Crazy little thing called love.

Your palms are sweaty, you fix your hair, apply your lipstick and stick your boobs out a little (it’s no secret that boys like them… and you know it). Game on! If you’re male, you stand a little taller, act more obnoxiously, flex a little, and talk louder but deeper making that voice of yours a weapon of mass seduction as your vocal chords strum a few sweet nothings on the heart strings of your crush. It sounds ridiculous but those attracted to another dabble in the ridiculous to experience the sublime.

After getting in contact with a long lost friend and having a great chat on the crushes we’ve had over the past ten years, we quickly got on to the stupid things that we have done to attract the opposite sex. My friend (much braver than I…than most actually) dived head first into a dumpster to help find her crush’s lost possessions. He was too afraid to go in there himself so she chivalrously dispensed all of her inhibitions and gambled hygiene for love – somehow, believing the act would overpower the smell when she emerged from the bin for him. It’s one of the greatest stories I’ve ever heard. She didn’t get the boy (bad smells will do that to a person – but she also no longer wants him).

It got me thinking, what if there were full proof plans we could follow to ensure the affection of the one we have eyes for? I found answers in the animal kingdom (please note they are not necessarily full(or fool)proof).

There are many varieties in which animals compete with each other to attract a mate. Some animals attract through pheromones. This is disgusting! By producing a hormonal scent, females respond to this and are able to track the male. In the human world, those scents are usually kept secret till a couple is locked in love and less repulsed by the odours a man will emit. Women of course, never pass wind in case you were wondering.

We humans do, do a similar thing (I think more for us than for the opposite sex, by drowning ourselves in cologne or perfume). It is this animalistic notion of courtship however that has inspired advertising campaigns like the lynx effect. The men in these ads only require a simple spray that tickles and delights the senses of alpha females everywhere.

Colour display is another dating strategy for fish and our cousins,’ the chimpanzees. The colour change is used to illustrate an animal’s 'availability'. We imitate these primates by changing an outfit, dying our hair, applying make-up or pulling out our most alluringly coloured dresses to grab the attention of the men we’ve set our sights on. Men I believe, also work in colours, but internally. When their light is switched on red, they are occupied, taken and unavailable to your green light signals. When they are unhappy in relationships, tied up with work, committed to other things and not people, their yellow light comes on – it indicates that you can enter with caution. This light preemptively warns you that his situation is a changing one and as a woman you may enter but only at your own peril knowing that he may soon become unavailable or free up again for you and finally there is a green light that allows traffic to freely flow in to his life. A man with his green light on is the one you want to look out for…he’s the committed type, ready to date but also, just like a traffic light capable of putting dating to a stop and coming to a standstill with you.

I’ll happily admit to having done many a thing for attention and for love, I’ve written love letters, poems, made books, sung and have even done the neurotic sticking of post-its on cars, some have scored me brownie points, all are appreciated but not all have been reciprocated.

A big fan of grand gestures, I’m thankful for the insanity that overcomes us when we allow ourselves to become stupefied by love. It makes the crazy excusable and to that special someone, even adorable. Enter “The Notebook” and the famous “Say I’m a bird”…“Now say you’re a bird” line.

“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird,” the charming Ryan Gosling says in the movie.

Katie Melua labeled love “the closest thing to crazy (she) had ever been,” but she like most women wouldn’t have it any other way as she concluded ‘now I know that their’s a link between the two…being close to craziness, and being close to you.”  

I’d never ask for an end to the games, because amidst the craziness and the crush induced courtship, you meet a person that loves the way you smell, never asks you to change your colours but loves you with every change. If you’re a bird, he’s a bird and he’ll fly you to the moon and back.

Honesty (a lonely word)

Arnold Schwarzenegger said the two best things in life are “pumping and humping” and those two things  ultimately led to Maria Shriver dumping the womanizer after he admitted to having fathered a lust-child ten years ago to one of the women that cleaned their house (and there are rumours his humping was not limited to the hired help). 

Shriver, an award winning journalist, part of the Kennedy lineage and mother of his four children, sacrificed her career to spend her life as Arnie’s trophy wife, but at the end of their 25 year marriage, their were no medals for her sacrifice. 

