Dating, bargain basement-style

Last weekend, I got legless. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but it was a three-part stage show that kicked off with gleeful, Zambucca-skolling gusto, descended into moaning about the man drought, and ended when I started slapping the table and drunkenly promising that yes, I would go back on RSVP and remain there for the average 24 dates it reportedly takes until you strike online gold. (I then stumbled into the nearest burger joint and attempted to chat up an 18-year-old piercings victim who could have passed for an African tribesman, but that’s another story.)
Sooooo… yep, online dating has suckered me back into its hairy clutches. If you haven’t succumbed, it’s sort of like trawling a bargain basement bin. You’re sure you’re going to find the designer top of your dreams for $5, but instead you end up settling for a t-shirt with a silly logo that you console yourself will be great for doing the gardening in.
At first, it all seems so positive. Cute photo, funny profile, a penchant for cats and babies. Then comes the actual date. The socks and sandals might be the first red flag; the next is when he bangs on and on about how he used to own a Subway franchise. It’s around this time you realise you’d rather stick pins in your eyes than share even five minutes with the person opposite. Not a great start.
While pondering this conundrum in the Milson’s Point pool with my pal Justine, she insisted RSVP wouldn’t be half as bad if it was compulsory for singletons. "That way, you wouldn’t feel like so much of a freak being on there,” she reasoned cheerfully.
When an eavesdropper swimming past muttered, “Compulsory RSVP… great idea”, I got the feeling she too had experienced the dark side of Socks’n’Sandals or Mr I-Used-To-Own-A-Subway-Franchise. And it got me thinking that the Enforced Online Dating Bill could work – or at the very least, help to raise the calibre of dates. Well, we can live in hope.
In the meantime, I’ll keep trucking. After all, in sales, you occasionally find a gem. If you have, spill the beans – or hand over your worst online dating story. It’s the least you can do to make me feel better…

Here’s to you, Mrs Robinson…

Confession. I had an affair with someone much younger that me not so long ago. He was twelve years my junior and just barely out of his teens. Whilst my friends kept high five-ing me and pressing me for all the gory details so they could vicariously live out this Mrs Robinson fantasy, it was not all it was cracked up to be. Sure, there was the ten minute turnaround, the puppy dog eagerness and a body that looked like it was carved out of marble. Not a wrinkle, sag or chest hair to be found. But after a few fun weeks of seeing this young thing, I was starting to feel somewhat guilty. Especially after he referred to me as his ‘girlfriend.’ Yikes. Sugar Mumma/hot babysitter was more like it. It started to feel just plain WRONG. It was going nowhere, there were feelings at stake, and I was getting looks when we held hands in public. When he asked who Debbie Harry was and admitted to never having seen Reality Bites, I just knew we were from different planets. So, here’s a handy checklist for those of you who might suspect you’re dating a guy/girl who’s too young for you…

1. Lives with the folks or in a nasty scungy share house
2. Sleeps in a single bed
3. Has to do homework/uni assignments (unless they are post-grad)
4. Rides a bike for transport purposes and doesn’t own a car/licence
5. Has never heard of Degrassi Junior High/E Street/Punky Brewster/Vanilla Ice/Max Headroom/Simon Townsend’s Wonderworld/Countdown/ Roxette/Melrose Place
6. Lost their virginity with you, or in the past year
7. Has never owned a walkman or discman
8. Drinks cask wine and can’t afford to eat at restaurants that don’t have golden arches
9. Still gets an allowance from his parents
10. Thinks a rocking Saturday night involves a beer bong, a pizza and his seven housemates.

Tell me. Can Generation X and Y have meaningful affairs? Have you ever dated a younger person?

What women want... from men

Let me soften the blow for any blokes reading by first saying, I love men. As a gender, you rock. You’re fun, handy with a spanner, there’s no one we’d rather ride the hobby horse with and you’re also the sole topic of conversation among women who’d love nothing more than to understand you. And after some extensive research (OK, OK, a liquid dinner with a gaggle of singletons) I'm acting as messenger on what women out there believe men should take on board. Don't shoot me, but here goes...

1. Telling whoppers to get into our pants is beneath you. That includes the heartfelt song and dance about how it’s not a one-night stand, how much you want to see her again, how she must keep Sunday night free for the movies IF YOU HAVE NO INTENTION OF SEEING, TALKING TO OR THINKING ABOUT HER EVER AGAIN. Trust me, even if you’re a catch, most reality chicks will be able to cope, so don’t try and baffle your date with BS if that’s all it is. A simple, ‘Thanks for a great night’ will suffice.

