Boys, Panic and the Thirty-Something Epiphany

I clearly remember a conversation I had with my friend N immediately after my ex-husband had kicked me out. I was wondering, in a wine- fuelled moment of depression, whether I would ever meet anyone ever again and at that moment, it struck me that thirty was the worst age to be single. She, being ten years older than me, was commenting on the lack of decent single men her age, and I remember thinking that at least lots of forty year old men have been married and are separated and divorced and ready to go again. I figured, at that time, that all thirty something men are happily settled and having babies. However, I was wrong.

Some of them are. They must be, if the number of my friends who are pregnant at the moment is anything to go by. But I strongly believe, from looking around at my other friends' love lives at the moment (well, why not, there's nothing happening in my own) that many thirty-something men are busy breaking their girlfriend's hearts.

Women just get better with age. Every single one of my friends now looks better and has more confidence than they did in their twenties. Men just get fatter. And lose their hair. Men also seem to have a wide held belief that, at thirty, every woman turns desperate, and starts looking at babies in prams with the intent of stealing them when the mother isn't looking. That every woman has a biological clock that turns them into controlling, child obsessed maniacs. But you see this is just a conspiracy, a rumour spread by men to divert us all from the truth. It's not the women that panic, it's the men. And that's when the problems begin.

A friend of mine (C, thirty one last October) commented on the fact that every guy she has been out with has called her a 'psycho'. She's not a psycho at all. But, she maintains, she was driven to exhibiting some decidedly stalker-like behaviour by the crazy immature mind games that these men played. “And,” she added “They all seemed to think that I was desperate to get married, settle down and have kids. Which I'm not. I'd just like to meet a nice man and see how it goes.” Reasonable enough, non? Hot FB Guy also said to me on a number of occasions that he thought I wanted to have a relationship with him and but that he wasn't ready. I didn't not want to have a relationship with him. But to be honest, I was more interested in checking out his hairy chest and then seeing where it went from there...

It seems to me that many men in their early thirties suddenly have some kind of epiphany, almost like a mid life crisis but ten years early. Then everything in their lives is suddenly brought into sharp focus (including their beginner beer bellies) and they realise that their inoffensive, loyal and loving girlfriend may possibly want to get married and have kids one day. And that they are never going to be a lead guitarist in a rock band. Or an astronaut. Or marry Cameron Diaz. Then they panic and go a bit loopy and tell the girl who has been picking their wet towels up off the bedroom floor and enduring their sneaky under-the-duvet farts for the last five years that they aren't ready and they need space and they need to find themselves and they still love her but they aren't in love with her and that they're confused.

Women, in general, are pragmatic. We're tough. Women are able to carry on, whatever life throws at them. We get on and whenever life is crap we anaesthetize ourselves with gallons of wine and support from our closest girlfriends. When we get dumped, we go shopping and emerge that night in a fabulous outfit and a pair of ' break up' shoes that we bought in the sale that day. (Mine are known as my 'divorce boots' and have studs on. Purchased in New York a year and a half ago)

Women come to terms with the fact that maybe we are going to end up having a 'normal' life. We come to terms with the fact that from now on, it's him and me. Together. Men don't talk, so they come to terms with life's tedium with the purchase of a new sports car, hair plugs or the ministrations of a young Polish waitress. I kid you not. It happened to my friend. Apparently her boyfriend of eight years came home one day, announced that he was confused and moved out. Turned out that he was more confused about the fact that somehow, he was about to have a baby. With the afore-mentioned waitress.

My own ex-husband hammered the final nails into the coffin of our relationship when he announced that I had to move out because he wanted to live on his own. Apparently I was too 'mumsy' and controlling. He wanted to 'work on his music'. With the help of a female pianist from down the road who apparently 'got him'. He had realised that domestic tedium with me was pretty much the way forward from that point and he couldn't cope. Funnily enough, six months later, he wanted me to move back in. I declined. He'd had his little crisis, realised it wasn't actually that fun being single and was ready to move on with our relationship. I was also ready to move on. With a hot African man I'd met at salsa. It was too late.

