How The Brangelina Wedding Really Went Down

40s chick has been a bit AWOL. It started with a diversion to writing for a fun blog that necessitated seriously weekly scrutiny of The Bachelor ,
a little dating advice for the guys on the Big Bang Theory
and a jaunt back into the 80s and 90s episodes of Neighbours. This then overlapped with some well-earned downtime in a remote part of Western Australia where it was too ridiculously beautiful to sully beach time with the presence of technology.

However, I’m back on a plane to Melbourne and feeling like I need to give the 40s chick blog a little lovin.

What I didn’t fail to miss during my time beachside, was the fact that, despite their protestations that they wouldn’t wed until there was marriage equality for everyone, Brangelina bought into the urgings of the marital mafia and tied the knot.

Given I felt the need to keep sand out of my iPad, I know nothing of how this shindig went down. I only saw the news through that flickery ticker tape thingy on the bottom of the screen while I aimed to wrestle away the pool comp title at the local pub.

I’m sure the interwebs and some lucky publication with the exclusive have the deets, but in the absence of all that, here’s what I think NEVER happened at the Brangelina wedding.

Shiloh went frou-frou

From birth, Shiloh has demonstrated an anaphylactic-style aversion to girl clothes. Early on, she became the natural antidote to Suri Cruise and just kicked some androgynist stylin’ butt.

So I’m tipping that this wedding did not see Shiloh clad in emerald taffeta, with carefully custom-dyed silk shoes and a prom-worthy corsage.

If it did, I’m thinking she kicked down some doors till she found the waiter’s ante-room, funded a superannuation fund for some poor local with this week’s pocket money in exchange for his uniform, and then happily attended the rest of the celebrations in trousers, albeit a little generous for her tiny frame.

There were Team Jen protesters

Jen’s supporters are still hurting from the way Angelina ALLEGEDLY/TOTALLY snared the married Brad during the filming of Mr and Mrs Smith.

No one wanted the golden couple torn asunder by the predatory Angelina – it spawned a Shenzen-province production line of Team Jen T-shirts and a Twitter hashtag before really understood what a Twitter hashtag actually was.

Just as the sad SaveAlbertPark clan are still attaching yellow ribbons to oak trees to protest the Melbourne Grand Prix some eighteen years after the Grand Prix took up residence around the track, there are no doubt similarly resolute Team Jen die-hards waving their T-shirts aloft.

I suspect they are still drinking NY coffee over old eps of Friends rather than picketing Chateau Miraval, but I’d like to think they are still there staging a teeny but heartfelt protest nonetheless.

Ange and Brad’s outfit

 Designers would be slitting the throats of their first born children to be dressing the couple for their matrimonials. However I’d like to think of Brad and Ange defying tradition by rocking a little double denim a’la Brit and JT

Or Ange shucking skinny shoulders into a Diana-style gigantic sleeve.

Oh Yes.

The Celebrant

 Given Brangie’s indifference to the Moses commandments,  eg coveting those married elsewhere, I suspect that they may have engaged the services of someone less religious, but rocking the following elements in their CV:

• Served as s spiritual doula, presiding over serene home-births, creating the most zen imprint on the birth of blessed children
• Apprenticed dutifully to the Dalai Lama, emerging as an enlightened prophet
• Meditated in a cave in Bhutan for a year
• Curated Gwyneth Paltrow’s green smoothie recipe collection on goop.com

No. I want the guru of the Brangelina nuptials to have been a chain-smoking, Wild Turkey-swilling Elvis impersonator, a little on the fuller side and likely to bust out of the white suit at any given moment.

How YOU doin’?

The history

 I’m pretty sure that the Brangelina celebrant, Elvis-impersonator or not, would have acknowledged the journey that brought these two together, including:

• The W magazine spread (so soon after the Aniston split that it made us all a little queasy)
• The Rainbow Jolie-Pitt children
• Childbirth in Africa – only a Hollywood actress would figure that for a safe concept

Instead, I’d like to think they ritually emptied Billy Bob Thornton’s blood from that vial that Angelina used to tote around and re-used it as receptacle to throw down some quality Tequila shots.

