Don’t fuck it up

TLDR: single parenting / step-parenting / blended families is a fuck load of effort (I assume) so choose your sperm provider wisely.

Many months after declaring my social media addiction over I have decided acceptance is best. I am too heavily invested in the lives of strangers from the Internet. I will instead add to the time spent on my phone by ranting about them, the healthiest way to spend time.

Instagram is obviously my main thing because the influences have got me hooked. @mre.souer has 45k followers and a clothing range which isn’t Sainsbury’s sale and is therefore too cool for me. At some point she started dating someone and this triggered a stranger (who I can only assume is a genuine stalker) to message her saying she was ’embarrassing herself’ for calling herself a single mum online and then dating someone in real life.

This triggered a debate about when you stop being a single mum. Obviously every sane person agreed that shagging someone and going out for dinner is not the equivalent of your child’s biological father living with you and sharing the practical / mental / financial load.

Now there is always the odd knobhead popping up saying they consider themselves single parents even though they are married and living with the dad as he doesn’t help. Yes this is a twatty situation but unless you pay for everything and do every single thing in that household and for those children then no it isn’t the same. And if you are doing all of those things the only sensible choices are to kick him out or shut up whinging to genuine single mums (strong emphasis on the first option).

After that there seems to be a grey area of confusion. Is it when you are in an established relationship (when even is that?)? When you cohabit? When you cohabit and they help out like a biological dad would?

In my opinion it is never. Once a single parent always a single parent. Unless you are in a situation where the biological dad was never present / abandons legal responsibility and the step dad adopts, I can’t imagine that is a huge proportion.

And this isn’t driven by my desire to be a martyr or a desire to claim lifelong whinge points, but rather a healthy level of pessimism about step-parent families.

Hanging out with your ex

Assuming you cohabit with the most child-friendly, desperate to be a step-parent, person possible you still have to navigate a co-parenting relationship with the child’s biological parent.

You still probably have the logistics, negotiation and all round hassle of shared custody and missed Christmases. But you also get the awkwardness of your ex regularly seeing your current partner and/or you seeing your ex’s partner. A particular kind of small talk hell the nuclear families will never know.

Children are dickheads

Even an enthusiastic partner is still definitely not a biological parent. That step child didn’t know them from day one, they’ve seen the evil step parent fairytale, they can throw out the ‘you’re not my parent’ line on a whim.

Even if the child likes that person my guess is that no kid ever goes for a step parent when they wake from a nightmare, the step parent doesn’t take the day off work when fever hits and they probably aren’t stressing about nursery drop off hours or vitamin intake.

I also think there is something about being that child’s parent and watching them grow from a tiny baby that gives you a whole other level of patience that a new partner on the scene is not going to benefit from. Toddlers are unique twats. There is no logic, no persuasive skills on earth that can tempt them out of the worst tantrums.

Parents are somewhat blinded by love, and the sensible ones are also playing the long game. You don’t want to be a ‘naughty step’ dictator or send them to their room too hastily and give them abandonment issues in later life. You don’t want to make bribes a regular thing or you will end up with a teenager who requires a cash offer in order to get out of bed on time. The end goal is to raise a decent human being and if they push you to the point of insanity some days that’s the price we pay.

Would someone who isn’t lifelong connected to that small person, who isn’t blinded by an unconditional bond going to be quite so chill? I find staying calm during the worst times beyond testing and she is my daughter. Absolutely no criticism given to anyone who realises they are not equipped to deal with high stress situations with another person’s child.

Part of me also thinks it is the sensible / only reasonable option. As a biological parent you can be the bad guy, lay down the law with your kids and still be loved at the end of the day because you are their mum or dad. Is a new person on the scene going to be forgiven quite so easily by a grumpy child? I feel like it could easily be added to a list of resentment that won’t end well.

Financial nightmare

Here’s what happens when you date in your twenties, find a person, pool your little bit of savings until you can buy a house together, potentially get married, have a baby together. They probably earn similar before having a baby, they probably put the same into the house – even if they didn’t, the plan is to die together so who cares. Maybe one person earns less after babies and part time work but they are raising that other persons child so they balance it out so they are as well off as each other.

