Things that I hate that are actually really good for me

Celery

Celery is one of those ingredients that is in everything. Oh you wanted to make a stock? Celery. Oh you’re making a delicious soup? Celery. Cooking something that doesn’t seem like it would contain Celery? Celery. When it’s hidden in things like soups and stock, fine, but don’t go putting Celery in my Chicken Cashew nut. I can see it! It’s sitting right there! And I am not a fan. My dad used to cut up celery and put peanut butter on it. I feel like he called them Peanut butter floats or something like that. And even with a cute nickname I still wasn’t buying it (but then, I’m pretty sure my favourite word was just NO as a child, straight off the bat.) It’s a shame I haven’t made friends with this vegetable that tastes and feels like eating crunchy green snails because Celery is rich in Vitamin C and contains Potassium and Folic acid. It’s also rumoured to burn more calories eating celery than the beast vegetable actually contains itself.

Chamomile Tea

I associate the taste of Chamomile Tea with throwing up, thanks to a nasty experience in High School when I had a 24 hour puking virus and I slept at my friend Annies place and her mum offered me Chamomile tea in the morning to settle my stomach and I threw it up five minutes after I ingested it. It is a shame that I hate this because Chamomile tea seems to have antibacterial properties (probably why people think to drink it when they are sick) and also seems to help with menstrual cramps. One study found that drinking chamomile tea raised urine levels of glycine, a compound that calms muscle spasms. Researchers believe this is why chamomile tea helps menstrual cramps.

Milk

I’ll drink Chocolate milk by the gallon but I am SO not drinking plain milk. Plain milk on some kind of sugary cereal, fine. Milk in Earl Gray Tea, duh, what am I? A barbarian? Milk in recipes, yes yes of course. But not by itself. Yuck yuck yuckity yick. NOthankyouverymuch. Saying Milk is good for you is a bit like saying that cigarettes are bad for you. Everybody knows that Milk and dairy products are providers of calcium, phosphorous, magnesium and protein which are all essential for healthy bone growth and development. But what you maybe didn’t know is that studies have linked milk and dairy consumption with a reduced risk for cardiovascular disease, and other studies (who are these people studying Milk, don’t they have lives to get on with? Perfect Milk free lives?!?) suggest that regular consumption of low fat dairy products can help to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Onion

I hate this vegetable. When I was in year 12 and it was the night before my first HSC exam, my Mum took me to a steak restaurant and I ordered a steak which sounded delicious. It came topped with a huge pile of onions. I merely put my head down on the table and started to sob. I thought it was a sign my life was over and I would fail my exams. Thats how much I hate these. Which is a shame because Onions have many healthy properties. Raw onion encourages the production of good cholestoral which helps your heart and A powerful compound called quercetin in onions is known to play a significant role in preventing cancer.

Lamb

This is pretty blasphemous to admit as an Australian, but I don’t like lamb (to be fair, growing up in Asia, I didn’t have so much access to this meat, we mostly had pork and chicken). Some people slobber over the idea of Lamb Shank or cutlets, but I’d rather not. I wouldn’t order it for myself and it’s very rare that I eat it now in my grown up life. That is not to say that I’ve had all bad experiences, but for the most part Meh. Apparently Lamb is good for health conscious people, as it is a source of ‘good fat’ in the body and has less saturated fat than other meat products. Nah. I’ll just take my fatty fat thanks.

24 things they don’t warn you about before you turn 24

24. You can’t handle your alcohol like you used to:
When I lived at College for 3 years, my liver was a hardened criminal, used to taking no shit from no bitches, and handling, on average, 7-8 drinks a night 6-7 times a week (sometimes we didn’t drink on Sundays…sometimes). Now my liver is a Pussy, and it has made the rest of my body soft and weak. Stupid age.

23. Some things that were cute when you were 18, are not cute now you are a hop skip and a jump away from being thirty:
Like losing all your stuff on a night out (oh darn, you lost your phone again? WOOPSIES! You fucking moron) or getting caught in the rain with no umbrella (YOU CHECKED THE WEATHER ON YOUR COMPUTER BEFORE YOU LEFT!) We’re too smart now to do dumb things like this. Or, we’re just too dumb and evolution needs to sort that out.