We are yet to see this story unfold and cannot foretell if it will evolve into a Tiger Wood’s type scandal ….it’s the wood that seems to keep getting these men into trouble. What this repeatedly reveals is the dispensation of a core quality in relationships; honesty. 

If Arnold had been honest about wanting more loving, I’m pretty sure he’s devoted wife would have given it. If he was honest at the time he cheated, he may have been deterred from repeating the cheating, if he had been honest, his marriage may still be in tact.

This comes as more friends than usual, are dealing with issues of honesty in their relationships. One friend is seeing someone who after months of dating refuses to give their ‘seeing-each-other” a definition. 

We are women, therefore we think. 

It is never sufficient for us to have men see us through relationships, have us form attachments and then have them decide one morning that they have used our goods to their satiety, later venturing on to the next bright, young, shiny thing. Men claim that if women were more honest, there would be fewer problems; I agree.

However, if women were always honest, a lot of men would be very quickly scared away at the idea of us wanting commitment, while they want play. If honesty was always at play, men would be restricted in their freedoms and their friendships. They would be subjected to a lot more control than they are willing to accept, and most women would happily harp on about their problems with the men they are seeing that the relationship would be over before it existed. It’s a painful truth, that men too have to be ready to accept.

As my friend sought my advice on what she should do, she asked, should she seek out a definition from the boy she is seeing or should she let it come from him? I am always very conflicted when it comes to what women should do in a relationship. My traditional self tells me to allow the man to do the courting, while my 21^st century self screams ‘female liberation’ and the freedom to find your own fortune. In this situation I figure, if you have been dating for five months, you are exclusive and he is yet to call you his girlfriend, this boy is probably playing you or tongue-tied. Either way, he needs a little less action and a lot more talking, as dreaded as it may be. It’s difficult to call this boy, everyman but it does beg the question, why are some men ready to settle earlier than others? In comes that word again.  Honesty!

If both had articulated their agendas at the start of the relationship, neither would be in this conundrum. Unable to turn back the hands of time, honesty here will either offer security in the relationship they have or shut my friend out of the love shack. Both,to me, are good outcomes because at least then there is no more guess work. 

This has been the stuff of countless breakups. When sweet-talk does not suffice. Honesty steps in; calling for accountability, their is no dancing around answers,  love is the hoped outcome but  an honest answer, has sometimes painfully (but for the better) proved not to be. When it isn't, the relationship isn't either, but the truth, sets both free.

One of my favourite songs, originally by Billy Joel but beautifully covered by Beyonce, is called “Honesty.” The lyrics sing of love, of flattery and of little white lies being easy to find but the song shares a poignant truth; that honesty is often accompanied by loneliness because of its evaporation from society, and people’s inability to digest harsh truths.

Honesty it says, is hardly ever heard, but is what the world needs most. Agreed. 

For the end of questions, for the start of clarity, for deeper understanding of the people that surround you, the simplest answer exists in honesty. Honestly.

Superficial standards stifling relationships.

I’m not telling people not to have standards (that’s essential to contentment with your future groom or bride to be) but are people’s expectations of their future partners becoming ridiculously unattainable?

I have a few friends at the moment with relationship troubles because for one reason or many, a friend or their partner, was expecting too much of their other half.

One fool with no vision beyond his biceps left a fabulous friend of mine because she wouldn’t ice-skate, but she had reason to refuse… she was never taught how. Ice-skating to me, would not make or break a relationship. One does not master marriage on skates. Ice-skates were not going to help her clean, be a better cook or a better lover. This gutless wonder, found flaws in one of the most beautiful people I know, not because she was flawed but in fact because he was looking to pair up with Tour-Guide Barbie which might be fair if he was Ken, but this boy is more akin to Humphrey Bear (in appearance not love). Seeing my friend so broken over a flawed person who pointed to her insecurities to justify his commitment-phobia was heartbreaking. This was a man that was all brawn and no brain because any smart forward thinking man would have done his utmost to keep her…come to think of it, he may have been lacking in another department too. 