Here’s what happens when you date in your thirties. Most people have children: different amounts of children, children of different ages, children costing wildly different amounts of either child maintenance or direct expense. The person you date probably owns a home, they may have hugely different equity to you. As you’ve had more time for careers to progress (or be delayed by pregnancies) you’ve got more chance of big disparities in income. You’ve got more chance someone got stung in a divorce.

How do you even work out what is right or fair in that big mess? I don’t know.

Fuck off

The woman criticising mre.souer for calling herself a single mum when she’d started dating someone can fuck right off.

I think this riled me up so much because I do like my single mum badge. I am proud to be a single mum because it means I do most of everything. Right now other than a Sunday daytime I am responsible for all of everything (excluding childcare hours when I’m working and THANK GOD FOR CHILDCARE).

I know this long rant doesn’t fit most people’s definition of a single mum, and yes if you cohabit with someone it does make life easier. Cohabiting couples (you’d bloody hope) share out housework and running costs of the house.

However it is in no way the same easy division of work and sharing of the emotional load that comes with being in a nuclear family.

As a person who is disproportionately obsessed with the world being fair I find this hard to come to terms with. Because I had a child with the wrong person my life will, in many ways, always be harder as a result.

So to state the obvious, when you are deciding who to procreate with : don’t fuck it up.

Matt is a knob

An unexpected side effect of becoming a parent is unnecessary smalltalk. As an introvert I probably languish in silence for longer than other people find acceptable.

Now I’m not a knob (like Matt) I’m quite willing to go along with whatever bullshit chat / make believe Emily’s ‘new best friend’ at the playground wants me to go along with. But I also don’t see the point of mundane parent chat with a stranger for the sake of it. If my child is happily hanging with her new mate and doesn’t want me I would rather waste my attention on the black pit of social media, thanks.

Matt doesn’t agree, I can’t even remember what boring chat Matt got into with me…just that he can’t for shit make a decent job of pretending to eat the ‘chips’ our daughters had kindly cooked for him.

What I do remember is that Matt and Matt’s wife were tag teaming parenting that day.

Oh man I get jealous of the parent tag teamers. They get to go to the toilet when they want to, they get to drink coffee inside when the other one is on duty in the rain, the joy! I was quite happy when Matt tapped out and I got new best friend’s mum instead. She could role play, she could hide and seek.

The girls were having such a good time that Emily got promoted from new best friend to sister after just a couple of hours (my daughter is excellent company). I thought this was super cute but it seemed to trigger a load of only child guilt in new best friends mum who seemed fucking knackered by parenting and entirety unenthusiastic at the prospect of doing it all again (I hear ya).

I obviously never miss a sob story so when I was asked if Emily was a single child I said yes, my husband moved out when she was a baby. I got the initial ‘oh wow you’re doing so well’ thing which suddenly got flipped into a ‘lucky you at least you don’t have to parent a man and a child at once my life would be easier without him’ speech. Wow.

I don’t normally shy out of the self pity Olympics / my life is more tiring than yours / I sleep less competition. I actually refrained from the desperate urge to point out all the time she spent in the peace of the indoor coffee area of beautiful silence while I stood in the pissing rain playing make believe with woodchips.

Instead I did a VERY BAD THING and excused her husband on the basis of it being hard for all mums as toddlers always want mum first. Which is a shit move on my part as:

• Not all toddlers want their mum over dad, that’s massively sexist and a result of the fact mums tend to do more parenting. Some toddlers prefer their dad (granted, a minority)
• If her toddler prefers her to Matt (as do I) then maybe Matt should do some other fucking work instead, rather than having his hard working baby mama feel like she is caring for both a toddler and man child.
• I should have pointed out that what she described is absolutely not cool. She should only be raising her actual child and if she feels like she is happy with one child then that’s the only child she should have (no more babies, no more Matt).
• The fact her little girl is so capable at making friends suggests she is doing just fine as an only child, that contrary to popular belief only children do just as well (if not better), in almost all respects than their siblinged up counterparts (see One and Only by Lauren Sandler)
• The fact that it isn’t an absence of siblings that damages little girls but the normalisation of a loveless, resentful relationship becoming the benchmark of what to aspire to. That mummies do all the work and that’s just what happens.

Being a single parent is hard but if you genuinely think that your partner makes life even harder than that then seriously, buh bye Matt.

I know I am coming from a place of privilege in that, even as a single parent, I earn enough to afford childcare so that I can work. Also I live in a house I own and other things lots of women won’t benefit from if they were to go it alone. But seriously, an unhappy marriage will destroy your soul.

