mancession

Tags

Irish Times, mancession, men and women, recession, relationships

Over the last few days the word ‘mancession’ keeps popping up in the Irish Times. You may think, when you read the word for the first time, that it means there is a lack of men in our society, but it doesn’t.

Around 2009, after the global-recession had really found it’s stride and was taking down business with gusto, the term ‘mancession’ was coined to describe the disproportionate amount of men who lost their jobs compared to women.

You could argue that this is mainly down to the decrease of construction related jobs and that there were already fewer women in the workforce, however, somehow, if you read between the lines, it sounds as if men were just hit harder by the downturn.

Now I do understand that losing your job can effect the way you feel about yourself and that low self-worth can lead to more severe psychological problems. But when I read that men are finding it hard to reinvent their position in the household and struggle to find fulfillment in being a stay-at-home dad, it does make me a little bit angry. After all haven’t women been always been doing this because they had to?

I am not married, nor do I have kids but I would expect the modern man to be able to allow their partners to be the main breadwinner and be man enough to rear kids if they have to. But seemingly many Irish men don’t see it that way  and excuse it by  saying that it is due to the traditional role identification models.

I can understand that maybe traditionally men use to work and bring home the bacon while the woman became super-mammy and domestic-goddess in one. But surely life has changed since the sixties enough for people not to expect this to be true anymore, after all half a century has passed and brought a lot of change with it.

Whatever you think about  ‘mancesion’ and what it means, maybe it is just another way of saying that some men just haven’t gone with the times and that no matter how emancipated we think women are in the heads of some men we should still be wearing aprons.

Few are untouched by the ‘mancession – Irish Times 7th October 2013

 

fireman Johnny and millionaire Mark

Tags

advertisement, facebook, love, paso doble, photo, relationships, single, stalking

Like many people all around the globe I too have a facebook page, however I really am not for posting what I’ve had for breakfast or that I have popped out to buy some milk, nor am I on it 24/7. In essence Facebook is just an easy way for me to keep in touch with certain friends and acquaintances in my life, and to play the odd game of solitaire. 

However lately the ads that pop up on the side of my page are quite entertaining and a little stalkery. On a  daily basis fireman Johnny and millionaire Marc appear smiling up at me, declaring they are single and only live 6.8Km away.

I have no idea who these men are, if they are who facebook claims them to be, nor do I know if they are single, or how even facebook knows that I am. But since they keep showing up with that hopeful look on their faces I want to tell facebook, Johnny and Marc thanks for the offer but please stop stalking me.

And if they can refrain from appearing before me maybe I should stop playing solitaire and go out and learn how to dance a paso doble … or at the very least buy myself a cuddle cushion that facebook shows me when Johnny and Marc are taking a break.

this picture made me laugh out loud, a cuddle cushion for all us single gals out there

cat lady or catwomam

Tags

cat lady, catwoman, quotes, relationships, thoughts, words, writing

It’s odd how one word can change an entire meaning of something. How a  few letters can create an image, paint a picture in our minds and influence how we think about something or someone. This thought occurred to me when I stumbled across the word cat lady in an article I was reading.

Interestingly enough being a lady is normally considered  being  a little bit better than just a woman. It implies you are sophisticated, have a certain flair and worldliness about you. You have taste, a sense of culture and style. But if you pop the word cat in front of it, the whole image changes.

Now if you are a cat lady you probably haven’t brushed your hair in a week, wear baggy jumpers with unicorns, hearts or teddies on them, live a lonely life surrounded by cats that you call your babies, no man in sight. However if you simply swap the word ‘lady’ to ‘woman’ a whole new image forms again.

Being  catwoman implies that you are clad in black leather or Lycra with luscious locks, a sexy stroll, a provocative purr and men groveling at your high-heeled boots.  You have your pick of the litter so to speak and seemingly lead a charmed life.

As a single woman of a certain age I seem to hover somewhere between cat lady and catwoman. I don’t own a pair of thigh-high black patent leather boots, but my allergy against cats means I don’t own a kitten either. Skintight Lycra really isn’t a good look for me, but jumpers with prints aren’t my cup of tea either. My hair isn’t long and luscious but my locks are brushed and tamed as much as I can get my curls to be. And while yes I don’t have men salivating on my toes, I do believe I am better looking and more interesting then a scarecrow.

