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.