2. Thirty-something women have a biological clock. Deal with it. That means many are possibly thinking about babies because, yoo-hoo! Forty’s pretty much a gal’s cut-off point. We’re not sizing you up immediately for the job but if the relationship's going well, we can’t deny the thought doesn’t occur to us, so please stop acting so freaked out. Yes, we all know you can father kids until you’re 80, but do you really want to be a spindly old codger pushing a Zimmer frame after Johnny Junior? No, we thought not.

3. Playing straight when you’re gay just wastes everyone’s time. Come out of the closet, stop dating girls and pretending that your five-year relationship with Max from Paddington was just a phase. How dumb do you think we are, seriously?

4. Ditto pretending to be single when you’re not. If you’re in a relationship, BE IN IT. If it’s bad, go to counselling, taaaalk about it or break up. But please don’t text, phone or email us when you’re taken and have pretty much nothing to offer but bad sex and a few wilted zinnias. We have sex toys that promise more. And karma can be a real bee-yatch.

5. Washing coffee cups = more action. And if you extend your cup washing skills to dirty pots and throw in a little vacuuming while you’re at it, I guarantee you’ll get more sex. And not just in the bedroom either. Nothing like a freshly vacuumed bear skin rug for bringing out a girl’s inner animal.

I'm bracing myself for lessons men would like us to learn... or more lessons from more women... or even just a comment or two would be fine, on this sleepy Tuesday morning...

Hold me! I'm scared!

When did relationships get so scary? In the old days they were fun. Snogging at the movies, holding hands at the train station, sharing a six pack of West Coast Cooler on the beach. Good times. Summer of 69 stuff. Nobody had to think about where it was going? And was this The One? And could I live with this person forever?
Now that I’ve been around the block a few times, the start of any new relationship leaves me in a cold sweat. The whole blending of lives and toothbrushes and friends and bodily fluids…eeek! Give me a slasher flick anytime. And I’m not the only one.
A friend of mine is in a new love tryst and recently left me a phone message…or rather a distress call.
"Ah, can you call me back please? As soon as possible? I am like FREAKING out here. Freaking out!"
No longer is commitment phobia a strictly male response.
It seems even if your new flame is sexy, sweet and seriously into you, our brain hasn’t quite forgotten the world of pain you suffered on your last trip down relationship lane.
You thought HE/SHE was the one didn’t you? And look where that landed you? Just as we start to sing along to love song dedications, our whole body is screaming with every fibre of its being: "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR COTTON PICKING MIND DOING THIS AGAIN?!"

Here’s my handy 3 point plan for getting through the first two months:
1. Enlist a pro-relationship buddy. It's the opposite of a breakup buddy: You ring this person at any time to hear a pre-arranged list of relationship pros like: regular sex, spooning and a Saturday night date.
2. Remind yourself how hard it is to find a good mate. Visit dating sites or chat to your single buddies about their last dating disaster.
3. Make a list of the lovely things your new flame has done for you lately. In the case of the scardeycat lady above, he cleaned her apartment and left a note saying he dug her. Awww. Now that’s worth a little cold sweat!

Tell me. Are you scared of new relationships? How do you remind yourself it’s all going to be okay?

Feeling the burn

I’ve reached a possibly worthwhile conclusion in this week’s quest for the body beautiful: the *gym is my new target-rich environment. Think about it: you’re sober, you can check out blokes under bright lights and any eye-candy serves as a welcome distraction from the pain and suffering incurred by cardio, weights or both.
But as with any slightly lame, sorta-social activity, there are challenges. It starts out well. You crack a joke or two, the chit-chat zooms like a runaway train in the direction of gee-we-should-meet-up-sometime-when-we’re-not-all-sweaty territory … but at the fatal, do-or-die moment, you choke.
Take last week. I was on the cable pulley, he was on the barbells. Smouldering looks were exchanged. He decided he absolutely had to use the machine next to me and before I knew it, we were chatting about a) what saddos we were being at the gym on a Sunday, b) how much nicer it would be at the beach and c) how he planned to go to the beach later, dammit.
That’s when I dropped the ball. I know closing the deal is all about putting yourself out there, but saying, ‘Oh really, what beach?’ or ‘Wow, I would give my right buttock to go to the beach this arvo’, felt somewhat desperate considering alcohol wasn’t involved, meatheads were eavesdropping and we’d shared less than 50 words by the bench press.
So, muttering a feeble wrap-up line, I took my leave, still hoping for a movie moment which would go a little something like this: I’d be leaving, hair swinging; Cute Gym Guy would run up to me, glistening with sweat and panting, ‘I barely know you, but I simply can’t let you go without getting your phone number!’
He didn’t, so it’s back to same time, same bench press. And next time, hopefully I won’t be such a chicken...