 

I don’t know, you tell me, what did you expect from Brangelina?

 

 

 

 

 

Why you won’t find love in a supermarket

Dearest readers, I’ve been feverishly prodding you in a forward direction along that big dating parade of the post40s age group, helping you dodge the rookie mistakes, drawing on the quirky unanticipated learnings from the experiences of our local celebs and generally doing my level best to help you #findlove despite how vociferously every core of your being might protest the prospect.

But every now and then I need to go on the defensive and declare a certain area the no-go-zone, the Chernobyl-two-headed-fish of dating, the veritable Fu-Ku-Shima of coupledom.

And here I declare of one the prime DMZs of the dating world….

The supermarket

The supermarket is NOT a place where you will meet your #notebook Ryan Gosling, find a chance to press your fevered forehead against a protruding Hemsworth forearm vein, or frenetically swap sustainable recipe ideas with that delightful hipster chap from River Cottage Australia.

Here’s why…

Bad lighting

Just as you are never going to look your best in rehab, you are never going to look your best in a supermarket (and when it comes to deprivation and despair, these institutions are on par)

No one shines bright like a diamond under the industrial lighting appliances that our supermarket chains buy in bulk (their purchase order must read: ‘150 x the Lets Make You Look Like A Long Term Inhabitant Of Guantanamo’)

Unlike the skinny mirrors in the department store change rooms designed to stop you crying over swimwear, or the soft focus lighting of cosmetics counters, supermarket electricals are hard-core. Believe me, until Instagram launches a #supermarketfilter, there’s not even a remote Kardashian third cousin that will post a gluten-free-aisle selfie to the world.

It’s not designed to make YOU look good. The supermarket gods pick a carefully-patented hue that makes the mystery-meat in Chorizo appear caramel smooth and thrice frozen prawns dredged from Thailand look like freshly-deceased local crustacea.

You? You will look like every downtrodden before-pic of any one of the #realhousewivesofanywhere without the costly attention of a cosmetic-surgeon-on-retainer.

 

Judgement abounds

You thought you were scared of gymnasium mirrors or Eastern suburbs kindy drop-off fashion faux-pas?

In your local supermarket, there is judgement everywhere:

•  Paleo Guy is staring down at your basket, looking for an errant grain. A non grass-fed protein. a fish item with a loosely defined heritage
• Hot Vegan is scanning your purchases, searching for non-soy dairy.
• Fructose Intolerant Dude is turned off by your melons
• Average Aussie Bloke is deterred by your lack of burger mince or party pies and is quizzically eyeing your over-indulgence in greens
• The guy toting the Maggie Beer Quince paste only has potential to be your gay bf

 If they are in there, they won’t be for long.

Available men are about as likely to venture into a supermarket with any level of enthusiasm as 40schick is likely to spend quality time in either Bunnings or Baby Bunting.

If there is an available man in a supermarket he will whip in and out of there quicker than you can squeeze an out-of-season avocado (given you WILL spend time evaluating whether paying more for an avocado than a double shot expresso is worthwhile)

Blink and you’ll miss one of them checking out their big-serve Lean Cuisine and 1kg bag of grated cheese (the only thing that makes Lean Cuisine bearable) – even if they are slowish by virtue of being rank self-checkout amateurs.

97% of men are there under duress and not actually available

Most of these are easy enough to identify

•  They are toting sanitary products
• They are toting an infant in a sling

Your only shot?

Your only hope is to snag a hipster who hasn’t had time to tram it in to Mediterranean Wholesalers and who tried to sneak anonymously into Woolies. In this case your strategy is…Go Random

Stock up with any combo of the following

• Pearl Cous Cous
• 2 x cans imported lentils
• Wasabi in a tube
• Bassets Liquorice Allsorts
• Pocky

Or…. Just Go Kale. You will snag any well-researched male who is trying to Nutri Bullet his way beyond his 20s obsession with Alpine lights, forgive his early-apprenticeship ignorance of asbestos or thinks greenery will help restore a Jim-Beam-rotted liver.

It’s your only shot.

Just. Go. Kale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

George Has Left The Building

It was less than 12 months ago.

