If you’ve been on a aeroplane, to a movie, school play, or the theatre you will have faced the predicament of needing to squeeze past others to get to your seat, usually either because they’re early or you’re late.
Various people go about this differently – some seated people will stand, others will try to contort their bodies so you can get by and the rest will leave you to brave it alone.
The scenario raises some questions though – do you face the person you are passing or face away? Historically I have usually mixed it up, depending on who I was passing and the size of the space. For example if passing an elderly person then I would face them so I could smile and make a special effort to say thank you or alternatively if it was a small space I’d usually face away to reduce the level of intimacy with seated strangers, always saying thank you before turning away to face stage/screen.
I was at a theatre the other day. I booked the tickets and intentionally booked tickets in the middle of the house. They’re the best seats, right? The seating area was tight – once seated my legs were probably about two centimetre from the seat in front. I’m tall but certainly not a giant.
Before I got to my seat, there was a small group to pass so I decided that on this occasion I would put aside my usual practical approach and just face them as I was sure it was more polite than turning my back.
If while searching for your seating number, you pass in front of those patrons already seated in your row, please make sure you face them as you do. This allows you to greet them and excuse yourself face to face, rather than putting your backside to them as you pass – Cynthia Grosso
None bothered to stand or courteously move their knees to one side. I would usually always say thank you and mean it, but on this occasion it was more of a ‘move your bloody legs’ thank you. I quite literally locked knees with the first person, started tripping over the second and stumbled out by haphazardly stepping sideways over the third. If they had a bag in front of them, I probably would have done a mental jumping squat right on top of it so to hear the splat of their slime filled possessions. Likely would have found myself sprawled out on top of them.
If I had faced the stage I could have moulded my knees around the seated people, holding onto the seat in front rather than initiating physical contact and cumbersomely tripping. I also wouldn’t have had to look them in the eye while poorly auditioning for a position in Cirque du Soleil as an acrobat. Apparently not advisable though:
When entering a row to find a seat or leaving your seat to go toward the aisle, never allow your buttocks to be the face of neighboring people. Because of the way we bend as we sidle between the seats, our rear-end extends farther backward than our knees or chest. If you are facing the rear of the theatre, your buttocks may touch the backs of the seats in the row in front and maybe even the back of the heads of a few people sitting there, but, if you face forward, your rear is in the face of all the people you pass—not a very positive appearance – advancedetiquette.com
The above quote is quite funny to read, allegedly from an etiquette perspective it’s better to bump ones derrière across the back of the heads of those seated in front instead of showing people in the same row the full girth of one’s buttocks. Is it all about putting on a side show and professing to the crowd Hyacinth style – “Bouquet” residents, lady of the house speaking’? The tutorial notes read: You can actually tap strangers heads with your bare (haha not quite) buttocks, but it’s not okay to show your buttocks without body to body contact. What the etiquette people won’t tell you is that the back of the brain, the occipital lobe, is in fact the visual processing centre of the brain – without it we don’t see. Even if the people in the same row didn’t see your buttocks, the optical vision outlets of the people in front may have seen it all! The dirty seated buggers should probably be the ones to momentarily dart their eyes away, along with their knees!
If you’re the one who’s going to be in the middle of a row, where you have to walk past people to get to your seat, face toward the stage with your back to those already seated as you go down the row. It may seem counterintuitive to turn your backside to people, but if you slip, you can steady yourself on the seat in front of you. Hopefully the other patrons will stand up to let you pass, but if they don’t and you do happen to stumble, it’s much better to fall seated in someone’s lap than spread eagle all over them! – Amanda Millay
This certainly would have helped in this situation – even if it’s not proper etiquette. Hmm.. to give your front bits or your back bits?
On Wednesday, I left home to go to a work meeting. I decided to grab an apple and went on my way. While I was in the car I decided it was apple time.
In the rush of the day, more often than not I resort to eating fruit without washing it, even though my better judgement tells me ‘STOP – pesticides – chemicals – they’re going to kill your insides’, to which my hungry brain replies ‘not today, busy’. The unwashed fruit predicament is a scenario I seem to be faced with daily either at my work desk or out and about.
So here I am in the car with my apple. Unwashed. I thought I should remember to wash the apple before I leave the house next time, but usually think of creative ways to get around it by either giving the fruit a tokenistic massage with a tissue or rubbing it against my clothes, like a baseball player. There were no tissues in the car so I opted for the baseball option.
