I have written before about my lack of flirting skills and they rose their head again this weekend. Except, I am beginning to wonder if it is not my flirting skills that are the issue but everyone else's.
Flirting in 2013 seems to be more about sexual explicitness than any meaningful titalation and I am fairly certain that it is not a skill I have much wish to learn. It is no longer about seduction and nor is it necessarily specific to the person receiving it, but seemingly just another string to the bow of porn.
I entered into some texting with a man that I simply have never understood but to be fair, he is attractive and someone you would certainly consider worth flirting with. It moved from a bit of flirting to overtly sexual pretty rapidly and I was simply not comfortable with where it was going. Had I already slept with him, I would have enjoyed it for he wasn't without good word skills and to be fair, nothing he said was crude. But we haven't slept together, we probably never will and since he only makes contact when he is away, I suspect that in a moment of boredem - he thought he would just make use of the mobile phone for a bit of fun.
And so now I am sexually frustrated. Indeed, he wrote such that I couldn't help but think "That would be very nice, thank you very much" and had he been here, I'd have been pretty pleased to know he was thinking in such manner. But that isn't what it was about and now I am frustrated. I had got quite used to the sexual desert but now frankly, I am feeling a little robbed. So why do men text women with things they would like to do, that they have no intention of doing?
And there are so many men that use mobile phones for meaningless sexual pleasure. I should imagine that the printed porn industry has seen a decline in profit in the last few years. Fertility units will no longer have to produce magazines for men to produce, they will simply need to make sure they have 3G in a private room.
So how did we get to place in which people text each other sexual suggestion that they have absolutely no intention of seeing through. Phone sex is nothing new, when I was younger and couldn't see my boyfriend, it was the way to go but it involved actually knowing the person because you had to speak with them. Unless of course, you were paying for a service. And perhaps this is the change, texting dismisses the need for personal contact and makes sexting with just about anyone a free service, giving you access to a multitude of contacts that may be willing to play ball. So to speak.
Yet its more than that, we have become a society in which meaningless encounters are more common than anyone actually getting to know each other. Someone being attracted to you doesn't mean anything any more. It simply means they probably just want sex. And its all a little insulting, that a man that is clearly not interested, feels free to get sexual by text. Seriously, how sad is it than in a society where self gratification is so easy and sex so freely given that we appear to have anaesthetised ourselves to needing to know someone. Sex with someone who's body and mind you actually like - is so much better
A close friend regularly benefits from text images of mens pride and joys in her inbox, which may be pretty amusing to see but really, I know few women that are genuinely turned on by a picture of someones penis. Women don't tremble in excitement, they simply assess it and there are few things men like less than being compared. These are invariably not men interested in a relationship, they are just men that want someone to help them through a moment of self gratification. And as men get off to the 'mmmmmmm' in reply, they should know the truth. Women are not moaning when they tap in mmmmm, the are simply speechless and bored. The same can be said of ummmmmm.
I love my mobile phone, at times I love social media but I do not love it enough for send pictures of me baring all. The truth is, I love my reputation more. In a relationship or someone I am dating, I'd happily be as suggestive and since I excel at innuendo, a lot of fun could be had, but sending men I don't really know overtly sexual texts, is just a little weird. Particularly when it is pretty clear that the only contact they want is when they are bored.
So my reputation remains in tact but I am more sexually frustrated than ever before.
Great. Thanks
Sunday 13 October 2013
Tuesday 8 October 2013
F****ed off with the F****ed up
I have missed writing so very much. Too many of the people I find myself surrounded by are so driven by their oddness that I find it impossible to write about them. And really, do they ever change?
Perhaps I have just reached the stage where behind the smile, the hello or the nod of acknowledgement - is the voice in my head that screams
"Oh for fuck sake, just bloody grow up"
I feel better for writing that.
Perhaps I have just reached the stage where behind the smile, the hello or the nod of acknowledgement - is the voice in my head that screams
"Oh for fuck sake, just bloody grow up"
I feel better for writing that.