* Sydney's the second most gay-friendly city after San Francisco apparently (not a bad thing unless you’re a heterosexual woman), so it’s a good day when you discover the three S’s at your gym: Single, Sexy and Straight. Mine has all three, bad sadly, not in great quantities.

I saw him first!

In this modern world on online dating, there’s bound to be some crossover. Case in point. I caught up with a thirtysomething friend at a party recently. Newly single, she was relating a funny tale of dating a certain gentleman from RSVP. The date began with a miscommunication over his line of work. She thought he was an accountant and he chortled, ‘no, don’t be silly, I work behind a counter.’ Then she mentioned he lived with six other people in a share house in the eastern suburbs and he thought she was a saddo for living by herself. Hmmm. Something about this story was starting to feel very familiar. Then she giggled that he traded stocks and bonds from a computer in his bedroom.
Suddenly it became clear we had shared more than a funny story. Is his name *Graham!? I shouted, nearly dropping my martini glass. Yes! Is his photo way cuter than IRL? Yes! Is he writing a novel in his spare time? Bingo! Just a few months earlier I had dated Graham. He was the first guy to pounce on me on RSVP when I was new and vulnerable. I had agreed to meet for beers and had found myself running for the hills after a couple of Toohey’s News and a packet of salt and vinegar chips. All his attempts to engage me in another date had failed.
Luckily, in this particular case, there was no competition for the affections of Graham the bedroom bonds trader. But it raised some concerns for me about the right etiquette when you and your friends bump into the same guys online. Like, who has the right of way over a cutie with a good SOH you both added to your favourites list? Should you "kiss" someone you both fancy? And what happens when the same guy "kisses" both of you? Does one of you bow out gracefully, just like in real life? Or are there different rules for online courting?
Tell me, have you ever kissed or dated the same online guy as your mate?! What are the rules for sharing love bytes?

*Name changed to protect the privacy of this RSVP limpet. Please email me for his true identity.

Those three little words

When you’ve been through a crappy breakup, the "I love you's" probably haven’t been bandied about all that much.
However, last year’s particularly crappy visit to Splitsville made me think about all the other three-little-word occasions that I will hopefully never stand for again.
I know how ditzy and drowned in serotonin I can get when Cupid strikes so I hereby announce that, in all future dealings with men, I, reality chick, will bolt if I so much as hear any of the following three-word combinations:
1. "I’m not ready." An evil little phrase if ever I heard one, particularly when you’ve devoted several years to the supposed love of your life and the bugger never planned to be ready for anything. If you hear the dull clanging of the get-out-while-you-can bell, do yourself a favour and heed its call.
2. "I don’t know." In my book, if a bloke says he doesn’t know when he really should know, you should know what you should do. Hopefully.
3. "I’ll call you." Even if he makes a big song and dance about getting your number, take any and all promises to call with the proverbial grain of salt. It’s a politeness reflex, folks. What’s he going to do before he walks? Say, ‘I won’t be calling, but thanks for the slap’n’tickle anyhow’?
4. "I pashed someone." Nothing like hearing that the one you love has been playing tonsil hockey with someone you'd like to see fall under a bus. Or off a cliff, preferably while travelling in a bus. And chances are it's the one time you'd be glad to buy your beloved a bus ticket too.
5. "I'm definitely gay." OK, I haven't been on the receiving end of this one, but I can imagine that when your lover comes out to you after you've spent weeks, months or even years knowing them in the biblical sense, that your relationship is never quite the same again.
6. "I don’t think I love you enough." I realise that’s strictly more than three little words (maths was never my strong point), but it gets a special mention for its sheer awfulness. Again, people, take my advice and heed the distant clanging of the get-out-while-you-can bell.

There are more I may add down the track, but right now my day job is calling so I might open this one to the floor. What three little words do YOU never want to hear again?

World of Warcraft widows unite!