Now I know souls aren’t measurable but life expectancy is and marriage increases a man’s life span but knocks a year off a woman’s life see here if you don’t believe me.

The bastards steal a year from us! And yet men who don’t marry are bachelors, when we are spinsters or left on the shelf? Errm, shall we rephrase that single men are prematurely aging and single women are winning at life?? We are literally winning more life.

(by single I mean non-cohabiting, as Katherine Ryan cleverly points out we are all far too young to have men in our homes. Sex is still non life threatening as far as I’m aware.)

And the one year life loss is just an average, stats are still pending on how much life they sap out of you when things get so bad you start slagging your man off to strangers at the playground.

So now I’m a guilty feminist again. The avoidance of social awkwardness won out, I should have told you to leave your baby daddy (or at the very least insist he acts like a parent/adult). Hopefully the next mum she complains to is both a feminist and an extrovert with a higher capacity for brutal honesty than me.

My wholehearted apologies to my daughter’s sister’s mother.

Feminist Fail

I’m in a not so good mental health zone at the moment, lots of self criticism but then my distraction from this tends to be Instagram or reading…and both fuel my general hatred of men. Shockingly neither hating men nor yourself is the key to a contented life. I have Bupa approval for some CBT so maybe at some point I’ll get round to booking sessions in – in the hope this will give me some tools to jump off the negativity spirals before I fully go fully insane.

I have definitely mentioned before that I have massive jealously and life comparison issues. If you think I haven’t been on Instagram much I absolutely have not kicked the habit, every time my phone is in my hand my thumb automatically opens the app and resumes scrolling. I’m not joking it is actually very, very bad but also exactly what some very smart people in California designed it to be so i’ll ease off on the self guilt on that front.

What I did do is almost lose my shit, decide not to lose my shit and just mute everyone my thumb scrolled upon one Sunday afternoon that made me feel jealous. That turned out to be pretty much everyone who isn’t either a general man hater or English Heritage. So now my feed is largely feminism and castles, which sounds pretty good but makes me long for some kind of all female fortified commune where men are temporary and time restricted sex visitors only (if you don’t know about the Mosuo women already then check out this Guardian article and I’ll meet you in China).

But for now I’m going to have to continue having conversations with men. One of which recently took great joy in mansplaining my own feminism to me. Apparently I’m not a great feminist as I try to look thin, and as much as I hate to agree with a man there is a point here. Women are expected to look small as to be feminine is to be smaller than men, so that they can feel big by comparison. Food is wonderful and we restrict that to inflate men’s egos so that they feel all masculine standing next to our dainty little lady selves. They eat all the carbs, use the word ‘bloated’ approximately 4000% less (fact checked) then spread their legs wide and get comfy. We monitor what we eat, hold our stomachs in then sit compactly with our legs together.

Take up less space please ladies, it needs saving for the men folk. It sounds ridiculous but that is literally what I’m doing.

I love the body positivity movement but my internalised misogyny is so well entrenched I can’t help but equate weight loss as success – I enjoy seeing my app confirm I am underweight, the more shit my life is going the more important this is. I am five foot nine (175cm), which by British standards is taller than 98 percent of women. I’m three inches taller than the average Dutch woman – the tallest of the tall people. Despite all logic I feel as though being tall is another reason I need to be slim, as if it is only acceptable to be one type of big. Being tall and fat would be unacceptably large (as a woman). Whereas tall and skinny is willowy and that’s OK, you might be big but a weak fragile looking version of big that isn’t quite so intimidating to men.

Intellectually I want to shake off the slim preference but in reality I don’t want to see my body looking fat and it makes me feel like a hypocrite.

I love @clementineford she is a single mum, journalist and mega feminist. She gives out caps that read ‘Leave your husband’, she is fighting the good fight. But even Clementine recently admitted on her podcast that she eats differently when in public and doesn’t clear her plate as if to demonstrate to any onlooker what a restrained person she is, that she deserves to be small – that she puts effort into taking up less space. That shit is hard to shake off (side note that her podcast Big Sister Hotline is excellent).