I was in a veritable Magic Faraway Tree of topsy turvy worlds.

Why?

George Clooney had been ditched by his girlfriend

#stilldontgetit

This week, the media is awash with tales of how the seemingly-eternal bachelor has been nabbed/tamed/snagged by an uber-savvy brunette who has already earned the moniker of HRH (Human Rights Hottie) and at every opportunity is flashing dark locks and some seriously chiselled cheekbones

Amal Allamuddin

All the while:

•  single women the world over, regardless of the likelihood that they would have ever crossed paths with GC, let alone done any snaring), and

• every gay man who believed George’s procession of girlfriends was a carefully choreographed ruse

sighed…. just a little.

Let’s just put aside our feelings that WE might have been that ONE, and consider here what it would have taken to snare the world’s most eligible bachelor.

The Good News

1.  You don’t need to be blonde. Since 40s chick has a long history of the relentless pursuit of blonde in an ongoing battle with my genetic predisposition to mousey, and to the detriment of my credit card balance, this is cold, cold consolation.
2. You can have a major shoe shortcoming.       This will include inappropriate combining of short boots and beige stockings, (who does peep toes with stockings?)

.

 

and a very clashy approach to flats

The Bad News

1.  You need to be Oxford educated and speak three languages (and the Braille/lala-speak that comes out of you after 1.5 bottles of Veuve does not count as one of these)
2. You need to have clients that include Kofi Annan and Julian Assange, you need to have a role advising the UN and you might also need to be the legal adviser to the King of Bahrain. Being an occasional letter-writer to the Herald-Sun and a protester to the local council on the topic of inappropriate suburban medium-density housing (hello, City Of Boroondara!) may not count.
3. At the tender age of 36, when 40s chick was still trying (and failiing) to nail that pivotal decision point where you walk away from Tequila shots, you need to be capable of representing the interests of the entire population of the Ukraine.

Which only goes to prove, that instead of George being the one who got nabbed, it might just have been the reverse, that Amal was the uber-catch of the singleton world and that it is GC that is counting his lucky stars that he planted an ethically-mined sparkler on someone with slightly more ambitious life goals than a blonde lady-wrestler.

Just sayin….

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Tough Breakup? Here’s Your Social Media Strategy

There was a brief moment when I turned away from writing fluffy blogs, spawned as they are by a glass of sauv blanc and characterised by overuse of celebrity references and hard-won dating stories.

Instead readers, as incongruous as it sounds, I attempted to focus equivalent energy on trying to be a grown-up and furthering my career in my day job (which is about as far removed from dating blogging as Jennifer Aniston is from a grandchild)

In that phase, about as long-lived as a double episode of The Biggest Loser, I subscribed to all manner of Female CEO/Business Chicks/Glass-Ceiling Busters/Lean-In Coaching sites in effort to educate myself on what was required (without having to invest time and energy in actually attending something in person)

What I understood from this, is that just as every gal in the 90s required a brick-like mobile phone, an embossed business card and a Holden Commodore company car,

the 2014 everywoman needs only this…..

 A Social Media Strategy

Unfortunately, I lost interest in this with similar speed to John Mayer dumping his latest chick-on-the-rebound.

Intead, I spent quality couch-time trying to define the following variant

 A Social Media Strategy For The Newly Heartbroken

I had a vague notion that this should resemble a 12 step program, until I realised that the current era has NO TIME for a 12 step program and I should try to nail the description of this baby in no more than 6.

Here goes….

 One – Unfriend

 Upon being ditched (lets assume this is how it went down rather than one of those ‘amicable breakups’ that really means that you got ditched and are being sooooo  brave) you need to immediately de-friend the ex.  You will reap an immediate sense of achievement if you are the first to execute the un-friend transaction.

Secondly, in those moments of Chardonnay-fuelled weakness, this will prevent you scrolling through his FB page analysing every event posted since the moment you broke up.