I was driving along rubbing the apple on my right pant leg. Turning it around and around like a rotisserie. I could feel it was coarsely rubbing against clothes but just thought I’d continue to watch the road and figured the rubbing action was effectively serving its purpose. I eventually decided to look down as the rubbing sensation felt increasingly odd and I noticed a big white patch on my black pants.
The world around me metaphorically faded away as my eyes transfixed on the patch. Was it there to start with or did this damn apple do this? I found my mouth slightly part, my face was telling me I should be shocked but my brain was still catching up, not yet sure what had happened. My apple either polished wax or pesticides on my pants, or both. There was definitely wax in it by the feel.
The lady in me proceeded to lick my fingers and try to rub it out. It was too late to turn back and get changed so it was time to test my creativity. I continued the same process of licking fingers and eventually lady-like palm licking over and over until eventually my mouth was dry and my pants damp. I keep going though, trying to increase salivation production in my mouth, wishing I had a water bottle handy. I wondered what was worse; the wet patch, white patch or a strange girl licking the palm of her hand and rubbing in the general direction of her nether region on a busy road? Probably the latter.
At one point I laughed at myself after realising that I had quite literally tried to stretch my head up like jack in the box to see my efforts from a bird’s eye view, while simultaneously driving along the highway. Passersby probably thought I had a giraffe related illness.
In the end I managed to get the meeting with neither my saliva nor the waxy residue obvious on my pants. This was an example of my clothes, and potentially the universe, telling me that I should eat more organic food.
It doesn’t stop there though. About a month or two ago, I’d been out for drinks in the city for a friend’s birthday. I got a lift home with some friends and on our journey we decided to stop at a very classy souvlaki place attached to a service station. It’s a spot that’s renowned for attracting enormous groups of young people, around 16-21 year olds, in hotted up cars waiting to travel to their next drag racing location on a Saturday night.
So anyway, while internally cussing the huge groups of annoying young people waiting for their midnight snacks to arrive, while simultaneously enjoying the people watching, ours were finally ready. We decided that we’d just eat them when we got to our respective homes as it was late and also meant we could get away from the crowd.
So here I am in the early hours of the morning, drunk as a skunk, slouched on the coach, eating a very late (nutritional) dinner. I close to inhaled it and when I was about to stand up to dispose of the wrapper, I noticed that the entire left side of my dress was literally covered in white oily garlic sauce. The dress is a thicker material so I hadn’t felt it against my skin. I remember my eyes widened as I couldn’t believe I could spill so much on myself without realising for a split second. I took it off, immediately threw it in the wash on a hot cycle even though it was a dark colour and thought nothing of it.
Two weeks later I was at work in the afternoon speaking to a colleague in the hallway. I noticed that she wasn’t looking me in the eyes and was looking at my clothes. Her non-verbal cues felt strange so when I walked back into my office, I looked down and was confronted by an enormous, miscellaneous stain. I had forgotten about the souvlaki incident as I thought I’d fixed that problem, so my initial thoughts were ‘when did I see my nephews last and what did we do together?’
Then it dawned on me. The souvlaki. What I had on my hands (well my dress) was a mammoth oil stain. I hadn’t worn the dress since that night. I spent the rest of my day with my left arm firmly fixed in the general direction of the beastly stain as though I was suffering temporarily paralysis, wondering who else had noticed and politely chosen to ignore my grubbiness.
I’ve subsequently washed the dress about five or six times, I’ve soaked it in eucalyptus oil (haha I know, more oil) and it’s still there. This was another example of my clothes, and potentially the universe, telling me that I should eat more organic food. While I do that, I may also buy shares in a dry cleaning business.
I got on the train the other day and immediately noticed a girl in her early to mid 20’s, fringe dyed a teal colour with a bull and various mouth piercings. Initially I didn’t notice her because of her looks, instead due to the production she was starring in while dramatically chatting on her mobile phone.
‘She invites her and not me, she’s f*%#ing suppose to be my best friend’
‘I had tears in my eyes when I was talking to her’
‘Where the fuck is my invite? I invite her everywhere!’
…concluding her point with a mature ‘I’m like exactly!’
I tried to discretely listen to her conversation, while inconspicuously typing notes in my phone of the highlights. We caught eyes a few times but I dismissively proceeded to continue scanning the crowd as if to say ‘don’t worry you’re not special, I’m looking through everyone on this train’ – just not noting their every word.
