Tag Archives: single

5.0 Twelve months, 50 blogs and 39148 bottles of wine.

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Well I finally did it. I started a blog. I posted my ranting, my crazy, my dating, my tears, my ups and my breakup downs for exactly the last 12 months. It’s almost poetic I started this blog on March 27th 2013 and I’m making this meaningful last post; 50 blogs, 1 break up and more likely 76 bottles of red wine later on March 27th again.

Yes, you read it right – I’ve decided to bring my blog to an almost end. Because as much as I love doing it – I love sewing just that little bit more.

We’ve had our tantrums, I’ve been hurled abuse. I’ve had long lost friends I barely remember what they look like message me out of the blue to say how much they enjoyed reading my blog and what disaster they’d been dating of late. Which was the one thing I wasn’t really expecting and have really appreciated the most.

A huge thank you to my editors – Ben, Michelle and Frawls. And of course to Dan for hosting and spending the $16 to get me online after my 2nd bottle of break up red.

As I write this there has been a total of 39,148 reads and 11,801 unique user clicks. Something I never thought imaginable. Some people out there must have really boring jobs.

Thanks to Google analytics – the strangest country award goes to: Yemen… actually no make that… Kyrgyzstan. I know having a travel writer boyfriend who reads from Fiji to Timbuktu must surely push the numbers up – but he hasn’t read my blog from 90 countries in the last 11 months unless he’s actually Superman and I haven’t spotted any Lycra beneath his suits just yet.

Before Google took away the power of search term visibility the funniest thing someone typed into Google that bought them to my blog was “Gucci long black socks.” What the latte-hell?

Coming in at the highest hit rate most likely as it was published on Elephant Journal was:
1.8 Date a girl who can sew.
5634 post views.
Elephant Journal publication: Date a girl who can sew.
(Their post stats: 3912 views. 155 Facebook shares.)

Second place goes to:

3068 post views.

And third place:

2962 post views.

Thank you for all your loyal readership and I promise it’s not goodbye forever. I’ve just got bigger projects to begin and a fashion label to launch (fingers crossed).

Feel free to write in any relationship or dating questions and I promise to write a public blog response. internationalsmorgasbord@gmail.com

And yes – there most likely… definitely… will be a book.

x
Lorenza

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4.2 Boyfriend material is the new black.

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“Yeah but he’s not boyfriend material” I’ve heard myself say countless times over the cotton twill wilderness of the last few single years. What does make up this elusive, oh so sexy and shiny boyfriend material? Or for the other half of the population out there – shiny Barbie, busted, blonde – cough – sorry getting carried away – girlfriend material?

For me when looking for the ultimate boyfriend-fabric it’s the fairly obvious things; They need a job, (a good job) you know something that would hold up so I didn’t have to breast feed on lunch break. Sorry TMI? I’m not on the baby-thought-train just yet – but a girl’s got to think of these things. So he’d need that job, a driver’s license, some nice non-weed smoking friends and well, HECK, he’d just have to treat me right. As I get older this is a fairly black and white world for me. Oh he didn’t text back or cancelled our date with a shit-town excuse like he had to go to the gym? Equals = Shit bloke. Move on, plank and find another. Any guy who’s a student (sorry guys) or living at the parents – no matter how entrepreneurial the-next-Facebooking he thinks he is, is going in the non-fabricated boyfriend basket for me.

I’ve heard from guy friends it’s an immediate decision upon that first up, down, sentence out the mouth look. She’s ‘girlfriend material.’  Or she’s the ‘lycra with long, bendy legs’ material instead. To put it nicely that leggy one is never meeting the parents so-to-spandex-speak. This slightly annoys me because I can clearly remember every guy that has seen me as ‘girlfriend’ material because they’ve very obviously treated me that way or in a slightly stalkerish, cutesey bought me roses to brunch type way. Then there’s alllll the rest. And sure I got sucked in. ‘Oh he’s texting me at 10pm because he must have had a busy day.’ Re-read: that girl he likes more than you fell through so now he’s texting you.

And as we get older I’ve heard myself say things like “Take that photo down off Facebook! It’s not wife material”. As hot and leggy as it was – I’m sick of being the party girl and would prefer a social media persona of ‘She’s a keeper slash she looks responsible and nice enough to raise our kids’. Nevermind she can sink two bottles of red at home on a quiet Saturday night. We just leave that off the demure photo caption below.

Most of us have an idea of ‘boy/ girlfriend material’ even though we won’t say it out loud. It’s in our unwritten rules, it’s in our silent bullet point boyfriend lists, it’s stealing a superficial glance at those brown shoes and thinking ‘Oh honey no.’ Before we decide on that piece of material we may have to wear for the rest of our lives.

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3.6 A spoon full of smile, half a cup of intrigue and a pound of uncertainty.

