Category Archives: Love

Love

How I Met Your Father: the one with the Tinder deserter

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Kids, in the lead up to Women’s Day 2018, I matched with a visiting American tour guide, Mike*, on Tinder.

After a brief hello, how are yous , how’s your day going and a “Your gorgeous” (I’d over looked his atrocious spelling when I really shouldn’t have!) compliment, Mike asked me out for drinks and dancing the following evening.

Since I was already going to be at the Station on Bree for a night out with your Aunties Cynthia and Gloria, I told Mike he was welcome to join me there.

The next night…

Wednesday evening, whilst sipping on an Elizabeth Daiquiri , I waited for Mike to arrive.

A tall, hot guy walked in and started searching around the bar. I gulped a few times, slid down in my seat and tried to hide.

There was NO way I could have a blind date as it was with this Adonis! I swung from desperately wanting him to be Mike to not wanting it to be him because I, for sure, would be awkward AF if he was.

Gods, help me:

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The McHottie turned out be the DJ…  and Mike turned out to be the back-to-front baseball cap-wearing, earring stud-wielding, crazy pattened shirt-donning guy behind him.

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I masked my disappointment to say hello with a handshake, while Mike leaned in for a hug.

Right… so let me very clear here: I do not hug people I’ve just met.  My personal space is my personal space and I don’t care if you are the Queen of England, Barack Obama or a guy I met online, I am not hugging you.

Image credit:What Breed Is It

Awkward non- hug out of the way, Mike and I got to talking about him. He was in Cape Town on the tail end of a 20 day trip to South Africa which he’d won through his travel agency.In addition to being a tour guide for senior people, this Boston native was also a hockey referee.

This was his last night in the Mother City and he was keen to see more of its nightlife. Considering I was in tourism, I was happy to oblige.

When your Auntie C arrived 15 minutes later, she picked up that it was rather awkward and Gods bless her, came to my rescue with her usual awesome badgering of questions.

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Image credit: vignette.wikia.nocookie.net

Fast forward through Gloria arriving, us barhopping all over town, including a stop at our local Mitchell’s.

We had a great time, at least I thought so, talking about travels, books, Women’s Day, Boston, New York etc when…

Mike would randomly scratch my shoulder.

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Your Auntie Lee says he was flirting and announcing his interest in me but if so, what a weird f***ing way to do it!

Look, I was not unfamiliar with a straight, hot blooded man displaying his intentions – from Americans who ran their hands down my back on nights out to Monroe and the work colleague who gave me extra long, hard, body consuming hugs, I knew when I was being hit on (occassionally!).

This chicken scratching shit was not it.

I flashed an awkward smile and carried on talking. There was a brief awkward pause when he tried to short change the others on the bill after but we merrily moved on from that and to our next stop, The Dubliner in Long Street.

Here is where things went downhill.

While we danced awkwardly, had another drink and hung out, Mike scratched my shoulder again.

This time I was not ok with it… as I have mentioned before, I do not like people, especially men touching me if I haven’t asked for it. Maybe this was an American thing like the other doos from Philadelphia who couldn’t keep his hands to himself but just because I was on a date with him, didn’t mean he had the right to grope me.

I gently moved away from him and tried talking over the music to him instead.

Two songs later, Mike turns emo on me with:

“I don’t think I am what you were expecting”

Me,totally confused at why this man was turning girly on me: “What? Why? We’re just hanging out, aren’t we?”

He excused himself  to go to the loo and the next thing I know, he’s walking out of the door of the bar, never to return again.

No goodbye, no “I’m sorry, this isn’t working out”, just a straight walk out!

Your Uncle T says it was a classic case of Mike thinking he was going to get laid on his last night in Cape Town and it clearly wasn’t going to happen so he bailed.

Cool – I can understand the wanting to leave part but for f***’s sake, have the goddamn decency to at least say goodbye instead of hightailing it like a petulant child!

Could I have handled this better? Probably. I know I am awkward AF and a little shy andI probably should have spent more time talking to this guy online before meeting him. That still doesn’t excuse him having a bitch fit and running away, though.

