you gravitate towards in social settings. My type thus far has proven incredibly predictable, but since they’re my “type”, and seemingly engrained in my DNA, I haven’t been able to stray too far. And yet, just recently I met someone who at first didn’t even catch my eye, and now I’m sitting here wondering why I cant get them out of my head. Luckily the man in question is geographically out of reach, a factor that probably quadruples his appeal because girls are fun like that… complicating everything seems to be our hobby.

The real question is what is it about him that has my head spinning? One night talking, and an almost kiss should hardly be enough to have me sitting here unable to focus on my assignments impending due date. Realistically, he is probably just another reason for my mind to avoid uni, like television or snacking, but what if he isn’t merely a distraction but someone I will still be thinking about months down the road? It is times like this I am endlessly grateful for my upcoming departure from reality (Europe). These kinds of thoughts are, at the end of the day, super inconvenient for someone who has a million things to do and can’t even consider giving a boy the time of day, let alone space in her busy mind! My best friend – god love her - truly believes she is doomed to remain single for the rest of her life, and despite being happy now she has speculated the idea that perhaps that’s a concept worth getting used to (however for the record, I think she’s far to beautiful inside and out to think she’ll wind up without a trail of men chasing her). So when I tell her I can’t stop thinking about a boy I am surprised by her excitement. This is after all how it always begins, and eventually whether it’s days, weeks or months later, the sparks burn out and once again its just us, a routine I have grown simultaneously used to and fond of, as it’s a cycle that’s been in full swing for the last six years.

In the movies, relationships seem to magically evolve from these one-night encounters. The Hollywood born characters we get lost in are fortunate enough to skip all the messy “in between” time that essentially build the foundations of a real relationship. In any budding romance there is ALWAYS that awkward time period where you have to ask uncomfortable questions like “Are you seeing any one else?” “Are we exclusive?” (What ever that means!?) and my least favorite “what does this all mean?” All of this, while keeping your distance and not wanting to seem too keen! It’s a complicated formula, mastered only by few. If life was in fact to follow the framework of a Hollywood RomCom, I would find myself in a very happy relationship following last weeks encounter. Fortunately for the sake of both myself and mystery man this is not the case and we, like the rest of the real world, will have no choice but to venture through messy in between territory. It is after all half the fun.

Xo

One mans trash...

Last night my auntie and I decided to try our luck raiding the roadside for vintage goodies in the local hard rubbish collection. Before you go screwing up your noses at the idea of rummaging through trash, consider the idea that ones man trash is another mans treasure… or in this case, womans. After scouting the streets for over an hour, picking up an amazing retro suitcase, and grey leather chair, we stumbled across the holy grail of road side junk. The item in question was a stunning brown leather couch, with matching arm chair, the kind you see in the window of vintage stores with a quadruple digit price tag. Minus the single rip on one of the arms and a little wear and tear on the cushions, this beauty was in mint condition and once I saw it I simply had to have it. I literally cannot express to you how amazing this lounge set is, I was skeptical someone had chosen to discard it and kept waiting for the owners to say WAIT! I actually can’t bear to give it up.

This is how I came to ponder the idea that what is deemed completely useless by one person can steal another’s heart. Once the couch and arm-chair were nestled safely in my lounge room (thanks to lots of heavy lifting, grunting, shoving and near breakage of a door frame) I started to consider this concept in the broader sense. Before I go off on a tangent, I realise most of my posts so far have been centered around relationship drama. Perhaps this is because many of my daily conversations with girlfriends and guy friends alike prove this topic to be verrrry popular, or maybe its just because I watch far to much Sex And The City, and think that if I continue to write about relationships, I can trade in my Ugg boots for Manolo Blahniks and start living the glamorous life of Carrie Bradshaw. However, I realised that just as the concept of trash and treasure applies to our physical belongings, so too can it apply to our relationships. Your dream man / woman is someone else’s nightmare. Just as I fell in love with the leather couch, someone else hated it so much, they decided to leave it on the street to be collected and disposed of.

Realistically, if you are dating or kissing anyone in their twenties, they are very likely to have a romantic past. As a side note this is not a bad thing! If no one has bothered with them until now, you should probably consider the notion that they are quite possibly a complete weirdo. However, the fact is, that prior to you picking them up, dusting them off and welcoming them into your life, they might have been discarded like an unwanted piece of "junk" by previous love interests. This begs the question, how is it that what is so detested, or simply deemed uninteresting by some people can be the key to happiness in others? The bright side of this is that there is hope for us all. That ex-boyfriend you dumped because he was a stage five clinger? He is going to make a needy girl very happy one day. And your ex-boyfriend that dumped you because he didn’t really get your sense of humour? Some guy is thanking his lucky stars because now he’ll get to laugh at your jokes forever. The more I think about it, the idea of trash and treasure is more romantic than I had ever considered. Who would have thought!