22. People are going to start settling down, and shit:
Check my blog from Monday where I detailed the stuff I don’t know about weddings. But weddings aside, people are getting engaged, their moving in with each other, they’re not going out as much any more because they’re saving for things. WTF mate.

21. Your health is more important:
But I WANNA eat that cheesecake at lunch and still get frozen yogurt after my dinner of pizza and mozzarella sticks. WHAT THE HELL IS A CLOGGED ARTERY AND WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT IT?! You’re also going to get fat as fuck with your metabolism peaking out on you.

20. People are going to ask you what you do…all the time:
When I was 18, people assumed I was at University. I didn’t know people that weren’t. I might have asked them what they were studying if I was trying to be polite or trying to make out with them, but I didn’t really care (it was just the pre-hitting on them move). Now people ask me all the time what I do. What shall I tell them? “I WAS working in retail (which I hated) and then I found out my visa had an error on it so now I’m just interning and mindlessly cruising the internet. Is this the part where I ask you and you can tell me even though I don’t really care?”

19. At first paying your own bills and doing your own laundry was exciting and fun. Now it isn’t.

18. There are people younger than you, more successful and more famous than you. And you should feel bad.

17. You won’t live forever:
This shocked me. I went to my first funeral this year and where I used to think 50 was sooooooo old, now I can’t help thinking my friends mum died SOOOOOO YOUNG. I’ll be fifty in 26 years. That’s not enough time to do all the things I need to do! Maybe i’m not invincible…

16. Every year – things seem to speed up and go a little faster:
I can’t believe I just had another birthday. Didn’t I just have one last month? See number 17.

15. All that talent you displayed in High School – when people told you how unique and creative you were…
Well there’s lots more competition now.

14. Your parents protected you from a lot of the crazy out there.
It’s going to rattle tins at you on the corners, it’s going to knock on your door and try to tell you about jesus. Someway, some how, each year the crazy is going to try and seep into your life and you are going to become more and more aware of a) how scary it is and b) how not difficult it would be to join those ranks.

13. Cliques and Bitchyness didn’t end in High School:
Best to have a “Fuck it” attitude and just be you. Cos Heyoooh, if you don’t like you, no one else is going to buy into your crap.

12. You should have done a degree with the title of a job in it:
Like Accounting or Law. Your wishy washy arts/liberal/science degree ain’t gonna get you no where easily. Having read all of Jane Austen’s novels is not something you can put on your resume.

11. You’re getting too old to accept some of these new music types:
Skrillex.

10. There are lots of lame things you need to do to survive:
Like taxes, keeping your eye on your bank account and getting health check ups.

9. People are going to judge you on what wine’s you drink:
“I drink to get drunk” is no longer an acceptable or funny answer.

8. Some of the best paying jobs sound boring as shiiiiiit:
Account manager for a paper company. Sales and Marketing Division leader at Do You Hate Your Life Yet LTD.

7. Your tastebuds are changing and things you used to hate you might start to like and things you used to love might make you go “Meh.”

6. You can’t believe everything you see on TV:
BUT BUT! Everything always has a happy ending!

5. You are going to lose touch with some of your best friends:
As everyone’s lives adapt at a different pace and people move all over the world. But don’t worry because there are always amazing new people to meet, and you never know what they are going to bring to your life.

4. You are going to make mistakes, and you are going to be okay:
I used to think I had to have all the answers all the time, but now in my period of waiting and watching and applying and sighing, I realize that I’m allowed to fall down and make mistakes and take this moment of question-mark-ness. Now I realize that if I fall, I just have to get back up, and if I fall again, I’m just going to have to get back up again. That’s the journey.

3. You only have to answer to you – when it comes to life decisions:
I used to think I had to keep up with the crowd, do cool things, impress my parents, reach a certain status. Now I’m starting to learn that I couldn’t be something I’m not, that that is where my life path is. See #17. When I die, I’, hoping that in the split second before I expire, when my life is all laid out in front of me like a patch work quilt, I tried my best as a person to be good and love those around me, but also that I tried my best to listen to my heart and do what was in it.

