SATC for the Uninitiated

This weekend, 40s chick was on a running camp weekend.

Running camp weekend is dominated by females and is therefore also known as

• Eating cheese and crackers weekend
• Supporting regional wineries weekend
• Jaffas-as-breakfast-food weekend
• Sobbing over chick flicks weekend

With our ‘bunkhouse’ comprising 7 females, with *Donald (*name suppressed for many many reasons) being the lone male soldier and valiant partner of one of the other females (and somewhat north-facing in terms of the age demographic) he was always going to find it an interesting sociological foray. From about the South Gippsland Highway turnoff when Donald realised he was about to spend the weekend housed with 7 women, he was probably wondering how it was going to go down (as well as looking for the nearest haven of testosterone for some kick-to-kick and sports talk).

Instead, Donald found himself in the company of some endorphin-fuelled, carb-loaded females perusing a chick-flick selection that included When Harry Met Sally, 4 Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually amongst others. (at this point, despite his running program not calling for it. I would have been unsurprised to see him flee at speed for the hills)

Instead, when the consensus was that the first Sex and the City Movie was the obvious choice, he looked mometarily startled, but, separated from his partner who had gone off for a solo short run hit-out or some such, accepted a glass of chilled sauv blanc, took a seat by the cheese platter and settled in for the afternoon.

Here’s what he learned:

Even a proposal can be too pedestrian

 Knowing what we knew, except for the one SATC Movie v1 virgin amongst us, we all understood that Big’s pragmatic proposal to Carrie was not the stuff of which NYC dreams were made.

 

Big: Would you want to get married?

Carrie: Well, I didn’t, didn’t think that was an option.

Big: What if it was an option?

Carrie: Why? What? Do you want to get married?

Big: I wouldn’t mind being married to you. Would you mind being married to me?

Carrie: No, no, not, not if that’s what you wanted. I mean, is, is that what you want?

Big: I want you. So, ok.

Carrie: So really, we’re, we’re getting married?

Big: We’re getting married. Should we get you a diamond?

Carrie: No. No. Just get me a really big closet.

Despite the mention of extravagant clothes-storage-real-estate, this does not reek of romance.

 

40s chicks have baggage, or at the very least a bunch of stuff that requires storage or removalists.

So much so that ‘it took four friends, three days to put twenty years into thirty-eight boxes’

So if you think that you can just spare three shelves and a metre of hanging space in your bachelor pad….

Think again.

The most sensible woman can go all Bridezilla

Somehow, in the space of about 17 minutes, albeit with Vogue Magazine and a bunch of couture designers egging her on, Carrie’s sweet little vintage dress (cue Antony ‘the bride wore no-one’) got kicked to the kerb by a coffin sized container of silk courtesy of Vivienne Westwood.

 

However unlikely this is to happen to your everyday 40s chick, be very very aware that the arrival of the dress-in-a-box will jack your intimate gathering into full scale nuptial-ganza and mean that your ability to name every guest sharing your dream-day is about as likely as Lindsay Lohan correctly listing her hookups (even non-chronologically) whilst sober.

Chicks will always cry, at random

In the manner of the best of running-camp-esque-relay, we all managed to turn on tears rather sequentially (no point in shedding hydration simultaneously). For some it was the Brooklyn Bridge scene where Miranda forgave Steve’s cheating, for the broody ones it was when Charlotte moved from apparently-barren to unexpectedly-pregnant, for others it was when Samantha gained a belly from emotional eating (hey, we’ve all been there right?)

The collective tears shed that afternoon over fictitious characters, if harvested and recycled would have rendered all our long-run-day electrolyte drinks redundant.

Hell hath no fury like the bestie of a woman scorned

After Carrie’s jilting, she was shrouded in a sea of tulle-clad bridesmaids, in the form of her three besties, who all plotted ways to ease Carrie’s pain and wreak revenge on Big in whatever form they could muster.

Kudos to Charlotte who taught our hapless observer Donald that upon ditching someone’s bestie you could expect a well-rehearsed ‘I curse the day you were born’ from a pregnant ally followed by the depositing of an unexpected dose of amniotic fluid on your lovely leather loafers.

 

Needless to say, Donald has signed up for the blokey-bunkhouse when 2015 camp rolls around.