Xo. 

TGIF

Lets celebrate Friday with a little bit of TGIF xo

The inverted relationship triangle

I've recently noticed that the dating rituals of twenty year olds could not be further in representing chivalry, or any kind of traditional romance. If you are expecting to be swept off your feet by a man who wants to take you to dinner, buy you flowers and then politely walk you home and end the evening with a goodnight kiss, wakeup! You are dreaming. Although it’s a lovely dream (not my style, but lovely all the same) it would seem that the dating customs exercised by people in their 20’s are somewhat less charming and centered around the key concept of remaining “casual”.

What you can expect however, is a string of flirtatious Facebook interaction, or texts, that lead to an informal group hangout fuelled by alcohol and music just loud enough that you can’t get stuck having an actual conversation.  This ritual is part of what I have named the inverted relationship triangle, a framework that flips tradition on its head and means it is common for romance to eventuate from “hooking up” at a party rather than the other way around. This fits perfectly into the causal category and means no one is caught out thinking they’ve entered into some sort of romantic obligation.

Although this might sound cynical, I am not complaining.  As a girl who is content in her singledom, many of my friends and I are happily engaged in these pseudo relationships, which keep us on our toes without all the drama. However, it has recently occurred to me that there is a fine line between what constitutes casual versus commitment, and it has left me wondering, when and where do things leave the realm of fun and become serious?  As someone who has just booked flights to Paris – Insert Happy Dance – I don’t plan on finding out what it takes to turn a fling into something more, so I will have to rely on my wonderful friends to answer my questions. However my current thoughts are, if your enjoying your freedom while simultaneously having someone to cuddle once and a while, embrace it, it’s a pretty good deal.

Xo

P.s. As it’s incredibly windy today, I hope all you skirt wearers have chosen cute undies. 

Good morning readers!

If my bed looked like this I would never leave. Happy Tuesday Xo

Princes and Frogs

Two years ago I met a guy who to me was utterly intriguing. In high school, I dated a boy who worshipped me and fulfilled most 16 year olds fantasies of being treated like a princess. However the constant attention soon grew boring and I moved on with my life and into adulthood without so much a glance backwards at my prince. This guy however was a complete enigma, so cool and careless, yet simultaneously clumsy and at times awkward. Two years my senior, his popularity within our friendship circle drew me in even more and before I knew it I was like a moth flitting towards a bright light, half aware I was going to get zapped but so ridiculously attracted I didn’t care. Our relationship soon blossomed into a series of secretive nights spent, talking into the unhealthy hours of the morning. Sleep deprived, we would walk like zombies through campus offering each other shy smiles when we thought no one was watching, the excitement of our secret sleepovers causing my stomach to churn. Unlike my high school prince, this boy liked to challenge me. Often, he would ignore me for days only to turn up at 1am with strawberries and Nutella and insist we spend the next two hours in one another’s arms. His bizarre non-interest in me was like a drug and I began relishing the time he spent making an effort with me, however little that was. I could feel myself being pulled into a toxic pool of unfulfilled promises and never ending let downs, but I was fast becoming addicted, always looking for my next hit and soon, devastated if I was deprived. On the outside I was the easy-going girlfriend but inside my heart felt as though it was being torn slowly from my chest and eventually thrown at full force against a wall. Time passed and I decided I couldn’t do it anymore.  I was scared that if I stayed with him I would lose myself completely and never quite recover. I can tell you now that I came quite close to drowning in a permanent state of heart break, simply devastated by the year of emotional torment. Our relationship had dissolved into a shamble of miscommunication driven partly by his disregard for feelings other than his own, and his inability to express that he loved me, in his own weird, twisted way.

So following this heartbreak I did what any one would do and swore off boys and relationships in general. I vowed to avoid potential hurt until I was 30, a sensible age at which I could ignore the  formalities of dating and start looking for someone who would make me truly happy. Of course as soon as you stop looking, someone stupidly perfect comes along and suddenly you’re struggling to remember why you gave up on the love game at all. The scary part is when this new boy, the perfect boy, is doing everything right and yet your stomach is tugging at you screaming “RUN AWAY!”.  When faced with this fork in the road what on earth is a girl to do? I had my reasons for deciding that boys weren’t worth my time.  But now new boy is teasing me, tempting me with what could be. As he stood in my kitchen the other morning, the sleeves of his crisp white shirt rolled up as he made me crepes he was a vision of what every girl wants. Attentive, sexy, intelligent, kind and just sarcastic enough to keep me on my toes (plus he was making me crepes… I mean come on).  And yet, this crippling sense of hesitation churns in the pit of my stomach, creeping upward into my throat every time he does something nice. Is this my gut warning me to escape before I’m in crying in bed again watching back-to-back O.C? Or is this residual scarring that will mend and fade in time? 