Pretty soon, it will be too late for my friend L's idiot of a boyfriend to get her back. And it will be too late for F's sometime bloke to commit properly to her. And it will be too late for all those silly men who think that there is something more out there for them. Something or someone more than that loyal girl who manages a demanding job, cuddles them at night and still irons their shirts for them every Sunday evening.

Which is why, for the past week, I'm thinking about calling my ex. He's older (nearly forty) and has always been very straightforward about what he wants. No ifs and buts with him. He's remarkably decisive. He left me a message on Friday night and I texted back but he hasn't replied. The Rules would say I shouldn't call him but then do they apply to ex-boyfriends? What's the worst that could happen if I do call him?

Anyway, what is the moral of this story? Is it that instead of going out to bars and clubs to meet men, we should go to train spotting conventions and darts competitions, garden centres and fishing spots? That we as thirty something women should be actively pursuing older, greyer men? Maybe. A forty year old man will at least have been through his crisis with another woman. Most probably he will be house trained too....

Dare To Be Different

Well, the hot young boy/man didn't call. I'm actually quite relieved. Maybe he realised that he didn't fancy going out with Grandma. However, I still feel a bit despondent, even though I know that it could never have gone anywhere. Anyway, I needed a distraction from Hot FB Guy who is still ignoring me, and my brief flirtation with the boy definitely provided one.

Writing my last post has made me ponder on society's expectations and conventions and how they mould us and our behaviour. I've actually been thinking about this for the last few days. Not in an intellectual sociologist type way of course but more as a general kind of wondering. I've also been feeling faintly rebellious which is not good for someone who spends their working hours enforcing various rules on sulky teenagers. That purple haired, ripped jeans wearing grungy young Siani has revisited her older self and now it's almost like I've got her voice in my head asking 'But why?'

Then, right on cue, to add to my already unsettled mood, a leaflet from a certain holiday company arrived a couple of days ago. On the front of it reads 'It is the (insert my surname) family's perfect summer 2011 holiday.' Next to this insulting and faintly ridiculous title is a photo of a beautiful family on a beach - a blonde mum, a strong, manly looking father and two young children, one of whom is sitting on his father's shoulders. Right. OK. Yeah, this is my perfect summer holiday. Actually if someone was to make a leaflet of that, it would look very different. It would probably feature a picture of me and F dancing on a table in a cheesy nightclub in a low budget Mediterranean resort. In the company of a dodgy looking man called Luigi who owns a scooter.

Is this photo on the leaflet really an embodiment of what society expects of me? Is this what my life should look like by now? It's just so far away from where I am at the moment. And I'm not even blonde! And how do the holiday company know who to send it to? They don't even have me down as a Mrs, but as a Miss. Do they just send it to all their female customers who are over thirty? Maybe that's the cut off point. Maybe all their younger customers get an invite to some kind of crazy alcohol induced orgy on a tropical island. Oh yeah, 18-30. Right. I think I've answered my own question there. I forgot about that. But maybe, in the eyes of the holiday company, these are the only two choices we should get? That way, we're easily labelled.

Actually, I think we all have expectations and I think we do all judge too much. Everybody seemed to have an opinion on the boy/man who I met last week. Everybody wanted to tell me that it was wrong. Which kind of grated on me, maybe because I myself, deep down, agreed with them. I want to make decisions for myself – not because of what other people expect. I want to resist these stupid pressures and expectations and negotiate my own way through life with integrity and originality. It's just so bloody hard. Especially when you hate being judged, as we all are on an almost daily basis.

The women who have shaped history were only able to do so because they defied society's conventions. They didn't care about being judged. If they'd played safe, they wouldn't have got anything done. Take Queen Elizabeth 1, who had countless lovers but point blank refused to get married. Good for her! She knew that tying herself to a useless man who would leave her golden toilet seat up (oh, and take all her power) was a recipe for disaster. I'm sure if Elizabeth 1 had received that leaflet from the holiday company she would have ordered them to be burnt at the stake or beheaded for their impertinence at pigeon-holing her in such an insulting manner. Can you imagine it ...“Please forgive me Your Majesty, please, if you spare my life you can have a free all-inclusive to Falliraki.....aaaargh!”