Hang on – who are we kidding?  You aren’t going to ONLY do this self-destructive trawling in alcohol fuelled moments of weakness, you are going to track that guy over morning coffee before tackling work email, on a lunchbreak over sushi and, if time-pressed, you will skip over those news feed articles that alert you to a cancer-busting diet so that you can scan the feed for entries that are any indication of your ex’s state of mind.  You may think this will only happen for a month, but there is a never-ending stream of trigger events ahead that will have you clutching at those facebook straws.

Tip: Don’t BLOCK the ex.  This will prevent him having any access to your carefully chosen procession of changes to your profile pic which will show you having a riotous time in his absence.

 Two –  Instagram peeping is taboo

 Don’t be getting all righteous about having executed step one while you continue taking sneaky peeks at his instagram account.  Unfollowing his instagram account is an even easier step than defriending on facebook, and equally important in severing that digital umbilical cord.

Don’t compromise the healing of your inner self by un-following him on Instagram and subsequently sneaking peeps of him and his new squeeze using the ‘explore’ function.

You may be just as culpable as the guy who first merged Vodka and Red Bull without realising, that on the whole…

NO GOOD CAN COME OF THIS

 Three – Twitter – unfollow

 Again, there is going to be a certain satisfaction in being the first to unfollow.

In fact, my brief entrepreneurial research suggests that if I was vaguely serious about pursing a life beyond my current day job I’d be working day and night on an app that was along the lines of ‘DITCHEM v1.0’ which would allow for instantaneous severing of all FB, Instagram and Twitter ties in a single transaction with an optional pop-up box that allowed for some commentary on dontdatehimgirl.com for a little review narrative just like you do when you’ve had some sub-standard service at a trendy new bar.

Anyhow (let’s count to ten while someone else reserves the domain name ditchem.com) unfollow immediately and try to resist the temptation to check hourly whether he has also unfollowed you.

Same rules apply as above – don’t then be checking his Twitter account manually.

I repeat – no good can come of this.

 Four – avoid the social media stalk of the new chick

 If you have ignored all of the above, you have no one but yourself to blame when, sooner (John Mayer) or later, your replacement makes her appearance.

At this point, you need to make EVERY POSSIBLE EFFORT to avoid doing the stalk on her.

There’s only the tiniest possibility of redemption in this, in the event that you find that she is less athletic, less blonde, less svelte or less accomplished (assuming you also sink to the depths of a Linked-In stalk) than you.  Only in a Nora Ephron movie  (and may the goddess of chick-flicks rest in peace) will this happen.

Even if you have a momentary thrill from the realisation of any of the above, it will be short-lived if your heart is still in a state where it will not be salved by any of the above because the fact is that he is not with you.

All this sounds kinda negative right?

Best that we devote our final two strategies in the half-baked version of the 12-step program to positive social media strategies that you can implement….

 Five – overachieve, very publicly

 If you’ve subscribed to the advice above, you’ve cut some cords.  However, in a strategy so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a rat (props to Blackadder), we’ve not disconnected you from your various mutual friends.

So this is the time to use your various social media outlets to

• Post pics at a hot new club opening (even if you are merely a photo-bomb participant with no more than a peep-toe on the red-carpet or fingertip on a velvet rope)
• Publish commentary on the new activities that you have taken up (salsa dancing, bikram yoga, crossfit anyone?)  Extra points if they are like the examples here and will result in the honing of a hot new body.
• Overachieve career-wise – talking blithely about your move into managing a team the size of a small suburb (with, of course, the support of a small entourage that you can now regard as your own)

Six – go silent

After doing the overachieve, there’s a distinct advantage in then disappearing entirely off grid.  It gives an air of mystery, of having moved on.

If you still living in the fantasy world of him keeping track of you, you can potentially assume this is giving him some pause to wonder what is keeping you so busy that you can’t even FB

If he has no concept of this because he’s stopped caring about you – as is likely if he did the dumping – then you still have the benefit of being off enjoying life without the compulsion to post about it.

Hint: akin to that tree falling in the foreset- a sunset is still beautiful sunset, even if you don’t get a chance to post it on FB.

So, tuck these hints away in case you even find yourself in the been dumped/need strategy scenario.  Better yet? If you want to hark back to that simpler time of Commodores and Brick Mobiles, go all old-school and don’t just bookmark this post.