The devastating thing is this is not the first time I’ve seen it happen. I’ve had friends in long-term relationships who have become train-wrecks after their romantic carriage ride down lovers lane came to a screeching halt when one partner failed to commit to someone they knew they loved because they believed there was better out there.

That polygamist ideology is spurred on by articles like this one from Sam in the City in SMH that claim that believing in “the one” when there’s so much choice out there is unfathomable in the 21^st century (http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/blogs/ask-sam/can-you-be-with-one-person-for-the-rest-of-your-life-20110511-1eifd.html).

Opinions like this, show a great loss of a necessary value. If love is what guarantees happiness, why are people treating it like a disposal commodity? Does an abundance of people create the illusion of choice? Are we so fickle that the sight of an attractive person who we aren’t with, makes us question the value of the person we are blessed to have?

When I think of it in terms of friendship, an end is never a foreseeable option to a disagreement. We may meet many people throughout our life’s journey but we always hold nearest and dearest those friends that have seen us through every triumph, tribulation and tooth loss from adolescence to adulthood. Why then, when we find love is it so easy to part ways with someone we’d hoped for a future with?

This week I was shocked to learn that Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger are separated after 25 years of marriage. The terminator and Shriver terminated a love that spanned years, career changes, hairdos and eighties fashion (if you survived the latter you’d think you could get through anything). Of course nobody ever knows the intimate details of their friend’s relationships unless they’ve divulged every detail to you, but from what I have seen and heard, I’m disappointed in the fact that nobody wants to fight for what is meaningful anymore.

For many of us, our parent’s generation got to know each other very quickly and within that time decided that that person would be the one they shared their life with. It was not the fairytale that many of us dream of, it was better. It was that deeply connected, self-sacrificing, faithful, serving, unconditional love that swore and stayed committed till death do them part because love, marriage, their word and honouring a promise were values far more important than a candlelit dinner and a few lust-induced butterflies.

When they promised to love, they also promised to fight because the relationship would always be a bond they’d never dare break. They treated marriage like it was something they could never get out of because it was a choice they made and they accepted that true love was hard work. So they kept on working.

I don’t think that standards were sacrificed back in the day. I think it’s more that they favoured quality over quantity and perhaps that was the secret. They didn’t look at small flaws, they worked together to right each other’s wrongs and it didn’t matter if one could skate or not because they’d guide each other through it (or do an awesome lift where the non-skater didn’t have to touch the ground).

The secret to finding true love was not about butterflies, boobs and Barbies, it was about finding someone you’d rather fight with for the rest of your life than leave and be superficially dating anyone else.

The Ex Files

An anonymous reader of this blog asked me this week what are the rules when it comes to befriending your friend’s ex.  

The reader asked “when a friend breaks up with their long term relationship and you’ve made friends with the other party, as a friend do you have a responsibility to end the friendship with their ex? Is the proper etiquette to at least offer to do so? And finally, does it depend on the terms of the break up?

The reader was happy to have me blog on the topic as it’s an issue that is commonly faced by everyone at some point in time. I tried as best as I could to outline the rules according to dating, in the Ex files.

My first question, was for you to consider how close you are to both parties? If the obvious answer is your friend, then it’s a no-brainer but if the relationship has spanned years, the lines of who is friends with who may be blurred, so we move on to the other common factors.

Ultimately, and it's a sad truth in most friendship circles, a friendship with a person of the opposite gender  will dissipate or will at least be less intimate, when the male or female gets into a relationship, so if you are to pursue friendship with your mate’s ex, ask yourself is it worth losing your friend over a friendship that is likely to be over in a few years? This assumes that you have befriended your friends ex purely platonically. The other option is a whole other blog.

The other thing worth considering, is if your friend would do the same for you in return? Has he/she done so, so far? I know that friendship is not eye for eye, tooth for tooth but if you are not naturally receiving what you are giving (without keeping tab) then the quality of your friendship is probably questionable anyway.