I hypothesised there were two primary schools of thought for this sort of behaviour in adult years. The first is that of FOMO – Fear of Missing Out on something better, more interesting or exciting than what we’re already doing. The second is a little deeper – that is potential unresolved attachment issues, fear of separation and an ultimate fear of rejection. Ouch. Let’s run with FOMO…
We can experience FOMO moments in all sorts of situations – if you’re not invited somewhere like my teal headed friend, when you can’t get tickets to a gig or festival, odd people who like the football might have a FOMO moment if they can’t get grand final tickets, when you’ve got more than one event on in a night and don’t want to miss out on either, when compulsively checking Facebook or Twitter like a peaking crack addict, on the couch on a Friday night – alone – watching Snog, Marry or Avoid (while checking Facebook like a peaking-crack-addict), if you’re too poor to go on overseas holiday and every man and his dog are travelling (and the double whammy – posting their every movement online like a peaking-crack-addict), driving in the car and simultaneously checking texts or answering calls and the list goes on and on.
There are lifetime chronic sufferers of FOMO and then there are the rest of us who occasionally suffer from the condition. FOMOs generally think that the grass is greener on the other side due to the overwhelming feeling that something better is happening somewhere else. Anywhere other than right here, right now.
In the mornings I aim to get up at sparrows fart (early) to go to the gym. Some mornings, usually mornings when I’ve not gone to bed in time to get precisely 8 hours sleep, I may not go. Well as odd as it sounds this can sometimes evoke a FOMO moment where I think – I wonder who’s at the gym today? I wonder if x person made it to our regular spin class? I wonder who’s on reception? Or I think here I am in bed while my little regular gym crew are all slogging it out, starting the day with a bang and I’m lying in bed trying to convince myself I’m too tired to open my eyes. All lies – if I peeled my eyes open and turned the light on I’d be wide awake.
When I talk about my ‘gym crew’ please note I say this loosely, I know all of their faces, we see each other many times a week but all in all we’re silent buddies. It’s amazing to think that silent friends can evoke a FOMO moment. There is some non-verbal communication though. If I’m doing resistance training I’ll frequently pick up on different things others are doing and incorporate into my own circuits. Non-verbal communication also includes occasional perving on the lads – we’re all human afterall. I love nothing more than people watching at the gym, ear phones in, cocooned in my own meditative gym world. Not going means I can’t do these things.
A few of the girls and I have started speaking in front of the mirror while we put our makeup on. Alas if I don’t go to the gym I miss on our occasional ‘reflective’ chit chat. Funnily enough, the theme of silent friends also continues here – we don’t even know each other’s names.
I’ve been sick recently and haven’t regularly been to the gym for a few weeks. I am honestly suffering a chronic case of FOMO. I need a hit. Tomorrow is the day I get back into the routine. I had planned for today but let’s start fresh. Let’s just hope I don’t find myself on WordPress banging out another blog like this morning! If I’m lucky I might even see my teal haired friend there. FOMO.
It’s been 34, 323 days since I’ve been single and I’m a singleholic. Okay not exact numbers but probably close. In a world with a dual approach to most things, I ask myself what are the gifts of being single?
1. I don’t need to share
Every Saturday I take up the entire clothes line with my washing. If it’ a sunny day there is no space for anyone else. Sure they could wash on a different day or use the dryer but the universe is clearly saying the line is a ‘table for one’. The other one is that I don’t need to share my doona, with winter fast approaching I can safely know that I won’t need to wrestle the blankets off anyone to stay warm. In fact my doona tends to remain glued in the same spot at all times.
I can also be assured that if I open a bottle of wine, that I can finish it off without anyone wanting a glass. The reality on this one is that it stays open in the fridge for weeks and then I use that nudging vinegar wine in my cooking, or if many months pass just throw it out (or put it on my salad). The point is that if I didn’t want to share it, I didn’t have to. Let it go off!
I don’t have to worry about having a seagull partner who wants to swoop in and eat my leftovers – really I want to eat it myself. Some couples will go out for dinner and share their meals, or order the ‘plate for two’, say a tower of seafood. Fear not, I don’t miss out as I can just go ahead and order for two!
