Dating Politics

I’m not a naturally shy girl, I tend to say what I think and do what I want. That’s me, you either like it or you don’t. So, why can I not be the same in the dating game? If I want to text someone to say hi and to suggest a meet up, why can’t I? Why are there ‘rules’ that say it’s the guy who suggests the second date, or that if the girl texts she’s being too keen and the guy will run a mile?

I’m nearly 30, I’m not 16 anymore. Surely there’s an age limit on dating game play? Or is it all just a myth?

Let me set the scene. I’m a 29 year old woman, very independent, fairly easy going and relaxed in my attitudes to life. Been single for 4 years and so a bit out of practice on the whole dating thing. Actually, that’s a lie, I’ve never really done dating. My relationship history has been a series of relationships of varying length, but with no real dating. Don’t ask me how, that’s just how it happened. In fact, I can count the amount of dates I’ve had on one hand and two of those were when I was 16.

So, after a good few years on my own with a few smatterings of stuff here and there, I decided it might be time to ‘get back out there’. Didn’t really have a set agenda, just thought I’d see how things panned out. I’m still in the ‘thick’ of things but one thing I can’t stand is the whole politics of dating!

If you don’t have a real connection with the other person then fine, no one contacts one another, bish bash bosh. But if you have a connection and both express an interest of seeing one another again....what’s the right thing to do? Depending on who you speak to you get a number of different views;

A male friend told me that if you’re both interested and have both said you are then it doesn’t matter who makes the contact or when. Both adults, just sort yourselves out.

A female friend said that the girl shouldn’t contact too soon after a date, leave it 3-4 days then contact him, men scare easily and a girl shouldn’t be too keen

Another female friend agreed with the male friend.

Finally, another female friend said there is a certain amount of game playing and it was ok for me to make contact after a few days but I should be cool and rather nonchalant in what I said...i.e make it clear you’re not hanging around waiting for him and you have your own stuff going on too, make him think that maybe he’d like to be part of that stuff.

I have a number of opinions on all of the above!

Male Friend & 3^rd Female Friend: Agree completely, I’m nearly 30 for crying out loud!

1^st Female friend: If he’s not contacted me by 3-4 days, I’m not contacting him as it’s clear he’s not interested and it’s just awkward. And as for men scaring easily, well I don’t want a guy who scares easily!

4^th Female Friend: Agree to a certain extent, although I don’t really like the game playing...but I do agree it happens, although why it happens past the age of about 19 I have NO idea.

The way I see it, if there’s too much game playing going on then you’ll never get anywhere. If he plays it cool and I play it cool, then we both end up out in the cold. He should know from spending time with me on the date that I’m not exactly the shy and retiring type. It shouldn’t be a great shock to him if I make contact. What it comes down to I suppose is finding someone who’s happy with that, with me, and the way I am. I can’t be bothered playing games, life is too short to be worrying about what people think about my actions.

As for finding a person who’s happy with me and how I am....well, that’s a whole other world!

My quest continues.....!

The apparent minefield of the English Language

You can call me a pedant, a stickler, an annoyingly anally retentive cow, but what the hell is going on with the use of the English language today?
I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and am prone to using the odd abbreviation and slang term, but I draw the line at the blatant misspelling and misuse of English that seems so prevalent today.
I'm a great lover of Facebook, which any one of my friends will tell you...in fact, most of them probably think I need rehab to wean me off it, but that's another story. But I do believe that the increased use of mobile phones, emails, the Internet and social networking has led to what seems to be the majority of people forgetting the basic principles of the language they learnt at school, one of which I've just broken by beginning this sentence with a 'but'! The publication of books such as "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" and "Accommodating Broccoli in the Cemetery" serve to suggest I'm not the only person annoyed by this recent trend.

We all did English at school, we didn't have any choice. Granted it's 13 years since I sat my GCSE's and I've no doubt that the way English is taught has changed, but I don't see it changing to omit the teaching of basic spelling, grammar and the correct placement of apostrophes.