Sunday 14 April 2013
Putting on a brave facade
A man that I had considered a friend, recently sent a text telling me that he found me more attractive than he should. I was a little stunned. Particularly as we had already had a conversation on that very issue. A conversation in which I had made it perfectly clear that I was none too keen on men who created disingenuous friendships on the off chance something may occur from them.
So I didn't respond. It was awkward. Even more so when I then received a day long barrage of texts asking me to consider his unlikely scenario. I declined. Yet despite being appalled - I admired him.
It seems that all too often we play games, we mess with peoples heads - simply because we are not brave enough to be honest about how we really feel. The fear of rejection can paralyse us into not being able to reveal our true thoughts and worse still, can make us appear to want the very opposite.
I am a master of this. I would rather die in a ditch than show someone I really want, that I really want them. So I give nothing away. I play games. And all to often I play games with people who are equally incapable of revealing their true thoughts, because they have the same fear I do. So they play games.
And the reality hits that you can play those games for years. You know, deep down - that the thought process is mutual. There are always just enough signs to back up your hunch, just not quite enough to evidence to fuel sufficient confidence at making those thoughts a little clearer. And because of this - you end up committed to a very long game of emotional chess.
And what a waste. Because until one of you is brave enough to break that pattern, to be entirely honest about your inner thoughts - nothing will ever change and you will watch a thousand days of chance simply fade away.
I'd like to say I worked this out myself but I didn't. In complaining of someone elses control issues, it took a friend to point out that since I was controlling my true thoughts so much - I was equally culpable in the push pull mind game. It was a fair call.
And I do nothing about it because the fear of rejection is paralysing.
So to the man that I didn't want - I take my hat off to you for making your thoughts known. You have the kind of bravery I wish I had.
So I didn't respond. It was awkward. Even more so when I then received a day long barrage of texts asking me to consider his unlikely scenario. I declined. Yet despite being appalled - I admired him.
It seems that all too often we play games, we mess with peoples heads - simply because we are not brave enough to be honest about how we really feel. The fear of rejection can paralyse us into not being able to reveal our true thoughts and worse still, can make us appear to want the very opposite.
I am a master of this. I would rather die in a ditch than show someone I really want, that I really want them. So I give nothing away. I play games. And all to often I play games with people who are equally incapable of revealing their true thoughts, because they have the same fear I do. So they play games.
And the reality hits that you can play those games for years. You know, deep down - that the thought process is mutual. There are always just enough signs to back up your hunch, just not quite enough to evidence to fuel sufficient confidence at making those thoughts a little clearer. And because of this - you end up committed to a very long game of emotional chess.
And what a waste. Because until one of you is brave enough to break that pattern, to be entirely honest about your inner thoughts - nothing will ever change and you will watch a thousand days of chance simply fade away.
I'd like to say I worked this out myself but I didn't. In complaining of someone elses control issues, it took a friend to point out that since I was controlling my true thoughts so much - I was equally culpable in the push pull mind game. It was a fair call.
And I do nothing about it because the fear of rejection is paralysing.
So to the man that I didn't want - I take my hat off to you for making your thoughts known. You have the kind of bravery I wish I had.
Thursday 21 March 2013
Talking defecation for a living
Apparently, I am not allowed to use the headline "Good wrist action for men that get stiff" for the only range of garden tools to be awarded a commendation from the arthritic society. Which is a shame.
When writing about axes, I was out voted on my suggestion of "The perfect gift for men that demand good head" Now clearly., I didn't forward these to the client but hey, it makes the working day more interesting. In truth, I am fairly puritanical in both behaviour and word, but have a quick wit when it comes to innuendo or tenuous link. I suspect that there is a part of my brain, called smutsphere.
However, if I wanted to get the word out there for Fiat, I could write about infant defecation and snot. This is the link sent to me on Mothers Day from an equally pure colleague in local branding agency.