And I wish it stopped at weight. I have yet to meet a man who is cool with full body hair (I’m talking legs, armpits, moustaches, monbrows). I know most aren’t pedantic about full scale pube removal but if you add up the time it takes up in a year to do the rest of the crap I reckon you’d be pretty pissed off about the unread novels / naps / wanks that could have been accumulated in that time.

And yet here I am…a relatively hair free lady.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg…imagine if the patriarchy refunded us on our lifetime make up spend? The cost of wedding guest outfits because women feel like they’d be judged for rocking up in the same dress every time. I’d also like our hourly salaries for the time spent researching said outfits…(gender pay gap adjusted where applicable).

As always I’m not entirely sure what the conclusion of this rant is. But I did at least feel validated that I’m not the only feminist doing stupid shit to fit into gender stereotypes because patriarchy has influenced my preferences for how I like to see my body looking.

If anyone is further along the road to hairy (@rubyrare), bigger body friendly (@bodyposipanda), make up optional  life (@florencegiven) than me then they might want to check out these ladies accounts for body positivity plus all sorts of good stuff.

And in the meantime I guess I’ll keep on being the dumbass who weighs herself before deciding whether a Monday morning mcmuffin is advisable. Fucking patriarchy.

Tinder, gone but not forgotten

I deleted tinder this week 🎉

Not actually a big deal, I could technically start again in ten minutes. Admittedly a minor faff to scroll through my gallery and find photos without a toddler photobombing but I’m ready to make that commitment. It does delete all conversations and matches, so if I get dumped I will have to start fresh…but that is definitely no hardship. It is probably a bit weird to pop up in someone’s DMs after 9 months like ‘hey…so I’m single and can’t be bothered swiping again, how about it? 🙋🏼‍♀️’.

Note that I put ‘if I get dumped’. Partially because I’m a bit of a pessimist and always half feel like I could get surprise dumped out of nowhere any minute. And also because I’m aware quitting things is not my strong point.

I remember one metaphor where someone was trying to justify their cheating by saying some people get off the sinking ship early doors and hop on the little dingy and have a shit time in the cold for bit – other people wait for a better ship to come by and jump straight over.

And there are people like me…

(to any non-Titanic fans, this is me going down with the ship)

The grass is green as fuck over here

Last Sunday I was having a fabulous time. That morning we had the farm shop to ourselves, I was a bacon sandwich, a jammy dodger blondie  and a flat white in, the tantrum count was zero and the sun was shining.

I had a rare moment of wow my life is so much easier than it could have been. If you know me than I’m sure you’ve heard me complain about how hard being a parent is. Normally in response to someone casually mentioned they are a bit tired (“think how I feel… I am TWO YEARS worth of tired my friend” etc). I’ll roll out my single parent sob story and when I get a hint of sympathy I nod, like the martyr / hero that I am.

But actually, I’m just being a bit of a dickhead. Whilst I’m not entirely lying, being a single parent is genuinely hard – and I genuinely have not had a decent night’s sleep in two years, it is kind of better than regular nuclear parent familying would have been.

And because I like a good list (and I suspect dwindling attention spans also appreciate a list format) I’m listing this one out:

1. Super chill spontaneity. When did I decide I was going out for brunch? Just before I left. I didn’t have to convince anyone, no one was annoyed at me for not doing the housework first, no one was nagging me to get the food shopping home quickly. I’m the boss of my own bacon sandwich schedule and it is a fine place to be.

2. Is it wrong to list not being a parent as the second best part of being a single parent? I’m doing it anyway. On Saturday I was not a parent between 9am and 5.30pm. I went to the cinema, I went shopping without anyone sweeping the shelves clean, I went bouldering. The best bit of my day was a hot bath, it was really full hot bath and the house was silent. I’m not sure many married mums get a day of peace a week. Come join me on the dark side ladies, leave your husbands and gain a bath time.

3. I’m the boss, and not just of bacon sandwiches, I’m the boss of parenting. Kind of. Obviously Emily is the boss of a lot of things – because she is a toddler and I’m too smart to waste my time negotiating with terrorists. So I don’t really mind letting her needs dictate things, I’ll hang out in the car for as long as she needs to nap, I’ll eat dinner on the floor with her if she’s not in a table kind of mood. We are flexi living, Gina Ford hating, routine resistant non-conformists. Everyone has their own ideas on parenting and I’m doing zero compromise to make mine align with another parent’s.

