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THOUGHTS: Internet Dating. Is it just for creeps and losers?

11 Oct

Apologies for the hiatus; I guess I’ve been a bit slack of late. I blame the process of uprooting my old life, transporting as much of it as I could fit in my tiny car across the border and trying to establish a new one for myself in a different city for preventing me from recording my thoughts in any meaningful way. Let’s call it my ‘Writer’s Minor Holiday‘, shall we?

Enough of that.

On to today’s topic: Internet Dating. This has been floating to the surface of my brain quite frequently over the past couple of months, mainly because I decided to bite the bullet and try it out for the first time in my twenty-four-and-a-bit years of existence. I think this came as more of a surprise to myself than anyone else as I have always held the opinion that internet dating was for creeps, geeks, losers and the desperate. Despite hearing numerous success stories about friends of friends who had met their significant other through internet dating, I was still skeptical.

Image courtesy of debaird


The idea was initially conceived over a few drinks with one of my housemates. We agreed that it would be an interesting social experiment to give it a go for ourselves. Would we have trouble finding any normal, respectable, non-stalkerish and generally suitable men like as suspected or would we be surprised by the quality of young men gracing the world wide web with their profiles? There was really only one way to find out.

The purpose of this entry isn’t to share my internet dating success and/or horror stories (I will save those for another day) but more to share some of the things I have learnt in the process.

My Observations:

  1. Although there are plenty of creeps who think that posting a photo of themselves with their shirt off/leaning on the bonnet of their sports car is appealing and sport obsessed guys are a dime a dozen there are also plenty of decent guys  with interests beyond ‘watching the footy in the pub with my mates’ on there, it is just a matter of taking time to find them.
  2. No matter how much ‘chemistry’ you have with someone over email this may not translate when you come to meet them face to face. In light of this it isn’t wise to spend weeks on end emailing back and forth before you finally arrange to meet. I acknowledge that it is important to carry out initial serial killer vetting but it isn’t necessary to know someone’s life story before you share a coffee.
  3. The more time you spend emailing back and forth before you meet the more you will feel that you have personally invested in the relationship and will be reluctant to admit that you don’t ‘click’ in person. This largely follows on from the above observation.
  4. Internet dating can take some of the mystery out of the process. In traditional dating it is likely that you would know very little about a person before your first date (unless you’ve decided to make the risky transition from friends to lovers, but that’s a topic for another day). On the one hand this can be a positive thing, allowing you to discover things about each other throughout the dating process. Conversely, this can mean that someone who you were initially attracted to in the pub or at that party last week actually has very little in common with you leaving you to struggle through an awkward date’s worth of stilted conversation.
  5. Internet dating can work for those of us who don’t feel comfortable approaching that hottie at the bar/pub/party/gym/bus stop. As my friend so appropriately put it the other week there are those among us who constitute the ‘upper echelons’ of the dating game. They include those people who are so intimidatingly attractive that they cause us mere mortals to stare in open-mouthed awe. They spot others of their kind from across the room and glide effortlessly towards one another to engage in witty banter and exchange phone numbers. For the rest of us things are rarely as easy as this. Internet dating lowers the stakes, allowing you to test the water with prospective dates in a relatively risk free situation. It’s difficult to have more than a slightly bruised ego when someone fails to return your email but the same isn’t true if you are so unlucky as to be turned down in front of a room of people, many of whom are likely to be friends of yours and therefore unlikely to let you forget about your unceremonious rejection any time soon.

We are willing to trust the internet to purchase goods from strangers, find a place to live, connect with new housemates, recommend a restaurant, find a new job and tell us what music to listen to so why not trust it to help us with the difficult task of finding someone to start a relationship with? Although internet dating can be contrived, the use of the internet has become so pervasive in our lives that we may as well be willing to embrace this and use it to our advantage. I am in no way implying that internet dating is the perfect way to meet people or that is it necessarily suitable for everyone but I would encourage anyone who is even the slightest bit curious to give it a try. You might be surprise by what (or who) you find.