Genius.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNVde5HPhYo
When writing about axes, I was out voted on my suggestion of "The perfect gift for men that demand good head" Now clearly., I didn't forward these to the client but hey, it makes the working day more interesting. In truth, I am fairly puritanical in both behaviour and word, but have a quick wit when it comes to innuendo or tenuous link. I suspect that there is a part of my brain, called smutsphere.
However, if I wanted to get the word out there for Fiat, I could write about infant defecation and snot. This is the link sent to me on Mothers Day from an equally pure colleague in local branding agency.
Genius.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNVde5HPhYo
Saturday 23 February 2013
The hardest question, the simplest answer
Someone asked me today, "How you know if someone is right for you?"
It's an interesting question. "I guess you just have a gut instinct, you just know," I answered. And as I tend to, I have spent some time pondering if that was the right answer.
Thinking back to my marriage choice, I knew he was not the right man for me. But I wanted him to be, so I set about ignoring the large flags a flying, wilfully disregarding the facts in favour of only seeing what I wanted to see.
And that is what we do. We enter relationships with people who have something about them that we genuinely like and we will it to work. Since we want it to work so badly - we fail to look at it in the cold light of day and ask whether this person is right in all the places they needs to be right. And they often aren't.
It is true that there is no such thing as the perfect person. No one is without fault. No woman, no matter how beautiful looks beautiful all of the time. No man, no matter how strong will fail to be as irritating as hell at some point - but there is such a thing as perfect for you.
And the answer lies in how much we think about it.
When I was dating my ex-husband - I had an ideal of what perfect was and he needed to fit it. His quietness, I put down to being deep. It was actually an inability to communicate. His inability to show compassion, I put down to being overwhelmed by situations and an unable to articulate it. He didn't have any. His lack of ability in sharing thoughts, I put down to being contented. He was simply devious. No matter what it was, I found a way of making it look peachy. It never was - I signed my own divorce papers the day I got married.
The reality was - I was thinking about it too much.
Perfect, is not a relationship in which you make everything fit. Perfect is when you trust someone enough that you just know that you don't have to think about it too much.
The last man I dated could have been perfect, but he wasn't and it wasn't. And sometimes it is merely a case of the wrong time, wrong place. If he had been more self aware, perhaps he could have been. We got on with ease, we had some great times but emotionally - he was a long way behind me. And I wanted it to be perfect. Did I trust him? absolutely. Did I trust enough to be totally emotionally honest with him about my needs? No.
I was spending way too much of my time having to analyse some of his behaviour. And one day I woke up and realised that it would never change and in sticking with it, I was compromising too many of the values that I knew were fundamental to what I knew 'perfect for me' needed. And so, he wasn't perfect for me. It was a hard call to make - but in doing the one thing I didn't want to do, I was doing the right thing for me. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong man.
It takes a long time to work out who you are and perhaps you never truly truly do. Yet every relationship teaches you something about yourself and what you need from those invited into your life.
The four years I have spent since my marriage ended have had ups and down. I have, without question loved the people I have dated. They were part of that journey and both taught me a lot about myself. And whilst I have associated those with a great deal of pain - they played a huge part in understanding the things that needed understanding.
Arguably, I met them at the right time for me to see how much I needed to sort my own stuff out , and because of that - the wrong time for it to have worked out.
Big toes with too much hair, an irritating facial expression, a habit of keeping you waiting when you are trying to get out, spending too long in the bathroom, superficial misunderstanding- none of that stuff matters.
But the bigger question such as how do you know if someone is right for you,
I guess you don't ask yourself.
It's an interesting question. "I guess you just have a gut instinct, you just know," I answered. And as I tend to, I have spent some time pondering if that was the right answer.
Thinking back to my marriage choice, I knew he was not the right man for me. But I wanted him to be, so I set about ignoring the large flags a flying, wilfully disregarding the facts in favour of only seeing what I wanted to see.