Lisa Arnold and Christina Campbell recently wrote an article about the high price of being single in the US in The Atlantic. They estimated (not empirically) that a low income woman would spend an extra $484,368 and a higher income woman an extra $1,022,096 in their lifetime as a single person. That’s assuming it’s a lifelong enduring medical condition. You can see why though when you think about the extra costs of holidaying as a single, shopping for groceries when you buy things in teeny tiny little packages, renting or buying particularly if you’re not into share houses or lucky enough to have someone who will go halves and so on. But fear not, I don’t have to share my money, so I can be thankful for constantly being broke.
As a child you’re taught the importance of sharing – it’s really a fundamental skill of Childhood 101. I think I was a good sharer as a kid, but it seems being a single person has taught me that sharing can in some senses be redundant. Not totally but certainly partially.
2. I don’t need to pick up after myself
This one could be seen as universal as I’m sure there are plenty of people who don’t do this regardless of marital status. I think it’s particularly easy for a single person though, or really anyone who lives alone. While I don’t live in filth and have been accused once or twice of maintaining my unit like a display village, if I don’t want to pick up after myself, my behaviour has no potential to impact on anyone other than myself. Being single actually means I can be incredibly selfish.
If I wasn’t single there’s no way that my sink would be currently filled with every dish, strangely mainly saucers and knives, I’ve used over the past week. I can leave my shedding long hair all over the bathroom for days without even for a moment considering someone else is sharing the space. I occasionally find hair balls around the house, similar to rolling tumbleweed in a country scene. They must blow out of the bathroom by the motion of walking. Disgusting really and it’s a serious issue for one, not two people.
I can get ready to go somewhere in a hurricane state and leave my house literally looking like a severe tropical storm has blown in. Coming home to find everything exactly where I left it is probably the most shocking part of all – really, did I leave all of the cupboards in the entire house open? It’s lucky I even manage to lock the front door.
3. Freedom to do what I want, when I want
Single people aren’t accountable to anyone. I go wherever I want, whenever I want. I don’t have to call in to say I’m safe, believe it or not I always am! I don’t have to go home early because I think so and so will be bored, or because I miss so and so and can’t detach the umbilical cord for a few hours. Worst still, I don’t have to stay home because such and such is tired and needs an adult babysitter. There is of course give and take and I too would want to spend time with the infamous ‘such and such’ but you get the idea. I can also get up at the crack of dawn without having to tippy toe around the house. I can stomp around with elephant feet.
4. People don’t ask if I am getting engaged, married or having babies
Instead they assume I’m a lesbian. I mean what else could someone in their late 20s be, if not in a relationship, other than a closet gay? Or a two headed monster. The first option is obviously much less threatening.
You might say that the biggest thing missing in the life of a singleton is affection and love. Fair enough but there are alternatives. Cuddle time? No worries I have a solution, I’m one of those sad people who snuggle up to a pillow in bed. I’m thinking of inventing a warm pillow, maybe throwing in an old-fashioned ticking clock to give the facade of a heartbeat. I’ll sleep like a puppy.
Really in a couple’s world it’s important to find the silver living – especially as a recovering singleholic. What do you think, who has it better singles or couples?
I recently attended the Wil Anderson show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. One of the topics he stood up for (cheap gag, get it, he’s a comedian?) was refugees.
In my view Australia does not allow enough refugees into the country. Refugees do not come to Australia (or anywhere else) because they feel like a sunny holiday, or as a willing expatriate. Refugees are genuinely seeking asylum due to the threat of persecution in their country of origin – a place of war, destruction and/or corruption. We are talking about people who have been, or highly likely to be subjected to unimaginable torture and trauma.
Many refugees will have seen or learnt that their parents, brothers, sisters, children and friends have been killed. Others wonder on a daily basis if their loved ones are alive or dead. Hardly the worries most of us would face like ‘Argh I forgot to bring my iPod to the gym’, ‘Mac Book Pro or HP? Why can’t they just standardise them!’, ‘Oh no, palm oil is in my favourite snack – Arnotts BBQ shapes’, ‘The bar was closed so I couldn’t get drunk before my flight’ or ‘I’m hungry but I don’t want to take my retainer out to eat’. Okay, the last one’s perhaps more of a niche market.
Refugees don’t just pretend they are refugees because they feel like getting to Australia sooner to lay back on virtual banana lounges drinking Devonshire tea. If that was the case you probably wouldn’t bother risking your life, and the lives of those you love by getting onto a rickety boat that may or may not make it across the ocean.
