Where are All the Single Men?

Again I find myself with yet another problem. There appears to be a shortage of single men. This may sound like I am been dramatic and maybe I am, maybe there are single men all over the place but if so I am totally oblivious. I’m not desperate for a man, but admittedly there has been a bit of a drought on the dating front and it’s dull, dull, dull.

Every time I spot a hottie I then also see a glimpse of that shimmering white gold (nobody seems to have yellow gold anymore) band. It’s now got so bad that the minute I spot a fit man rather than looking at his eyes or smile (my two favourite features on a man), my eyes are drawn to his left hand.

The other problem I have encountered is where do hell do people meet single men? Bars are out as most of the single men in bars are out for one thing (and it’s not necessarily dating) or they are so drunk that their approach my be a bit off, trust me leering and slurring “nice tits love” or “you’re fit” with beer breathe doesn’t do it for me.

I work in a mainly female company so the work place is definitely a no-go, and in a previous life having had a few work based flirtations (which we won’t dwell on) I think it’s best to steer clear, arguing at work and tears in the boardroom are not great for anyone’s career especially his.

Other suggestions I’ve had are getting friends to fix you up. This I think is a massive myth. All of my friends who are loved up claim that their boyfriends’/husbands either a) have no single friends or b) no single friends that I would like. This leaves me with a bit of a complex that either I am so awful (translation a bit of a minger) that my friends think there are no men that could possibly find me attractive or the other option is that I am so mean and a heartbreaker that they don’t want to be around for the aftermath if things don’t work out (to be fair I have been guilty of this, but in my youth, I’m much kinder now, honest). I like to hope that neither of these things are true but I have my suspicions’.

Dating sites aren’t my cup of tea either. I’ve had a look but after a while all the men blur into one. Also I have never been a fan of enforced fun and that’s what dating sites feel like to me, sort of in the same way that fancy dress is meant to be fun but really I spend my time just feeling like an idiot in fancy dress. Dating sites to me are exactly the same and what if nobody on there wanted to date me, confidence crushing or what?

I also know that some of the problem is mine. For example there is a man I find attractive but I only see him walking through the park on my way to work, we’ve gone from smiling to hello, but how do you progress from hello in the two seconds it takes to pass each other on a morning. It’s becoming exhausting thinking about what to wear everyday in case I bump into him.

The other issue I have is when I fancy somebody I am rendered mute. For people who know me well I am sure there have been plenty of times they wish I had been rendered mute, they just didn’t know that the key was putting me in front of a man I fancy. Most of the time I like to think I am quite witty, friendly and good fun (oh and modest), but put a hot man in the room and I become silent and come across as rude, cold and distant, not attractive.

So if anybody knows any hot entertaining men with nice eyes, great smile and without a white gold band, who are looking for somebody who can be witty, friendly and good fun but will instead be silent then let me know. Form an orderly queue boys.

Will I ever learn?

Admittedly the question asked in the title is rhetorical as if my behaviour after 32 years on this earth is anything to go by then I know that the answer is a big fat no.

The main thing I have learnt are there are a few things I never learn about. The first of these is excessive alcohol consumption, no matter how bad the head, how painful the bruises, how shameful the photographs and memories, no matter how many times I wake up and proclaim that my body is a temple and alcohol shall never pass my lips again I have never learnt when enough is enough.

This is a problem. I have never been one of those people who knows when to stop. You know the type of girl who after the third glass of wine switches to soft drinks as she can feel herself getting tipsy. No sir that’s not me, I fall (sometimes quite literally) into the camp of people who believe they are sober right up until the point that all memory and dignity has gone.

There have been incidents crawling through windows, stealing what we (no names mentioned) thought was a Christmas tree only to discover it was a Rosemary bush, losing my keys and having to wake my mate up at 3am (thanks Lisa), falling off a stage, and my favourite, upon been approached in a nightclub and asked to dance by an attractive man stating “no he doesn’t fancy me, I think he is gay. I think he just wants to dance with me because he is the best male dancer in here and I am the best girl dancer here”. Really, the greatest dancer, I don’t think so.

