Pet Peeve #41 – Slow Walkers

Trying to walk down the street, through the mall, down the aisle in the grocery store and having to stop and manoeuvre my way through this slow mess of traffic really winds me up. I’m not even just talking about the elderly who are unable to engage the thrusters. I’m talking about people my age who just wander about with their head in the clouds as if they’re lost. Surely there is some purpose for you to be here? There is something you want, yes? That’s why you’re in a store, correct? Surely there are better settings for an aimless walk? Because I know you’re not here for exercise, slow as you’re going you’re probably getting more unfit. And the ones on the sidewalk, I can kind of understand it. It’s a nice change of scenery, you’re out to soak it all in. But what about just shifting up a couple of gears and burning a few calories while you’re out? Two birds, people!

                This peeve escalates when the single slow walker becomes a group. And even more when this group travels in a straight line taking up the entire aisle or sidewalk. Is it intentional? Is this some kind of game you go out and play to frustrate others? Or are you like a school of fish, just unable to leave each other’s sides?

                This gets exponentially worse when it translates to your golf game. You can’t play bad, play slow, and walk slow! What is that about!? It’s Sunday! There’s obviously people behind you that want to get a sweet 18 in and you’ve ruined it by the third hole.

                There are some remote places where slow walking is accepted; around in circles in your ward at the funny farm, from the shore deeper and deeper into the ocean, off a cliff, or even through traffic.

                Happy walking!

Friends With Benefits

It sounds like a good idea when you’re horny, but just how practical is this type of relationship? It is hard, though not impossible, not to develop feelings for the person you are sleeping with – even if it is only for a bit of fun to start with. You presumably find them attractive and can tolerate being around them for a fairly substantial period of time – there could be worse baselines. However, let’s just think about this situation before we commit.

                The girl/boy next door. Oh, what a fantasy! Hottie moves in next door and you eye each other off constantly, get caught accidentally on purpose, change with the blinds open. Will they? Won’t they? What a wonderful time, cool, playful. Wow you’ve just realized how short the walk of shame is, it’s all coming up Milhouse! You can have a few too many drinks and walk home. What more could you ask for!? Well, you could ask why they haven’t been getting home until 3AM every morning this week (you know this because you’ve been staring at their empty parking space) – way to play it cool, casual, no strings attached.

                If your FWB is an actual friend first, prepare for eternal awkwardness. These situations are meant to be temporary, but how can that be so if you are in the same friendship group and always around each other? How can you maintain the casual nature of the relationship when you are surrounded by, “So what’s going on with you and [so and so]?” That makes you think and thinking is not what FWB relationships are for.

                It may make you feel dirty, but getting up and leaving once you’ve taken care of business will maintain some emotional separation. Sleeping over and cuddling and having breakfast – that’s all for real relationships, leave that to the pros. Now there was an important phrase there – emotional separation – this means there are boundaries. So if you see this person out on a date with someone else, you are not catching them. They are allowed to do things like this, because while they are in a FWB relationship, they are still single.

                Please, please, use contraception. As I said, you guys are both single in this situation. Nobody knows how many other partners there are, how dirty or clean they are, whether or not they are safe with the other ones. You don’t want a baby or a disease from the person you are meant to be staying emotionally detached from.

                If you manage to do all these things – congratulations, you’re probably still going to fall for them. Accept it for what it is and move on because naturally at least one of you is going to catch feelings. This could be good or bad depending on the situation, but if a real relationship isn’t what you’re after, lay ground rules out from day one and don’t hang on to it longer than what feels appropriate.

Pet Peeve #40 – Verbal Texting

Texting was designed to be a quick and easy form of communication. Over time it has evolved into a preferred form of communication. Instead of people texting a short, sharp, quick, and easy, “what u doin 2nite?” they use text to send epic messages about thoughts feelings and emotions that would more easily and efficiently be communicated through voice. Anyway, through this evolution of texting from ‘convenient’ to ‘preferred’ it has formed its own language.

                As you can see in my example text above, texting originated with minimal punctuation and grammatical rules so we could shoot of a message in a matter of seconds. To save time, we have developed an extensive lexicon of acronyms; lol, wtf, lmao, rofl, brb, g2g, just to name a few. But now that we would rather text each other than talk to each other, these acronyms have crept into our everyday language (without further research, I want to say that many of these have actually been published in some brands of dictionaries). I am having real conversations with real people in which I actually hear the phrases ‘lol,’ ‘brb,’ and ‘wtf,’ more than I care to publicly announce.