2. If you want something, you have to ask for it.
No body is just going to hand you your dreams and ambitions. It’s a hard, slippery, scary path, but you have to walk it because nobody else is going to walk it for you. Remember in school when if you wanted to join a sports team or do the play, your parents had to sign something, or they could call the teachers and complain if you didn’t get in? Now it’s you that has to make the fuss, ask for things, fight for yourself.

1. You are going to have SO much fun!

And those are my 24 things. Some are rude, harsh, cynical. Some are sappy and some were just me scrabbling. But there they are laid out for you.

Enjoy.

Though it’s cold and lonely in the deep dark night…and other Meat Loaf lyrics

So I may have mentioned that I am working in retail lately…and that I loathe it.

I’m subtle, so you probably haven’t picked up on it really, but there it is. I am not the retail industries number one fan. I have a new-found respect for people who work in this industry full-time, people who have to deal with people every day. BRRRR. Worst. Take me back to the cold lonely office.

No no. I jest (somewhat) people aren’t all bad, and neither is retail. The 50% off discount is pretty sweet (oh wait, did I need to pay my rent this month with that money? Woopsies!) and on occasion, it has allowed for some pretty creative ideas to form in my mind (like… lets start a family band!) as all those mindless hours folding clothes and getting sizes, and scanning and bagging let my mind roam of the great plains of imagination.

And as I have mentioned… I occasionally get to interact with human beings that make me think that we’re not all bad (just some of us).

This week was insanely long, and yet surprisingly quick, if that is at all possible. I think it was because the Thanksgiving long weekend loomed, and I had a whole lot of hanging around looking cool to do. The store I work in had a big sale Thursday and Friday and I racked up 18 hours of standing at a cash register processing people’s purchases. I felt like a zombie and forgot how to even have a real conversation with people or how to make connections with them, because the line to check out was out the shop and around the corner. One of the girls spent hours just standing guard at the lines to make sure people didn’t just walk off with stuff.

But earlier in the week I had two very strange and yet special encounters with people. One was a deaf lady who wanted to buy a leather Jacket. I am an extremely good lip reader, so conversing face to face was not a problem with this customer, but difficulties arose when she went into the change room and wanted to try different things on. Usually we only need knock and hand things over. Not possible in this case. The woman was very nice, petite and short with a big sparkly ring on the 2nd last finger of her left hand. We also ran into difficulties as she spoke with the accent of someone that has clearly been deaf their entire life. The word medium bewildered the both of us for a good thirty seconds and I was definitely the more embarrassed.

But she found what she needed and she was happy. Off she went into the world…leaving a piece of herself with me to think and muse about.

Then the following day, a woman with dark glasses and a gorgeous black labrador came in. Well dressed, nicely groomed, I noticed her standing in the middle of the shop fingering a couple of things here and there. I finally approached her and asked if I could help her. She asked me if we still had any of the gray work pants with the blue stripe through them that we used to have in the window. This woman was completely blind.

Her beautiful black lab wagged his tail slowly and I scratched his nose, aware that you are not meant to really fuss over guide dogs as they are working. I then spent a very strange half an hour with this woman, trying to gage what she might like by asking questions (we no longer had any more of the gray pants with the blue stripe through them). When I asked her if she was after anything in particular she replied:

“No, I’m just looking around.”

She wasn’t trying to be funny (you’ll notice that when I asked if she was after anything in particular I studiously avoided the word “look” because there have been instances in my life where I have been extremely insensitive and said things I shouldn’t have in the wrong settings. Like the time in Year 9, the first year at my new school in Hong Kong, when a young boy in a wheelchair asked if he could race a friend of mine the distance of the oval, and as they began I screamed at the top of my lungs “RUN DAVID RUN!” much to the horror of my politically correct Year 9 friends who were obviously, even then, more sensitive than I will ever be.)

So I didn’t laugh. Which was good. And instead I brought her things, described them the best I could (for a writer and someone who uses a lot of words…my vocabulary is shit…and I suck at life) and basically helped her “Look around”. She was so lovely, and was very thankful. For me, it was a surreal experience that I have been processing since the start of the week.

So there it is.