Contrary to the media view, most refugees actually come by plane and compared to worldwide statistics very few refugees come to Australia period. Some people treat refugees like their rights are as flippant as a game of charades, but the reality of the refugee experience isn’t as fun as Pictionary.
Whether you come on a boat, or a plane to seek asylum in Australia – the act of doing so actually isn’t illegal under Australian law or the United Nations Refugee Convention to which Australia is a signatory. Asylum seekers have their human rights infringed on a daily basis by spending years in detention (prison?), being unable to work and are simultaneously totally unsupported by the government. How does that work? We are talking about human beings, who are not deviant, not criminals, whereby a country, our own, perpetuates a cycle of inhumanity.
The irony is that many Australians with colonial roots are also boat people – something in common perhaps? Well aside from the fact that the early non-Indigenous inhabitants of Australia were convicts! I joke but it’s true.
Wil suggested in the show that we should have a policy of ‘one person in, one person out’. So for everyone one refugee in, we send one Australian back onto the boat to head up to Christmas Island for processing (it could maybe be a bit like that ‘Wife Swap’ show?) Grand idea!
So it made me think, who would I send back? I initially tried to think light-heatedly but there were so many people I would happily line up on the beach to get on that boat that I wouldn’t be true to myself to not reserve some VIP spots. I may need a ‘part two’ to this one…
To start with I would send perpetrators of violence on the boat – including physical and sexual violence both against known or unknown persons. I include perpetrators against women and children but also the less commonly spoken about perpetrators against men (particularly in a relationship sense) and perpetrators in same sex couples.
A recent example of someone I would send back is a couple I’ve seen a few times on my way to work. They continuously argue at the same place and we cross paths near an inner city tram stop. She is a victim of violence, distinct from a survivor. Her eyes are downcast when he talks to her. She’s submissive. Overtly scared. Her anxiety can be literally felt from many metres away, it’s palpable. I once saw him hold a lit cigarette right up to her face in a flicking motion aggressively threatening to toss it at her. I can’t imagine what he does behind closed doors. I’d send him on the boat in a heartbeat, along with his filthy darts.
The other person that stands out is a man I supported at work who held his partner to the ground and poured salt into her eyes when they were arguing, amongst other awful indescribable things. I would send him on the boat.
I would also send people on the boat who abuse children. Those people who have shaken their babies to the point of brain damage. Who have fractured their children’s bones due to poor impulse control. Who purposefully make their children sick by sticking tin foil in their feeding tubes (after already making them sick). I would send them on the boat.
I would send people who expose their children to severe domestic violence and whose children are constantly hyper vigilant or simply so numbed they don’t react. I’d send a person I once worked with who assaulted his partner while she was backed against a wall. She was holding their two year old child on her hip and he was so angry he didn’t realise the little girl’s head was violently banging against the wall with every blow. I would send him on the boat.
I’d send mother’s I’ve met who were addicted to heroin, alcohol and other drugs while pregnant leading to their babies withdrawing and having lifelong issues like foetal alcohol syndrome. Sexual abusers of children leading to kids thinking it was their fault because it felt good, that they ‘asked for it’, or so fearful of threats the perpetrator was going to kill their mum that they never told a soul. I would send these people on the boat.
While I have no right to judge, and do appreciate the complexity of the circumstances, the trauma inflicted on these children cannot be ignored.
The next group of people I would send are racists, people intolerant of diversity or naive to the history of Australia. I would send back anyone who didn’t recognise in the post-colonisation era, Aboriginal people were subjected to blatant genocide.
I would swap a refugee for someone who didn’t believe refugees should be allowed to come to Australia. I’d kindly place people who don’t believe in ‘cue jumping’ at the front of the line for their ignorance that the life of a refugee can be compared to a deli where you can safely wait for freshly shaved leg ham. I would send people who turn their noses up at others based on ethnicity, religion or culture. They would all be jammed on the boat.
At this rate I may need to send back 10,000 for every one person – if not more! I will end by saying that I truly believe a collective group is more powerful than any individual action, so come on you go that way, I’ll go this way and let’s recruit people for our raging “beach party”. Australia’s equivalent of a Half Moon Party.
I am a people watcher by nature, I love nothing more than to pull up a pew and wonder if passersby are folders or scrunches. Some think it’s sad to live vicariously through others, but I make a career of it. I also take great delight in living myself, so it balances out. While I try not to rejoice in other people’s misfortune or misery, the phenomenon of public arguing between couples intrigues me.