I have never learnt that texting when drunk is a no no, actually, using the phone at all can be a no no. To date I have called a potential date from a toilet cubicle to tell him all about my new shoes, for about 25 minutes, miraculously he still took me out the next day. I have had crazy text arguments that I have no recollection of , one of which resulted in my waking up to a message from somebody I had been seeing saying “well if that’s the way you feel, I agree we probably shouldn’t see each other anymore” oops. These are to name but a few.

I have also never learnt that I can’t just have one piece of chocolate. I know people that can keep a bar of chocolate in the fridge for a week and limit themselves to a square a day. I have tried this and the whole time the chocolate is in the fridge I can hear it calling me “Becky come and eat me”, the outcome is always the same a mouth full of chocolate, feelings of remorse and vows to not eat anymore so called ‘bad’ foods for a week.

Finally what I have never learnt (or never remember, despite the massive window) is that my neighbours can see straight into my flat. This has led to interesting events including indecent exposure (it was only exposure of a bra), them been able to see when I am been nosey and finally them also been able to witness me practising the moves that make me “the best girl dancer” in any club.

Holiday...Celebrate (well starve)

Uh oh next Friday I go on holiday, now I know you are wondering why I am saying uh oh to the prospect of a week of doing nothing other than lying by the pool, basking in the sun with no bigger concern other than what cocktail to have next, so I shall explain.

The reason I say uh oh to the prospect of my holiday is because I know that the next few days are going to be hell. There are two reasons for this, firstly, whenever you are looking forward to something time goes ridiculously slowly. So what should be a few days at work will feel like weeks, maybe months. Secondly, and this is my main reason because the next few days are going to be a nightmare. Pure hell, a constant battle not to eat chocolate, to avoid so called bad food and to make my body a temple in a bid to look Kim Kardashian (my own personal body idol) in a bikini.

Why do I do this? The holiday was booked in February which is plenty of time to lose the last half a stone (it’s always half a stone), but no, rather than doing slow and steady every year I go into panic mode. To be fair I am wise enough to know that unless I starve myself (this will never happen) I am not going to lose half a stone by Friday. I also know that as Kim Kardashians’ body looks like it may have had a little help from somebody other than God, that unless I stumble across a few spare grand and a surgeon in the next few days my body won’t look like that. Even though I know this I still know that for the next week I will have salad for lunch every day and go to the gym excessively.

In addition to this I will suddenly start exfoliating (something I rarely do) moisturising all over and introduce the new ritual of checking my cellulite at regular intervals. I am always aware that I have cellulite, but I tend to ignore it on the basis of if I can’t see it it doesn’t exist. It is only when faced with the prospect of spending a week in a bikini (which let’s face it ladies is just like going out in your pants and bra, but deemed socially acceptable) do I decide to check on it and trust me it’s not pretty.

In addition to regular cellulite checks I will also spend time in front of the mirror breathing in to see if I can make my stomach look flatter and how long I can stay like that before I have to give up and breathe out. On top of all this between the not eating, gyming, cellulite checking and breathing in I also have to find time to pack, it’s a hard life. The irony is that even if by some miracle I lose half a stone in a week, I can pretty much guarantee that by the time I get back home with all the food and drink I will have put nearly all of it back on anyway.

I know I am not the only one to be neurotic around holiday time but the stupid thing about it is that after one day in my bikini it will feel totally normal to be walking around half naked, thoughts of cellulite will be forgotten and I will once again be able to go back to concentrating on the important things in life like what cocktail to have next.

Happy holidays

Bring me sunshine...

This week I am at a loss as to what to write about, so in true British style when in doubt about what to talk about I am going to talk about the weather.

Unlike most people I am not going to moan about the weather as although I hate rain, snow and cold I do accept that until I can escape to sunnier climes (for good) that this is my lot. No my gripe is that after only 5 days of decent weather people are moaning. “It’s too hot” they whine, “I’m going to burn” they moan (factor 15 people, factor 15). I say to these people “for the love of Mike stop with your moaning”.