 

If you are taking your online dating a little more seriously than this blog, check out this website for fabulously simple online dating advice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 40s Chick Guide to Footy Dads

If you are still in the depths of despair or trapped in one of the four stages of breakup grief, be supremely confident of this fact.

You. Will. Date. Again.

It WILL happen.

From the combined knowledge of a Glo-Mesh clutch of 40s chicks (now there’s a collective noun if ever I’ve coined one) I’m told that a 40s chick rite of passage is to date one of the following:

•   A Hipster

• A footy dad

If it’s the latter, and this is new territory for you, there are a few tips for the uninitiated.

The kiddies ALL look the same

 Even if you have navigated the first six months of dating a dad, just as in ten years you are not going to pick that kid out of a juvenile delinquent line-up, you have zero chance of cheering on the right kidlet in a game of under-9s.

They all look the same. Scruffy. Muddy. Unidentifiable.

40s chick tip: ask what number the kid plays under so you have some chance of ‘Whoohoo’ing at the right moment.

Write it on your hand if you must #highschoolthrowback

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Kids’ footy involves Sunday mornings. Yes. Sunday Mornings. Google them if it’s been a while since you’ve seen your last one.

Your previous life: you’d be shaking off a hangover and checking facebook to fill in the gaps about what went down the night before.

New life: you will be squinting into lacklustre autumn sunlight trying to feign interest in a small kid running round after a footy.

40s chick tip? Everyone carries a travel mug or takeaway coffee cup. Good? Maybe a Gwyneth-esque lemongrass and ginger tea in your travel mug. Better? A Bloody Mary with a little extra vodka to mute the impact of 36 humans yelling (and that’s just the parents).

The Chicks Frock Up

This is incomprehensible.

In an environment which screams you best layer up, snuggle a scarf and slide into Skechers, the chicks are rocking Sass and Bide, cashmere-merino blends and suede boots.

Suede boots, I ask you!?

Dust. Mud. The likelihood that a red-Gatorade-fuelled kiddie will step on you and imprint footy studs on your suede. None of these are a place where you parade a light-coloured suede item of footwear.   A lamb has donated its life and the underside of its skin for your footwear and you take it to a local football field, subjecting it to unpaved paths and random spatter?

If there was a PETA equivalent for the protection of animal by-products once they have left the animal, they’d be ALL OVER these chicks.

There is no logic, as far as I can see, in frocking up for kids footy.   It’s a desperate attempt to have a WAG moment, with nary a Brownlow Medal red carpet nor Beckham in sight.

Yet still they do.

Canteen food

There’s a chance that you have not yet shed your 40s chick lifestyle and there is indeed a Bloody Mary in your travel mug. This is the ONLY scenario that would see you appreciative of footy canteen food.

On the upside, you can get a hot dog, a bucket of chips and a drink for less than the lunchtime CBD prices of a ham and cheese toastie. The downside? You will have to wait behind a couple of 8 year olds who ONLY want a red/green giant snake, causing Meg from the canteen to madly sort the blue/green, orange/yellow and blue/purple gelatinous rejects with grudging precision to get to the coveted red/green ones.

During this time one of two things will happen:

• You’ll have moved on to a craving for a banana fritter which will have you sneaking off to the local suburban chinese restaurant

• You’ll be devouring the reject snakes

Either way, your BMI will not thank you tomorrow.

It never ends

Whilst you think your obligation is over by midday, you will have only bought yourself time for lunch and a nanna nap, as you’ll be right back there at 5pm for a curious phenomenon.

‘Match Report’

Yes. This is a thing. One where the under-9s coach, fuelled by an unrequited desire to be the next Mick Malthouse, will be silencing the room with a look, then imparting the benefit of his decades of football knowledge via the match report.

There are a lot of other things that you could be doing at 5pm on a Sunday. I know this as I realised long ago that this is the witching hour of the weekend, the border between weekend happiness and despair as the Pre-Monday blues set in. I’ve developed many a technique to stave off the malaise of 5pm Sundays. It used to be the window for ironing work shirts until I realised that this just brings on the malaise with a furious potency (I also discovered that the application of a hair straightener to the visible shirt elements – lapels and collar – was much quicker and just as effective)

Far more joie de vivre can be obtained from a glass of something chilled and an episode of Postcards.