So maybe I should just cross out ‘cat’ and try and decide whether I want to be a ‘lady’ or if being a ‘woman’ is enough for me. Or maybe I should wait until I find that man who make me feel like catwoman when I look like a cat lady and loves me even when I act like a little girl.

Be a girl with mind,a woman with attitude and a lady with class.

contemplating companionship

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friends, friendship, love, miscellaneous, quotes, random, relationships, thoughts

On the search for a hot cup of coffee and distraction from my teaching duties I found myself in a busy coffee-shop. As I sat with a mug of cappuccino and the Irish Times in in bubble away from the world, something caught my eye and distracted me.

A stressed looking mum and two little girls had entered the shop. Laden down with bags and obviously needing a break just as much as I did, the mother ushered the two girl into a booth. The six or seven-year-olds were having a great time, giggling, heads close together, one brown one blond, pink sparkly nail-polish flashing as they excitedly moved their hands. And as I watched the display of friendship I couldn’t help but overhear the mum give out : “If you don’t calm down there’ll be no sleepover tonight!”

This shocking statement sent the two girls into a flurry of promises and pleading. However it’d didn’t escape me that they also held hands, grabbing on to one another in an attempt to stop the forced separation.

As I watched the little scene unfold before me I couldn’t help but wonder about friendship, and why it is so important. Why do we hold on to some and others flit in and out of our lives, how do we even pick them?

I have some very good friends, some I have know for years others not so long. But I have also had friends that were really important, close, for a  time but who then have disappeared from my life. No fights, no arguments, just life drifting us apart.

With Facebook poking, liking and reminding us of all the people we know, or knew,  it’s sometimes seems friendship has lost it’s value. We have hundreds of people waiting to answer our questions online, only a few finger clicks away. But the time you actually spend with someone, heads close, thoughts shared, secrets whispered has become more rare in our hectic day-to-day lives.

What makes a friendship work and last  seems to be a bit of a mystery, Greek philosophers and even Freud have written essays and letters on the topic. It seems to be a combination of proximity, time, commonality and differences, a mix of experiences and affection all stirred up into one big friendship cocktail.

Luckily for me this week is filled with three such cocktails, catch-ups over coffee and chat, sparkling moments in an otherwise busy, slightly frantic week.

A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same

odd combinations

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fluffernutter, food, frendship, love, miscellaneous, opposites, random, relationships, sticky sweetness, thoughts

Last night I was feeling a little bit peckish, but not for chocolate but definitely for something sweet. When the mandarin didn’t quite hit the spot I stared into my kitchen cupboard for a while, waiting for inspiration of the culinary kind to appear. And suddenly it dawned on my, how about the left over marshmallows from last week and some peanut butter, and it turned out to be just perfect.

Now I am not pregnant nor do I normally even like marshmallows very much, but for some odd reason the idea of the sticky sweetness and the crunchy, saltiness of the peanut-butter was exactly the right kind of sweet that I was looking fr.

And while I sat and chewed, a smile on my face, I started wondering about all those odd things that work, even if they shouldn’t. I suppose it is the whole discussion whether or not opposites attract. Some of my closest friends are so very different from me, but I love them dearly and respect their opinions. And when it comes to love we often feel drawn to that one person who seems to live a completely different life.

However studies show that while we may feel an initial attraction, if there isn’t enough common ground between people their relationships seem doomed to fail. This doesn’t mean that you have to agree on everything but a study from 2005 (University of Iowa) shows that if people have similar personalities they are more likely to have a long lasting relationship. The reason behind this is that when we are with likeminded people we feel validated.

However as we are flawed we seem to think that we want something different and get hurt when it doesn’t work out. So maybe it’s a bit like my peanut-butter and marshmallow concoction, it is great for a change of taste but if you were to have it every night you’d soon get sick of it.

