The Sex Break
June 30, 2006 by NML · 2 Comments
A Sex Break is a half-way house to a Dating Hiatus and obviously, judging by the term, it means abstaining from sex whilst dating for an agreed period. This is great when you can’t do cold turkey, as a self-enforced Sex Break may be able to open your eyes enough to want to go the whole hog and have a dating hiatus or at least change your ways.
The Sex Break means that you either draw out the period of time that elapses before you have sex or just don’t have sex at all and ‘just’ date. This should enable you to have a clearer head and spot the signs of a Mr Unavailable. Sex colours your judgement and messes up your ability to see the wood for the trees. It often places you in the justifying zone, the special place that women go to when they have sex too soon with a guy and clutch at reasons to justify not only sleeping with them, but also why they’re still expending energy on a guy that isn’t living up to the dream.
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How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep
June 30, 2006 by Vixen · Leave a Comment
Every one knows that you get your optimal productivity on seven to eight hours of sleep a night. Anything more you are liable to like your bed too much to get up and anything less you are living on coffee and energy drinks to get you through the day.
For some of us, insomnia is an evil bane that ruins our moods and energy levels. For others we have evil neighbours who act like they are the only people on the block. Here are some tips to help you get your necessary rest.
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How Long Should It Take To Get Over Being Dumped
June 29, 2006 by NML · 6 Comments
There’s a school of thought that says different strokes for different folks and that getting over the pain takes time, but I firmly believe that there is such a thing as too much time. When it comes to breaking up, we have a propensity to do overkill and mourn the demise of the relationship disproportionately. So how long should it take to get over a break-up? As a general rule of thumb, a third of the time seems about right, if it is more than a month.
Relationships Under One Month
You shouldn’t need a guide when it’s within this time period but certainly no more than one week and at a push, two and that’s a serious push. If you’re still struggling to get over the break up and move on after a few months, I would say that there are some attachment issues afterall, once it’s over a month, you’re mourning them for longer than you actually went out with them.
All other relationships
A third of the time is a good way of having a barometer that tells you that’s it time to shake off the feeling and get back in the land of living. The only time when this may not be applicable is if something shocking happened to cause the break up such as cheating or some sort of abuse as these have longer lasting effects. In the general sense though, moving on is good for your health, emotionally and physically. Find a way to get closure and move on because unfortunately whilst you’re staying home sobbing into your pillow every night wishing for him to come back, he is quite likely to be getting on with his own life. If you find that you are really struggling to let go, see a counsellor/therapist. I also recommend taking a nice holiday and if you can do it on your own, all the better.
The longer you take to get over being dumped is the longer you stay living in the past. Of course you need time to heal and of course you’re hurting, but trite as it may sound, it does get better. One day you wake up and you realise that life really is going on and it doesn’t feel anywhere near as bad as you thought it would be.
NML is the editor of Baggage Reclaim and has suffered her share of heartbreak.
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How Not to Get Fired at Your Job
Almost every gal knows the standard office etiquette…it’s usually drummed into us in Orientation of our first job. However, there are some stuff that are frowned upon in the industry that you might not be clued in about. Here are some little rules for the stuff that is left open-ended—or unsaid.
- No smoking in the office. It will seriously piss off your coworkers and it’s also illegal in most places!
- Keep personal phone calls very short. Employers don’t want to pay for you to conduct your business on their dime. In addition, your coworkers don’t want to know all your damn business!
- Be careful what you say when you think ‘noone’ is around. Remember in Ally McBeal when whoever they were talking about in the bathroom was always in the cubicle next to them?
- Be nice to the ‘little people‘. Sure you might think that having a modicum of seniority gives you the right to be a bitch, but you catch more flies with honey than vineger. If the mail guy/receptionist is pissed at you and has the opportunity, they will wreak havoc on your career. So be nice to everyone. Even the little people.
- Dress like a Career Girl. Not like a Vegas showgirl, or a stripper. Invest in some decent office apparel (if you’re broke, outlet/designer discount & thrift stores will help you out.) Leave your more sexy, tight, split and racy cuts for AFTER work.
- Office Romance—BAD IDEA! Take it from all the hordes of ladies that have gone before you. No matter how hot he is, how much you guys click on the job, an office romance is a recipe for disaster. If it does work out you have all your coworkers questioning/gossiping about you. If it doesn’t work out, you have to deal with your broken heart while watching him prance around your job five days a week. Eek!
- If you are going to break standard office rules, be slick about it. You can get fired on the spot for breaking the rules, so think twice before you lie on your expense claims, stash office stationary home or ‘work the system‘ to actually avoid doing any work.