I'm not comparing myself to Elizabeth 1, obviously, but what I do have in common with her is that I have got no chance of treading the 'traditional' path through life – it's pretty obvious that's shot to shit already. Divorced at thirty, living with a gay horse obsessed flatmate, uninterested in career progression and alternately ambivalent and faintly nauseated by the idea of having kids. Yes, that's me..... My life is regularly bizarre, unsetttled and uncertain. But at least I'm not spending my days colour coding my Cath Kidston tea towels and updating my Facebook status with reports on my children's potty training. (BTW, if I updated my Facebook status with an in depth report of my bowel movements everyone would be disgusted. C'mon people...!)

Did you just see that? I was just judgemental. I should be ashamed of myself. Lumping all stay at home Mums into child-obsessed Cath Kidston loving tea towelomaniacs... honestly! It's just that judging people is such an inherent part of our nature – maybe because we need a way to feel superior about our own lives, those chaotic, less than perfect lives that bear so little resemblance to that photo on the front of the holiday leaflet. Personally, I believe that we should just concentrate on ourselves, rather than gossiping about others who dare to tread a different path, or who choose to be unique.

I think it was Katharine Hepburn (a famous troublemaker and non-conformist) who said:

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.

This was the woman who was suspended from school for smoking and going swimming naked in the middle of the night. She also got divorced very young at a time when society was even more judgemental than it is now, and built a reputation for being feisty and unique (and a great actress). And I bet she didn't gossip about others. I bet she was too busy enjoying herself.

Thinking about it, since I got divorced and regained my independence and my sense of self, I do have more fun. I spend more time with my friends, pleasing myself, rather than trying to play the part of the traditional wife, Mrs --------, the girl who always put her husband's needs before her own. Now I'm a Ms, making up my own rules as I go along, and it's much more me.

And while I'm having this fun, I'm just trying to figure out what I want from life. But I'm going to do it my way...is that OK?

How Siani Got Her Groove Back

I met a lovely man on Saturday night. Gorgeous, in fact. Tall, dark and very handsome. In fact, he seemed perfect. I desperately needed someone to distract me and take my mind off Hot FB guy (who I still fancy like mad) and I was still a bit depressed after my crazy foray into the world of dating websites last week. Meeting him was a great distraction. Until Sunday morning. The problem is, you see, that this man I met on Saturday was born in 1990.

I know that it can go no further. It's so bloody typical that as soon as I meet a man that I really like, it turns out that he is ten years younger than me... aargh! I will have to tell him that it's a no go... if he calls me that is. I did drunkenly give him my number as I was leaving, not really considering the age issue. I suppose that if he doesn't call, then at least the problem will be solved by default.

It wouldn't matter so much if I wasn't a secondary teacher. And technically, we wouldn't be breaking any laws. But when I think that he was doing A- Levels only a couple of years ago, I do feel, as my friend J said, 'A bit icky'. There are also the practical considerations. I mean we wouldn't have anything in common, would we? What can a twenty year old boy know about anything? He didn't seem like a typical 'lads on tour type' (he was Iranian) but you never know. He seemed clever and funny and polite – unlike all the other 30 something single men I've met recently. At the end of the evening he took my number, and said he'd call. He didn't try to get into the taxi or come home with me. He seemed like a nice guy.

All my friends have recently had terrible issues with their 30 something boyfriends. Being dumped by text, being lied to and being treated shamefully by their men seems to be a running theme amongst my friends at the moment. To be honest, thirty something men seem to be weighed down with baggage and totally neurotic, like they're all having pre-mid life crises about their bald spots or something. I just keep thinking: what if this guy is actually my perfect man, just born ten years too late? I suppose by definition he can't be then...

I do feel a bit annoyed that I am bowing to society's pressure to behave in a seemly fashion and tell this boy/man that I can't see him again. A quick poll of my friends confirms that he is definitely considered to be too young for me. I agree. But at the same time I know how hard it is to find someone that you actually like. And I did like him (until I found out how old he was....)