And that is what we do. We enter relationships with people who have something about them that we genuinely like and we will it to work. Since we want it to work so badly - we fail to look at it in the cold light of day and ask whether this person is right in all the places they needs to be right. And they often aren't.
It is true that there is no such thing as the perfect person. No one is without fault. No woman, no matter how beautiful looks beautiful all of the time. No man, no matter how strong will fail to be as irritating as hell at some point - but there is such a thing as perfect for you.
And the answer lies in how much we think about it.
When I was dating my ex-husband - I had an ideal of what perfect was and he needed to fit it. His quietness, I put down to being deep. It was actually an inability to communicate. His inability to show compassion, I put down to being overwhelmed by situations and an unable to articulate it. He didn't have any. His lack of ability in sharing thoughts, I put down to being contented. He was simply devious. No matter what it was, I found a way of making it look peachy. It never was - I signed my own divorce papers the day I got married.
The reality was - I was thinking about it too much.
Perfect, is not a relationship in which you make everything fit. Perfect is when you trust someone enough that you just know that you don't have to think about it too much.
The last man I dated could have been perfect, but he wasn't and it wasn't. And sometimes it is merely a case of the wrong time, wrong place. If he had been more self aware, perhaps he could have been. We got on with ease, we had some great times but emotionally - he was a long way behind me. And I wanted it to be perfect. Did I trust him? absolutely. Did I trust enough to be totally emotionally honest with him about my needs? No.
I was spending way too much of my time having to analyse some of his behaviour. And one day I woke up and realised that it would never change and in sticking with it, I was compromising too many of the values that I knew were fundamental to what I knew 'perfect for me' needed. And so, he wasn't perfect for me. It was a hard call to make - but in doing the one thing I didn't want to do, I was doing the right thing for me. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong man.
It takes a long time to work out who you are and perhaps you never truly truly do. Yet every relationship teaches you something about yourself and what you need from those invited into your life.
The four years I have spent since my marriage ended have had ups and down. I have, without question loved the people I have dated. They were part of that journey and both taught me a lot about myself. And whilst I have associated those with a great deal of pain - they played a huge part in understanding the things that needed understanding.
Arguably, I met them at the right time for me to see how much I needed to sort my own stuff out , and because of that - the wrong time for it to have worked out.
Big toes with too much hair, an irritating facial expression, a habit of keeping you waiting when you are trying to get out, spending too long in the bathroom, superficial misunderstanding- none of that stuff matters.
But the bigger question such as how do you know if someone is right for you,
I guess you don't ask yourself.
Tuesday 19 February 2013
When reflection is not simply projection
I wore a wig last week - just for the fun of it. I also wore false eyelashes. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but if it got to the stage where I couldn't go out without fluttering large nylon lashes - I would become one of those women that have to get up at 6am to stop the world realising that without props - I am as short lashed as the next woman. You can only keep it up for so long.
So someone wrote a dating profile for me recently. It is something I shall revisit - there is far to much fodder in the process not to. But there were two things that really stood out for me and whilst both were very different - one a description of my traits and the other what kind of man I would need - they are intrinsically linked. Because both relate to the same word - honesty.
It is true, as they stated - that I can be overly analytical. It was a fair summary - to a point. For what I have come to realise, is that I am only overly analytical with people who are not honest about who they are, or what they want. Someone asked me recently, how I am so good at maintaining great friendships with male friends and yet so poor at choosing the right relationship. As a female with possibly more male friends than female - it was worthy of consideration.
And then the light bulb moment occurred. I have higher standards for friendships. And since I only enter true friendships with people I can trust - I analyse nothing. And it is why such friendships are so precious - total of acceptance of another and total trust.
Relationships are a whole different matter. I have a sorry history of getting close to people that I don't trust. I don't trust them because they are not honest about who they are to themselves, let alone anyone else. And yet it all comes out and for a brief period they feel relief that someone 'gets' them, but since we generally feel more comfortable in our own self fulfilling prophecies - when it all gets a bit too much - I scare them. Furthermore, since I have never really believed their is such a thing as a safe relationship, I have dated in my comfort zone. Unsafe ones.