Tap into your 90s Officeworks hardware and LAMINATE this sucker.

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

Tinder. No. Just no.

So.  I have this friend who feels like her early 40s single life has hit rock bottom.  Why does she believe this? Not because her dates comprise men with the looks of Sheldon Cooper, the intelligence of Joey from Friends and the relationship longevity of John Mayer.

No. She thinks she has bottomed out because she is trawling for love on RSVP.

But I have tremendous news.  It’s on a par with the glad tidings of comfort and joy that we celebrate at Christmas (and who doesn’t love a festive free pass for unlimited alcoholic beverage intake and a day-long calorific binge, punctuated by naps?)

It’s a short message. It’s going to be ineptly expressed. It’s scientifically and statistically unproven, but I am here to tell her that I have executed an experiment that proves that she has not in fact hit the true dumpster-diving low of online dating.

My dear friend, you have not hit rock bottom.  Why?

Because you are not yet on Tinder.

I can’t discount the fact that Tinder News linked to one of my previous posts,
which makes this one the equivalent of:

•  Kicking Zuckerberg  in the head in the playground then hoping Facebook ads will make me millions
• Holding out on Steve Jobs until the 4s in 2012 and then going all i
• Dissing James Packer , and therefore never getting even an entry level job in his media emprire.

But I do believe firmly in there being something a teensy bit more involved in finding true love than playing a version of ‘Snap’ online.

If RSVP is the equivalent of a fairly harmless one-too-many Sunday afternoon Sauv Blancs or a dabble into the lightest of recreational drug habits, Tinder is the moment that you look sideways at crystal meth and think that ‘heyyy…… that sparkly stuff ain’t all bad’

Why?  There are many perils my friend.

 One – its entirely about photos, not words.

I get the ‘picture tells a thousand words’, but I’d like at least, MAYBE, the 25 words or less that it takes to win a supermarket cat food competition in order to snag me. Tinder makes this entirely optional. In fact, in your haste to sign up, you can just throw in any old selection from your facebook pics and need not say a word about yourself.

So instead of scanning a written profile for your top 5 danger words?  You’ve got nothing.

You have, instead, a hastily, app-generated concoction of photos.

What will this mean?

In many of these photos, you’ll be unable to discern who the chap of choice actually is.  Is he that hot guy in the middle of the three? Or one of the two very average blokes serving as bookends? Although slightly more likely to be successful than Tatts, it’s still not the kind of odds that would have you dashing to the TAB.

 Two – he’s local

 If you don’t pay due attention, your Tinder settings mean you sign away your location rights as blithely as your Friday night check-in at Ponyfish Island.  So anyone you swipe in the affirmative knows the approximate location of your abode with all the potential menace of that regrettable fling that is now the subject of an intervention order.

So if you haven’t taken pains to only post on Tinder your Masquerade ball pics or the brunette moment you had in July last year, you may very well be recognised at the local Safeway.

 Three – There’s no ‘I take that back’ button

The tinder universe is a minefield, just waiting for a rookie mistake,

You have to be on your guard and have military-sniper-like concentration to avoid pulling the trigger prematurely on the Heckler and Koch and SWIPING RIGHT ON THE WRONG GUY.

If you do this, please understand that if you fire without due consideration, there is no going back.

I now understand, that if your focus was momentarily distracted by a Sunday afternoon re-play of The Blacklist, or a lunch where carbohydrates were outweighed by Cab Sauv that your Tinder hotlist now comprises of a guy:

• in full Gene Simmons Kiss makeup
• wearing a beanie with bear ears
• who has no visual identity and has chosen to portray himself as a cute Whippet

If you do this, be aware that the Tinder gods give you no ‘Undo’ button to allow you to STEP AWAY from the consequences of your inattention.  Gene Simmonds guy is now going to pursue you to the ends of the earth.

At first glance, there is no unfriend button on Tinder

 Four – Shared Friends

 In some ways this might be good, in that the guy where you squint your eyes, look sideways and take into consideration the cuteness of his whippet makes you think that he’s worth consideriing…then heyyyyy… he knows someone you know!