4. Bit reluctant to put this one, as it sounds like kids in nuclear families don’t love their mums (which is a stupid thing to put). But also, it’s my blog so whatever. When I was a newly single mother so many lovely women who grew up in single mum & only daughter families told me about what an amazing bond they have with their mother. Maybe I’m biased by having watched all 153 episodes of Gilmore Girls at least three times over, but growing up in a mum & daughter family seems like it could be lots of fun.

5. The single bit of single mum. Dating is FUN. You (obviously) don’t get to date when you’re married. Unless of course you’re non-monogamous married – which I suspect very few mothers of toddlers can be arsed with. So many women say they lose their identity a bit when they become a mother but when you start dating and chatting to people you don’t feel like a you’re just a mum anymore. I know we should all love ourselves / be our own soulmates blah blah blah BUT it is pretty fun knowing that someone new desires you.

6. I went off on a rather lengthy and misandristic rant on emotional labour on a blog post last year. I stand by that. Whilst I acknowledge that there are some marvellous men who have developed the capacity for initiative (lol JK). I do think that a lot of the mental load of household and child management goes to the woman in the house. I know that most men do pull their weight, but when there are a set number of tasks and two people to complete them there is inevitability an amount of planning behind it. Yes I have to do everything myself but I’m wasting zero energy telling someone else to do anything / checking it has been done / negotiating what should be done (resenting them when it hasn’t).

7. Masturbation. Why the hell not include this?! I have a single friend who eschewed men for a bit in favour of enjoying a solo glass of wine and a wank with her favourite sex toy each evening. Fine life choices being made right there. Whilst I get that married people can masturbate too…do they really just go off of their own for an evening to watch shit TV in peace and then wank at their own convenience? I didn’t. I was wanking on the sly when married. No more. Now anytime post 8pm can be wank o’clock if I so choose it to be.

So I’m not sure if I should have done more than seven reasons. But I’m actually pretty damn tired now (as I may have mentioned) and I feel like wank chat is always a good place to end a conversation so goodnight reader.

Stuff men say

So I found a tall, Welsh, bearded rugby player on Bumble 👍🏻

They have question prompts on Bumble profiles and everyone is so bloody predictable:

Mountains or Beach?

Why do I have to choose, I pick both!

Yawn.

Bearded dragon however:

How did your year five teacher describe you?

A great shag.

Funny. Creepy but funny.

However he then followed it up with:

How would your mum describe you?

Also a great shag.

Actual lol.

I obviously messaged him on his excellent taste in jokes and he said I was the first one to notice….how so?! I’m clearly the only creepy lady on Bumble.

So I shared this with a colleague and one of his friends used to use the ‘chat up line’ :

I want to drink your dirty bath water

What the actual fuck?! I like creepiness but I think this is other level. The worse thing is that it sometimes worked 😱

Then there are the direct guys…one man wrote

I’m into push the thong to the side and straight in sex

He wrote this on his profile!

It’s a bit explicit but personally I would rather read that than this which is disappointingly common:

☑️ 6 foot tall (apparently that’s important)

☑️ Own house

☑️ Own car

☑️ Own teeth

☑️ No crazy ex

Which I find INSULTING TO WOMEN. Like that’s all we want. No need to tell me about what you’re interested in, what your personality is like. We just want very basic things, but obviously the hilarious joke about teeth makes it ok.

And then there are the cunts:

Looking for a women who knows how to look after herself

I mean… I know how to look after myself. I’m good at me time. I read, I buy myself donuts, I take naps. But I suspect ‘look after herself’ means ‘is skinny and waxed’.

And then the downright twatty:

Don’t swipe right if you’re punching above your weight

😒

Anyway, baby is awake so rant over for today

Why Fifty Shades of Grey is bullshit bullshit bullshit

NB : This photo has almost no relevance to the article. But when I typed ‘sex’ into the search bar he was the only man and why not?

As babies offer very low quality chat I always do a lot of reading. At the moment I’m on Come As You Are : the surprising new science that will transform your sex life. Obviously this is HIGHLY relevant to my currently very active sex life. But I was a good Brownie, always be prepared etc. It is written by a sex therapist and it’s quite interesting.

Anyway apparently noncorcordance isn’t very well known outside of psychology / sex therapist land so I’ll share a fact with you.