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Dating Etiquette & Gender Roles
June 27, 2006 by NYM · 11 Comments
Well women, we’ve won the right to vote, we’ve won the right to wear trousers, we’ve even won the right to equal pay for equal work.Well, at least in the U.S. of A. we have. But along with all of these “rights,” have we also won the right to ask a man on a date? Have we won the right to ask for a man’s phone number? Have we won the right to pay for a date?
As gender roles become less and less distinct, it creates difficulty in the dating world. On one hand, a society with strictly defined gender roles eliminates confusion and awkwardness. Each person knows exactly what he or she is obligated to do, to say, and to expect. On the other hand, it’s dis-empowering, unfair, confining, demeaning, belittling, etc.
As women have become more educated and independent, we no longer require a husband to support us and this fact has changed the face of “courting.” If women may earn just as much money as men, why should they not be able to invite a man out and pay for a date? Or why should a woman not be able to ask for a man’s number and make the first call?
People will say that it should be left up to men to make the first move because the male sex are “hunters.” That it is essential to the power structure of the relationship. That it is essential to the power structure of the species, and that if a female makes the first move, the man will, for the duration of the relationship, feel as if he wasn’t in control in the relationship. And there are also a lot of women who enjoy being “old-fashioned” and feel it’s a sign of weakness for a man not to make the first move, or they just simply enjoy the “traditional” progression of relationships.
This kind of shite just makes me want to vomit. Particularly when this crap is coming from women. I wonder if these same women feel uncomfortable with the right to vote and the right to own property and the right to decide what happens to their own bodies.
And I get equally nauseated at the “men are hunters/women are gatherers” argument. Yes, humans are animals, but we have evolved. We are sentient beings. We can speak. We can reason (well, most of us). Is that all we are reduced to? Animal instincts? Maybe I’m expecting too much, but am I the only one out there who believes that we should make the effort to overcome our basic animal instincts? I suppose that we could just chuck thousands of years of evolution and revert back to the days of Cro Magnum Man. The males could go out hunting for meat, and the women could stay close to the caves gathering nuts and berries and then at night the alpha males could mate with the females doggy-style.
I do believe that there are a lot of men whose egos are much too fragile to allow them to carry on a relationship with a woman who makes the first move. And those are probably the same men whose egos are much too fragile to allow them to carry on a relationship with a woman who makes more money than them, or who has a career that is much more successful than theirs, or who has opinions about politics. Does this mean that women should not work at all? Or that women should only hold menial jobs so that they will never surpass men in earning or career potential?
Are women so desperate to be in relationships that they are willing to continue to be dis-empowered? No, you can’t call a man. You might scare him away. No, you can’t ask a man out. You might scare him away. No, you can’t pay on a date. You might scare him away. No, you can’t be opinionated. You might scare him away. No, you can’t make more than him. You might scare him away.
If a man’s ego is compromised by the simple fact of a woman asking him out, then I believe that he’s unworthy of her attentions.
I for one do not want a man who is not secure enough with himself to be able to accept a woman asking him out on a date. And I know for a fact there are men out there who feel that women are their equals and it makes no difference to them who makes the first move. These are the men we women should be trying to find instead of lowering our standards for pathetically insecure men.
Let’s get it together women!
Check out the fabulous NYM’s blog
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Next Week on Baggage Reclaim
June 23, 2006 by NML · Leave a Comment
I am off to Ibiza for a week today however I have actually been quite organised and there will be at least 6 posts next week on the subjects of How to Cope With Being The Other Woman, Avoiding Being Fired, Sex Breaks, How Long It Should Take To Get Over Being Dumped and How to get a good nights sleep, plus NYM’s column. Ooh, variety!
This does mean that I am unlikely to be able to reply to comments throughout the week as I will probably be passed out like a wino in the sunshine 
In the meantime, check out this weeks posts:Get Real About Being ‘Nice’ Relationships
Ten Things That You Should Keep In Mind
Dating Hiatus, A Status Report
Ex’s Must Learn To Let Go - You’re Yesterday’s News!
There’s plenty of posts in the archives, plus don’t forget to check out The Mr Unavailable Guide, Please Kitty the Sex Toy Blog, my blog Tired of Men, Vixen’s blog The Bad Girls Guide, NYM’s blog New York Moments and Smart at Love.
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Get Real About Being ‘Nice’ in Relationships
June 23, 2006 by NML · 5 Comments
Over on my friend Annie’s blog Smart at Love, she is discussing the behaviour of acting nicer than we feel in relationships. This notion that many people hold that being super nice is something that we have to be in order to nab and keep a partner is actually detrimental to you personally and to any relationship that you’re in. If being super nice is what you genuinely are, then knock yourself out, but if you’re feeling uncomfortable, resentful and unrewarded for your actions then there is very clearly something wrong and you aren’t being yourself.