TALK: Sarah of No Heroes Mag

4 Aug

Student,  full time ‘retail slag’, online magazine editor, music fanatic and all round cool cat Sarah P (known by those close to her as ‘Rah Rah’ or ‘Cupcake’) has her finger in many pies. I shot her a few questions to try and gain an insight into what floats her boat and what get’s on her goat. Let’s get straight into it.

* * * * *

Favourite Passtimes? Listening to music of all sorts; reading anything I can get my hands on; avoiding uni work and transcription; plotting ways to take over the music media; planning my next trip to Melbourne; and spending money I don’t have.

Fave Places to Hang Out?

  • Day: Home; wandering the City (doesn’t matter which one); basically anywhere that isn’t work or uni
  • Night: Home or I will be at a gig somewhere getting my magazine editor on.

What albums are currently on high rotation turntable/CD player/MP3 player? The new Amity Affliction track; Kap Bambino’s “Zero Life Night Vision”; Fugazi discography and Carpathian’s “Isolation”.

Please describe the most memorable gig you’ve ever been to: At the moment it’s the Shai Hulud gig I went to last night [EDIT: The gig she's talking about happened on the 14th May. I've been meaning to write this up for a while!] I went to do an interview with the guitarist and see a few local bands I had been meaning to check out. I missed the local bands because the interview ended and I ended up sitting around talking to the guitarist for another hour and a bit about books and music and theatre and film, among other things. The rest of the night was just spent in the company of cool people. Other than that, probably every single time I’ve seen the Bronx or The Dillinger Escape Plan!

Favourite Venue/s? The Metro Theatre; the Wall at the Bald Faced Stag; Enmore Theatre.

Who is the King? Presley or Costello? Impartial really … But if I had to choose I would go Costello.

Stones or Beatles? Beatles. Easy one!

And last but not least I will allow my ‘TALK’ subject an opportunity for some shameless self promotion because, let’s face it, that’s what the internet is all about! I run an online music magazine called No Heroes. It’s pretty cool and it makes me happy. I’ve met rad people because of it and I look forward to doing it for as long as I can. It takes pride in the fact that it’s all online and so 100% free as well as the fact that we only publish good writing and brilliant photos. It’s mostly punk, metal and hardcore, but there have been other things in it from time to time. We just put in there what we like, basically. You can check it out here.

* * * * *

Thanks Sarah!

100,000 kms

7 Jun

keysGrayThe other night as I was driving home from dinner with a friend my car clocked over100,000 kilometers on the odometer.  Although this probably isn’t deserving of ‘momentous occasion’ status, it still got me reminiscing about the adventures my little car has taken me on over the past four and a half years.

I will never forget the time I was driving to class on a freezing winter’s evening. It was pouring rain and I was running late. The car two cars ahead of me decided at the last minute to turn into the petrol station causing the car in front of me to slam on the breaks. Luckily I had left a decent gap so managed to apply the breaks and come to a stop with about a metre to spare. My first instinct was to check my rear view mirror. Much to my displeasure, I glanced up just in time to see the car behind me slam the breaks on and slide into me. To make matters worse, when I climbed out of my car to swap details with the other driver I soon realised that the aforementioned individual was a guy who I had shared a particularly bad kiss with in high school. ‘How bad could it have been?’ I hear you ask. Well, let’s just say it wasn’t dissimilar to how I imagine kissing a dead fish would  be.

My poor little car has suffered much maltreatment at the hands of myself and others. Once, my Dad came to pick me up from a party. When I got outside and saw that had chosen to take my car I realised that our earlier phone conversation must have revealed not only the volume but also the variety of alcoholic beverages I had consumed over the course of the evening. His suspicions were soon confirmed when I perfectly calmly announced that I needed to vomit. He obviously didn’t feel it necessary to pull over so I opened the passenger side window and proceeded to empty the contents of my stomach out of the moving vehicle, causing the spew to splatter across the side of the car. If that night taught me one thing it was that it is a very bad idea to mix Russian vodka, Icelandic vodka, blue curaçao, milk and sugar syrup.