Which is ironic really, since the ability to have insight into the issues of others is invariably because we recognise something in that behaviour. The men that I know who are petrified of people getting too close, seeing past their outer bravado - they offer little surprise. I only know what makes them tick since I see it in myself. The key difference is that they are so focused on themselves they are incapable of considering others. In observing them, I learn a little more about myself and become a little more understanding of how far I need to push myself out of my own comfort zone. And I will.
So logic would dictate that I would date my male friends, but I will never risk jeopardising such good relationship with the quagmire that is emotion. I feel perfectly comfortable, until they are too nice - and then I start analysing why. One male chum recently left a 'Love you lots' post-it note on my kettle. It made me smile. Briefly - until my mind went into overdrive analysing whether there was an expectation to our friendship. Of course I know there isn't but lets face it - if one thing freaks me out - it is someone who is genuinely affectionate with no agenda. It is outside my comfort zone. Equally - since I now see it as a pre-requisite for new relationship standards, I know that I have to get past that irrational response. And I will.
So I could run from spontaneous shows of affection. I could dismiss friendships where there is too much loving going on and my natural inclination is to do just that. Yet, I also know that running from what is good for us, is a default setting for the emotionally afflicted and it's a pattern I have no wish to repeat.
And so my dating profile claimed I need a confident man. Having initially agreed, a week of pondering has made me realise that I don't need a confident man - I need an honest one. I am not convinced that anyone is entirely confident and a relationship is the one place where we should be able to be honest about our lack of confidence. A good relationship is not about hiding insecurities or indeed, masking them with overly confident baloney that hides our true self. Indeed, those inclined to do so are normally masking such huge insecurity that the only thing they know for sure - is that they never feel good enough.
Honesty, is the ability to communicate the lack of confidence that we all experience from time to time. Surely a great relationship can only be one in which you are truly yourself, one in which the other person accepts you for who you are - and as much as we all believe that is what we want - many of us are not in a place where we can be honest with our self, let alone anyone else.
We hae all done it. I have been immensely accepting of men - only to realise that they have lied for such a large part of their existence, that the mere whiff of total acceptance from another half sees them scurrying into the hills. Gees, imagine having to be honest about yourself for the rest of your life when the lying has worked so well.
So we date in our comfort zone. We date people that allow us to perpetuate the life long lies we have concocted to protect ourselves from the reality of who we really are - which is vulnerable. We date people that mess with our heads because we have spent so many years needing to outwit a partner, it's the only thing that feels safe. We date people that cannot be trusted because we believe deep down, that no one can be trusted. We date people that make us feel needed because without feeling needed, we feel nothing. We date people that we have to analyse what they do, because deep down we don't believe anyone wants nothing more than just us.
But lies don't work. If they did, most of us wouldn't end up with relationships which are never really quite enough. More than this, we wouldn't end up in relationships in which we know deep down the red flags were waving but the fear of doing something totally different was greater that accepting the truth.
Imagine a relationship in which what your heart really wanted didn't terrify you, in which you didn't run from things that are good for you, simply because it was outside your comfort zone, outside your personal history. Imagine the freedom of being totally honest about what you really want.
I don't need a confident man.
I need an honest one
So someone wrote a dating profile for me recently. It is something I shall revisit - there is far to much fodder in the process not to. But there were two things that really stood out for me and whilst both were very different - one a description of my traits and the other what kind of man I would need - they are intrinsically linked. Because both relate to the same word - honesty.
It is true, as they stated - that I can be overly analytical. It was a fair summary - to a point. For what I have come to realise, is that I am only overly analytical with people who are not honest about who they are, or what they want. Someone asked me recently, how I am so good at maintaining great friendships with male friends and yet so poor at choosing the right relationship. As a female with possibly more male friends than female - it was worthy of consideration.
