Sidechick 101.

So i am single. By that i mean, when i go somewhere, when i drink something, when i flirtatiously smile at some random guy at the bar or dance in a ridiculously short skirt, i don't have to wonder what anyone else thinks about it. When im in a relationship however, i'm in a relationship. And that means that whole biting of the lip, twirling of the hair thing i do takes a backseat.

But what are the rules when you're the sidechick? Question 1: Why are you the sidechick (0_o) lol.

Seriously though, leaving the moral aspect out of it, what is the standard protocol when you are dating someone else's boyfriend? I would assume that you are single. Any clever side-chick knows that the same way you do not have the right to question the philanderer's behaviour, he should not be in a position to question yours.

Its always funny to me listening to a side chick being grilled by SOMEONE ELSE'S BOYFRIEND, because now, you have all the responsibilities of a girlfriend but all the rights of a ho.

But whats even funnier to me are those sidechicks who then go and fall for the sorry excuse of a man. You my dear, are screwed- pun unintended. So i thought i would save the semi- oblivious girlfriend all the heartache of listening to whispered calls at 2 am and snooping through various desperate texts by giving a few pointers:

1. You are most likely going to fall for him. My theory is that you can only hook up with someone so many times before someone (you) decides to go and catch feelings.

2.He is not going to leave her. Yes, i know, he said that their relationship is over or he's never felt this way before, he lied. Even if he didn't- he's still not going to leave her. Why? No one wifes the ho.Simple as.

3. He is going to leave you. Why? I repeat: No one wifes the ho.

So bottomline? You will always get the short end of the stick. If you can grasp that concept, you've passed the course. Class dismissed ;)

Dear Future Husband

Somehow in the middle of tests, assignments, friends and the battle against the bulge, i still find the time to surf the internet aimlessly like I don't have a degree to get. But today all my procrastination actually bore fruit..

I found this beautiful piece written by Christina Hendricks, who just also happens to be smouldering! It says all the things that women want and like and don't even know we like. Literally mind blown and sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the guy that calls me radiant :)

"Christina Hendricks: A Letter to Men

We love your body. If we're in love with you, we love your body. Your potbelly, everything. Even if you're insecure about something, we love your body. You feel like you're not this or that? We love your body. We embrace everything. Because it's you.

Speaking of your body, you don't understand the power of your own smell. Any woman who is currently with a man is with him partly because she loves the way he smells. And if we haven't smelled you for a day or two and then we suddenly are within inches of you, we swoon. We get light-headed. It's intoxicating. It's heady.

We remember forever what you say about the bodies of other women. When you mention in passing that a certain woman is attractive — could be someone in the office, a woman on the street, a celebrity, any woman in the world, really — your comment goes into a steel box and it stays there forever. We will file the comment under "Women He Finds Attractive." It's not about whether or not we approve of the comment. It's about learning what you think is sexy and how we might be able to convey it. It's about keeping our man by knowing what he likes.

We also remember everything you say about our bodies, be it good or bad. Doesn't matter if it's a compliment. Could be just a comment. Those things you say are stored away in the steel box, and we remember these things verbatim. We remember what you were wearing and the street corner you were standing on when you said it.

Never complain about our friends — even if we do. No matter how many times we say a friend of ours is driving us crazy, you are not to pile on. Not because it offends us. But because it adds to the weight that we carry around about her.

Remember what we like. When I first started dating my husband, I had this weird fascination with the circus and clowns and old carnival things and sideshow freaks and all that. About a month after we started dating, he bought me this amazing black-and-white photo book on the circus in the 1930s, and I started sobbing. Which freaked him out. I thought, Oh, my God, I mentioned this three or four weeks ago and talked about it briefly, but he was really listening to me. And he actually went out and researched and found this thing for me. It was amazing.

We want you to order Scotch. It's the most impressive drink order. It's classic. It's sexy. Such a rich color. The glass, the smell. It's not watered down with fruit juice. It's Scotch. And you ordered it.

Stand up, open a door, offer a jacket. We talk about it with our friends after you do it. We say, "Can you believe he stood up when I approached the table?" It makes us feel important. And it makes you important because we talk about it.

No shorts that go below the knee. The ones almost like capri pants, the ones that hover somewhere between the kneecap and the calf? Enough with those shorts. They are the most embarrassing pants in the world. They should never be worn. No woman likes those.

Also, no tank tops. In public at least. A tank top is underwear. You're walking around in your underwear. Too much.

You don't know this, but when we come back from a date, we feel awkward about that transition from our cute outfit into sexy lingerie. We don't know how to do this gracefully. It's embarrassing. We have to find a way to slip into another room, put on the outfit as if it all happened very easily, and then come out and it's: Look at me! Look at the sexy thing I've done! For you, it's the blink of an eye. It's all very embarrassing. Just so you know.