It was a blessing in disguise because after Mike the coward left, Glo, Cynthia and I tore shit up at the pub and danced the night away with so many other people which lead to many more cool stories.

I was young,single and free, out with my amazing friends and having the time of my life:

F*** it! NEXT!

Love

How I Met Your Father: the one with the #tinderfail

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Kids, in the winter of 2018, in a fit of insecurity over the fact that the person I caught feelings for was just using me for emotional support, I re-downloaded Tinder.

Sigh…

big mistake
Image credit: GifImage

As I was lazily scrolling through potentials one cold winter night, I swiped right on a visiting Italian. With the matchmaking gods ever in my favour (not!), he swiped right too and we were a match.

Almost immediately he slid into my DMs and the following exchange occurred:

Him: “Hi, I’m Andrea from Italy and I am looking for a lady to share sensual times”

Me (taken aback by his utter forwardness): ” Hi, I’m Fazielah from Cape Town and I am looking for someone to date and get to know with the possibility of it leading to sensual times”

Him: “I’m only here for few more days. If you are feeling spontaneous, maybe we can meet at the V&A?”

Me (rolling my eyes, because seriously, who the f*** just agrees to a hook-up like this?!): “Sorry, I am out with friends this evening and fully booked until the weekend. So it looks like I’ll miss you.”

Him: “Change your plans. Meet me for sex. You will enjoy it””

Uhm…wait, what the actual mother f***ing f***?!!

This asshole , whom I have never met, wanted me to drop everything I was doing and meet him in a public space to go somewhere else and just give him some, just like that?!

are you fucking kidding me
Image credit:Imgur

When I did not respond, he quickly unmatched me and that was the end of it.

Gods, Kids, 2018 was the year where romance and chivalry went to die.

F*** it… NEXT!

Love

How I Met Your Father: I AM NOT YOUR TOURIST GUIDE, I AM YOUR DAMN DATE! PT2

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Kids, in the winter of 2018, I decided to give online dating one more shot (yes, I know, how many f***ing times have you heard that one before?) with the Bumble app.

bumble dating app
Image credit: Getty

This one, unlike the others, gave women the option of making the first move without any shame – as in, in order for a guy to have a conversation with you, you had to swipe right and if you matched, send the first text.

I liked the power that gave me – I didn’t have to be chosen by anyone, I did the choosing.

Sigh…

I should have learnt by then that anytime something looks like it’s too good to be true, it usually is.

Meet Mr Comedy Central NYC:

Dan the Man was in Cape Town as an international comedian from New York, the city of my heart,   breaking into the Mother City comedy scene.

A swipe right and a funny quip from him ensued:

“Connecting is the hardest part of this app. Thanks for swiping on my face.The pace on this app is atrocious.”

Giggles and enquiries about what he was enjoying most about my fair Cape Town followed before he struck out with this:

“I’m running out of time. I’d like to go to the Cape of Good Hope tomorrow or Sunday. Are you interested? Do you drive?”

Image credit: Tumblr

Dude, we literally just “met” and you already want to go to an attraction that is 90 minutes out of my way with no reception and looking for a ride for our first date? in an age where women get killed in derserted places all of the damn time?

Are you f***ing kidding me?!

I am not your bloody tour guide!

I could practically hear my mother shout at me to not let a potential date get away so I reined my inner feminist in and regretfully told him that I couldn’t make it to Cape Point but how about ice cream along the Sea Point promenade instead?

He shut me down with a “Well, I’ll be at Cape Point then, won’t I?”

I was just about to hit reply as I read his message whilst at a magic show, when, and I f***ing kid you not, I looked up from my phone and who was standing less than 5 metres away from me?

Dan the f***ing man!

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Image credit: Whisper

Of course … of course this bloody shit happens to me because the dating gods, the Universe  and the world hated me!

I gasped out loud and filled my friend Tania in what was currently happening on my phone and right infront of us, showing her Dan’s profile photo and subtly looking his way.

Dan did a double take when he saw me and then spent the rest of the evening pretending not to look my way but regaling his mates with tales of online dating, which Tania overheard.