You, Your, You're/There, They're, Their/Who's Whose/It's Its/We're Were, etc:

The misuse of these will never ever fail to annoy me. All of these have totally different meanings and it totally changes the sense of a sentence when they're used incorrectly. Am I being too flippant to expect people to know the correct one to use in a sentence? I don't think it's that difficult. One of the main principles I remember about apostrophes was that they're used to join words together and signify missing letters. So 'you are' becomes 'you're', 'they are' becomes 'they're', so on and so forth.
Now read back through that paragraph and replace the right words with the wrong ones, and see how much sense it makes. Yes, OK, so you'd still be able to fathom what I was talking about, but it wouldn't flow right would it?

'Could of' vs 'Could have':

Where on earth has this abomination come from?! I've noticed this more and more over the last year or so and it drives me mental every time I see it. I admit that in spoken context, the '-ve' part of 'would've', 'could've' and 'should've' can sound like 'of', but it's not. It never was, it never will be. 'Could of' just doesn't make any sense!
'I could of had a drink but I didn't'; come again? Is that 'of' supposed to be a possession? Stop using it now, please, for the love of god and for the sake of my own sanity.

Gawjuss and other violations of spelling:

Honestly? I mean come on, you can cannot be seriously spelling 'gorgeous' in that way. Can you? Apparently you are, and you really need to be thankful that I'm not anywhere near you to give you a slap for it.
There are far far far too many of these horrific misspellings for me to list them here, but I'm going to highlight a few of my favourites:

'I shunt of done that': Two for one there! So, please tell me what you shouldn't have done....I'm dying to know

I carnt see what you mean". Well, that makes two of us because I can't see what you mean either, given that the second word in that statement isn't a word.

'Happy dayz' (or any other replacement of 's' with 'z'. It doesn't look cool, it's just idiotic.

"Will you come to town wiv me". Will I do what now? I'll go into town with you yes, if that's what you meant.

'Am neva eva doin that agn, eva" I'm actually slightly lost for words here. I have to read it out loud to myself for it to make sense. (I pinched this from a Facebook status so someone genuinely used this as a 'legitimate' sentence.)

"off shoppin wi me boi, feel ruff tho". Right then, I think there's shopping involved there somewhere, but I'm not sure what the rest of it means. (I pinched this from Facebook too)

I could go on, but I think you get the gist of my meaning!

Question marks at the end of non questions:

I think this may be linked to the horribly American trend of raising the voice slightly at the end of a sentence to make everything sound like a question when 90% of the time it's not. It doesn't seem to be as common as some other violations, but it still crops up every now and then.
"Not doing much, just off into town?" Are you asking me whether you're going into town? Because to be honest I don't know what you're doing, it's your life and your actions

And last but not least....lol, lmao, omg, etc etc:

Before I start on this little rant, I must add that I use 'WTF?'. Call me a hypocrite, but there you go. I love the expression of 'What the fuck?' and given firewalls and language sensors on work email servers, it sometimes serves my purpose to use 'WTF?' instead of the full sentence.
'lol' is a real pet hate of mine, and I don't think I've ever used it once, along with lmao, rofl and omg, and any of the others that float around. I know these have stemmed from chat rooms and I do understand the use of them in a cyber chat space when it's easier to type a few letters rather than three words, but it still riles me. However, I do have to reign in my dislike of these abbreviations given their frequent use by friends on text and Facebook. They don't annoy me as much as the misspelling and grammatical errors I've outlined above, but I'm not their greatest fan by a long shot.

There are a couple of good friends of mine who I've had a debate about this with recently on Facebook and I was pleased to see I wasn't the only pedant in my midst!
I'm sure there are many arguments for people using incorrect grammar; school wasn't their strong point, they don't care a jot what anyone thinks about their spelling and grammar, who cares if it's right or wrong as long as it's readable....I'm sure there are many more.
Maybe it's because I deal with a lot of senior management in my job and clear and precise communication is vital, maybe it's because I did English at university, or maybe it's just because I'm an annoying so and so. Whatever it is, I felt the need to rant and get my annoyances off my chest.

So there you go, I've said my bit, and I'm sure that this piece has a few errors in it itself....like I said, I'm not perfect, but I try my best!