Fifty Shades of Grey was bullshit. ‘Of course it was’ you’re thinking. No woman says ‘holy cow’ when turned on and yes this is correct, that is one it many reasons why it is bullshit.

But also in one of the early scenes Christian gets all spanky and whippy on Ana.

He asks how she feels and does she say ‘aroused’?

No she bloody does not. She says ‘demeaned, debased and abused’.

Does that sound fun? No it does not.

But Christian then says AH-HA but I note that your vagina is wet. Therefore I am the all knowing sexual master I presume myself to be despite you categorically telling me you are not enjoying this I can say I know better.

Because… MEN.

So the science is that if you show a woman anything sexually relevant her genitals will frequently respond, but if you ask her if she is aroused then there will only be a 10% overlap for what she says she likes and what she is physically responding to.

So if you show a woman who isn’t into watching bonobos have sex (and who is) a video of bonobos having sex she will probably have increased bloodflow to her genitals. But if you ask her if she is aroused she will probably say ‘nah, these are apes and I’m not into ape sex’. But women are very organised, very prepared people. The female body says ‘ah, I recognise that this is sex and I shall make preparations just in case’.

This physical reaction without a mental agreement is called noncorcordance.

Whereas men have a 50% overlap between having both a sexual reaction and a mental note that it is arousing. It’s not 100% but it’s a lot more than women have. So basically men are less responsive to things that are sexual, but are not their sexual cup of tea. They can’t be bothered getting hard unless they want it to end in sex. Some might say efficient, and they’d be right. But I say lazy because men are annoying and I have a pessimistic view of males.

Luckily for Christian Grey twat face, Emily (the author of Come As You Are) has re-written the dialogue:

Grey says to Ana, “Feel this. See how sexually relevant your body considers physical contact with your buttocks and genitals, Anastasia. That gives me no information about whether or not you liked it. Did you like it? No? Double crap, let me make it up to you by reading Emily Nagoski’s book about women’s sexual wellbeing, so that I have a clue next time.”

It’s also true that women can be really into it without showing any physical signs. Perhaps because it’s nowhere near ovulation so her body thinks – why waste resources? Perhaps she is dehydrated and her body thinks – why waste resources? Perhaps she has given birth and her hormones are still saying WHY THE FUCK WOULD I DO THAT AGAIN? Female bodies = very sensible.

So in case there are any men reading this (which I highly doubt there are). How do you know if she is into it?

Just talk to her, watch her body language. Good life advice in general really.

Bumbler

(NB : I’m very sorry if this hits your email. It’s entirely not relevant to May 2020. I wish I could work technology so you don’t get this spam. I can however confirm that the date was acceptable enough for some Sunday afternoon company for a few months until I found the guy I’m dating now)

Original July 2019 blog:

So Rita told me it would be good to wait at least nine months until I start dating again. This is very sensible. If you aren’t fully happy being single you may end up with someone who isn’t right for you just to avoid being alone, which is obviously not ideal.

Not to mention the sting of rejection, potential lowering of standards etc.

Then I read The Unexpected Joys of Being Single and thought yes this is totally fine. I will absolutely be single and happy.

Then I watched Katherine Ryan’s the Glitter Room and she pursuaded me being single is the actual best way to be:

‘I’m not lonely when I’m alone because I get to hang out with meeeee’

So true Katherine.

I was single and proud.

…but then I got inquisitive.

Sometimes I browse ASOS and don’t buy. Sometimes I buy and return. There is no commitment here. Just because I am purchasing, collecting and returning doesn’t mean I am SHOPPING.

Just like downloading Bumble, swiping around and messaging men isn’t technically DATING. However now I kind of want to meet people for drinks (and maybe more) but I’m not sure how I can sell that to myself as not dating.

I’m not six months in yet so maybe my maths needs work. Part of me is thinking sooo…this is a bad idea yes?? And the other is like MEN and maybe even ALCOHOL there are no downsides here! (I know there are potentially many many downsides but you will need to humour me).

Now on the basis that I am super nosy and would like to see other people’s profiles I thought I would show mine below. The unwritten rule is that photos are from the last year or maybe two. Now I have spent the last year or two either pregnant or with a baby on me in every photo so I had to be ‘flexible’ on this. My profile picture was pre wedding which I thought was quite a massive cheat (three years, oops). However, I still fit in those clothes, I still have that hairstyle, I checked with friends I still look like that and although my face may be a little wrinklier now I don’t think you could tell from a full shot with glasses in the way anyway. So I feel almost totally justified in this and only slightly guilty of miss-selling.