Tiny, weird exceptions to the I hate retail mantra I have taken up.

Oh yeah, and happy Thanksgiving…and stuff

The hunt for New Roommates

I live in a really cool part of Toronto. Sandwiched between little Italy and little Portugal, close to Korea town (I eat pretty interesting take-away week to week). I love my apartment, in which I have the tiniest little room at the back of the house off the kitchen. I don’t mind my little room, I don’t really have much stuff in this city. I find that the less space I have, the less clutter and THINGS I acquire. So when both of my roommies told me they were moving out, I weighed up moving into one of the nicer rooms in our apartment.

My rent is the cheapest I have ever paid since I began paying rent. It costs me for one month, what it would cost me for 2 weeks in Sydney, and is a third of what I would pay for even a miniscule place in Hong Kong.

I decided with no guaranteed employment after camp in August, and with a bit of a road trip plan in the works for early September with Canadian Boyfriend, to stay where I was.

So now, lets discuss the hunt for new roommates.

Aside from the extremely stressful timing of this whole shenanigan-astic fiasco (what with me leaving for camp in a couple of weeks, and having a sublet) and just the general pain-in-the-assery associated with change, I was eager to tackle the task of finding two people to move into what is now my home.

I put out a ping online to friends and friends of friends. No bites. Bad timing. Lots of people looking for new digs for the start of September but alas July 1st, you were not the prettiest pig in the pageant. Its okay. Have a cookie.

And so I turned to that big aquarium of rare and bizarre creatures in the sky:

Craigslist (pronounced cray.g.z.list and not creg.s.list you North American foooooools)

And boy did I get a response!

I guess our rent is pretty reasonable for the area and the two rooms going are decent sized. I received 20+ emails in the first 3 hours. I was just happy that people were interested and I wasn’t going to have to scrape the barrel for people or die alone… wait…what?

I was pretty upfront about the place, what I’m like and the type of person I was after. I asked for people to tell me a little bit about themselves when they emailed me. The people who wrote “is the apartment still available?” or “I have interest. When I see the place?” and didn’t introduce themselves didn’t get an email with any further details.

But the ones who sounded normal, guys or girls, I was willing to give them the shot and show them around.

It just goes to show that anyone can represent themselves well on paper.

Where to begin, where to begin?

Perhaps with the guy that came first to look around. Tatoo sleeves, and insane scars all over his face from when he used to have 30+ piercings ABOVE the belt. Okay. Had a strange energy about him. Ex Cabinet maker, turned Paramedics student. I decided I better keep notes on all these people as I’d never remember them all. Beside his name I wrote “Nice. But kind of seems like that normal guy who would become a seriel killer.”

NEXT

Sweet, shy, Scottish guy who moved to Toronto around the same time I did. Cross eyed (me – extremely awkward and not sure where to focus when speaking to him – but no problem as he didn’t keep my eye for more than a second). Told waffling stories about things his grandfather said, or a random, completely out of context funny moments recalled, with no pretext or set up…

NEXT

Really nice, kind of dweeby guy who kind of reminded me of Howard from ‘The Big Bang Theory’. Works at Medieval times (a restaurant EXPERIENCE with live horses and jousting competitions, serving wenches tankards of ale…) as a trumpet player, studies music at University. Told me about his very shy, sweet girlfriend who might come and stay now and then. Yep fine no problem. This guy was looking like a winner… but just as we got up to go, his craigslist started to show.

“Oh there is one more thing” he begins, “I’m not sure if I should mention it…” he trails off.

Me: so friendly and encouraging, really think this guy is nice: “Go ahead. Be open, what is it?”

Him: “well… it’s not that my girlfriend and I have an open relationship really but…occassionally there would be a random person coming home with me.”

Me: (Is this guy telling me he kind of cheats on his girlfriend?) “Ok….

Him: “Oh! It’s not cheating… My girlfriend would be there too…”

Me: ……………………. uhm……………….

Him: “Not very often. But on Occasion. I thought I should mention it…”

Me: (TOTALLY Flustered) Right… okay so…. uhm just out of curiosity boys or…girls or… (WHY DID I ASK THAT?!)

Him: “Oh! Both! Sometimes at the same time rarely.”

