Desperado or deliciously diligent?

The radar. Some people have theirs so highly tuned it doesn’t have a sleep mode. Others, like myself need to turn them off blinker mode.

Recently, I went on holidays with two of the most out-of-action girls I’ve met in long time. Romance or fling hadn’t played a part in their daily lives for quite a while. Yet their radars were a true technological feat to behold. It could pinpoint and see a target a mile away.

I was truly envious.

What did it take to turn my radar up a notch or two? I need an upgrade or flick-through of the manual.

I guess, I made them my manual. And studied them so.

Now, I am wondering if I’ve over-studied.

The other night in my attempt to be a cultural, intelligent and slightly bohemian academic I went to a talk about the developments and ramifications of autism spider-webbing its way through popular culture.

Diligently, I was quite absorbed for the first five minutes, until a certain speaker reflected on his own personal experience spoke. Delightful.

My attention went from romancing about my pre-meditated, philosophical ravings of topic, to day-dreaming about how his slightly feminine hand gestures would feel on my face.

It then went from his touch, to pondering what he would like for breakfast, to finally wondering what I would need to do to press his buttons for all of this to eventuate.

Oh yeah, somewhere in the mix there was a little debating over whether he was gay or not due to slightly feminine hand gestures.

Abruptly I was snapped out of this reverie when reality took a side-swipe at my visage.

Am I desperate or deliciously diligent? What kind of person perves at a man in a place like this?

An honest buck

A homeless man on the tube the other day asked for money. And guess what? He got it.

His approach you ask?

“Can I please have some money to buy some drugs?”

And as I got off, I heard my mate say: “If I had a few spare pounds, I’d give it to him – at least he was honest.”

And it made me think we must really be lacking in honesty if he stood out so much by his demonstration of it that people could reward him so.

We must really feel that we live in a dishonest world. Or at the very least crave it, so that we treasure it when we see it.

How honest are we really? And when is it okay to let it go a little bit?

Because let’s face it sometimes honesty can be a bit too much. We’d all appreciate packaged bite-sized chunks of truth rather than buying it in bulk.

The honesty line confuses me as much as working in the ambiguous line of advertising. Am I above the line, though the line, offline, online or a line unto itself?

I am guilty of hearing the line: “Oh my god, you’re so honest.”

And by being this way, it has often encouraged people to play the honesty game with me.

Why do I use the word ‘game’. Because it goes like this: “To be honest with you, I don’t play games.” A little scary – when I’m only half-way through the first pint on the first date. Jesus, where did that come from? I was still on the ‘do you like dogs debate’.

It’s kind of funny because where honesty comes out of nowhere – often an ulterior motive seems to follow quickly behind.

Am I being too honest with you now? After all, I’m revealing the true cynical side of me when I hear a guy make this ‘honest’ declaration.

Why do you have to declare it? Shouldn’t it be obvious?

Or, are we merely professing that when it comes to meeting someone not all of us are truly honest. How would we handle that?

“I’m a man that’s just been dumped and henceforth will have weighty insecurity issues until I do something about it.”

Or

“I just fancy you for a shag but I want it under the pretence of being meaningful.”

It seems honesty doesn’t lead itself to mystery. And that is the one downside in the dating game. Do you really want to know everything about someone after you’ve finished your first pint?

A healthy addiction?

The gym. A proper workout for the neuroses whether you’re in it or out of it.

I know there are a lot of people sheepishly paying monthly sums for a membership that they’re yet to use or see its value.

I also know, from personal experience, that there are others whose frequent trips have justified said membership. But are we really getting our monies worth?

Or are we simply living in denial and feeding an unhealthy addiction?

Lately, I have seen the gym as less of a mecca for those being responsible about their weight to those of us who use it as haven to atone our sins. It truly is a minefield of guilt that I weave my way through all the contraptions to tone and perk those softer bits.