(also can you see the dumbell symbol where I put ‘sometimes’. lol.)

S

Two of the photos were taken a few days before I got my account so I feel that balances out the older ones…and it’s not like someone would meet me and not recognise me. However it did make me realise how boring I am, I am 99% dressed in a striped blue top and skinny jeans.

So I’ve been chatting to lots of men. I even got asked out a few times, but I wasn’t into them enough for all the hassle that meeting someone requires so I didn’t message back. Which I know is twatty but I think standard procedure? Then a fourth guy asked me out and he looked OK. We hadn’t chatted much (so no opportunity to drop the I have a child thing into conversation) so I said yes let’s meet up in the same message as mentioning I have a child. No response. Nevermind…you win some you lose some.

However the next day I was back in the game, I’m now trying to organise a date (which involves lots of logistics) with someone. I don’t even know how many messages we’ve sent back and forth so maybe when we meet there will be nothing left to talk about. But I’m hoping that I will have coordinated it so that I can have a few drinks. So even if I don’t get on that well with them then it’s an afternoon or evening with alcohol and no baby to worry about WIN and WIN.

So if I can ever get a weekend day when my dad is free to take the baby and I am free and the guy is free then I shall absolutely update the Internet as to how it went.

The Cool Girl Monologue

I know this is SUPER famous but I’m reading a book that referenced it and I just remembered what absolute literary gold this passage is so I have to share it on the off chance that someone hasn’t read it before (because of course it is brilliant). And if you don’t like it then GO AHEAD SHIT ON ME.

It does however make me want to eat a chilli dog whilst hating men for the shallow and predictable creatures that they are. I know that sounds horrifically sexist but read this passage and tell me the average man doesn’t want Cool Girl.

It’s from Gone Girl, if you haven’t watched / read this then I recommend you do so in your preferred medium right now.

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)

For fucks sake men (a rant on emotional labour)

(slightly edited since publishing, with the intention of not being a dick)

The burden of organising many things is left to women, social commitments, holidays, childcare, appointments… most men even expect their partners to organise everything for their own family’s birthdays. They’ve literally spent every year of their lives celebrating their parent’s / sibling’s birthdays yet somehow expect their spouse to be the one to remember and find the perfect gift?! Seriously, come the fuck on.

I read a good article about this and the ridiculous story behind a woman’s request to have the house cleaned as her mother’s day gift. In summary he left it till last minute, phoned the first cleaner he found, decided it was too expensive and cleaned the bathroom himself whilst leaving the rest of his crap lying around the house. It’s totally stupid but exactly what many wives would expect from their husbands in the same circumstances and it’s fucking annoying. She ends the article saying “Our sons can still learn to carry their own weight. Our daughter can learn to not carry others” but REALLY, do we really have to wait a generation to fix this bullshit?!

And it’s not just the coordinating what happens, women are still doing most of everything! If you want to continue getting irritated then read this from the Guardian stating how in the UK in 2016 women did 60% more unpaid work and the progressive Sweden shockingly had 45 more minutes of housework done by women DAILY. Imagine getting an extra 45 minutes a day, the health benefits of using that to run / do yoga / have a long bath and meditate?! I mean I’d obviously not do that and just eat crisps and watch Netflix…but still it should be my choice and it would be fair to spend that time how I wish!

Yes single mothers end up doing 100% of everything in the house but at least I am doing it for me and my daughter so there is zero resentment. Also it is up to me what needs to be done, maybe we have a lovely hot homemade dinner then talk at the table or maybe it’s a floor picnic listening to Cyndi Lauper 🤷🏼‍♀️. Zero obligation for anything (above the obvious).

Yes my ultimate goal is to have another relationship, I like the companionship (not to mention someone to split the bills with and have sex with me). But the annoying thing is this seems to affect the majority of men and until you cohabit it’s hard to tell who is an expert in ‘outsourcing’ or simply assuming it will get done (and I think quite often having no awareness that it needs to be done). It’s a long time since I’ve done online dating but is there a checklist for ‘is able to book appointments, manage housework and remember dates independently’. It will probably be a while before I consider dating again but if this can be added in as a screening filter I would love that.