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I’ve found the perfect recipe to dating. Well maybe it’s not a Women’s Weekly worthy recipe – but it requires scales or cups or varying degrees of anything that can measure equal parts of ‘like’. After years upon years of dating I’ve concluded; a relationship can only blossom (yes I said blossom) when there’s the same amount of like/ lust/ scaredy cattiness tugging on both sides of the does-she/he-like-me-too? whiskers of the cat.

We’ve all been there. You’re absolutely gushing over this new guy/ girl you’ve met – you’ve had a date or a few dates, it’s ramping up, you’re clearing your Saturday for waxing and blow drying when Tuesday’s toddled by, Wednesday’s humped along and now you’ve checked your phone 14 thousand times yet the dribble of flirty fun texts that weren’t really mentioning anything of a meetup but SURELY that’s what he was getting at with all those winky smiley faces right? Have now become nothing. Cold hard iPhone cracks of sweet nothing. You might even send another message… but regret it exactly 14 seconds, minutes, hours and possibly days and years if you’re me later when there’s still no response.

Were you too keen? Did you smell like curry on that last date? Did you put too many suggestive eggplant emoticons in that last text? Should you have not sent the topless selfie? Kidding. Who does that? At least crop your head off for that’s-not-me to the colleagues and lawyers for hooters sake.

Anyway it’s none of that, trust me. Dudes love curry. Simple thing is: You both weren’t feeling, having, parading, gushing or simply equal measuring in the same amount of like.

I’ve dated guys I was ahhing and mmming over. Yet the way-too-soon moment of receiving the “Sitting at the train station thinking of you…” text. I threw him straight in the ‘He likes me too much and I don’t like him that much and now shit’s just weird’ pile. Urgh. Had he left that another few weeks or even to the next date I probably would have swooned. Probably.

You need the cat and mouse. You need the pull and tug (that didn’t sound right) you need the thrill and squealing suspense. You need to stare at your screen and get Samsung butterflies when that text appears – not have four on your screen before you’ve even date-debriefed to the housemates. Because it’s no fun when someone obviously likes you, so early on, is it?

I’ve been there when a housemate gave a girl a bunch of flowers. Second date. With an… “I love you”. Oh gosh it was terrifying, unbelievable cute and oh-so-wrong all at the same time. Thank goodness this was uni days and he will have learned by now if he didn’t already from the cringes and wide eyes from those of us standing around. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on her face. Scared.

I liken this a little to housemate hunting or job interviewing – you’re both checking each out, you don’t want to be too keen but if you like them you’ve got to show enough interest to make them think they want you in their life. Acting all omg-I-love-your-paisley-couch is basically taking your date diamond ring shopping.

It’s such a delicate recipe I can see how so many people get it wrong. Yet I don’t think there’s a perfect way to knead that dough or cookie cutter those biscuits or measure that perfect amount of like someone has for you. You’ve just got to jump in there heart first, hands floured and hope to hell they’ve got that non stick, self raising flour, same level of like to share.

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3.4 Stop looking and you’ll meet the right one.

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“Stop looking for a boyfriend and you’ll meet the right one.” This has been the most bullshit-in-ly, useless statement I’ve ever had paraded out front of me come drunk, high or broken waters. Ok err so maybe not that last one. Stop looking? Righto – Well what counts as looking – Catching a tram? Going to work? Going to bars? Going to the gym? I believe all these places have men in them, at them, gyrating at them, lifting weights and sweating at them. That tram ride was awful I tell you. You’re being a bit ridiculous really, you’re telling me to stay in house, darn a few socks and iron my rock hard heart away?

OK, ok, I’ve got it. I’m not meant to be looking and I’m not meant to be wondering. But you see I find it pretty hard to have a smiley boy look at me, chat to me and not wonder – hmm is he single? Errm doesn’t every single, single girl? Though at this thirty plus age – it’s like trying to find Harry Potter’s magic wand in 50 Shades of Grey, it’s just not poking out. I’m talking about being married here don’t know what you’re thinking about.

So let’s look at when “I haven’t been looking” and all these “right ones” have come. The guys that chatted me up in bars, the guys that asked me out through work, the guys that met me at weddings, parties anything and chased, chased and chased. Most of these guys have been record dating disaster cases. It seems every time I get swept up by a guy who’s gagging for a girl like me I end up with a guy that drives me insane, I eventually have to cut off and then use for blog material. Not really the boyfriend magic you people are on about.

Let’s flip that Lorenza cupid coin and compare with every time I’ve looked interested (Ok stared) at a boy, taken an interest in a boy, waved my arms with a vodka in hand at a boy. I’ve ended up with a quick dispelled no interest waved back or wait for it… a boyfriend. Oh the crazy cat town NO!?! Maybe I’m independent enough, I know who I am, what I’d like in a partner and know what would compliment, suit me, make me happy and go head first barreling towards that. I’m not content sitting pretty and waiting for Mr Prince-Chagrined-Sausage-Charming like you all keep telling me I should.