COVERS

30 May

It is really such a crime to like a cover as much as (if not more than) the original? Although there are  certainly some atrocious covers out there which can leave your perception of the original song in tatters, I am not ashamed to admit that there are a fair few covers which I hold in as high esteem as their originals. Here are a few covers I feel are up to the mark.

drdogAlthough I am quite fond of ‘Heart it Races‘ by Melbourne’s Architecture in Helsinki when I stumbled upon this cover by Dr. Dog I was mesmerised.   They have managed to give the song a certain something (which I can’t quite put my finger on) that it seemed to be missing. The original is a light, fun electro-pop song while the cover version has transformed it into a warm and dreamy tune. The song translates very well into this ever-so-pleasant style of jangly indie pop (or whatever you might like to call it).

theshinsI was pretty much a sure thing that I would love The Shins version of the Magnetic Fields song ‘Strange Powers‘. For one, the lyrics are great. Who could go past a song with the line “when we kiss it feels like a flying saucer landing”. Combining romance AND sci-fi amount to lyrical genius in my book. The film clip for the original song stars a very androgynous chick(?) gallivanting around Coney Island. Even though numerous people have told me it is now a dilapidated tourist-trodden hell hole, I still have a strange and steadfast desire to go there one day. Maybe I should blame songs which reference it such as this one and ‘Coney Island‘ by Death Cab For Cutie. Secondly, I always find the Shins so endearing. This might be because they have a particularly powerful brand of indie-pop which makes you want to dance like a fool or it could be because their lyrics are puzzlingly dark for a band with such a light hearted sound. Enough about the Shins. The cover is great.

scarjoI am well aware that I may get a complete roasting from Tom Waits fans for this one but I actually really dig Scarlett Johansson’s version of ‘Falling Down‘. I have heard a lot of people say ‘she can’t sing’- sure, her voice isn’t to everyone’s taste but isn’t the same true of Waits himself? The cover is actually pretty true to the original in terms of vocal delivery and the banjo is lovely to boot.

Honourable mention goes to:

  • She & Him covering ‘I Should Have Known Better‘ by the Beatles (ORIGINAL,  COVER)
  • My Morning Jacket’s version of ‘Rocket Man‘ by Elton John (ORIGINAL, COVER)
  • Sufjan Stevens covering ‘The One I Love‘ by R.E.M (ORIGINAL, COVER)
  • Bon Iver’s version of ‘The Park‘ by Feist (ORIGINAL, COVER)

Obscure Pet Names

28 May

It amuses me (maybe a little too much) when people give their pets inappropriate or otherwise entertaining names. The cat in this picture, who was strolling around the train station near my friend’s place, had one of the best names of any pet I have come across. His name tag read;

“Graeme ‘The Duke’ Montgomery”.

The name explained why the cat was strolling about as if he owned the place (although this is common behaviour for cats this guy seemed to be particularly smug). Acknowledging that that is a pretty tough name to beat I decided to trawl various websites and forums to try and find some equally creative pet names. Here is what I came up with;

  • A cat called “Tissy Mc Gov’nor“: Perhaps this cat is inclined to throw tantrums, is Scottish (or enjoys McDonalds) and resembles Arnie?
  • “Special Patrol Group” was the name Vyvian on the Young Ones gave to his particularly destructive hampster. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that the hampster seemed to have a similar attitude to violence as its namesake, a unit of the London Metropolitan Police Service.
  • A guinea pig called “Beowulf”. Ah, the irony!
  • “Edward Scissorpaws”
  • “Snoop Kitty Kit”: he probably has a diamond studded collar and heaps of ladies sharing his litter tray.