I know, I know, I could have gone over and said Hi but the man had rejected me online and looked like he may do it in person too …my bruised ego could only handle so much.

Also, he totally could have come over too – there were ample opportunities to do so, especially when Tania and I got drawn into a circle of spectators with Dan to watch the magician perform some close-up tricks.

Ain’t nobody got time for international user losers… F*** it! NEXT!

 

 

Love

How I Met Your Father: an inflight meet-cute that made me believe in love again

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Test tube: “Hey Beautiful. Do you come here often?”

Me: ” Only when I’m trying to get knocked up by you.”

Even in my f***ed up fantasies about conceiving you by sperm donation, I utterly sucked at flirting…

Kids, in the winter of 2018, I was facing the very real and harsh reality that meeting a man, one who got my weirdness, wanted me, loved me for me and wanted to make you with me, wasn’t going to happen.

At the time, being part of a family where literally every single one of my female relatives met and married men at the drop of a f***ing hat, when my timelines were filled to the f***ing brim with ultrasound photos and every other couple on the street were seriously overdoing the limit on PDAs, researching sperm donation and IVF and worrying how in the holy f*** I was going to scrape 70K together to make you was how I spent my evenings.

It didn’t help that I couldn’t talk about these thoughts with anyone in my life because I was far too busy being the soundboard and emotional haven for those people (including the person I caught feelings for – he’d popped back into my life a few weeks before and was going through something major. Yes, I am aware of how f***ed up that is but I was young and stupid and had a major heroine complex so sue me!).

When you grow up in a family that accuses you of being a drama queen your entire life, you learn as an adult to keep your mouth f***ing shut about the heartbreaking issues and worries that keep you up at night. It made me so emotionally shut off that I automatically assumed my friends wouldn’t want to hear my fears about being so weird and unlovable that no man in their right minds would ever want to be with me or father my children.

On a morning following a long, long night of crying into my pillow about not being able to change who I was so I could be like my female relatives and friends, I logged onto Twitter where your godfather Leon had liked an epic thread.

The author of the thread had exchanged seats with another woman so she could be with her boyfriend and ended up inadvertedly setting this woman up with her co-passenger:

Did this make me believe I was going to meet your father on my next flight or bus ride? No… but it make me feel slightly better and really, that’s all a single girl could ask for. Thanks Leon and Rosey!

Love

How I Met Your Father: A PSA TO SMUG MARRIEDS AND OTHERWISE ATTACHED PEOPLE Pt2

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Kids, you remember how I told you about married people who said shit so offensive to me as a single person, I had to write a PSA about it?

Well, in 2018, it was the same k**, different year…

A well-meaning person flung the following out at me when I informed them of my plans to catch the new Jurassic World movie on a Friday afternoon:

“Are you going to watch a movie alone? Really?”

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Image credit: tenor.com

Newsflash, people, watching a movie alone is one of my greatest f***ing pleasures in life … I love the freedom of watching what I want, when I want and not having to f***ing answer to anyone else about it.

In fact, coupled people, there is tons of shit singletons can and will do and get to f***ing enjoy without consulting anyone else, like taking an international trip, going to a show, having a meal, posing for a photo shoot etc.

I will re-f***ing iterate it, and so that you can hear it all the way in the back…

for the people in the back

Being single is not a f***ing disease!

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Image credit: Pinterest

Now, please excuse me while I order an extra large popcorn and coke combo for my damn self!

Love

How I Met Your Father: the one where I’ve had it with grieving

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Kids, I am no stranger to grief. Since my Dad died the week after my 11th birthday, I have been well accquainted with this gods-awful, sucks balls emotion. At age 32 and a half in 2018, though, I was f***ing done with it… DONE!

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Image credit: http://www.threadsoflife.ca

See, just when I was regaining some semblance of a normal life after losing my grandpa two years earlier, the loss of a huge part of my life was looming because of political reasons and that f***ing horrible feeling of hollowness and devastation had returned.

No, this loss wasn’t a person but it was something that I had loved, nutured, cared for, fought for and I finally felt as if I had found my place in and losing it or at least, the current state of it, broke my heart just as badly.