As I pointed out in Annie’s original post ‘The curse of being too nice’, it’s about being yourself naturally. There are a lot of mixed messages out there about what it takes to be in a relationship and people seem to be obsessed with ‘niceness’. I’m not saying get medieval on your partners arse and become nasty, but real people get pissed off and don’t always like things and sometimes aren’t that nice. If you hear yourself saying how nice you are and how you don’t get x,y, and z back, I call it Those Who Doth Protest Too Much syndrome - you are as Annie says, acting nicer than you feel and when you genuinely are nice and it’s the real you, you don’t go on about it.
Being nice is something that you just ‘do’. The moment that you start to feel negative emotions as a result of all your niceties, you’ve pushed the boat out too much. Any person worth their salt who actually wants to be with YOU, should be prepared to like you when you’re feeling on top of the world and when you feel like sh*t. It’s about being real and nobody can keep up the facade forever without giving themselves an ulcer, a headache and a big well of resentment.
As Annie wisely points out, being real “…means each woman being that REAL blend of the good, the bad, and the ugly that is uniquely her. Unfortunately, if you’re accustomed to using niceness as your “honey” in dating and relationships, and you start letting some of the not-as-nice parts hang out, it can be scary at first.”
As someone who has felt this frustration of this behaviour in the past, I have learnt my lesson. Now I’m me and if they don’t like it, they can take a run and jump. Now go and be bitches! Joking!
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Ten Things About Relationships
June 22, 2006 by NML · 3 Comments
1. We are in charge of our own happiness….and our misery.
2. If it smells like BS, looks like BS, walks like BS, talks like BS, it IS BS, so walk away.
3. Feeling good is part of being in a relationship. If being in the relationship doesn’t feel good, doesn’t enrich your life and ultimately makes you feel miserable, walk away.
4. Big Penis does not equal Great Boyfriend
5. If you talk about your friend behind their back on a regular basis, you aren’t friends.
6. Relationships aren’t easy and they do take work.
7. Get over the idea that your ideal person ticks every single box on the list. Half the time we want the wrong things.
8. Don’t have sex too quickly - It pushes you into the Justifying Zone, that place we go to when we need to find wonderful things in a partner to reassure ourselves that sleeping with them was a good decision.
9. Anyone who makes getting into your pants the focus of their energy is not worth YOUR energy.
10. Being single is not a curse and should be embraced and enjoyed. There will come a time when having that blissful time to yourself will be a very distant memory!
Originally published in the fortnightly newsletter.
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Dating Hiatus, A Status Report
June 20, 2006 by NYM · 4 Comments
As you may recall, back in February I wrote this column coming out as a jerkaholic and vowed to go on a dating hiatus. I have been on a dating hiatus. Pretty much. Well, I haven’t been on any official dates…
However, I must admit that my life hasn’t been completely bereft of male companionship. I have to admit that on more than a couple and less than several occasions, I was muscled by my hormones into giving in to intense sexual craving had a few casual sexual encounters. Come on people, cut me some slack…there’s only so much satisfaction that a girl can get from Friday night dates with her Hitachi Magic Wand or her Wahl Vibrator with g-spot dildo attachment. Sometimes you just need to touch some skin…you know what I mean?
However, these handful of fleeting sexual encounters are not what has taught me the most about myself. What has provided me with some real insight is the mind-wrenching realisation that I do want and need some sort of straight-male companionship. Why do I call this mind-wrenching? Because I’ve been fighting this nearly my entire adult life. Fighting my girlfriends who insist they need a man for something, fighting my own instincts, fighting…dare I say it…Mother Nature?
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Ex’s Must Learn To Let Go - You’re Yesterday’s News!
June 19, 2006 by NML · 6 Comments
This morning I got this email from an ex I refer to as The F*ckwit.
“Hi you I hope that you’re cool, and that your memory paints me in a better light.”
Other than the fact that this email reminds me of what an egotistical twat he is, it’s just plain funny. We dated for about 6 weeks and I broke up with him because of his arrogant, over opinionated, rude behaviour when he lectured me about how I handle my disease sarcoidosis with acupuncture. He’d been a doctor for all of a wet week! He clearly thinks that I have given him a lot of thought since we broke up…in between meeting someone else and falling in love…
I have received a few text messages since we ‘broke up’almost 4 months ago, although I ignored the last few as it seemed silly to engage in contact when I met and fell in love with my boyfriend two days after I broke up with this guy! Which leads me to ask, why can’t this guy let go and move on?
I did a quick straw poll of several women and every single one of them receives some sort of communication periodically from an ex. Some of these guys phone up hinting for a rematch in the bedroom, others want to get nostalgic and make out that the relationship they shared with you was amazing, others just seem to want to have the last word because the relationship didn’t end on their terms.
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