Someone on an obscure gaming forum which I will not admit to having visited (even though I found it by googling  ‘strange pet names’ ) suggested this approach to naming your pet;

  1. Flip through the dictionary and pick a random word,
  2. Affix the word Mister/Miss before said word.

proof: Cabbage- a horrible cat name. Mr. Cabbage- a great cat name!

As an alternative to Mister or Miss you could always use Sir, Lady, Doctor, Professor, Madam etc. I very much like the idea of having a cat names ‘Professor Cucumber’.

The best named pet of mine would have to be my previous cat. When he was a kitten he was discovered sitting on the toilet (seat down of course) playing all by himself. As a result of this incident he was named “George Michael” in honour of everyone’s favourite pervy popstar with a predilection for public toilets.

London Shop Fronts

28 Apr

I’ve decided to continue with yesterday’s theme of blogging about other blogs. As the name suggests ‘London Shop Fronts’ is a blog about London Shop Fronts. Blogger Emily Webber posts a photograph of a different London shop front each day. The concept is so simple yet it makes for a surprisingly addictive read. Here are a few of my favourite shop fronts.

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Perhaps it is because i’m a woman that I am instinctively drawn to a shop that sells not only shoes but bags as well. I like the fact that one sign was obviously not enough.

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“No, you can’t eat it here. We only do take-away”

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I am only mildly ashamed of how much I am liking the combination of lime green exterion and wood panelling interior.

All the photos on the blog are available to order. If you are interested you can email Emily for more information.

Blog Ideas

2 Apr

To prevent this from turning into a stream-of-consciousness type blog which contains unstructured rants, I am going to try a few things out. The idea is to have a number of weekly topics e.g. Interview a friend each Wednesday, review a CD/Book/Movie/Song each Friday, discuss an item of current affairs each Monday etc.

Thoughts?

FIRST!

2 Apr

I have been umm-ing and ah-ing about whether or not to start a blog for some time now. I had a number of ‘moments’ today. I call them moments because I don’t feel as though they were significant enough to be called epiphanies.

The first happened while I was at work. I sat down on the loo (sorry for the mental picture) and had this vision of a beautiful pony skin handbag with a gold chain and matching buckle. I don’t know why I thought of this bag and why I can describe it in such vivid detail. I dismissed this as a bizarre day dream.

The second ‘moment’ occurred on the bus on the way home from work. I was hiding behind my sunglasses, dozing in and out of a typical public transport induced afternoon nap when some school boys got on the bus. For some reason they carried an overwhelming smell of sweet sweat mixed with blueberries. A few minutes later I woke up again suddenly from my dozing and had a vision of a gorgeous tan coloured leather dress- buttery soft, one shoulder, cut above the knee, the other shoulder with shredded straps. Words cannot do this dress justice.

There have been many other moments over the past couple of months when I have thought something along the lines of ‘I should tell everyone about that’. Without having a specific person in mind, a blog seems the most logical outlet for such thoughts. The conclusion that I have drawn from these moments is that I clearly need some way to vent all of my creative tendencies which are otherwise untended.

I should probably explain how I came up with the name. It is really fairly simple. Lip Service is the name of one of my favourite songs of all time. In addition to that, ‘to pay lip service’ means to agree insincerely. I am not saying this is something I do on a regular basis (in fact I am far more likely to disagree for the sake of it), nor am I condoning this behaviour but it is something I think we are all guilty of at times. Obviously, there are other more low-brow connotations but I’ll let you figure those ones out for yourself.

The Librarian part is pretty simple too. I love libraries. I can spend hours looking through shelves of books and reading snippets. I love the smell of old, leather bound books and the feel of the paper on my fingertips. I am similarly mesmerised my bookstores, particularly the second hand variety.

So, there you have it. The world wide web is now home to one more unnecessary and (hopefully not too) self indulgent blog.

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