Instantly there is an avenue where you can validate his single status, his lack-of-stalker-ism and his level of prior baggage.

Alas, this is only useful if your friend in common is someone with whom you are in recent contact as opposed to someone you might have shared a West Coast Cooler in the 80s whose opinion was only valid when it came to the social validity of white-ankle-boots in high school.

But there’s upside………….

But hey, there is always an upside! You can revert to semi-content-rich RSVP, or the attraction-algorithmically charged e-Harmony at any time.  And if you are feeling down about yourself?

Just swipe LEFT at will and plaster a big fat NOPE on all of them until you feel better. You aren’t at rock bottom if you are dispensing rejection at will…..

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

Valentines Day – Step away from the Selfie

And it’s rolled on by again.

The yearly ritual of Valentine’s Day.

Someone coined the alternate phrase ‘Singles Awareness Day’, which earns itself an unfortunate acronym and succeeds in making it sound like some kind of disease for which we should all raise money.

There’s nothing like Valentines Day to bring out the insecurities in the single woman. Despite career achievements, physical accomplishments, travel adventures and cultural intelligence there’s just that teeny feeling inside that you’d just like Simon from the mailroom to call and say there’s been a delivery for you.

In the feelgood blog of the V.DAY weekend, I’m here to point to the ‘have-it-all’ celebrity women who are twice as insecure as you are. We know this not by tell-all interviews or heart-wrenching blogs. How do we know this?

By their selfies.

These selfies are on a scale from the most innocuous to those that scream shrilly for likes like a fishwife screams at a deadbeat husband.

The everygirl selfie

This is the selfie that aims to demonstrate that the celeb is tremendously normal, dateable, quirky and loveable. Relatively harmless, it will see the celeb posing with an everyday prop, undertaking regular-world activities or being, well, just normal.

Take Taylor Swift for example. Being photographed with a donut is really like being photographed with a bestie isn’t it? Every single chick surely has a carbohydrate of choice right?

I’m yet to front up on instagram posing with a plate of Spaghetti Amatriciana, but I can kinda see where she’s headed. Love me, love my carbs / refined sugars?

The ‘Clayton’s’ Selfie

For the non-Aussies in my readership, Clayton’s was a non-alcoholic beverage that tried to pretend it was as good as booze. The catchphrase was ‘the drink you have when you are not having a drink.’

For those 40s chicks who find that anachronistic, bear in mind that it was hip in the 70s and 80s and now has faded into inevitable insecurity.  We have no time for fake booze.

So the Clayton’s Selfie is the Selfie you have when you are not having a Selfie.

It’s the celeb selfie where you are pretending its about something else other than you. Case in point was the recent Kylie Minogue pic. Artfully disguised in a series that illustrated her ah-mazing shoe collection, she posted this.

40schick was totally sucked in.

I saw those red soles, thought: Louboutin.

I saw those coloured sparkles, thought: Arnotts 100s and 1000s biscuits.

Every man in the world, thought: Kylie still has hotpants-butt at age 45.

I’m fairly sure, with her heart still suffering its recent puncturing at the hands of Andres Veloncoso, that she was aiming for the latter.

The Ralphie

Ralph is a fairly icky Men’s magazine. Hence the Ralphie is the Selfie where you’d like to think you are just a moment away from featuring on the front cover.

It’s the selfie where you apply the best instagram filter you can find, where you secretly sneak your pic off to photoshop to lop off some arm fat, fill in some stomach creases and apply an all over tan that even your fave tanning salon can’t nail. You do your best work in a bikini, find a great background and then post it for all the world to see.

If you are Miranda Kerr, there’s no need for this fakery: you get the real deal.

If you are the Kardashian matriarch, this is what you get.

Honestly. If this is what Gran is up to, I fear for North West.

The Kardashelfie

Shorthand for the Kardashian selfie, everything about this reeks of the need for validation. Even in your darkest Valentines Day, vodka-infused, chick-flick watching despair you are by no means as desperate as this. This is a posting that is all about likes, about going viral on the interwebs, about being talked about: good or bad.