Panties is a wonderful word. When did you stop saying "panties"? It's sexy. It's girlie. It's naughty. Say it more.

About ogling: The men who look, they really look. It doesn't insult us. It doesn't faze us, really. It's just — well, it's a little infantile. Which is ironic, isn't it? The men who constantly stare at our breasts are never the men we're attracted to.

There are better words than beautiful. Radiant, for instance. It's an underused word. It's a very special word. "You are radiant." Also, enchanting, smoldering, intoxicating, charming, fetching.

Marriage changes very little. The only things that will get a married man laid that won't get a single man laid are adultery and whores. Intelligence and humor (and your smell) are what get you laid. That's what got you laid when you were single. That's what gets you laid when you're married. Everything still works in marriage: especially intelligence and humor. Because the sexiest thing is to know you. "

Amazing right?

Pat for your weave?

In 2011, or as I like to refer to it: the “pansy” generation we are urged to speak our minds… but as euphemistically as possible. *yawn*

My problem with this, other than the fact that its just pansy, is that I don’t understand why people want to behave in socially abhorrent ways and then expect us to just snicker and side-eye them quietly. So today I’m going balls to the wall, and yes girl with the synthetic or multi coloured weave, I see you and no, I do not like you.

Now I am the ultimate weave person, by that I mean, black weaves, brown weaves, long weaves, short weaves, as long as it’s a weave (and it can stand heat without shriveling like I’d imagine the dignity of the person with a plastic weave) then I’m a fan.

Before I get into it, let me first give you a clear explanation of what is and is not a weave:

1.       If it is synthetic, it is not a weave.

2.       If there are three strands of it on your entire head, no hunny, not a weave.

3.       If it is green, or pink, or it has blue streaks, it should not be a weave.

4.       If it is any combination of the above? Get the fuck outta here with that! (yeah, I said it.)

I get it, weaves- like other people’s boyfriends- are what’s done in 2011. But what people need to understand about fashion and life in fact, is that some things are not for everyone. And some things which are “fashionable” are not fashion, they are just a tacky gang mentality.

In my many spirited discussions about these pseudo- weaves people say things like “maybe she can’t afford a human hair weave” and granted, maybe she can’t… THEN SHE SHOULD’NT!!!! I cant afford a Louis Vuitton handbag, so guess what, I’m not prancing around with a bad knockoff, I simply pine in silence.

The there are those poor souls who apparently just have no taste. Now, that happens… apparently. But where are your friends?

Now I am not suggesting something drastic like, go live on an island where there is no sun to blind us with the glare of the disrespect on your head, I’m just saying, get braids. Simple as.

In preparing for this blog I decided, rather than have a seizure every 5 minutes, to celebrate those people doing it right! So here are a few pictures of those people living every day like the camera lights are flashing. Viva le Good Life!

Prince Charming

Im sure we’ve covered this already but I am genuinely not your cuddly, approachable, poncho wearing, skips down the road kind of girl. I sincerely doubt I ever read fairytales or if I did I am quite certain I did not believe in them. The natural extension is then, that I wouldn’t believe in all the faggy, naïve business about there being this “the one” person for every single person- well I didn’t… Until I did.

While speaking to my friend *Boo she said one of the most profound things ive heard since “Do-rags are no longer in fashion”.  She said “I cannot wait until I am worthy of the man that God has prepared for me”.

Now I’m a Christian and I genuinely believe in the fact that God wants us to have everything that we need and even want for an awesome life. But “the one”?? In a world where fidelity is just about as rare as Christians who are actually Christians?? Cumaaan right? Well I’m not so sure anymore.

After breaking down what *Boo said, I saw too things: WAIT and WORTH. The truth is we live in a very quick fix kind of world, and that translates to us changing boyfriends between Tequilla shots and “falling in love” with any guy who so much as smiles or buys us a drink and two minutes later says he loves us.

I don’t think when it comes to love- REAL love- its meant to be some sort of heady gallop down the aisle. I think real love takes waiting and saying no, not just to that free drink but to the insanely cute guy holding it.

But what is love really in a world where it is thrown around at even the chance of it resulting in a shag? Look im 20, I don’t really know, but I when I think of real love, I imagine the kind of love which is patient and kind, which is slow to anger and quick to forgive, the kind of love which is faithful and honest. The kind of love which does not beat you or berate you or sleep with your best friend. The kind of love you have to work for and wait for, where your head and your heart are all but screaming yes.