                “BRB, I need to pee.”

                “LOL.”

                “It was like, legit LOLs.”

                “WTF, that’s crazy.”

                Stop it.

First Time

In most cases, your first time having sex is a pretty nerve wracking experience. Guys and girls obviously have different things to think about, but I will just focus on what we all have in common. When you finally get to the point where you think you’re comfortable enough to go through with it, sometimes doubt can creep in; do I look OK? Am I doing this right? Is he/she comfortable? Is he/she enjoying this? Are they as awkward as I am? How long is this supposed to take? Am I too sweaty? Obviously not the best thoughts to be having. Ideally both parties would be relaxed and comfortable. But luckily it gets better.. Kind of..

                The more you have sex with this person, the more comfortable and confident you will both become. You will know each other better sexually and your chemistry will take care of most of it. However, the more partners you have sex with, the more first times you have to encounter. A new partner means new preferences, different chemistry and personality, varied levels of sweat gland activity. Can you be 100% yourself your first time in bed with someone? Some of you super-confident Casanovas will say yes – well congratulations, you are the exception to this rule.

                The first time with a new partner is like a first date. You aren’t likely to be 100% yourself. You will say and do things that you think they want to see and hear. You want this person to like you, so you say and do what you think they will like. No one is usually crazy, possessive, and abusive on a first date.. well, maybe crazy. But these are all things that potentially come out later to end a relationship. The first time in bed is no different. Let’s say you’re a girl who enjoys a bit of butt stuff, I highly doubt that during your first time with a new partner you whisper, ‘Put your pinky in my pooper.’ It takes time to get to the level of comfort where you and a sexual partner can talk about what you like, and find out a few things along the way.

Pet Peeve #39 – Telemarketers

Okay, I understand these people have to make money somehow, but FUCK! They call at the most inopportune moments (usually meal times) and they blatantly lie about how long they are going to take. “Just a quick two-minute survey,” easily takes 15-20 minutes. Not to mention they don’t even give us a chance to say no. As soon as we say, “Hello,” they are off to the races with, “Hi Mr. McGrath, my name is Angel and I want to talk to you today about your data plan. Are you happy with your current data plan? We now offer X, Y, Z, and can give you the most value for your dollar. If you sign up today we can give you your first month free and the following three months at half price and then the fifth month at three quarter price and then the rest of the year at double the price until the next year starts at regular billing. So I’ll just sign you up for offer X today Mr. Macintosh bye!”

                All of a sudden you only have one handset but you’re paying for four plans and sponsoring two African children who never seem to age while you’re on the waiting list to donate your most important organs.

                I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to call anyone on the ‘Don’t Call’ list, but they do it anyway. So I pick up my phone like, “Hello.. Hello?.. Hel-,”
“Hi Claire, do you currently give to any cha-,” *click*

                Unsubscribe.

Can I Have Your Number?

I never thought this would need explaining, but things are starting to get out of control. When someone summons the courage to approach you and ask for your number (which can be difficult), what is it that you think they want? Do you think this person saw you, judged you completely on face value and thought, “That’s going to be my new friend!”?

                That is not what happened. The person saw you and was physically attracted to you and either wants to get to know what you’re like on the inside (mind, soul, spirit), or on the inside...

                “Can I have your number?” is a confession. It is someone admitting to you that they think you’re cute and they are interested in going out on a date, or at least a little Netflix and chill. So when they text you or call you wanting to hang out, they aren’t looking for a new bestie. Pretty self explanatory stuff.

                **And before I get the backlash of, “Oh, so we’re just supposed to sleep with everyone who asks us for our number?” Nooooo, just know what they’re really asking for and don’t give them false hope!

You think this dude is looking for a new pal?

Pet Peeve #38 – Dap Confusion

It seems that wherever I go, there is a different variation of dap. For a long time, as long as I can remember dapping, I have been a grabber. I was bred into grabbing. I have grown accustomed to it. I have lived outside of Adelaide of about seven years now, and now I’m back for a few months and everything I have grown to know and love has changed. My world has been flipped upside down.

I come home to this thing where it’s like a medium five followed by a bump. And without knowing this, I come to my city trying to grip on the dap, only for the opposing hand to dart away as if to avoid infection. This results in an, “Uh, oh, whoop... hahahaha (oh gawd),” type of scenario.

Do I want a universal dap? No. Do I want my ‘friends’ to give me a little heads up when an entire city decides to change its greeting? That would be nice. Maybe even a few practice runs.