He blushes. I blush.

Me: …………………………………… Thanks for coming to see the place. I’ll let you know.

There were others.

But nothing stood out like that exchange.

And I’m not against whatever it is he needs to do in the privacy of his bedroom. But… in our first meeting? In the first 30 minutes of getting to know the guy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful he said it, because he was top three.

Thankfully, since then, I found two cool girls who are happy to move in.

brrrrrrr*SHUDDER*rrrrrrr

I dipped my toe in the craigslist pond, and lived to tell the tale.

We’ll see how this all works out.

A bag and a half of Crazy

Hi. I’m Paris. I’m 5″4, I have skin that breaks out in hives on occasion for no reason, and curled toes that  kind of look like claws. Also, I’m female, and as such I have lady productive parts, fun items like a womb, and these bad ass things called ‘Fallopian tubes.’ Pretty sure there’s other fun stuff down there, but that’s not what I’m really here to talk about today. I’m mostly talking about the goody-bag that turns me into a hormonal rampaging she-mammoth every 28 days or so.

Lots of boy readers (haha oh paris, lots, you flatter yourself…I digress) may be turning away at this point.

EW GROSS is she going to start talking about the P word?!

No. Relax brothers and father (the main component of my male readership) I am not here to recall hilarious anecdotes involving the painters and decorators (have I just turned my two gay brothers gayer?… oh well), instead I want to talk about that exciting game of wearing-no-seat-belt-while-quaffing-hard-liqour-and-oh-shit-the-break-lines-appear-to-be-cut…

PMS

Yup.

I am really lucky to have been born into a body I’m comfortable in, and I’m not whingeing about being of the female variety. There are super awesome advantages, and I have a baby making OVEN on my person, that’s a pretty cool aspect of the human body.

But honestly, hormonal roller coasters of swashbuckling highs and lows… I can do with out.

I try to be a rational person. I do. And 90% of the time, I wander through my brilliant life with very little to worry about, enjoying all the wonderful opportunities around me. I have an amazing family, great friends on all different continents, and a downright hilarious, Canadian-certified nice guy for a boyfriend.

And yet…

There are days where everything seems to go wrong. I’ve suddenly gained 20kilos over night. The re-occurring pimple is back and nastier than ever. My hair looks greasy, even though I washed it yesterday. People on the train were pushy. My friends don’t write back to my text messages. No body loves me. My boyfriend doesn’t love me, and he doesn’t understand me. My parents are being mean. My brothers suck and are ungrateful. And I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. And I hate EVERYTHING. And I need to eat all this chocolate but I’m SUCH a WHALE and I’ll never be happy or have the perfect life or have nice things and my career will be shit andijustwanttobelikecarriebradshawevenifSJPkindoflookslikeahorseandeverythingsucksandAHHHHHHH

This. Is. Hell.

You are a rational prisoner trapped inside your own body. A small voice in your head says:

“Actually, you look fine, you aren’t fat, and if you’re worried about it, just go to the gym and put down the chocolate”
“Your friends are just busy – they aren’t ignoring you.”
“Your boyfriends great – leave him alone and stop causing make-believe drama in your relationship”
“Your parents aren’t mean, they’re honest and open with you – be nice to your brothers, they might have to lend you a kidney or piece of liver one day.”

I like to imagine that the voice of rational me is like a tranquil calm old man sitting at a wooden table trying to hash this out, while the crazy me is like a swarthy, hairy, staggering pirate, sculling ale and slamming his fists down on the table.

“NO! WE SAIL AT DAWN!”

So, I am a crazy, teary, mess of anger and sullen silence for a week. And the people that love me start to think, wtf is wrong with the chick, why can’t she just be cool and the rational old man in me just sits in the corner (maybe he’s like Obe Wan Kanobe?) and he just shakes his head and thinks:
“This one will have to learn the hard way”

But honestly, HONESTLY, I hate being a bag and a half of crazy as much as the people around me hate me transforming into a bag and a half of crazy. It makes me apologize when a wave of ridiculousness has passed, and then spend stupid amounts of time fretting over why I am such a bag and a half of crazy, spending time talking and re-hashing scenarios with girlfriends, going home and thinking about the conversation I had with my girlfriends about being crazy, thinking: shit, maybe they think I’m 2 full bags of crazy and noonewilleverwanttohangoutwithmeandOHMYGODHERECOMESANOTHERWAVE!