Nothing joyous to be found in observing an under 9s coach relishing his 15 minutes of suburban fame.

40schick tip? Go all 50s housewife and offer to stay at home and tend to dinner. Whack something into the oven and give yourself the Postcards treatment.

Above all? Don’t worry. You’ve smashed glass ceilings, negotiated major contracts and nailed public speaking. You’ll be fiiiine. You’ll know this once you find yourself applying business transformation techniques to the operation of the sausage sizzle.

You’ve got this.

If you are taking your online dating a little more seriously than this blog, check out this website for fabulously simple online dating advice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can You Reconcile With Your Ex?

If you have just exited a long term relationship, the concept of reconciling with your ex is going to cross your mind sooner or later.

The only question is when:

•  if you were the dump-er, then it will cross your mind six months later when you’ve been on 13 unsuccessful first dates, been stalked by an online dater, been shrouded by a waft of unfounded office gossip about you and the new intern and you are feeling that somehow what you had before appears now to be a much simpler life to where you are now
• if you were dumped? The thought will emerge about 3 miliseconds after the event.
• if you claim it was an amicable separation? About 6 milliseconds after you were dumped.

However it went down, the question will still come up. Its there any chance you will reconcile with the ex?

Much depends on what went down in the interim.

Whilst you can emulate that grand US military tradition of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, there are some post-break-up events that will shatter the dream of reconciliation faster than Kim Kardashian exits a marriage.

There cannot be a love child

Nothing will crush a reconciliation hope faster than the insertion of a miniature human into the mix.

We could consult Hugh Grant, King of the Love Child, having fathered a child born to a Swedish TV producer, somewhat awkwardly book-ended by his first and second child with partner Tinglang Hong, the latter Grant-sprog happening along only three months after the love child.

But with an unmatched ability to demonstrate a hang-dog,’Geez, at least I’ve moved on from Divine Brown’ face,

….I suspect that life may have gone on and that the only fall-out is the need to tightly choreograph an ongoing set of kiddie birthday parties.

However I think that we mere mortals would struggle with this fallout.

No one goes to jail

 Readers, you can take great cheer that one of my non-negotiables is unlikely to apply to you unless you’ve been in a relationship with anyone who has featured in the Underbelly franchise.

However this could unwittingly happen to the best of us (and I’m pretty sure Anne Hathaway could be regarded as the best of us)

Poor Anne became embroiled with a slightly shady real estate developer that ended up entangled up with the IRS and the FBI and henceforth experienced the messiness that goes with shenanigans with any of the three letter acronyms of the US government.

We’d applaud Anne for her statement ‘I broke up with my boyfriend, and two weeks later he was sent to prison for fraud. I mean, we’ve all been there, right, ladies?’

So feel free to consider reconciliation unless you find yourself consistently lurking outside the Dandenong Magistrates Court.

Else, run.

There’s no tryst with your bestie

There can be absolutely, positively NO co-mingling between your ex and your friends. The point of no return is any kind of contact with your bestie. Whether it is lobbying for support in his sneaky tactics to have you return or a Facebook campaign to defame your image, this is NOT ON.

What is beyond NOT ON is hooking up with your bestie.

Just ask Heather Locklear – whose ex Richard Sambora moved on to her bestie Denise Richards in a rockstar-groupie-heartbeat and caused her to utter the most curious of statements like ‘yes, I got together with Heather’s soon-to-be ex-husband, but no, I didn’t have an affair with him’

Statements like that have L’Oreal revisiting the concept of a new kind of serum to apply to split-hairs.

No embarrassing re-invention

You cannot consider reconciliation if, in your absence, your ex goes through a complete image makeover and thenceforth bears no resemblance to that person with which you had a long term relationship. This includes but is not limited to

• transformation into a hipster.,
• re-invention on par with Shane Warne

It needs to appear as if nothing more untoward occurred than an innocent press of the PAUSE key on the remote, which means NOTHING like the full midlife-re-invent-enchilada.

Anything less than this set of transgressions? You can entertain the idea of a reconciliation, on the offchance of whatever that thing that split you is no longer likely to freak either you of you like the equivalent of the toothpick under fingernails that first caused you to divvy up belongings.

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If you are taking your online dating a little more seriously than this blog, check out this website for fabulously simple online dating advice.