But if my incredibly idealistic version (now that im proof reading) is anything like what love really is then the idea of worth makes sense. Look, if you’re a crappy person I sincerely doubt that it makes sense for God to send you a man who will give you that kind of love, because you’re not worth it. Maybe that’s why we keep dating different kinds of the same asswipes, because shit attracts flies.

So yes, girl lying in a strange man’s bed, yes, girl passed out in the ladies bathroom at the club every weekend you are not worthy of Prince Charming, mostly because you are a frog. 

Highschool never ends.

So I am in varsity, or so I thought. It seems everywhere can all of a sudden transform into an episode of mean girls and lipgloss and dirty looks. Be it crèche, high school or the inside of a lecture theatre there seems to be no difference.  But these days we have traded diapers for plaid skirts and plaid skirts for sparsely attended lectures and it seems all of those for some misinformed belief that we form some sort of panel to judge people’s lives.

So where is this coming from? Its coming from laughing at all the kids who didn’t get gold stars in crèche, cringing at the fat girl in the class in high school and tutting at all the girls we label “ho’s” in varsity. But mostly it is from the realization that we think its ok, that its expected.  That we live in a world where we are held hostage by other people’s opinions of us.

So whether we are biting back tears when we are the butt of someones joke, pretending we don’t care when we realise what that statement really means when you remove the “lol” or laughing at some poor sap wearing cordrouy pants in 2011, the fact is, we are all of them.

We are the panel of haters, we are the girl we shake our heads at, and sometimes, we are a mix of the two. Its at this point that I want to throw in my plaid and my lectures for some common sense. Can we all just grow up and get lives? Can we get to a place where we our smiles are genuine, our exes aren’t crazy and we stop the running commentary on other peoples lives?

Really. If you’re anything like me, you should be too pretty and well dressed to care that the next person isn’t.

Glass houses

So yet again, had given me lemons, and like a true champion of the cause i was thinking tequilla and not lemonade! But alas, not all life's answers can be found in a shot of Cuervo. So it seemed i was going to have to be an adult and actually deal with it (barf). 

I was at the wonderful place that i imagine old men with white beards writing cliche's about, while the modern wimp gets another self-help book. I can almost hear my English teacher bandying around phrases like "stuck between a rock and a hard place" or one or other unfaithful bastard shouting "Bitches be loco" while he shakes his head! Fact is they're both true.

This modern tragedy features the unfaithful bastard, the very well dressed damsel in distress and the friend who shat on her happy ending, well something of the sort.

So in any credible Kingdom the traitors would be banished, or if it was an Islamic state stoned to death, but in little world i live in, it just didn't seem as easy as booting them out as the crowd sang Ce la vie!

The fact is break ups are easy or they're hard but there is something different about ending a friendship. There is something about letting someone be a part of your life in that way that makes it hard to simply make the cut. But simultaneously, one cannot be a dumping ground for people's shitty decisions.

One of the hardest decisions in life is which bridge to burn and which bridge to cross, so what to do?? 

Personally? Pass me the gasoline, lets burn this motherfucker down.

Friends, Flakes and Faders

I'm not really your run-of-the-mill nice, girl next door, kind of person. Ok, to be honest, im not that person at all. Mainly because i don't really see the point in walking around smiling at every Tom ,Dick and Jabulani that has decided that the one drunken conversation you had now means they know you.

This devil-may-care attitude of mine stops right there i'm afraid. Because when it comes to friends I all but give up a liver- just in case you need one some day. I don't know whether thats because im loyal or because im stupid but for whatever reason, i'm that friend.

This weekend i learnt what friendship really means, and its not taking shots at the bar together, or laughing at that badly dressed person you walked past or even being there that one time I cried. Friendship is consistency, it is bending over backwards, it is going out of your way to be there for the other person. Friendship is listening to them tell the same story about the same douchebag over and over until they are over it, essentially, friendship is admin.

And thats what i expect, because that's what i give. But lets face it, thats a bit of a tall order. And thats what i learnt this week while i was somewhere between my fifth tequilla shot and a nervous breakdown, that not all friends fit that exact category and thats ok- As long as you remember who is whom.

So let me break it down for you:

1. They are there to laugh, to drink, to do stupid things, to dance in the rain with you. But thats all they are.

2. They are there to cry, to pray, to tell you you deserve better, to weather the storm. But thats all they are.

3. They are there to laugh, to pray, to do stupid things, to get you to dry ground. They are everything.

And thats it. You can't always have everything in everyone, but when you do, hold on to it and fight for it because for every number three there are a dozen other people pretending to pick you up while secretly hoping you'll fall.

Me and my Blair

So essentially this post is a salute to all my beautiful everything people, to *Speckle and *Lollipop this is also to the life lessons learnt with a shot Cuervo in my hand. This is to growing up, with or without you.