To the ladies out there who feel my pain and know what I’m talking about – you are not alone. We all have our moments of crazy and semi-depression, and our self doubts.

To the guys (Hi dad) don’t hate us. I don’t know how you put up with us sometimes, but I’m super glad you do. And hey, at my age, I’ve probably only got twenty or so more years to go until I hit the ultimate jackpot in Hormonal Ecstasy known as Menopause. And from there I think we’re pretty much done… Until I produce a female heir and she turns 13…

xxxx

P

*picture found on Reddit.com
Artist http://www.murraythenut.com

All the good things are bad for you

Today I read an article about E. Coli found in raw cookie dough and an outbreak of that disease which occurred in the United states in 2009.

Well, shit. There goes another good thing.

Why do all the good things have to be bad for you?

Eating raw cookie dough is one of life’s little joys, and while it may be that the blobs you pull off that long, cylinder of greatness, can be directly applied to your thighs, it is one of the vices I indulge in a couple of times a year. Thighs non-withstanding.

You know, those days when you put on the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice…and sigh that maybe there’s a Mr Darcy out there for you…and then you look down and there’s no more cookie dough for cookies because you ate it all between episode 3 and four when he proposes for the first time…so you have to go and buy some more?

You know what I’m talking about. Don’t pretend like you don’t.

I’ve always been told that you shouldn’t eat raw cookie dough. But I always did it anyway. It’s like knowing that getting blackout drunk is not good for your brain…what is word….cells?

It’s like knowing that you shouldn’t have a scalding hot shower in winter as it dries out your skin.

It’s like knowing that going to bed with wet hair can get you sick.

It’s like knowing you shouldn’t sleep in your makeup, but you’re already in bed and the bathroom is over there.

It’s like knowing you shouldn’t pick up that 3 am call from your ex, but maybe he really does just want to talk.

Eating raw cookie dough is the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of things which are bad for us but that we do regardless. Life can’t be lived if you pay too much attention to coloring inside the lines.

And besides, what’s the worst thing that could happen if you DID get E. Coli…?

oh.

ew.

Link

Hmmm…

What else is eating raw cookie dough like?

 

 

That one time I tried online dating

I am 23. As you may or may not have gathered from previous posts.
I have two degrees (in useful things like “Film” and “Creative Writing” – watch as I beat away potential employers with a club, “NO DAMNIT! I want to work in Admin”).
I am not unattractive  (depending on what day in my ‘cycle’ you catch me). I have blonde hair, green eyes and I’m kind-of short. You wouldn’t describe me as a lean green fighting machine, but then neither am I the shape of a Subaru. If I had to describe my body type I’d say… Cello flavour. Without the wood. + more cellulite.
I don’t have bodies cut up and buried under the floorboards (wait did I… oh no that was the OLD house).
And despite a slight obsession with the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice and other fairy-tales, which is a product of my gender-stereotyped upbringing (shut up I LOVE Barbie) I am what you would call, pretty “normal.”

(I’m only bringing this up – as you will find out when you scroll down – because of certain stereotypes of people who meet online – there I’ve gone and ruined the whole plot now)

So anyway, that’s me. And at 23, most of the guys I meet in person aren’t married, divorced or widowed (so that’s good), yes many of them are gay, or not fully formed, but unlike my thirty-something-year-old friends, there seems to be a lot more apples on the trees, and less rotting fruit underfoot. Are you keeping up with the analogies? No, you’re right they are getting a bit convoluted.

Regardless of that, what I am trying to say is that there are people around, in the flesh. People I could date/bang. Or both. Currently I am Dating/…. someone, but there have been times when I wasn’t. And one of those times was the start of 2009, when I, littler, non degree holding, 20 year, broke up with the first “Big One.” You know, the one you do grownup stuff with, like, going out for dinner. He was the after high school one. The one that my late teenage heart thought was “IT”. Love, blah blah.