In Kim’s case? I want to try to explain it but I just can’t.

Nope. Just can’t.

Its potentially post-partum hormones gone wrong (of which I have no experience) or the need to keep Kanye on his toes (of which I have no experience)

Demi Moore has been guilty of similar.

In Demi’s case, I guess its just “Damn, I paid a lot of money for this body and I may as well post it”

The moral of the story? By this time next year we need to come up with some kind of singles ribbon badge to proclaim singleness with pride and join forces with the other ribbon-wearers.  Over cocktails and war stories about Tinder.

Anything to keep us all off Instagram.

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

Dodging the Wrecking Ball

The recent train wrecks amongst our more junior celebrities has caused me to ponder the advice that I would now give to my 20 year old self about to who to date and how to conduct myself.

Although there’s plenty to learn from in my own history, learning from one’s own mistakes is nowhere near as much fun as indulging in celebrity disaster stories. Besides, mine aren’t plastered across the interwebs for google to find (and my facebook account only goes back to 2008)

Dear 20 year old version of 40s chick, 

Have vision

I know you have no apparent psychic tendencies, but you need to be aware that what is appealing now can turn bad as quickly as you can say Disney starlet meltdown.

…..

There’s a theme here – it’s the talented clean-cut ones that seem to go horribly wrong. Pick a Mr Average and they are unlikely to do a Bieber on you.

Resist the bad-boy

Just as every head of lustrous locks could be sheltering inner demons and beneath glossy sparkling skin there could lurk a layer of festering rebellion, there’s no reason to go the opposite direction and date the out-and-out bad boy. It might seem like dating the unapologetic damaged rock star or your local recreational weed smoker at least means you know what you are up against, but no.

Take Pete Doherty, lead singer of a band that no one can remember, proven to be even too rock and roll for Kate Moss in her hard core rock chick days. Largely credited with Amy Winehouse’s downfall. You don’t want this.

You might find your local equivalent of a Charlie Sheen, refreshingly upfront about his womanising tactics, to be a known quantity and consider a dabble on a light hearted basis. Consider his philandering ways as an inbuilt safeguard which will eventually grow tiresome for you, hopefully long before he starts to look like someone you’d report to the police if he was hanging round a primary school when the kiddies are let out.

Never overlook the power of a decent wardrobe and a haircut

Even with the beer goggles on, there are some candidates you would never give a second glance. I don’t want to be all Nanna about judging and books and covers, but remind yourself that it is ALL ABOUT THE RAW MATERIAL.

Poor Jon only needed to tone down the animal print and barber the bouffant.

Even George was in trouble whilst he was dabbling with polka dots and a mullet and benefited greatly from letting go of the eyebrows and indulging in some stubble.

Recognise that a moustache is disposable – just know there’s a risk they’ll re-grow it in the 2013 hipster craze

Dear younger version of 40s chick – I promise you, someday the 80s will end

For you? Here a are couple of words of advice.

No vodka before lunch

Much can be learned from the tribulations of Lilo. Most notably, that booze before lunch is a slippery slope. Start early knocking off the vodka and OJs, everything starts to resemble your favourite tipple – orange tan, orange hair

orange jumpsuit

Above all, embrace your inner Disney Princess

Bear in mind that there is nothing wrong with hair extensions, a friendly smile and some prom style fashion.

Shiny polyester in a nude colour does no one any favours and the only person who thinks Miley Cyrus looks better in the second photo is Miley Cyrus.

Good luck!
Love 40s chick xo

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 missing link in online dating profiles – vices

There’s a gaping hole in the configuration of online dating profiles as far as I can see. No, its not the presence of a lie detector test to flush out the cads that are in fact still married and seeking a fling (although a little x box that glowed a little red light about that fact would be a welcome addition)

It’s a little section that would allow you to elaborate on your vices.

For your vices give a glimmer of insight into your personality far greater than anything that you could verbalise within your written profile. Vices give insights that demonstrate baggage far more vividly than a veiled reference to a desire to live a drama-free life, compassion more instinctive than the profile pic with your World Vision sponsor kid, and a diversity of character far greater than what you can conjure up by vomiting adjectives such as fun-loving, compassionate, caring, genuine, honest, fair etc etc zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Vices give an insight into the areas where you see yourself as slightly less than perfect but can easily transform into something more endearing that this week’s best cute kitten video on youtube. Every vice has a silver lining.