Maybe I’m a bit different. I can’t speak for the hoards of girls out there that need a boyfriend to feel wanted, that need a boyfriend to go to a party with, that need a boyfriend to make basically any decision about their life. They make me want to shake them and scream – “Please be single for just one day. Be upset and cry. Feel vulnerable – because you’ll end up a much more whole version of yourself for doing it.” But I don’t.

Sorry, got off track having a ‘needy girls shit me’ rant. Back to it. My advice to you single girls – Don’t wait. Don’t sit around and wait. That perfect boy for you… maybe he’s writing columns for Fairfax, maybe he’s on your tram every day, maybe he’s gawking at you at the gym really hoping you’ll trip over that mat.

Don’t wait around for the ugliest boy to ask you to dance – take charge of your man hunt – look for what you like, look for what you think you’d like and look for the boy you can be weird in-front of and he’ll still think you’re a bit weird… but in a cute way.

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2.8 I can’t speak to my boyfriend for ten days.

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I can’t speak to my boyfriend for ten days and no we’re not doing some new-wave couples therapy – Cripes! It’s only been 3 months, 25 days, 12 hours and 3 minutes. It’s just that he’s in Africa.

So that means no emails, no texts, no Whatsapp, no Twitter, no Instagram, no nothing. In fact the only bullet point listed under the ‘communication’ tab on the website of his accommodation was “satellite phone in emergency” and I’m thinking sending your girlfriend an emoticon of an eggplant doesn’t really count as an emergency (not that he’d ever send that).

This is the only bad thing about dating a travel writer. (No really, that’s it) This is the longest we’ve not had contact since the four months before we even met. It sucks. I’m not going to lie, yesterday I was moping around like an emo-riffic teenager. Little Miss Hrumpf at everything. Of course I want my coffee black, salad if it comes in black too thanks. Today is better, I’m busying myself with powerpoints, work and what-not and that’s what Wednesday’s are for right?

In what situation these days do we ever have to go ten days without some form of communication though? Sure Dad goes on fishing trips for five days and I know some of you have husbands that work on the mines and all that catching up on “Australia’s Next Top Model” and re-arranging his sock drawer is fun for the first fourteen seconds. But you still have that option to call at the end of the day or on your lunch break if you really need to know where that hammer is. Which you shouldn’t have to do anyway – as you’re a woman and finding things you’re not supposed to is easier than CIA child’s play.

I’ve got ways to deal with the impending nine more days of staring at my phone waiting for it to breathe life in the form of text from another latitude of this world: There’s that $200 worth of fabric I bought at Lincraft to make a skirting-start on, there’s that thing you do Monday to Friday called work, there’s that Tan track I live right near to run around. But after all that sewing, working and running all I want to do is send or receive a message to or from the boyfriend and I can’t! Hrumpf.

This makes me worry how addicted I’ve become to my phone, or to the communication or to social media – or to the whole she-twitter-book-bang? I’ve really cut back my Facebook usage since being back in Australia – I can see my friends at lunch, hear about their hangovers and see their new haircuts in person. And I don’t need to be posting 14,000 pics of myself because a) I’m not travelling so it’s not very exciting and b) I’m not posting pics of bars in Melbourne – that’s boring (and secret). It’s more fun to laugh at people from Sydney trying to find them. (Yes down that alley and through the nondescript door) So maybe my love-stalk-affair with Facebook really has worn off.

I keep reading articles saying to get off Facebook because it’s making you jealous, fat and miserable with your life. Oh Facebook-effing-please. I feel like that walking around on my lunch break and not just from eating $15 worth of sushi because goddamn I missed it so much the last two we-don’t-have-sushi-years-in-London. There’s enough skinny, well dressed, made up to high-heeled heaven women wondering the streets to make me feel frumpy without Facebook enough.

So when it comes to all this jealousy and cursing the skinny people who are meant to be your 648 ‘friends’ on Facebook, clearly I’m a little weird because seeing ‘friends’ on sailboats in Croatia and climbing mountains in Switzerland spurred me on as I was never much the traveller and seeing these pretty pictures on Facebook gave me a kick up the get-out-there-and-do-it-yourself-butt. Though I can’t really say all those babies on my news-feed are doing the same thing for me… yet.

So I’m down to eight point five days now of zero boyfriend communication and I’m keeping busy with insta-whatsapp-tweeting-the-crap out of every friend-and-thing-I-have. As I figure while my boyfriend can’t Instagram photos of what he’s eating, someone’s got to pick up the pancake slack. Till then I’ll telepathically tell him I miss him and to hurry up and use that satellite phone for an emoticon emergency.

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