So there I was. Single. Living on campus. Surrounded by booze and boys. Did I take time to appreciate being single (somewhat), did I think to myself, “Hey twenty year old Paris, just be cool.”

Did I?

no.

And what did I do?

Join an online dating website.

That’s right Ridiculous self-of-the-past (chastising voice of older, wiser self)

Part curiosity, part joke, part dare/truce from then not-out-of-the-closet-younger-brother-who-had-never-had-a-girlfriend-well-really-Paris-I-wonder-why-that-is? my brother and I made online dating profiles for each other – then switched.

Like I semi-mentioned above, there is (or was, I believe it’s changing now) a stereotype associated with meeting online that goes something like this:

“It is shameful to meet your partner online.” / “You must be embarrassed you met online, what’s wrong with you – can’t you meet people in real life?” / “You must be ugly or there must be something weird and freaky about you. Only nerds and socially awkward mollusks meet online.” (I hope you read those with varying degrees of old man type voices, like the guy who shakes his fist at the kids who kick their balls onto his property)

Newsflash – LOADS of people meet online.

I know a couple getting married next year that met online (both young, attractive Sydney types), my ex-roommate in Enmore just celebrated one year with her boyfriend she met online, and statistics show that the online dating industry is growing everyday (don’t ask me to back that up with a source…there is no source… okay there is one here stop nagging me, go nag your father).

When I delved into the ocean of potential back in ’09, there were plenty of attractive guys. Quirky, yes. New to town? Maybe. Normal – so it appeared. They had hobbies, they had jobs and goals, they read stuff. They watched things. They put funny little quotes on their profiles and had pictures of themselves standing in front of monuments.

Of course there were freaks (it’s not like Internet providers make you sit a weirdo test to get a connection), and I am sorry to say that a few slipped through the cracks, but there were also nice people to be found, ones with good conversation openers and amusing anecdotes to tell.

And then one broke through entirely, swept me away and we dated for two years. He shall thus be known as the one after the one after the one in highschool.

I don’t regret that experience, dating my ex was interesting. He’s a nice enough guy (it’s been long enough since our breakup that I am at the “generous” remembering stage), and certainly different from the type I normally go out with. Quiet, a little nerdy, he did live in my area, but I’m not sure we would have met if not for little old http://www.rsvp.com.au.

And that is where the key lies with online dating. You meet people outside of those you usually would. The internet connects us to many faraway and magical places, like Youtube, Reddit, and dlisted.com.

We all move in circles, very rarely moving from outside of them. If you hang out with the same people – you’ll see the same type of people. If you go to the same 6 bars, you’ll see the same type of people. If you work in a specific industry – you’ll meet people from that industry. If you go to a university…you see where this is going.

It takes a lot of push and change to meet different kinds of people (see my previous posts about me randomly moving to Canada after a summer camp experience and very different type of people I now know).

Internet dating exposes you to a bunch of single people instantly (that’s another thing to note when you go out, how many people are actually single in a bar…? it’s hard to tell). Internet dating instantly shows you what the other person is into. It’s like it takes away that awkward asking each other questions, finding similarities thing. All that information is front and centre. You just have to pick and choose. You can narrow searches to people who live in the same 5km radius as you. You can search for people who have blue eyes and who are Scorpio’s. You could (but you shouldn’t) narrow your search to 35-year-old men who still live with their parents.

But I digress.

Online dating should not have a stigma attached to it.

Most things available in “Real Life” are now also available online.

I couldn’t possibly list them all (alright I could, but I’m lazy) but things like shopping, degrees, friends. Thats right ladies and gents. All found on that big invisible spider web in the sky. It’s a spider web right? The internet?

So anyway.

Internet dating. I can recommend it from personal experience. If you can’t seem to meet the right person and you want to change your circles, then head online to one of these many fine sites:

http://www.rsvyp.com.au (Aus – Free)
http://www.plentyoffish.com (Worldwide – Free)
http://www.match.com (Worldwide – Paid)
http://www.flirtbox.ca (CA – Free)

And if that doesn’t work, hey, you can always move to Canada!

End Rant.

Post Dedicated to Emily Burgess because she checks my blog every day to see if I have updated