Much love,

Sandra
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My adoration of music

I always find it amazing how much music moves me. I know that may sound corny but I'm writing this sat on a flight to Southampton listening to my iPod and in the space of 3 songs I've been back to my teens, then to my uni days and then to my mid twenties. It only takes a few notes of a song to transport me back to a particular time in my life, or a particular place.

Music can massively affect my mood and can turn me from feeling somewhat down trodden to smiling and remembering the fun times in my life. Of course, it also has the opposite effect and can make me feel quite melancholy in some respects.

Seven Nation army has just kicked in my iPod..... I'm 21 again, skipping down my university hall corridor singing 'I'm going to Wichita'! I thought at the time that it was a fab line, and I still do. It's something about the way he pronounces the word 'Wichita' I think. One of my best friends has this memory of me too and it never fails to raise a smile from us.

An ex of mine used to tease me about the fact that I'd have a story or association with almost every song, but I do. My family is very musical...

Alice Cooper's Poison is on now. I'm about 7 years old, sitting on my grandparents bed listening to my older sisters Million Dollar Babies album on vinyl. Martika Toy Soldiers has the same association!

But back to my families musicality. My father has sung in choirs since I can remember and I used to go along as a child. To this end there are a lot of traditional songs that invoke very strong memories of my childhood, On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at being one!

I have two older sisters and all three of us girls were made to learn an instrument at school. Mine started with the recorder, much to my unhappiness. I'd hidden the letter from the school from my dad as I didn't want to learn it, but they sent a reminder and I didn't have the common sense to hide this too....I was only 6 or 7 after all! I remember him sitting me down in the garden of my grandparents house and telling me how he believed that learning an instrument enhanced a persons musical awareness. I remember thinking that I really didn't care a jot at the time, but 22 years later, the conversation has stayed with me, and he was spot on. I progressed from the recorder to the trumpet, and although I enjoyed it initially I soon tired of it, I was a teenager by then and well, frankly, I had better things to do with my time! I changed schools at 14 and took up the trumpet in the new school, partly because my grandad had bought me a trumpet for my birthday. It's a truly beautiful instrument, with very ornate and stunning decoration on the bell. But, and I'm slightly sorry to say this, my heart just wasn't in it and I soon put the trumpet down, never to pick it up again. It's still at my dads, in its lovely leather case, gathering dust in the loft. I need to sell it to a good home really, to someone who'd give it the care and attention I never did.

But even though I was never really that interested in taking the instruments I learnt further, I can still read sheet music and have, what I think, is a good ear for music. I can pick up pitch and tone, and i can hold a tune relatively well. But beyond this, when I listen to music, I pick up on a myriad of things in the song or piece I'm listening to. I can't just listen to the lyrics, a song is so much more than that for me.

As kids we used to go to Scotland a lot on holiday, and we used to listen to Jeff Wayne's War of The Worlds. When I was a teen I bought the cd knowing I knew it from my childhood, and the first time I listened to it when I was that bit older, well, it blew me away. For those of you that don't know it, I recommend you source a copy, set aside a few hours and listen to it, end to end. I guarantee you'll know some music from it, and you may well know the story, it is a classic after all. But the musical itself is amazing. It's so unbelievably evocative and descriptive, it's a work of pure genius in my opinion. It sends shivers down my spine whenever I hear it, and I must have listened to it a thousand times throughout my life. I'll never tire of it and I'll pass it onto my children.

The second track has a spoken description of an alien rising from a ship, then the music kicks in and the description you've just heard is brought to life, the music is the alien. The melody rises and falls and is all gloopy and clumsy, like the alien it describes. (I realise that anyone reading this will be thinking I'm off my rocker now, but honestly, once you hear it, you'll understand how descriptive the music is!) I went to see the live show of the musical last year, with a full orchestra playing the music, and it moved me to tears. Again, corny, but that's how much I can be affected by music, especially live music.

Disney's Fantasia is a fabulous example of how descriptive music can be. Beethoven's pastoral symphony being a key one for me. I remember listening to it as a child and my dad telling me about the rabbits playing in the sunshine, then the thunder coming and all the animals running away. Years later when I watched Fantasia, everything he said made sense.Music really can paint a picture and tell a tale, even without lyrics.