Stella did it. But then she is a fictional character created by Terry Macmillan. And she wasn't a teacher. And she met her toy boy on holiday so there was a bit of distance. This guy I met lives in the next town. If anyone from work ever found out it would be the best piece of staff room gossip ever, which is another reason why I have to stop it right now.

I'm wondering if actual age in years is really a good indicator of maturity? Most men I know are totally immature. My sister's ex-boyfriend (who is now in his late 30s) used to collect Star Wars figures. He even had a special room to put them in. He used to spend hours arranging them on the shelf and doing God knows what else with them. Can you imagine a woman doing that? We're too busy doing the laundry and picking up after the kids.....I mean the men.

Another example of this 'boys and their toys' mentality was my ex-husband's behaviour with money. He was two years older than me and was one the most immature people I ever met. He announced, after I had been single handedly paying all our utility bills for six months that the first thing he was going to when he got his first pay check from a new job was buy a huge TV. For himself. He informed me that I would only be able to watch it when the weren't any of 'his' programmes on. He also used to spend hours playing computer games all day, lying on the sofa, allowing his mother to lovingly bring him snacks. And not just any snacks, they were his childhood favourites - she would buy them especially for him and he let her. He used to get very defensive when I would point out that playing his Playstation all day whilst ingesting cheese and onion Square crisps, Flumps and strawberry bootlaces wasn't a worthwhile pursuit for a man of thirty one.

Just think, how many women have 'games' rooms? How many women find it hysterical to fart and then hold their boyfriend/husband's head under the duvet? How many women would behave like the two examples I have cited in the paragraph above? Very few. The majority of men that I have ever met and had a relationship with were emotionally immature f**kwits, even the older ones. Maybe I'm just picking the wrong men.

So if this boy/ man calls, I will tell him politely thanks but no thanks. Yes, I like you a lot but I could be your mother (well, older sister definitely). And even though we had a lot of fun, we can't see each other again. It can't go any further.

Bugger. It's just bloody typical.

FEMALE looking for a MALE 25-35

 

I am toying with the idea of joining a dating website. But for some reason, I just can't quite bring myself to do it. It's almost like admitting defeat, like saying I can't find anyone to go out with me. God, I sound like I'm back in the second form at school when I was so geeky and unpopular with the boys that the idea of fancying me was used an insult 'You fancy Siani...ha ha...'

Well, I'm at twenty thousand words and still no action. I'm not even bothered about having a relationship per se but just some male attention like a little bit of light flirtation would be nice. I think that's why I've been thinking about going online – so I won't feel like such a bloody social outcast.

However, a quick scan of various dating sites has shown me that there seem to be a fair few interesting characters online. If I don't want to feel like a social outcast then maybe 'You've Pulled' dot com isn't quite the place for me to flash my dating credentials. From doing a quick scan of the various different sites, I've realised how many options there are to choose from should you be looking for a relationship online. Did you know that there is a site for people who just want to have an affair? The tag line is 'Life is Short... Have an affair!' Eh? I mean I'm not one for taking the moral high ground but it seems a bit silly. The tag line should be: 'Bored in your marriage and want to destroy your relationship with your spouse by committing the ultimate betrayal? Have an affair!' At least that would be more honest.

There is also a site for people who just want no strings sex.... a while ago I posted about this concept, not realising that this site existed. I registered on this site for earlier this evening (research for this blog, obviously, without a photo and with minimal details) and, within three minutes of browsing profiles, four messages had popped up, all from men offering to do disgusting things to me, two of whom boasted almost naked pics on their profiles. Hmmm.... surely it can't be that easy? Anyway I deleted the messages and suspended my profile immediately – I was actually a bit scared. Again, the whole concept didn't bother me from a moral but a practical standpoint. I would be very worried that hotnhorny69 was likely to turn out to be shortfatbaldoldpervert84 or sadgeekwithhairyback65. Plus, from a more serious point of view, turning up at a strange guy's house is downright dangerous – he could be a crazy rapist serial killer or similar. Or he could just be really bad in bed. Feeling obligated into having jack rabbit sex with a fifty year old virgin who's photo shopped his face onto a young Brad Pitt's body is not my idea of fun.