My life has become dominated by sweat and carbs. No longer has it become a measure to stabilise my ‘outside world’ of pints and chocolate binges.

Surely, I should be at an age where the quest for washboard abs are over. Surely, I have reached an inner calm with the way I look and what I have to work with. Surely, I can relax that the teenage litheness I once possessed is no longer achievable.

I find the more I indulge in this place, the more it calls me so.

I cruelly critique that body I see in the mirror.

Maybe it is my competitive nature that I am indulging: ‘I might be this age, but I have got a better body than most women born in 78’. It’s awful to think like that. Ridiculous even – sadistic some might say.

An ego out of control and in need of a firm reprimand – not another sweaty session on the cross-trainer.

But I can’t stop. Because if I do I won’t win the race. I’ll simply be softer, not harder.

And that’s the irony – I know I am too hard on myself.

Tears for some, but not for others...

Lately we’ve seen men open up and get familiar with their softer side – literally. There’s a new market for men’s skincare and it’s perfectly natural these days to hear a man’s concern about his waistline.

There’s been tears too. And not just on the pitch. Anything from break-ups to bad days at the office are getting the waterworks started.

Don’t get me wrong, I think women love it. We’re embracing it and seeing our fellow counterparts as deep, emotional, in tune human beings. In fact, some women see it as a major turn on.

So now they've reached our level why are they dissing us so?

The other day after nature intervened with that-time-of-the month, I found myself having my first official ‘office cry’. The stiff upper lip I had adopted in becoming the ‘serious career woman’ was swiftly eroded in one foul swoop by a conference call with the client.

And so it was with wet cheeks of despair I conceded the death of my ‘career woman’ alter-ego. And so it was too, that 'men to the rescue' flocked around. My flapping wings stilled by the heroic efforts of the soothing masculine touch. How men love a damsel in distress.

After my rescue, I was left in a brilliant haze of utopian living. But not for long.

Another woman cried that day and it was my admirable heroes that commented on how her tears were merely symbolic weapons of manipulation. A cunning plan to get them to succumb to her demands.

In their eyes, her tears were not worthy.

Why is it okay for some woman to cry and others not. What does a woman have to do to validate her tears?

I have of course, very typically over-analysed this. My flimsy hypothesis wonders if the petite woman has more leeway in this emotional fairground. Small in stature – hence not a threat, but in constant need of looking after should she fall in a metaphorical pit-hole of life.

Or, is it that the woman in a position of control should be made of stone, and therefore have lost the ability to feel. This governs she may shed no more tears. Is it simply her lot in life to deal with?

Whatever it is, you would think that the open arms we extend to a crying man should be justifiably offered to all women of size and position. Come on, give us a break. At the very least offer us a tissue.

Am I the Berlin Wall of relationships?

For such an open person – well that’s what I like to think of myself – this really is a scary question to tackle.

But I think it’s time I should.

I love patterns. Patterns on clothes, patterns in the weather – but not the patterns in the men I chose and the outcomes I stitch myself up with.

My break-ups are the Berlin Wall of break-ups. Fortified, rock-solid, impenetrable. And with no positive view of what’s on the other side.

I am not asking for pity, nor I am playing around with self-pity. I am just observing a pattern and a wall so high that I don’t know how I am ever going to climb over it or break through it.

In a weird way, I am truly fascinated by other people’s break-ups. Theirs seems to involve drama and tears. Explanations and epilogues. Mine are engulfed with silence and brain-teasers. All occurring with a wall between that the answers will never be.

Maybe it is me that builds this wall and they simply decide to end it from the other side.

Is it me that puts the blocks in place and when it’s close to finishing they chip in with the final piece?

I guess in a way by protecting myself I make it so easy for them to walk away. I’ve got everything – I’ve got a perfectly built wall why would I need anything else, including them to make the world a better place?

If only they could see Berlin now. A city that rejoices in a wall fallen – bursting with hope of broken patterns and brimming with proud potential.