Death, in life or the ending of something was truly a f***tard!

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Image credit: http://www.boldomatic.com

I veered between not eating and overeating, not being able to talk about it without crying,not sleeping or oversleeping, being mad and sad and confused all at the same time, denying it was happening… basically, all of the stages of grief, except acceptance.

I wasn’t ready to accept the loss yet because it meant that things would never,ever be the same again.

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Image credit: Buzzfeed.com

Logically, I knew that this situation couldn’t go back to being what it was ever again but the idea of what awaited in the future just wasn’t something I could handle either.

Grief, you motherf***er, go the f*** away!

 

Love

How I Met Your Father: the baby vs career dilemma

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Kids, you’d think that in 2018, people would be woke enough to understand that a woman can have both a successful career and a family.

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Image credit: http://www.nutreats.co.za

Alas…

As I relayed the exciting news about a potential career advancement to a family member, said person countered it with:

“That’s amazing! Go for it! Forget a man, forget the children. Just keep climbing that corporate ladder”.

Uhm…

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Image credit: Glee Wikia

Why is it that people assumed that because I was ambitious ,I didn’t want kids? If anyone spent any real amount of time with me, they’d know my eggs were on CONSTANT freaking alert to be fertilized all day every day.

It was like a scene out of Look Who’s Talking up in there:

Not only could I be career girl but I could be and WOULD f***ing be a kickass mom.

These things were NOT mutually exclusive, for f***’s sake!

 

Cape Town Events, Love

How I Met Your Father: online dating horror stories from my friends

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Kids, it’s easy to assume that I’m being over-dramatic about my online dating horror stories …I’ll admit, I do have a talent for telling stories.

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Image credit: http://www.theodysseyonline.com

But…

When checking in with my female friends during 2018, I discovered that mine were not the only tales of the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

Here are two such cases…

Mr Run and Bang

Glo met *Kevin* on Tinder in March 2018 and they hit it off right away because they both had a passion for soccer,staying fit and wine.

A few flirty texts later and wanting to see if their rapport would carry over in real life, Glo invited Kevin along to join her on her usual Wednesday 5km run along the Sea Point Promenade.

Even though he was more of a Crossfit fanatic, he readily agreed to the date.

As Glo tells it, the run itself was great -Kevin was fun, friendly and interacted with her and her running group in a charming manner.

After the run was over, they bid their farewells and went their separate ways.

Later that night, he sent her a text, demanding to know why she hadn’t invited him back to her place for sex.

Wait…what?!

How did a first date, one that involved running with other people no less, imply that there would be sex at the end of it and why, in the holy f*** did this guy assume it would?

More importantly, did he just feign interest in her likes and over-eagerly agree to a running date because he expected to get laid after?

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Image caption: imgflip

F***ing men!

Mr Sexpool

Same month, different jackass. A year after T had broken up with 40-year-old serial cheater. *Gerald* , and he’d subsequently hooked up with a 27-year-old, she got a call from a concerned “friend”, wanting to meet with her to discuss something disturbing about her cheating ex.

What he told her STILL makes my skin crawl…

Turns out that Gerald and his fellow 40-something year old friends were running a WhatsApp “”who can bang the youngest chick” betting pool, exchanging photos and sordid tales of their younger conquests.

What’s more, they then proudly displayed their catches for all to see on their fridges, like f***ing hunters!

Are you f***ing kidding me?!!!

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In this day and age and in Cape Town? How can something that sounds like the plot of a horrible 90s comedy actually be real?!

There was no hope for mankind… NONE!

Love

How I Met Your Father: the one where I was catching feelings

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Kids,falling in love is a miraculous thing… that butterflies-in-the-tummy feeling,the bounce in your step when you see the object of your affection,the smirk you give when they say or do something silly and sweet,the hours (and I mean hours) of crazy back and forth texting and the way your heart soars when they utter your name…

All of this could lead to you catching feelings like a lovesick puppy or kitten…

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Image credit: Good Reads

Which is exactly what I did at age 32 when I should have f***ing known better!