I attended a wedding on Saturday night and found it mind boggling how many disagreements I witnessed between various couples, up to five, ranging from niggling in a group settling, brief moments where partners were pulled aside to lay down the law, to lengthy overtly heated disagreements in quasi privacy, you know, surrounded by a lazy 120 plus others to share in the intimacy.
Much like public affection should be saved for the bedroom, so should public displays of arguing. Well not saved for the bedroom per say, though that may happen later, but valet parked until such time it can be civilly discussed without gawking onlookers, willing or otherwise.
As an onlooker we’ve all seen the pictorial panels quickly, chronologically appear on others comic strips with images of pouting lips, flapping or crossed arms, pointing fingers, frowning faces, torn out hair and dramatically captured sweat beads.
We’ve seen their dialogue boxes fading onto their strip (powerpoint style) with talking bubbles ‘you always do this!’, ‘why don’t you listen to me?, ‘I’m sick and tired of…’, ‘you don’t love me, do you?’. Oh dear, nobody loves emotionally loaded questions. Just quietly, it’s probably not going to be a best seller at the next Supernova Pop Culture Expo. Insert ‘fade out’ feature.
It’s a superhero free zone usually. Spiderman doesn’t usually web in to ‘save the day’. There is certainly no romantic kissing with Spiderman precariously though bravely hanging upside down in front of his lover in the night. Instead the scenarios I’m talking about usually involve puddles of pee against walls in allays, images of drunkards, glassy red eyes, the excreting nauseating smell of alcohol toxins or at a peak the lingering stench of vomit.
Public arguing between couples is sort of like a train crash, it’s hard to look away. I mean cast your mind to any car accident you’ve driven part, you just can’t help but slow down and eyeball any shocked or incapacitated people on the curb or strewn on the asphalt. You’ll even look if it’s a minor ding with no casualties. I certainly do.
While these occurrences are not usually funny, it’s the chronic arguers that occasionally bring some joy to me. One a recent such occasion the fella had (car) accidently spilt his drink on his lady’s dress and he copped it, followed by copping it, and then he really copped it. A car accident with horrendously diabolical (near death) consequences.
Honestly best drive away before you’re drawn into the emergency services aftermath. The sicko in me likes watching the over-exaggerated body language and the brashness of the tirade, preferably in the distance, much like I enjoy theatre as a passive spectator. Similarly I prefer not to sit in the front row to avoid audience participation.
The worse of them all is the couple that argues in front of an intimate group of friends – particularly if the animalistic hissing, snarling and growling becomes the ‘group’ conversation leaving metaphoric scratch and bite marks on the herd. It’s heightened if you’re lucky enough to be an unfortunate third wheel. I’d honestly rather stick rusty pins in my eyes.
These situations are further worsened, if it could get worse, when a member of the couple feels the need to drag you into it. Lesson to self: don’t crack jokes to lighten the mood or try to pacify irate individuals – they sometimes mistakenly think you’re taking sides.
The other big one starts in a calm, ordinary environment when making a joke at the expense of partner K, with partner P as somewhat of an ally. The awkward part comes when partner K drops the ceiling on partner P and you know the attack was meticulously wrapped with a note that actually had your name written on it in UPPERCASE, using permanent marker.
With luck these experiences are a good opportunity to be self-reflective of our own behaviour in public and frankly in private too. As a single person I can thankfully concentrate on other important first world problems like fishing the string out of my peppermint tea that’s just fallen in.
Have you ever looked at your Facebook newsfeed and thought about a particular acquaintance “you’re having the time of your life”? Have your thoughts ever then drifted to “no I’ve never felt like this before”, “yes I swear, it’s the truth” and “I owe it all to you?” Not because they’ve morphed into Patrick Swayze from Dirty Dancing but instead because you read their status updates, see the pictures they post and you wonder how one person could possibly be having that much fun, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?
My favourite social networker style is one that’s sporadic, positive and widely focuses on odd occurrences or provides insight into the way someone thinks, while not being too deep or political. I like the status updates that read along the lines of ‘A stranger just asked if I was (insert famous person) so I played along and gave him my autograph’, ‘Who would have known the ute muster would be a grand place to get my car serviced’.