Try these for example. I’m not saying these are mine. Ok, yes, they are mine.

Vice #1 Lockdown for weeks while the Biggest Loser is on

Like a Kardashian drawn to a body-con leopard print, I am dragged into this reality sob-fest drama year after year. After an anxious orientation period resembling to the first term at high school, I will spend at least the first three episodes seeking a couple of champions to cheer and will be sucked in by reality-TV selective editing to feel scorn for a contestant akin to the need to boo-hiss a panto character. I will watch from the couch, usually downing carbs, (see Vice 2) issuing forth a verbal version of #biggestloser twitter feed to no one in particular as my slightly overfed new friends suffer at the mercy of the trainers and the elimination episodes.

Cue gratuitous Commando pic.

But from this you will gain an insight into my softer side. I will cry for their history of being bullied, their banishment to the bigger ladies fashion department, their beaten-down lack of confidence and the brutality of the episode where it is revealed that their lifespan is shortened to a point that it is more likely that Lindsay Lohan will grow old than they will.

Vice #2 Carbs

My name is 40s chick and I am a carboholic. My addiction is selective – confined as it is to the white carbs – the emptiest, glycaemically-overloaded, nutritionally void, overprocessed grains that bear no resemblance to anything found in nature. Present me with a wholegrain and I will sneer and toss my head like a purebred Persian cat rejecting house-label tinned tuna. Observe me after an ill-advised dabble in an Atkins or South Beach high protein diet and I will appear as crazed as a meth addict but seeking the embrace of a slippery linguine rather than a crusty crystal. If you try to show empathy when I’m on some protein-fest by eating an ostensibly healthy Caesar salad, bear in mind that all the while I’m mentally gouging out your eyes just to get at your croutons.

The upside? When I let go of the calorie count, you’ll share in my indulgence in risottos, *home-made lasagne (* but yes, with the béchamel from a jar), spaghetti slathered in pesto sauce and slightly over-engineered toasties. And I’ll indulge your child with Froot Loops – purely so I can filch a handful here and there.

Vice #3 Creams

Risk a glance into my bathroom cabinet and you’ll be suitably reassured by the lack of prescription pill bottles but in the same instance appalled by the oversupply of face creams. From AHA to BB to Zinc, they are all there. From my endless quest for an eye cream to dispense with puffiness, to the guilt-tripped purchases from the nice lady who does my eyebrows and casually makes reference to under-exfoliation, to my obsession with travel-sized kits induced by their sheer cuteness and portability.

The advantage? My every move I make will be improbably fragrant, there’s a chance I won’t resemble a croc-handbag once older, and you’ll be able to swipe a little Elizabeth Arden 8 hour cream if you are having a metrosexual moment.

Vice #4 Running

This and Vice #2 go hand in hand but not in the order you’d expect. I’d don’t carb so that I can run, I run so that I can carb.

It’s a tad unsocial in that my weekend schedule will revolve around training, that despite my terror at the prospect of sub-five-star accommodation I will ditch you for running camp in a heartbeat. You will find that weekends away will inexplicably tie in a rural running event before I can kick back with you and enjoy regional produce.

But it does allow a pleasant indulgence in event T-shirts which in themselves provide reassurance that in the case of nuclear holocaust we’ll be able to clad ourselves for days in fresh T-shirts without the aid of laundry. If I get sucked into one of my hell-hole periods at work, you can be assured that even if the fridge is barren of a scrap of milk or the pantry bare of bread, you will survive in my house via the supply of running gels and powerade.

 

So I get that online dating profiles are all about highlighting karaoke skills that are second only to Beyonce’s, your ability to bust a glass ceiling as if you had the power of Wonder woman’s bracelets and Masterchef-style skills in the kitchen, but its your vices that make you real. Just keep em a little less extreme than Mesdames Cyrus and Lohan and its all good.

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