Lots of people I know are on dating websites, and from what I have heard, people do lie a lot on their profiles. Apparently, men always lie about their height. In a way, I don't blame them, I mean imagine if you wrote the truth about yourself. Mine would go like this

I'm Siani, and I'm quite depressed about the fact that no one fancies me. I do very little exercise and lie on the sofa most nights in my tracksuit bottoms drinking wine and browsing Facebook. For the last three months I have been cyber stalking a man who, it turned out, was not interested in me at all. On the weekend I like to go out with my friends, slag off men and drink far too much. I have absolutely no interests at all. I don't read (except for Star magazine) cook or keep fit. I'm not at all adventurous or outdoorsy. I spend most of my weekends marking and on Sundays, I clean the bathroom. I have cellulite.

Add a truthful photo of me in my glasses first thing on a Sunday morning and I can guarantee that no one would be messaging me. Not even 'Pete, Vegan and Proud of it' or 'Fatty 0404'. And yes, these two men do exist, I saw them earlier...

Actually, some of these things aren't strictly true. I do like to keep fit, cook and read. I do have interests. But some of the paragraphs that are posted on these websites are really cringeworthy. Toe-curlingly so. It all seems so dishonest. I also really hate the way that users have to pick from a list of attributes, eg a bit intellectual (???) Err, picking that term shows me that you're not intellectual....doh...?! It makes everyone seem so generic. Members were, on one site I browsed today, asked to rate their own appearance. There were people on there who had rated their appearance as 'above average' which does seem to me to be just a tad smug. It was also unnecessary, given that users were expected to post pictures of themselves. Maybe it's just there to give an indication of how arrogant the guy is.... wouldn't it would be easier just to ask them that? Users could chose from 'a bit smug', 'kind of smug' and 'really up myself'. Although I suppose no one on a dating website is going to tick a box that says 'butt ugly' are they?

In a way, I actually preferred the sex website because at least there weren't any paragraphs about how the users liked going for long walks in the country, enjoyed wine tasting and sitting by roaring log fires of a Sunday. To be fair though, most of the users on the sex website couldn't really write very well judging by the spelling and punctuation displayed on their profiles (one man didn't even know how to spell 'come'...honestly!) Or maybe their hands were just shaking with excitement at the thought of all the sex they were about to have.

So, to conclude, am I going to join a dating website? No. Not at the moment. Maybe I will in the future, but at the moment I just can't face it. I'm just far too much of a cynical person - not that that's obvious from this post or anything.....

I have kept hotnhorny69's contact details though. Just in case I change my mind...

This Year I Will be Fabulous...

After much careful thought, for my New Year's Resolution I've decided that I am going to try to live my life as if I'm a character in 'Sex and the City'. I know it sounds ridiculous, I know I sound insane but please, bear with me. It makes absolute sense.

F and I did a marathon 'Sex and the City' session over the Christmas. We watched both films including dvd extras (and yes I know that the films aren't as good as the series but anyway...). Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha have fun when they're not obsessing over men. They have fantastic jobs and houses and lead ultra-glamorous lives. I know it's fantasy, I know that it's totally unrealistic but I think there are two main points that we can take on board. The first point I would like to mention here is obviously the fashion.

One day last year I looked at myself in the mirror just before leaving the house for work. I was wearing trousers that were too short (and five years old), bobbly socks, and Primark pumps that had seen better days. I looked an absolute state. I vowed at that point that I had to smarten up. No more Primark knitwear or footwear of any kind, no more too-short trousers and nothing with holes in. Somehow, I had taken my eye off the ball and ended up looking like a scarecrow. I didn't have time to change and so spent the rest of the day feeling extremely self conscious, mentally comparing myself to the other well-dressed teachers in my department. It was a real wake up call and since that moment I have smartened up a bit. I threw away the trousers and now have some that are the right length.