PS: I never knew that peanut-butter and marshmallows together is called fluffernutter, and there seems to be a lot of fans

think pink

Tags

beauty, couples, cupid, fashion, film, friends, love, mental-health, miscellaneous, pink, relationships, style, Valentine's Day

The world seems to have fallen into a paint bucket, a pink and red one at that. An explosion of pastel pinks and fuchsia reds has given birth to lovesick window dressings all in honour of cupids  hay-day and his empty quiver.

But for other singletons like myself Valentine’s Day doesn’t always feel quite as cheery and the sudden need to devour whole selection boxes of chocolate may fill the hole in our bellies but not in our hearts. However the benefits of being single means you don’t need to sit in overcrowded  busses protecting roses or stand in line for a love-themed dinner out.

A survey done by Psychology Today two years ago shows that 40% of people, regardless whether they are single or not, have negative feelings towards Valentine’s Day. This could largely have to do with how advertisers and marketing experts have shaped the way we perceive the day. Knowing that everyone is tugging at our pockets to get their share of this 14 billion dollar industry, which is suppose to celebrate the day of Love, may turn sweet to sour.

And then there are our expectancies which are bound to be disappointed. The petrol station flowers instead of the bouquet of red roses, the box of Cadburys not Belgian truffles,  the silver bracelet instead of that longed for diamond ring. Somehow our hopes get shattered turning us from lovers into haters, even if only secret ones.

The best thing to possibly do is to re-frame the situation. Remember that Valentine’s Day is NOT a test on your relationship, nor does it mean that you are doomed to eat chocolate on your own for the rest of your life. And since it is always better to smile instead of frown, put on those pink shades and give Valentine’s Day a positive spin. Think pink, not grey or blue , but a much more happy hue!

PS: look at the shoes Kay Thompson is wearing at around 2.20min, they are on my “want-list”

party of me

Tags

family, father, feelings, home, love, memories, miscellaneous, photo, random, relationships, The Commitments, thoughts

Yesterday was fathers-day, at least in a big part of the world. And while I was browsing the blogosphere and stumbled upon more than many blogs on fathers, fathers-day and loving fathers, I grew more and more upset.

My father died last year on the sixth of July and with only a few weeks to go till this anniversary he is very much on my mind and heart. I can’t help but wonder about what I lost and the time we didn’t have together, remembering my childhood with and my growing up without him. And as words of love, thanks and happiness spilt from my computer screen into my lap tears dropped from my eyes onto my keyboard.

But at some point I decided that it changes nothing to be upset about something that you have lost and will never get back so instead I decided to celebrate what still lies ahead of me. I poured myself a glass of wine, broke of a piece of dark chocolate and let The Commitments play.

As I danced barefoot on my own in my living-room and sang loud, off-key and happily along to some good old soulful songs, I remembered happy times in my life, some with my dad some without. I let myself envision a future filled with love and fulfilled dreams, a time so full of laughter and happiness that sorrow would be a forgotten word. But as The Commitments sang “Bye Bye Baby” I twirled back into reality and looked at my dads photo on my bookshelf.

It is of a younger him, one I didn’t know and one that my mother fell in love with. His dark curly hair and beard frame a face I loved so much and he is holding his newspaper in one hand and probably a cigarette in his other, his mug of coffee in front of him and a private smile plays on his lips. And as tears welled back up into my eyes I could hear his voice in my head telling me “to be good”, and as the tears rolled freely down my cheeks I promise him I will try.

And so what if I am a little upset, it is my party and I’ll cry if I want to, there has to be some benefits of a party of me after all.

demanding TV

Tags

candy store, choice, digital candy, digital-candy store, emotions, Films, Grenville Kleister, on-demand tv, pasta sauce, psychology, quotes, regrets, relationships, Tv, wrong place right time

Yesterday evening when I sat down with a glass of wine to see if the world of telly had anything exciting on offer I was in for a big surprise: I now have on-demand TV. Odd really as I was at the launch on Tuesday (see my post wrong place right time) but somehow I had completely forgotten about it.