My dad was 60 last year and my sisters and I bought him an MP3 player, pre loaded with songs & music from our childhood that reminded us of him. There was all sorts on there; Abba, Chopin, Thin Lizzy, Adam and the Ants and War of the Worlds to name a few. Every song made me smile as it brought memories of my childhood flooding back.

But as I said earlier, music can make me quite melancholy.

Robbie Williams Angels is one, and before you all roll your eyes, hear me out!! My grandad bought me the album for my 16th birthday, but died 5 days later. The whole album reminds me of my grandad really, but that song still brings a lump to my throat.

Kylie and Jason, All I Wanna Do brings mixed feelings. It reminds me of being a kid and being with my sisters, but it also reminds me of my stepfathers funeral. My eldest sister had found the tape the day before and played it in the car to me and my other sister whilst driving to my mums. We were all smiling at the memories, but we were all also upset because of the day it was.

I have a massive appreciation for music, both modern and classical. I have rather eclectic tastes and have everything from Marilyn Manson and Eminen to Abba and Lady Gaga in my music collection. I'll listen to pretty much anything and am always open to new artists or pieces.

Music plays a huge part in my life and it's an appreciation I'll certainly pass onto my children.

But I've waffled on enough, I'm off to immerse myself in War of the Worlds on my way home from Dublin Airport. Prob not too much of a wise idea, seeing as it's dark, quite late and I get scared easily.....uuuuuuuulaaaaahhhh! (You'll understand when you listen to WOTW. Seriously, find it!!)

Much love.

X

Teasing buses!

What is with people and buses? There'll be 12 of you at a bus stop and the right bus approaches for 5 of them, one puts their arm out and the bus starts to indicate......but, just in case the bus is just teasing them and will not really pull in, the other 4 people put their arm out too. Do they thing that the bus driver will stop to let one on, then move to the next person and pick them up and so on? What's the point of more than one person flagging the bus down, esp once the bus is indicating to show it's pulling in? Is there any need? Really, is there?
My morning bus is full of school kids, and I mean full. About 50 of the beggars pile off at one stop half way through the journey. All the people standing up on the bus move to fill the seats downstairs and a few upstairs. But what gets me me is that the people waiting at the bus stop for all the kids to pile off, get on the bus but seeing the downstairs bit is full....just stand up! They've just seen LOADS of kids get off the bus from upstairs so they know there are seats, so why not take them?! Why stand up, crowding the bus when there is no need because there are seats upstairs?! Come on people!!

Walking to work t'other day and was getting seriously fecked off with the rain. It would spit, then stop then spit some more, then stop. I was fed up of putting my brolly up and down every 2 minutes like something out of Mary Poppins so I just gave it up as a bad job and put the umbrella away. My hair's curly anyway so it's no real bother if it gets wet. But no sooner had I put the umbrella away, it started to rain, hard. I was optimistic and thought "Ah sure, it'll stop in a minute..." but it carried on.....and I got wetter......finally sucummbed and got my brolly out.....and it fucking stopped!!!! Excuse my language there but I was less than impressed! I need to invest in a proper waterproof coat so I just have a hood to negotiate. Bloody Irish weather.

I'm a great lover of music and couldn't live without my iPod. Music can change my mood instantly and always continues to propel me back to a specific place or time with such clarity that I sometimes find myself getting quite emotional. I've had an interesting week for various reasons and something has happened that's affected me quite profoundly. I swear my iPod is psychic because it keeps giving me songs that take are linked to the event that's happened. It's almost provided some closure though, and I've listened to the songs as they've shuffled through, having a bit of a smile to myself about things that have passed but at the same time moving on. I'm a very emotional person, always have been and I tend to live my life through music. I was made a lovely mixed CD recently (very retro I know!) of songs I'd never heard. These songs have become part of my musical loves now and will always make me smile with nice memories of the person who gave them to me.

Right, well I'm off to pack for my week away at home in the UK. Off to Most Haunted Live on Saturday, proper looking forward to that. I'm genuinely intrigued to find out whether it's all set up or not. Watch this space!

Keep Smiling!

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