I also enjoy it when people who aren’t usually very Facebook active start posting more, then fade off again until the next quirky or funny life event crops up. A far has humanly possible the numero uno purpose of Facebook shouldn’t be about shameless self-promotion, even though it lends itself to this so nicely by nature.
When I’ve spoken to people about the updates they most dislike on Facebook typically the response include:
* Photographs of food unless it’s a Le Cordon Bleu gastronomic creation that could rival the likes of Heston Blumenthal.
* All that can broadly be categorised as mundane – ‘I just scratched myself’.
* Persistent updates about the daily movements of parents – “Little Johnny just had a bath” or “I think Polly has a fever”.
* Enduring depressed or disgruntled with life posts – what’s more potent than the simple “I hate my life” or “I want to die”.
* Vague, cryptic posts clearly directed at someone – “I wish you would understand I need time for myself”.
* The same vague cryptic posts with responses that feed into the attention seeking behaviour – ‘what’s wrong?’, ‘are you okay?’
* Online games that show up all over the newsfeed or worse yet people who invite you to participate – you may be a lovely person but no one cares that you play Words with Friends or Cityville. Really.
The worst for me is the over enthusiastic, relentless stream of posts showing ‘me’ in all my popular threads, with all my popular friends, and all my popular food, in all my popular places, in my popular poses, with my popular pets and at my popular job. Did I say how important it is to be ‘popular’, or more importantly to exude this to the Facebook world? It’s exhausting to look at, let alone to live. I quite frankly wouldn’t be able to keep up with the facade.
Imagining what it would be like to put myself in their shoes, I can see how it would be tempting to live in this way. There’s an instant gratification in multiple friends ‘liking’ your every movement. I know when I write a status update I can’t help but habitually check and re-check Facebook to see what responses I get. I get a mini adrenalin rush if I see a new reply – the bigger the red number next to the world icon the more excitedly I click on it and scan who I’ve made a mark on. It sort of feels like the rush right before you yell “Bingo!”, for those like me who were also subjected to Bingo on Club Med holidays as kids. Anyone?
I have a rule, if I am out then I don’t post on Facebook. I don’t check in. Sure I will occasionally have a quick look on the sly, but I try not to. I’m a firm believer that while socialising, the point is actually to be in the moment, to enjoy the company of those around you, rather than feebly participate in real life, while living wholeheartedly through the wonderful world of the web.
Wouldn’t it be great if an app was developed where if it detects that you are out and about, then Facebook freezes over. It goes into hibernation mode, much like a bear, until the social winter passes.
All in all Facebook is a great medium and a great way to keep connected. The key is for Facebook not to mimic life, and instead for life to be life. The take home message for me is that life still happens even if our 200 closest Facebook pals don’t know about it! I promise, no-one will put Baby in the corner.
If you read the title and expected an article on mental illness, think again. Picture the let’s say hypothetical situation of a girl, let’s pretend she’s me (she is), a girl who feels blessed to have beautiful family and friends, a great job, a unit that’s my own along with her major business partner – the bank, and lots of other gifts she’s eternally grateful for. Let’s picture this girl is fiercely independent, a girl who doesn’t subscribe to gender roles, who has a strong sense of social justice and human rights. Let’s paint this girl with the broad brush strokes of a single lass, happily single but hopelessly unlucky in love.
I am sometimes disturbed by the perception of single females, particularly those nudging their thirties or beyond. The first word that comes to mind, one I’ve been called, is a ‘spinster’. Initially I liked being called a spinster, that is until I googled the word and discovered the word was akin with ‘old maid’, ‘old, childless unmarried woman’, ‘a woman who believed in fairytale love stories for too long’ or probably the most nauseating ‘a woman who hits the big 3-0, still single, no kids, usually blaming her career for the fact no guy wants her’. I prefer the alternate definition of ‘a person who likes spinning’, preferably on their head.
In recent times, the efforts of some of my friends and family to find me a partner have been amplified, and I mean any partner, compatibility need not be considered. In the past their concern for my singleness felt more subtle but as I near dirty 30 it appears as though they’ve entered concert mode and hooked up all of their virtual speakers and tipped train loads of mismatched men in the mosh pit. The booming, well meaning sound of their songs can be heard from a distance. Insert image of an open air concert arena, say Sidney Myer Music Bowl.