And then the light bulb moment occurred. I have higher standards for friendships. And since I only enter true friendships with people I can trust - I analyse nothing. And it is why such friendships are so precious - total of acceptance of another and total trust.
Relationships are a whole different matter. I have a sorry history of getting close to people that I don't trust. I don't trust them because they are not honest about who they are to themselves, let alone anyone else. And yet it all comes out and for a brief period they feel relief that someone 'gets' them, but since we generally feel more comfortable in our own self fulfilling prophecies - when it all gets a bit too much - I scare them. Furthermore, since I have never really believed their is such a thing as a safe relationship, I have dated in my comfort zone. Unsafe ones.
Which is ironic really, since the ability to have insight into the issues of others is invariably because we recognise something in that behaviour. The men that I know who are petrified of people getting too close, seeing past their outer bravado - they offer little surprise. I only know what makes them tick since I see it in myself. The key difference is that they are so focused on themselves they are incapable of considering others. In observing them, I learn a little more about myself and become a little more understanding of how far I need to push myself out of my own comfort zone. And I will.
So logic would dictate that I would date my male friends, but I will never risk jeopardising such good relationship with the quagmire that is emotion. I feel perfectly comfortable, until they are too nice - and then I start analysing why. One male chum recently left a 'Love you lots' post-it note on my kettle. It made me smile. Briefly - until my mind went into overdrive analysing whether there was an expectation to our friendship. Of course I know there isn't but lets face it - if one thing freaks me out - it is someone who is genuinely affectionate with no agenda. It is outside my comfort zone. Equally - since I now see it as a pre-requisite for new relationship standards, I know that I have to get past that irrational response. And I will.
So I could run from spontaneous shows of affection. I could dismiss friendships where there is too much loving going on and my natural inclination is to do just that. Yet, I also know that running from what is good for us, is a default setting for the emotionally afflicted and it's a pattern I have no wish to repeat.
And so my dating profile claimed I need a confident man. Having initially agreed, a week of pondering has made me realise that I don't need a confident man - I need an honest one. I am not convinced that anyone is entirely confident and a relationship is the one place where we should be able to be honest about our lack of confidence. A good relationship is not about hiding insecurities or indeed, masking them with overly confident baloney that hides our true self. Indeed, those inclined to do so are normally masking such huge insecurity that the only thing they know for sure - is that they never feel good enough.
Honesty, is the ability to communicate the lack of confidence that we all experience from time to time. Surely a great relationship can only be one in which you are truly yourself, one in which the other person accepts you for who you are - and as much as we all believe that is what we want - many of us are not in a place where we can be honest with our self, let alone anyone else.
We hae all done it. I have been immensely accepting of men - only to realise that they have lied for such a large part of their existence, that the mere whiff of total acceptance from another half sees them scurrying into the hills. Gees, imagine having to be honest about yourself for the rest of your life when the lying has worked so well.
So we date in our comfort zone. We date people that allow us to perpetuate the life long lies we have concocted to protect ourselves from the reality of who we really are - which is vulnerable. We date people that mess with our heads because we have spent so many years needing to outwit a partner, it's the only thing that feels safe. We date people that cannot be trusted because we believe deep down, that no one can be trusted. We date people that make us feel needed because without feeling needed, we feel nothing. We date people that we have to analyse what they do, because deep down we don't believe anyone wants nothing more than just us.
But lies don't work. If they did, most of us wouldn't end up with relationships which are never really quite enough. More than this, we wouldn't end up in relationships in which we know deep down the red flags were waving but the fear of doing something totally different was greater that accepting the truth.
Imagine a relationship in which what your heart really wanted didn't terrify you, in which you didn't run from things that are good for you, simply because it was outside your comfort zone, outside your personal history. Imagine the freedom of being totally honest about what you really want.
I don't need a confident man.
I need an honest one
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