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Thursday 1 November 2012

YOU SOUND SO HOT ON EMAIL


I was listening to our classical radio station of choice the other night – god I sound like a bourgeois yuppie – and heard a pretty hysterical ad. [A little side note: since the arrival of the toddler stage, classical music has become a well-needed staple in the house. My husband claims it calms the King down. I have yet to see evidence of that, but it sure the hell goes better with a headache than anything else on the radio].

Anyway, the advertisement was for a dating site that is geared towards classical music buffs. Classic love I think it was called...or classical dating..or classical madness! Who the hell knows? But the whole gist was that those that dig classical music and are single should feel compelled to hit the laptop deck and sign onto this dating site to meet other classical music aficionados, and heck you may just find love. Or someone who appreciates Liszt, I’m not sure which or if you're promised both.

It got me thinking of course – which everything does and hence why I can’t sleep most nights – about the nature of online dating. Not specifically what it has done to the organic process of meeting people – some say it’s made it easier, others say it’s killed romance; but more to the fact that when one online dates, especially when one narrows it down to say a niche online dating site (be it one that caters to religion, musical tastes, fetishes, pet love etc.) I start to wonder if we are indeed looking for mirrors of ourselves as opposed to people we click with and are attracted to etc. (Then again, are we simply attracted to mirrors of ourselves? hmmmm). 

Follow me here…with online dating (I’ve filled out a form once and only once; then shuddered, and never went on a date. Just not my thing), you fill out a bunch of questionnaires, not only about yourself, but what you are looking for in a partner. For example, “I’m looking for a tall man, who is sensitive, clean, athletic, intuitive, loves foreign films and cooking.” [Hence, you’re looking for a chick] It becomes a long list of requirements, wants and deal breakers in hopes of finding the exact partner you are looking for to make your life complete. Ahhhhhh. And the longer you are on these sites and go out on dates, the more compelled one is – from what I’ve heard – to fine tune things to the head of a pin (e.g. I will not go out with anyone who drives a red car, lives with his mother or is in accounting. I just won't damn it!).

More often than not, the list of attributes you look for in a man, or woman (depending on who you are and what you fancy) are so close to what you represent and identify with, it’s hard not to wonder if we’re really looking for an extension of ourselves, or at least someone that likes to do what we like to do, thinks what we think, and cooks what we like to cook on a Friday night. Okay, obviously you’re not always going to find a man that ticks all your boxes, so to speak (let’s underline that statement shall we), but you're sure as hell going to try. I mean, online dating almost feels like you’re online shopping for a coatrack for the front hallway. I want it to be tall, strong, made of teak, and eager to compliment me when I walk in to the house.

Back in the old days – you know, the pre internet days – it was all about seeing some guy in a bar/restaurant/coffee shop/gym/fetish dungeon…just kidding, just wanted to see if you were paying attention...and if he struck your fancy, and he looked like he hadn’t killed anyone recently, you would consider letting him buy you a drink/coffee etc. Obviously the more you got to know one another, the more you could ascertain if you had things in common; but in many cases, once you were smitten, you were willing to overlook his affinity for Finnish thrash metal and processed cheese fondue, figuring you could spend the rest of the relationship trying to show him the error of his ways.

I bet those online daters really think they have one up on us old-fashioned daters now don’t they? "If ‘HotGuy2’ (don’t people have weird/lame handles on these sites?) doesn’t like sushi, sunset walks, and movies with Justin Timberlake, I won’t even email him back. I mean really, what a waste of time." (Honey - thank you for not liking any films with Justin Timberlake in them. I'm not sure I could take it).

Happy Friday all. 


Tuesday 30 October 2012

WE BOW TO THEE


There is truly nothing that makes me feel smaller than nature. Walking through a redwood forest in Northern California as a child (if you haven’t done this I highly suggest it), seeing something as monumentally prodigious as the Grand Canyon; Even sailing in the middle of the ocean without land in sight truly makes you realize how small and powerless (and dare I say, insignificant) we as humans are. At the moment, I think anyone sitting on the East Coast would concur.

Watching the coverage of Hurricane (or Super storm as it is now deemed in America) Sandy is simply mind altering. The amount of devastation, the sheer force and power of nature that in one fell swoop can render our human inventions and luxuries utterly useless and obsolete. Just looking at all the beachside homes on Long Island and New Jersey getting flooded and in some cases swept away, shows you that in the face of human ego and intention (oh wouldn’t it be so lovely to have a beachside view to accompany our 2.2 kids and BMW) nature doesn’t give a damn. In fact in some cases, it's a case of Sisyphus personified, like in Hurricane Alley let's say. People build. Nature destroys. Build. Destroy. You get the idea. Ah humans, we are so predictably adorable.

In fact, there is nothing more financially crippling and sobering than a natural disaster – as most of us have witnessed either firsthand or via the news media. Transport shuts down, cities ground to a halt, lives are at risk. Even the mighty Wall Street surrenders and shuts it’s doors in the face of it (but as sure as I’m standing here, many are figuring out a way to make money from all of this).

The other thing I can’t help but think is, is this kind of storm finally a wakeup call to all those individuals who refuse to believe our climate is changing and accelerating in its power and unpredictability. Will we soon find ourselves living in a time when super-storms are no longer ‘super’ but flat out mundane? I fear there is only one answer to that, like it or not. I was talking about this to a man this morning as the King was neck deep in a pile of wet leaves (Surrender. A running theme in our lives) and he was saying he’d hate to see London deal with something like a hurricane when the city can’t even handle more than an inch of snow (despite the fact that it snows every single year). You see, human ego…or shall I say stupidity. The human motto: If we ignore it for long enough, it just doesn’t exist.

Sadly Hurricane Sandy does exist. And nature will always do her best to remind us that it is not humans that are in charge. In fact, it’s absolutely to the contrary. 


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