Anyway when I pressed a button on the remote my flat-screen told me I had a choice, I could watch normal “live” TV or the pick of the day or I could choose from a selection of series and films. At first I couldn’t believe my luck, I felt like a kid in a  digital candy store, but soon I was somewhat overwhelmed, there where so many buttons to press and decisions to make and in some cases even euros to pay. On the one hand it was nice to be able to pick and choose, on the other it was hard to know what I wanted.

I suppose it’s a little like life, we want as many choices as possible but then can’t make up our minds. It doesn’t matter if it’s what career we what to pursue, what dream to follow, who we want to date, what dress, shoes or pants to buy or even as simple as what kind of sauce we want to have with our pasta. I suppose the problem with making a choice, saying ‘yes’ to one thing, is that it always means we have to say ‘no’ to something else. If it’s just the pasta sauce that may not be such a big problem as we can just go back and pick another flavour the next time, with a career or dream or partner it may not be as simple.

And sometimes when we say ‘no’ to one thing we feel regret if the choice we made doesn’t turn out the way we hoped. Regret is one of those feelings that in psychology is termed a ‘moral emotion’, like guilt it is a feeling we get that we turn towards ourselves and not at others. But unlike guilt regret is something that is very hard to make up. When you feel guilty you can often ask for forgiveness and move on, but going back in time to change a choice is something we just can’t do. The upside to having moral emotions is the fact that it means you’re are not a psychopath as they are incapable of any moral feelings, so yeah to that.

But like guilt regret only makes us feel bad about ourselves and keeping those feelings alive doesn’t help us as they are not productive in any way. The best we can do is learn from our decision and move on, leave it behind us and understand that regret is only born out of knowledge we often didn’t have at the time when making the choice. If we had known our job would make us unhappy, our relationship would fail or the pasta sauce tasted awful we wouldn’t have made the choice in the first place.

So when I finally decided on what I wanted to see, I was thrilled with the fact that a video rental store had moved into my living-room and I was happy to pay a few euros to see I film I had missed in the cinema. And even though I know that I will make choices I may regret in the future I completely agree with American author Grenville Kleiser:

A ton of regret never makes an ounce of difference.

the things we do to ourselves

Tags

beauty, fear, hurt, love, miscellaneous, pain, random, relationships, shoes, thoughts

While dancing the night away on high healed brown leather boots and a cocktail in hand a thought occurred to me late last night as my feet began to ache. Why is it that we are fearful of how others can hurt us but forget about all those little and big things we do to ourselves.

Yes, it can be painful to love, to open up and trust or even just be honest about how you feel when the other rejects you, uses you, maybe laughs at you or just leaves you with a nasty little cold-sore. But is it really that bad compared to the power we wield over ourselves?

Even if I don’t list all the emotional damage we get ourselves into, head-games we play with ourselves, tormenting thoughts we let ourselves think or hurtful ideas we let take hold of our minds, the list of pain we afflict on ourselves is quite endless.

I mean, really, do we have to bite the inside of our mouths every blue moon or nearly sever the tip of our own tongues? And why is it that I have on occasion poked my own eye, and I can’t count the times that I have banged any one of my little and big toes against any given object at floor level.

And what about all the stuff we do to make ourselves beautiful for others? Most of us don’t live in an Amazonian or African tribe hidden away from civilization, yet we still poke holes in ourselves in diverse places, brand our skins with good and bad reflections of our personalities, screw metal objects into our bodies and don’t get me started on shoes. We even enjoy poisoning ourselves with alcohol, drugs, smoke and sometimes food.

Don’t get me wrong, I have pierced ears, a tattoo, enjoy a good drink now and then and my passion for shoes is on the verge to becoming a fetish.  Yet the thing I fear most, is what someone may do with my heart and my trust. Odd considering I have jumped of a 20 meter high cliff, traveled to Russia and Brazil on my own, been know to wander through parks at night (shortcuts), gone scuba diving and have done many, many more not quite safe things.

So maybe instead of fearing how someone else can hurt us we should think about what we can gain with pain. After all you can’t win if you don’t take risks and when we say “we always hurt the ones we love” remember most of us love ourselves most of all.