Have you lost your man to an online fantasy world of druids, dwarfs, elves and trolls? Is he fondling his mouse with more passion than your pinks bits? Wondering how to drag him away from the land of Azeroth to your cousin’s barbecue on Saturday night?
You may have become a WOWW– World of Warcraft widow. And I’m here to tell you, you are not alone. There’s a growing battalion of chicks despairing at how their nice, normal (usually IT employed) bloke took on a split personality and started spending more time with his online ‘guild’ than with them.
I should confess here than I’ve been a WOWW, so I speak with some authority of the matter. My former flame signed up for ‘the game’ a few months into our relationship. Overnight, my shy, sweet geek became a rampaging, bloodthirsty dwarf with an amoury of weapons. He didn’t eat, he barely slept and he took on a pale, stooped, disheveled appearance. I don’t need to tell you our sex life quickly dwindled. Mostly because he never went to bed at when I did (even the Elle McPherson matching brief set couldn’t drag him into the boudoir before 2am). Eventually he started sleeping on the couch, where I would find him most mornings - drooling into his keyboard. Sexy.
Although we managed to iron out some ‘game rules’ in an attempt to limit the time he spent online, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. Whilst I was nagging him about emptying the dishwasher and helping me pick out a new couch at Freedom, his online elves and pixies were using spells to help him conquer bloodthirsty foes and then telling him how brave and manly he was for saving the universe. I was no match for these girls.
I started daydreaming about throwing his laptop off the Sydney Harbour Bridge, or buying a nasty virus and infecting his system. I hated World of Warcraft so much, I considered picketing their offices demanding the release of our boyfriends and husbands.
In the end, though, it really did come down to a simple choice - the game or the girl? And he chose the game.
Tell me ladies - Are you a WOWW? How do you cope with game-playing?

Pucker up, buttercup

As New Year’s Eve revellers continue to nurse their three-day hangovers, I figure the most pressing Tuesday topic is what I hope you were all doing at the stroke of midnight two days ago: snogging. Smooching. Swapping spit, sucking face, lockin' lips, mouth-to-mouth, making out, muzzling, nuzzling or necking. Is there still power in the old pash? You betcha.
Actually, if you're lucky enough to be getting one planted on you regularly – those heart-racing, knee-trembling tonsil-ticklers that make you think you've died and gone to heaven – you’ll agree that kissing totally rawks.Unfortunately, reality chick got nary a peck on Sunday night, although not for lack of trying (Daniel Craig-lookalike, it's your loss buddy). To my anonymous reader, I geddit. For the past four NYE's, I locked lips with my ex. Who wasn't my ex at the time, of course - give me some credit. But after pashing the same person year in, year out, I must say without reservation that there is nothing quite like a down'n'dirty, up-against-a-wall-hands-on-your-ass-first-time snog with someone new.
What are you doing wrong anonymous? I can’t say for sure, but allow me to speculate: if you were pecking your gal pals at midnight you are either a) too shy to eyeball the guy you'd like to swap spit with; b) at a party where any would-be kissing targets have been hit with the ugly stick; c) unable to close the deal due to unforseen circumstances (like a friend yanking them out the door) or d) just a really crap kisser. If you suspect it's d), never fear; I have prepared an eight-point plan on good kissing etiquette for you and anyone who needs to brush up on their technique. If anyone knows the data programmer I snogged a few weeks back, feel free to forward this on.

1. Drool’n’slobber Moist is OK. Being drowned in the other person’s saliva is not.
2. Scaly chops Sunburn, windburn and an overall lack of lipcare could mean your kissing partner exits the experience bleeding. Two words, people: lip balm.
3. Big mouth Kissing with a wide-open mouth can create a vacuum; lips can't merge, and tongues flail about aimlessly. Think door ajar, rather than wind-tunnel.
4. Eaten alive Trying to touch your partner’s tonsils with your tongue is a definite no-no. And while some people love gentle nibbles, it’s only polite to check first.
5. Too much tongue action Fast, frenetic swirling, darting or up-and-down motions, or all three at once, can be a tad distracting.
6. Lip service Firm yet pliable lips are your best kissing asset. If you’re scratching your head right now and muttering, ‘So kissing is about lips, rather than tongues?’ refer back to point 5, Too much tongue action.
7. Mouth-to-mouth Avoid puffing in your partner’s mouth during a kiss, even if it turns you on. Revival techniques are best left to ambulance officers.
8. 5 o’clock shadow Beards are fine. Clean-cut is a dream. It’s that in-between stage that hurts, say 66% of women who are, apparently, adverse to stubble.

Sooooo. Who'd you pash on Sunday night and how the heck was it? Don't think you can skulk away if you lucked out on New Year's Eve, either - I want details on the best/worst kiss you've ever had the pleasure/misfortune to get. What can I say: this week, it's all about living vicariously through everyone else.
PS. See you Saturday - reality chick's on holidays 'til then!