The other month my lovely sister decided that she found ‘the one’ for me. A relative of her husband (don’t worry, no direct blood lines). She was excitedly telling me about him; his personality, nature, his place in the world and then drops a bombshell. His wife was murdered. Not by him, I think. Needless to say it certainly doesn’t evoke an image of a man likely to be well adjusted or ready for a relationship. He may be? I could be his counsellor in the very least.
I have also been told that as you get older the ‘good ones get snapped up, so gotta make a move’. The cynic in me says that while this is true, conversely almost half of all relationships break down so I can claim the good ones then! Nothing wrong with sloppy seconds I guess, so long as they’re not too bruised with resentment and regret.
Last week I met a guy that in many ways seemed great – soulful, intelligent, connected, genuine and so on. He told me outright he believed in fate, that he believed fate would bring him to the girl of his dreams. I (and it appeared him too) enjoyed our interaction and the thrill of getting to know each other. Well, that was until he asked me if I wanted children.
The spinster in me led me to approach this subject in a way that he clearly didn’t like. Basically I honestly told him that I haven’t grown up subscribing to fairytales, yearning to find my prince and live in a castle or behind a picket fence. I told him I wasn’t sure if I wanted children but would consider it if I was with the right person and believed we could make that decision with a child-focus. After that time I didn’t hear from him again.
Despite summer feeling long gone in Melbourne, I could almost hear the distant buzzing of cicadas. I thought, okay give him the benefit of the doubt and check if I scared him, I contacted him and he told me he believed it was better if we were “just friends” as he has an innate desire to reproduce. Chapter closed. Note to self: may have better luck with a cradle snatcher approach and remove third head before interacting with any further potential suitors!
The aim of the game is that once I pass, my headstone doesn’t read ‘SPINSTER’. Still plenty of time yet! If not, then I will simply have to look forward to becoming a cat woman and swigging wine from the bottle.
I’ve always felt for people whose birthdays coincide with the joyful December Christmas period. A time of year characterised by the hustle and bustle of packed shopping centres, overflowing supermarkets with trolleys sky high with Christmas puddings and a frantic rush to get everyone’s ducks in a row to theoretically celebrate the birth of Christ, or in reality appreciate time together with friends and family. Provided you like them, of course.
Despite not being a birthday person, my birthday this year coincided with Easter and it provided some insight into the experience of those unfortunate folk whose birthday spin wheel unceremoniously lands on or around Christmas every year. The joy for me was that it was a non-event but it made me wonder what it means for those who would rather their birthdays be more about them, and less about snotty children and a jolly man in a red suit.
Many will have heard of instances when late December babies receive joint Christmas and birthday presents, and their disgruntled thoughts. I wonder if the scale of gift would compensate. Say the gift was a scented soap. Well let’s be honest if that was the gift aunty Ethal gave you, she probably should throw out some of the dusty gifts in her glory box – Christmas or otherwise. Say alternatively a Christmas baby was given a joint birthday/Christmas gift of a coffee siphon, a generous David Jones voucher or a package to visit the Peninsula hot springs, would such en vogue gifts compensate for the lack of acknowledgement of separating two events? Honestly, probably.
It’s not wholly about the material aspect. I guess the crux of it is that we also love to stretch out any sort of celebration as far as possible. Why condense events into small, tight packages when you can have multiple loose parties (with multiple loose gifts?)
I mean really why else would the milestones of marriage and babies involve a kitchen tea, a hens, a bucks, the wedding, post-wedding day lunch, honeymoon, a baby shower, post-baby celebrations and probably other events to celebrate the milestone of sneezing in amongst all that fun. Why would Christmas babies feel they should be treated any differently? You may even go as far as to say that their human rights are infringed by virtue of timing.
If Christmas babies were workplace issues there’s no doubt there’d be an influx of allegations of discrimination and bullying, after all every birthday there’s potentially going to be a repeated pattern of exclusion and downright disregard for that poor Christmas baby, notwithstanding the fact they get a year older every year.
The Christmas baby needs to be resilient and if nothing else can rejoice in the glory of stuffing their face with Turkey, pork crackling, roast potatoes and Christmas pudding, or in my household customary Christmas lasagna, seafood and a BBQ. The Christmas baby can mask their frustration with emotional eating to compensate for their misfortune in the world at Christmas. No-one will even know in amongst the festivities. A fleeting win for the Christmas baby, well at least until their sugar levels suddenly drop and ding ding it’s time for round two. Mmmm turkey.
A Sunday Session 