Admittedly even though I am a hardcore sun worshipper there are some downsides to the temperature rising, these include smelly people. Smelly people always exist but it does get worse when the sun is out, if you have to ever get the tube in the sun the smell of BO can be nauseating. Another downside is the sun always comes unexpectedly, meaning that even though I know it is due I somehow never manage to shift that extra half a stone before it arrives. The final negative of a bit of sun is the fact that men with big beer guts always feel the need to remove their tops at the first sign. You can guarantee it’s never the hotties with the rippling six packs ripping their shirts off as soon as there is a glimmer of sun.

Saying that I will take all the downsides that come with sun because seriously, we get on average a total of about 5 minutes of sunshine a year (or that’s how it feels) compared to a winter that feels like it lasts for about 11 months.

I don’t understand how people can’t like sun. With sun comes suntans (admittedly I don’t need one, but I feel better when I get one) which make people look sexier, people are more flirty when it’s sunny and the best thing about summer.... beer gardens. Oh how I love a good beer garden, Sunday afternoons with friends soaking up the rays whilst drinking beer or cider or wine or Pimms, hell, all of them if it’s a bank holiday the next day. What’s not to love?

So come on people embrace the sunshine. Get your legs out (not guts), slap on some sun cream, pop on a hat and head to a beer garden and if you really hate the sun and heat then at least do me a favour stopping moaning about it, and let me enjoy my few limited (no doubt) days in the sun in peace.

What if?

In my living room I have a plaque that I purchased in New Zealand that says,” life is precious, make it count.” Now, this is something that I try to live by, which is why after 32 years on this earth I am still surprised by the amount of people around who live their life’s as what if people. You know the type, what if this, what if that etc? Focusing on what they think could have been instead of living in the here and now and making things happen.

Personally I am more of a doer, more of an if you don’t like it change it type. A person who believes that you get out of life what you put in and that yeah sometimes shit things happen that we can’t explain but it’s how you deal with it that counts. So although I am not a what if person the realisation that so many people are got me thinking about some of my life’s possible what ifs?

For example what if I had carried on dancing instead of stopping at 13 when I realised I would rather spend Saturdays with boys, make-up and friends (not much has changed there) than in a dance studio? Would I now be a successful dancer? Ok realistically with these boobs and this bum once puberty hit there was little chance of that happening, so the answer there is no.

Alright then, so what if, when I was 24 and went to Australia to see the then love of my life I had decided to stay out there. Would I be happily married to him, living there now, surrounded by lots of bambinos with Australian accents? Realistically, given that I called him the then love of my life I think we can all establish that no, I wouldn’t be. In fact in reality the chances are one of us would be dead (it was that kind of relationship, I think then I called it passionate, in hindsight I think it would be considered dysfunctional at best).

What if last Friday when I was talking to the man that I liked, if I hadn’t been drunk (see last week’s blog) would we now have been on a date? This one is a maybe, given that he had seemed keen up until the point of drunkenness it is a possibility, but, my view is it probably wouldn’t have worked out, due to the fact that in reality I sometimes get drunk and if he couldn’t handle me a bit tipsy he definitely wouldn’t be able to handle full on drunk Becky. So as the saying goes take me as I am or watch me as I walk away (or maybe stagger in this case).

Finally what if when I was younger I had worked harder at school and university would I be better off than I am now? Would I be running some big national corporation? I doubt it. Plus I think success comes in many forms, I have a job I love, a brilliant family, my health and amazing friends I wouldn’t swap any of that for all the national corporations, husbands in Australia and dancing stardom in the world.

So this week I challenge you that every time you want to think what if, try and think instead about what you do have and if the what if is so big that it keeps niggling away consider doing something that makes it into a ‘remember the day I did’ instead of a what if?