It's funny though that someone who reads the fashion pages of 'Grazia' so religiously every week finds dressing herself on an everyday basis so hard. I have a wardrobe full of clothes and yet I never have anything to wear. I read an article in The Sunday Times last year in which the author had decided that every night, she would decide what she would wear the next day and lay out her clothes, including accessories, carefully considering colours etc. I'm going to do this too. It will save me time in the mornings and ensure that I never again leave the house looking like a character from 'Worzel Gummidge'. So that's the first part of my first resolution – imagine that I'm a character out of 'Sex and the City' and dress accordingly although obviously, it will be a toned down version. After all, I can hardly imagine myself wearing a J'adore Dior T-shirt and purple puffy floor length skirt to school. But there will be no more bobbly jumpers and no more badly fitting items scavenged from my sister's wardrobe. At the end of last term, I had also taken to wearing a ratty old Berghaus fleece to work that I got given at a swap shop. From now on, I will save this offending item for lazy Sundays on the couch when I don't plan on leaving the house. Or for the next mountain I trek up of course...that will be never then...

This resolution also includes hair and make up. I will take more time over these in the morning. I will not go to work with my hair looking like rats tails ever again. I might even straighten it..... no, on second thoughts that is going a bit far. But I might try to do more interesting things with my hair. And I'm going to accessorize! With jewellery rather than with my work ID badge and my old woolly scarf. Chipped, tatty nails will also be a no no for me in 2011 as will stubbly eyebrows. I vow that I am going to try and look well turned out this coming year... and for the rest of my life.... eek!

I know that this will be hard to achieve. I live in rural England and Carrie Bradshaw lives in New York City. She, not having a full time job, has more time (and money as she's a well paid columnist) to spend on grooming than me. I teach teenagers for a living and therefore have to be dressed conservatively for work. She writes a column about sex and therefore can wear anything she wants (hence the J'adore T shirt and puffy purple skirt, the green satin skirt with a white bunny tail and that fabulous dress patterned with news print). She wears heels at every opportunity (Manolos, naturally) whilst I'm still getting to grips with being able to walk in heels and think I'm sophisticated because I have recently started wearing platform boots to work. Plus the fact that obviously she is a fictional character and I'm not. I had kind of forgotten that.

However, I can be more organized about what I wear. I have already re-arranged my wardrobe and now know exactly where everything is. My wardrobe is nowhere near as big or as well appointed as Carrie's but I can try can't I? I do also have my own Stanford in the form of my flatmate B who gives me fabulous fashion advice.

Some people tend to write off 'Sex and the City' as shallow and concerned only with clothes. Firstly, it's about so much more than that and secondly, I don't think there is anything wrong with looking nice. I know that I for one could definitely do with smartening up my act. Watching it has inspired me to dress better and take more care over my appearance. I have realised that I have absolutely no excuse for going into work looking like a bag lady and I aim to ensure that I never go to work channelling scarecrow chic ever again.

The next part of the resolution is that I'm going to spend more time having fun with my friends. Carrie and her friends seem to be permanently out having dinner and drinks, shopping, drinking wine or simply strutting down the street looking fabulous. J and I have already planned a night out on Saturday and I am getting dressed up (and I fully plan to strut - in heels!). I may even wear a dress! I am going to insist that we have cocktails and then go dancing. I wrote about the importance of friendship in a previous post and in 2011 I vow that I will spend more time with those girls that I love. I might even suggest that we do something on a week night – all too often I spend Monday to Thursday evenings exhausted watching bad TV whilst worrying about the work I haven't managed to get through that day and simultaneously feeling guilty for not having done it. Not any more – in 2011 I will be a social butterfly, with something interesting on the agenda almost every night. Except the nights when I write this blog, obviously...

I think that's a pretty good resolution, after all I have more chance of sticking to a regime that's fun rather than the usual detox sado-masochistic bullshit that we seem to subject ourselves to every January. So much of life is unpleasant – I think we should try to make it more glamorous, more beautiful, more fun. Less about work and worry and more about pleasure. After all, we don't get paid any more for stressing about our jobs, do we? I mean I've never heard of anyone getting a bonus for lying awake at night worrying about how their Year 11s are going to get their target grades.

Anyway, I'm off to dig out my ball gown and heels. I'm just popping down to the shop for some milk and I want to look my best. Well, why not? On second thoughts though, I might just wear my fleece over the top. Ease myself in gently....