This cute little meme I found on Pinterest (my second addiction to trashy television) reminded me that I was once a princess, and that should be allowed to feel like one again. They do say you have to kiss many frogs before you find your prince.

xo 

two steps forward, giant tumble backward.

How is it that some people can pull on your heartstrings so successfully while others leave you flat lining on the table. I recently slept with my ex boyfriend, an amateur mistake that has ignited my addictive streak and left me pining for more. As so eloquently put by my favorite foursome the SATC girls “Sex with an ex is never good” Their reasoning? If its good, you know what your missing out on, and If its bad? You just had sex with an ex… Unfortunately, or fortunately for me (Haven’t decided yet) sex with this particular ex is never bad, a troubling fact that nudges at me making me miss him despite his crappy attitude. This particular male managed to dig a nice little hole for himself inside my soft heart and I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to evict him ever since. His lingering presence in the back of my mind sends me into a panic that I will never meet someone that makes me so infuriatingly happy again. That’s the thing about these guys, they make you so happy, until they don’t. Naturally, as a girl must, I kept my composure and flitted from his house with a level of carelessness that read, “thanks for the fun, I’m off to live my life now” when really I wanted to turn and say, “What’s a few arguments? Let’s get back together”. I’m still unsure if it was the great sex hangover or my heart talking.

Following the realisation that this adult sleepover is likely to leave me an emotional mess, I am faced with another realisation, the dismal state of my bank account. In an attempt to make a little extra cash I thought I’d sell some of the many cocktail dresses I have hanging in my wardrobe. As a clothing collector, it is only in the most dire of financial situations that I will release my death grip on garments that have been worn once, and will probably never see the light of day (or night) again. As my network of girlfriends have had the same ideas in the past, I trawled through past Facebook events to find our “Clothing Exchange” page from which I was hoping to find new owners for my fashion babies. Sadly, I couldn’t find the page that has been evidently spun off into cyber space somewhere, a frustrating reality of the internet. However, I did have the mis fortune of stumbling across all the past events that are riddled with sad memories or arguments, and fights with the Ex. My heart sunk a little…no, a lot, as I scrolled past his 21^st event, and the charity ball that was simply the beginning of the end, and just like that, confronted with the social life we used to share, my mind begins pouring over details of our relationship I have since buried deep into the depths of my emotional wardrobe, covered in other unpleasant, last season outfits I do not wish to re wear. 

Say Hello

Admittedly, it should not have taken me until 2013 to get my act together and join the rest of the world in the online blogging movement. Somehow, the pressure to deliver a constantly interesting, intelligent stream of posts was daunting enough to deter me from the blogosphere for three to many years. Now as I make my debut, I can’t confidently say that my ability to write increasingly interesting posts has changed. What has changed is my age. Three years ago, when my uni lecturers encouraged us to jump online and share our thoughts, I couldn’t figure out where my next class was let alone what I had that was worth sharing with, uh, everyone. However, today, I am in my early twenties and that my friends is a whole different ball game! In recent months, I have found that your twenties are a never ending landslide of self discoveries. That might sound deep, but i’m including in these personal epiphanies the fact that my taste  in alcohol has matured beyond the ever reliable “goon sack” and I now enjoy a drop that comes in bottle form, and should be drunk from a vessel other than a plastic cup. 

In any case, I now feel I have just enough under my belt to launch myself into the online world, beyond Facebook (yay!). If the consistency of my posts slows somewhat, it’s because i’ve decided I am in fact still a child, and have nothing of value to offer to the already jam packed planet that is the internet, but hopefully, that won’t happen… at least for a while. Since I (among millions of others) am representing the twenty something gals of the online world, I thought it was only appropriate to name the blog after one of my favorite quotes from HBO's new mega hit GIRLS. "We are obviously the ladies" is straight from the mouth of Shoshanna Shapiro, a character I have grown to adore despite finding her mind numbingly irritating in her first few appearances on screen. Shoshanna, played by  Zosia Mamet is that friend we all have in our lives that on the outside is as socially infuriating as she is daft, but a small scratch beneath the surface reveals a heart of gold. 

Happy reading. Xo