Oh the Shame

Does anybody else have moments when they feel like somebody else has taken over their mind, body or mouth? I know that this makes me sound a bit strange, I am not talking about voices in my head or seeing dead people. I am talking about doing things out of charecter, saying inappropriate things or just generally behaving in a way that you can’t explain? This is something that is happening to me more and more frequently and I feel it is getting out of control.

In the past few weeks alone there have been several ocassions where I have done, said or thought things that make me cringe. The ones I am prepared to share include, flashing my underwear to the neighbours, admittedly I work for a lingerie company so my underwear is always good, but I don’t think the people over the road needed a full view of me in my bra on a Sunday morning.

Another one, which I do quite frequently is remembering things that have happened in the past and laughing out loud in public. I am aware that this makes me look slightly unhinged, but it happens without me having any control over it.
Last Friday night whilst out, I got an attack of the giggles just because somebody told be his name was Nicholas:
1. That isn’t a funny name
2. The way he said it wasn’t funny
3. I don’t usually make a habit of laughing in people’s face

For some reason on this ocassion the laughter got so out of control that I had to excuse myself and go to the toilet and calm down. This left me not only worried that poor old Nicholas would think I was a total bitch, but also concerned for my sanity how could somebody saying a name get me that hysterical?

This weekend I managed to shame myself by speaking to a man I like in a nightclub and being so drunk that I don’t actually know what I said to him. I remember laughing, but whatever I said I don’t think it’s good as the silence has been noticeable ever since. On this ocassion I will blame not only whatever has recently possessed me but also the copious wine and shots of sambucca.

My mind has also recently been overtaken with inappropriate thoughts, for example whilst in my body pump class wondering whether men’s gym faces are also their sex faces. Is this normal or am I a sicko? Should I even be confessing to such thoughts in public?

Finally the most cringe worthy event of the week was pulling a face at a man on the train that looked like I was offering him a sexual favour. I won’t go into too much detail and I don’t even know how it happened, all I do know is that the man smiled like I had made his day and I had never been more grateful to get off a train in my life.

Please people tell me that I am not alone and that you too are sometimes possessed. If not maybe it’s time that somebody makes a call to the men in the white coats before this gets out of control.

Emotional Carnage

I’ll admit it people I am a crier, a big girlie crier. This might come as a bit of a shock to some people as sometimes I can seem a bit hard, fallen out with somebody not a tear, things ended with a bloke normally my eyes are bone dry but put me at a wedding or face me with saying goodbye to somebody and I am crying like a baby.

Twice this week I have been subjected to public crying. On Saturday a friend got married. Her now husband made a beautiful speech about how much he adored her and a lump rose in my throat and a tear came to my eye. The second occasion was today; my wonderful friend Kelly is leaving work, before her manager even started the leaving speech I was in tears, big tears rolling down my cheeks.

I don’t have a problem with public crying, I have a problem with MY public crying. Unfortunately I am not one of these women who looks beautiful through her tears, I get a red nose, make –up runs and my skin goes blotchy and don’t even get me started on the running nose. If I was trying to get a man not to leave me I can assure you crying wouldn’t be the way I would do it as the sight of my snotty, blotchy face would have him running for the hills.

Another downside of my public crying is that like most things in life I find it really difficult to do it quietly. In public places where it is light and people can see me I can usually manage to just keep it to sniffs, but put me in a darken room e.g. the cinema and they become proper sobs. Once my mate Jodie told me to be quiet whilst watching Brokeback Mountain as I think I was embarrassing her.

It’s bad enough when it’s with friends but it’s worse on dates. On a third date I went to see Seven Pounds starring Will Smith, I think my date was horrified that such sobs could come from somebody so small.

I think crying can be very therapeutic but as it makes me look and sound really unattractive and I have yet to find a make-up product heavy duty enough to disguise the blotches and red nose I have decided that from now on if I want a cry I am going to just watch The Notebook in the safety of my own home.

If anybody has any tips for crying and not looking like something from a horror film please feel free to share.