Image credit: http://www.pulse.ng

Nine months- nine goddamn months spent wasted on early morning and late night texting across time zones and continents sometimes. Nine months of continuing face-to-face conversations online across every conceivable social media platform and picking up where we’d left off. Nine months of suddenly charged physical contact,electronic compliments and emotional support in a time of crisis. Nine months of me abruptly interrupting dinners and outings with family and friends so I could excitedly answer this person’s frequent and feverish messages and phone calls.

This was all the more of a wonder because this situationship was with someone I’d known for years and was literally the last freaking person on this planet, in this lifetime,in this goddamn galaxy I’d ever expected to have a connection with.

The person who,for whatever goddamn reason,freaked out when I was finally responding and blossoming due to their attention. The person who ran away so fast and stopped communicating so swiftly,the ensuing silence was deafening.

They’d left me feeling abandoned,raw,weirded out and like it was totally my fault for catching feelings when I shouldn’t have.

I hadn’t felt an inkling of something like this since Monroe… my heart had been emotionally dead since four years before so what this person did to me was beyond cruel. It was cowardice of the lowest, despicable level.

Bob Marley said it best:

bob marley
Image credit: Pinterest

F*** feelings… I was done! DONE!

 

 

 

 

 

Love

How I Met Your Father: The one where I got catfished again!

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Kids, the Autumn of 2018 was SO not a great online dating period for me… not only did I get unsolicited nudes but I also got catfished AGAIN!

To add insult to injury, in the space of a few days, it happened not just once, but f***ing twice!

It felt like the love gods hated me:

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I’m getting ahead of myself… let me tell you about the two jerkfaces who lied to me…

Mr Big Fat Liar New Yorker…

Richard (37), from Manhattan, New York (my favourite city) and I had “met” on OkCupid a year ago and his Italian looking good looks, along with a quirky sense of humour, had me eager to continue the conversation offline – or at least on Hangouts, since he didn’t have WhatsApp.

We exchanged photos, naturally, and when I initially questioned the almost too-polished look of his, he said he’d done a professional photo shoot recently and wanted to share them with me.

I let sleeping dogs lie and we continued to chat.

After a year of texting, sexting (something I had NEVER done with anyone until that point) and a promise that if we are ever in each other’s cities, we’d get together, we were about to have another “adult” chat when I stopped it short and asked for an updated image of him.

Richard: “Why now? Don’t you trust me? LOL”

Me: “No, actually, I don’t… your last few bottom pics don’t seem to match your profile photo.”

Richard: “Haha… you caught me! Let’s just say they don’t match because I didn’t think my real looks were worthy of you””

Wait… what?!

I’d opened up electronically and intimately to someone who looked nothing like what he said he did and he was being flippant about it?!

I voiced my hurt, my concerns and my outrage that he would knowingly catfish me like that and his response was:

“Well, if you cannot accept me for what I really look like, then you’re shallow””

F***er no! You lied and deceived me and you wanna call me shallow?!

Time to block your lying, cheating ass, motherF***er!

aaaaand-now-youre-blocked

Mr I Love You Too Soon Changes Names…

After two months of silence from Clifford, he of the I Love You Soon declarations, and after I’d deleted Tinder, OkCupid and every online guy’s numbers from my contact list. I got this text:

“Hello my Princess. How are you today?”

I was confused AF as to who this could be because the number was unsaved so the following exchange occurred:

Me: “I’m sorry… who is this?”

Him: “Oh wow! You don’t remember me? It’s Charles.”

Now I was even more confused because I definitely had never chatted to a Charles and wasn’t in the mood for games.

Me: “Charles who?”

Him: “Oh, sorry… I forgot I didn’t use that name when chatting to you before. It’s Clifford”

F*** a f***ing zombie! Why the f*** do men lie like this?!

Aside from his super irritating pre-mature declarations of love and calling me Baby, he had also lied to me for four months about his name?! Are you f***ing kidding me?!

I took him to task about lying and he turned around and said I was a hateful person.

No, that was the last goddamn f***ing straw… I’d had it up to here with men online!

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Image credit: me.me