I have some very loyal friends who I know would stick by me and have when I discover I have made the wrong decision in liking a guy. Their hatred for the boy stems out of loyalty to me and an intense hatred of seeing me upset. I’ve never requested that they hate whomever hurts me but they’re reaction is instinctive and stems out of loyalty. This reaction of course, is only warranted when a break-up or the end of a more-than-friends-friendship has resulted in my hurt. The same applies for you…if you’re friendship is hurt from an immediately unforgivable act that an ex committed towards them, then you’ll usually find you’re pretty mad at them too for putting your friend in that state. If the break up was peaceful, a different set of rules apply again.

If it was amicable then they are both good people that deserve happiness elsewhere. No hard feelings, but maybe no more feelings (period) is a good idea?

You’re friend may even push for your friendship with the girl to continue. Two sides to that argument are that if your friend wants to look like they don’t care anymore (peace/love/harmony approach) then he or she will encourage you to keep talking to their ex so it looks like he or she is over it. I do think there is always subtext in that. I've seen it done before, where friends go ahead and befriend another friend’s ex to show that their newly single friend is above the pettiness. The danger there is that when friendships develop, they get a little annoyed at their misplaced loyalty because they were there first and therefore should have priority. Will your mate have the same reaction?

 Always ask if your friend minds most good people are inclined to say forgive, forget (in good time) and go ahead and talk to her/him, but at least you'll cover your back if you've got the ok first. 

The option is yours and there is no infallible guideline for every breakup because as we know every relationship is different. I can’t definitively tell anyone what to do but personally, I'd limit my contact to what is peaceful without a close friendship. What makes men gentlemen is that a gentleman is always doing what is kind. It's kinder to be nice to all, but more valuable to be exceptionally loyal to some.

As someone on the receiving end, I've also known how hurtful it can be when an entire group of people stop talking to you because a boy has decided to cut ties. What I learnt from the experience is that most girls and boys won't wait for your friendship but if you're friendly, the ex will appreciate any positive acknowledgement more than a complete disregard of their existence. That’s just rude.

So my advice? Be kind. Be friendly. Be polite, but you have to be selective with your loyalty if the friendship is valuable to you.

GOSSIP GIRLS – YOU KNOW YOU LOVE IT XOXO

The movie ‘Cruel Intentions’ introduced children of the nineties to a sordid type of human; one that is self seeking, sexually driven and unashamedly envious of any and all competition; this repulsive type of person is quite reminiscent of today’s female. Interested in success, envious of other women, a stumbling block to themselves and sadly, sometimes also to their friends. In this movie, they said ‘keep your friends close and your enemies even closer,” and we do.

This week I was chatting to a friend about how much easier it is to be nice to people, how much less energy is exerted when you smile rather than snob off someone and how if everyone embraced this attitude, we’d live in a much more harmonious world. Her response illuminated another perspective, that being nice to everyone was fake, was two-faced and too one dimensional. If nobody spoke their mind, everyone would be nice, nice was boring and therefore nobody would be making headlines and we’d have nothing to gossip about and nobody to make us feel superior over other ruder beings. She had a point.

Painful as it is to admit, women love to have a bit of a gossip. We are leeches to any information that will expose weaknesses of another person and although we all participate (and I’ll admit I gossip too) – the practice itself is disgusting and destructive – not just to the person’s self esteem but also to ourselves as supreme beings. We stoop and become the enemy, thriving off the exclusive access to information that we have.

Women follow a pattern in such situations. They will fake a smile to the girl they are judging, cling tight to the girl dispensing the gossip and at an opportunity to socially climb we will wisely dispense that information to another, for access to a new friendship, to fill time, sometimes consciously, other times just because, more often than not it is rarely justifiably…or is it.

Before I chastised everyone who shares in my crimes, I searched to understand the psychology behind it….and in the process found an answer that suited me.

Nigel Nicholson, Ph.D pins gossip down to evolution and our natural instincts to survive in the animal kingdom. He explains that there are two sides to every story (der!) and with gossip there is the heart warming emotions linked with the forming alliances and finding belonging within a social circle, the second is that gut-wrenching rage when we are placed on the receiving end of the gossip, realizing that we will be damaged in some way through this means.