BFF??

Call it what you want- "Friends with benefits", "Fuck buddies", "Colossally shitty idea" either way, you should most probably just take a cold shower and let that go. So yes, there's nothing quite as fun as that no holds barred time of flirting without expectation, fucking without drama and still getting to laugh while you cuddle but alas, like all good things it ends in that akward moment when you see him hooking up with someone else and all of a sudden you're that jealous girl giving stank in the club!!

I mean yes, i could launch into my already rehearsed speech about how you need to put your friendship first but to be honest, that doesn't really convince me either, cause lets face it, we're the exception right? Wrong. With benefit friends, someone always pulls a Charlie Sheen, loses their job, but for some reason still thinks they're #winning. He WILL fall for you, or even more likely, you will for him and end up like every other notch on his bedpost: forgotten.

Then you get friendships like me and *Tequilla, we didn't quite start out as most friends do-insert wink- and even now that we are friends, there is always that undercurrent of sexual electricity so whats the harm right? Again, wrong. Ok, to be honest, i'm not sure. The truth is it's a little less black and white when the weather is grey and all but actually screams "FORNICATE BITCHES!!!!"

The world preaches that sex is just sex but i don't buy that. I think sex is just as much emotion as it is legs in the air-mid shriek-carnal, screwing. But seriously though, there is no such thing as "No strings attached", its just a matter of who will be the sap standing alone with their banjo in the rain- I know, i should watch fewer American movies!

So yes, go for it if that's what you want to do but remember your manners: Guests usually take gifts to a party. In this case i'd suggest a marker... For his bedpost.

Just Friends?

They lied to you. Who? Everyone.

All of the people that said you looked nice in that horrendous skirt you're wearing or told you that wearing a midrift bearing top in 2011 was still in fashion and even worse the people who said you can be friends with your ex.

Gasp!! I can almost hear the chorus of "What the hell do you know" screaming through cyber-space from all the naive little people who are either still in love with their ex's but have been friend zoned so hard they have to pretend that thats what they wanted too, or from the ones who think their ex isn't into them when he all but actually drools and starts scratching his man bits every time you so much as smile a him.

And then there are those who don't fit either of those categories and are sitting there smugly thinking they got it right. Hi, i see you Self-righteous- and you're even more deluded than the rest. Thats really the saddest place to be because its there in emotional Siberia where you are most likely to just have no idea of what the hell is going on. Let me guess, you genuinely see him as a friend but somehow you still kind of miss something more and you relate to Adele a little more than you should? Yep. He's not your friend. 

So what does this all mean? Do you toss him out like that awful skirt and turn that midrift into the wash rag it so desperately needs to be? Maybe. What you don't do though, is run around like you've got it all figured out throwing around the term "just friends" like you have even an inkling of what that means.

The fact is ex-boyfriends suck and break-ups reeeeeeeally suck and no amount of being cordial or civil or friendly is going to change that. Especially if like *Strohrum your ex is really the reason Kanye West released "Toast to the douchebags" (Yeah, he's really not your friend).

My advice, be honest. People really aren't as stupid as we like to think.l If you're not over him, he knows that, so just wait until you are. If he's not over you, don't be a bitch, leave him alone till he is- and no one buys that whole "I really didn't know" bullshit you're selling.

There is no blueprint for getting over someone, just like there is no Guantanamo for people in Corduroy pants or Al Qaeda for shops that sell mini-skirts in sizes above a 36, thats life and love and it really just kind of sucks. 

Emotional concealer

Now i'm not really a make-up person, partly because im so fucking hot (just joking) but mostly because its tedious and fake to spend an hour turning myself into someone i'm not. But at the very thought of a lovebite i am the first person reaching for the concealer because lets face it, love bites are glorified tramp stamps. Hickies are ugly and they don't match the rest of your skin, they are a reminder to you and everyone that sees you that you have deviated from the path.

We all have that part of ourselves which we'd rather pretend didnt exist. That part of us that makes us go back to ex-boyfriends and betray our values and our friends, that part of us that we hide behind lipgloss and aviators, until we get to our rooms and we are faced with the fact that we can be better. That part of us that is kind of like a hickie: ugly and doesn't match the rest of us.

And thats the important part: perspective. It doesn't match the rest of us. We might not be all good but we're not all bad either.

Yet there i was dabbing concealer on both my hickies.. But then it dawned on me that concealer merely hides the bruise, it doesn't take it away. You can fool everyone but when you touch your neck, it'll still be a little tender, a little sore and u'll know that under the concealer there is that little bit of ugly.

So i took it off and i saw myself exactly as i was, not quite pretty but not quite ugly. Not quite lost but a little way from found.