Nicholson claims that we are evolved to talk.  That makes sense I thought, after all, Eve was created as a companion for Adam and as such, since the start of creationism, two were always better than one. Two could not form a pair however if they were mismatched and this is why we network; to find like minded people who share our loves and hates and in doing so form exclusive cliques that keep out  the outsider. Once the outsider is spotted we influence each other’s decisions to maintain our standing within a group and in doing so form alliances that protect us from the scorn of our friends.

The dark side to this is that by gossiping we exclude others, we are more likely to be gossiped about and as we fuel the fire, many get burnt (think the late Princess Diana and the paparazzi’s fatal pursuit of her private life…of gossip).

However, the often paralleled pursuit of Kate Middleton may have led her to the altar today. As the gossipy tabloids labeled the Princess-to-be, Waity Katie, Kate was reminded of her worth and demanded of Will, that she wait no more…and that’s the thing about gossip…. as toxic as it is, it somehow, it acts as a code of ethics; reminding us of what is acceptable and what is condemned and gives us an option to choose to wear our halos, horns…or Sapphire engagement rings.

And just before my male audience, label us women venomous and vile, my trainer revealed this morning that you men do it too. You just disguise and re-label it. As he chatted to me about who was sleeping with who at the gym and which men was an accessory to two affairs, one formerly attractive man, became the elephant in the room and in gossiping I was spared from scandal.

My trainer revealed that while we call it gossip, men call it character assessment.

Call it what you will, I thought…gossip is gossip and according to Nicholson, essential to survival. Armed with the knowledge that gossip is innate, I will work to only positively analyse people, to be inclusive (not just to people like me), and will try to keep my friends close and make friends out of frenemies......right after girls’ night tonight and the necessary gossip we’ll have.

No More Mr Nice Guy....or is there?

It’s a question too often pondered among women; where have all the good guys gone? It’s easy to generalise and to categorize the chivalrous with the dead but for fear of becoming cynical before my time or generation; I thought this week’s mission was to search for Mr Nice guy and to document his good deeds.

My first shock encounter came in the kitchen at the office. After having just celebrated a colleague’s birthday in the boardroom, one other male colleague had taken all the dirty glasses to the kitchen and cleaned up the area because he couldn’t stand to leave it for the cleaner. His exact words were “the cleaner, didn’t get to enjoy the party, so why should he have to clean up after us.” I was awe-struck by his sensitivity, his modesty and the empathy he had for a complete stranger. This man did not parade his good deeds nor act in pursuit of praise; he acted with kindness simply because it was kind to do so.

This same person made it very easy to write this blog and continue finding material. On a day I had the chance to work next to him, I saw a consideration for all of his colleagues; unlike kindness I’d ever seen before. One girl was hungry so he went down and bought her food without her asking. Another was about to embark on a long road trip, he gave her nibblies to prevent the munchies on her way and another, he gave bars for her children to eat, keeping nothing for himself. Kindness was instinctive, automatic and agenda-free. I was starting to feel very inferior by comparison.

This lesson was not just demonstrating that kindness existed but that in fact, the good I saw far outweighed any good that I had shown.

But wait there was more (writing infomercials is getting to me).

Rather than set my sights singularly on one man, I opened the window to let in all mankind – they didn’t all make it through the narrow gate but, when judgement day came, I was happy to pass and fail some. Preferring to remain optimistic about the good I didn’t know and the greatness I’d one day meet, this was a reminder to me and all like me to believe in better because better was out there and is sometimes staring you in the face.

His peer proved an equal saviour; correcting my errors on a day I was put on trial in a new position. Without making a complaint, making a point of proving my incompetence or gratifying a want to prove he was better, he was heroic in that in his attempt to right my wrong, I was not cockily corrected, just kindly shown how to improve; he was courteous and considerate .

While at the gym this week, I was in cycle class and through the sound-system blasted, Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding out for a hero,” but this week as I pushed on through spin, I realised I had nothing to spin on the good deeds I’d seen.

Tyler in her ballad for all of woman-kind, cried;

Where have all good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?

Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and I dream of what I need

….but this week my sleep was uninterrupted, because I had an answer to rival Tyler’s rant. This week I learnt, the good men are still around, are exceptionally better than me when I give myself a chance to notice and though they’re yet to win my heart, they’re hearts proved a credit to their gender (or upbringing). For now, just knowing the good ones exist, is all the hope we need and that hope is timely too….there’s a royal wedding imminent.

Single, taken then dead for catching the grenade.

We all know that Bruno Mars song and every one who has loved swears to being the victim of relationships past. We are single, we are taken, we are taken by love, we give our all, and we end up broken. Love always hurts if you let it and if you don’t.

The hurt that the young girl in my story knew this time around was not love, it was delusion. For a moment, she was single, was taken by a man’s charm and was shell-shocked when the truth about  his character detonated in her face. The news exploded into her world and her faith in someone she once cared for was shattered. She was not entirely the victim this time though, because I believe that in love there are three central themes upon which the success of a relationship depends; choice, chance and change. In making the choice to give someone a second chance while expecting them to have changed, she was at first unlucky, but the second time was a fool.

This is how the tale unfolded. Once upon a time, there was a young girl; naïve and with a heart wide-open. She fell for a thief masked as a prince and had her naivety stolen from her. For years she had focused on finding a prince and one day, just as she planned, the prince had found her. It was a fairytale. She made a choice to trust him because chance had brought him in her life and her earnest hope was that life thereafter would blissfully change. What changed however was his attitude towards her. Afraid of commitment and embroiled in scandal, he sought sex appeal over sincerity, many women over one, freedom to be a boy over assumption of a predestined role to become a man. Very quickly the fairytale failed the young girl who thought love came once and without difficulty or heartbreak. She was blissfully ignorant till he came along and while first time around she mourned the loss of him, the young man continued to live happily ever after. This is not one for the kids.

The second time around the man returned; changed, seemingly reformed with new charms and greater sincerity. It appeared his former mask was removed. He had new things to offer so the young girl with an open heart, let him in again (because it seems they hadn’t sufficiently hurt each other enough the first time). Flaws in his new plan to court her surfaced as each line came without promise, each compliment came with a catch, each good deed was overshadowed by a bad one and then the final straw…he was seeing someone else while MAN-ipulating the young girl’s heart. Shame on him for tricking her once but shame on her for allowing him to trick her twice!

Sound familiar? Good girl meets bad boy, bad boy leaves good girl ,bad boy moves on to break more hearts, bad boy occasionally returns to validate his ego and confirm to himself that if he wanted the good girl, he could have her. Bad boy needs a naughty corner.

The sad truth is, the good girl will always compromise for the chance at love. In keeping with the self-sacrificing Bruno Mars theme, another song I was listening to of his was called ‘The Other Side.” Great song!  It was all about a straight-laced girl falling for a shady boy and all she had to do was make the choice to cross the road and submit to his debauchery. Life, lust and a chance of love were all choices that the girl had to make but if she dared cross the road, there was no guarantee of exclusivity or of a happily ever after.

At long last, an answer I thought – all things ‘relationship’ before finding love are about making choices when chance encounters tempt you. Expecting change is the error that most good girls will make when faced with the chance to choose. What we all know is that a leopard never changes its spots, so we mustn't expect it to. While animal print is always alluring, it is only a seasonal trend.

Armed with the experience of the choice/chance/change effect, the little girl in this fairytale made a new choice. She decided she’d give no more chances to those that needed to change. She'd no longer expect a change in others but would make changes in herself and the choices she made. She admitted that the prince she once knew was just a thief in a prince’s clothing. She didn't try to change him but choosing to believe that he could have and giving him a second chance is a choice she'd change if given another chance. Ignorance may have been blissful in her adolescence but knowledge this time around was power.

After being single, after momentarily allowing herself to be taken by a bad boy, she knew that this bombshell was a lesson to not toy with explosives. She’d leave heroics for the boys she’d meet in the future and just like that, she emerged a hero. She may have been single again, but this time she was better for it.