Kids, as you’ll recall, I hit the pause button on finding your Dad as a birthday present to myself in November 2017…One week and a bit into this experiment, things were going relatively well.
With my fingers getting a break from swiping left or right and my eyes lifted up and away from my phone screen, I was getting out and about in Cape Town.
Sure, I hit some bumps in the road like Mother Nature wreaking havoc on social outings:
But, this online dating detox also got me back into the habit of flirting with baristas at markets:
Image credit: www.fullredneck.com
Him: “Enjoy your hot chocolate… maybe next time we can enjoy a coffee together?”
Me: “Only if it is as hot as you are”
Three minutes later, it was the next stall holder’s turn trying to engage me into a conversation about Wonder Woman, in relation to my wearing a branded t-shirt.
Getting hit twice in the space of minutes? Totally unheard of and I was loving it:
With every upswing,though, there has to be a downside too…
Sigh…
You’d think that with me being off dating apps, the sleazy DMs would stop but of course, I was still a magnet for online weirdos:
Image credit: Pinterest
Lourens was clearly so turned on by my dismal walking pace on my Garmin Challenge tracker, he felt the need to say “How ya doin?” on the app AND by sending me a message on Facebook!
This wanna-be Casanova had no work place, address or content on his profile page, save for endless photos of a baby.
Kids, in September 2017,my wandering heart (and very busy working body – wait… not like THAT!) found its way to the sensual and vibrant Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Resting place of Evita, home to the empanada, the Japanese Botanical Garden and… tango!
As I mentioned before, this was a business trip so there wasn’t much time for exploring but I was determined to do some sightseeing and explore the city’s exotic cultural offerings.
Here’s what I learnt in Buenos Aires:
Be passionate about everything:
The Argentines ooze passion in everything they do: how they love, fight, work and dance!
It’s actually quite intoxicating. So much so, that when it is time to leave their beautiful city, one really does want to say “Don’t cry for me, Argentina!” :
Be in the pursuit of magic always:
I’ve seen jaw-dropping magic shows in Las Vegas and New York so I was quite keen to see one in South America. As my journey came to an end, time constraints were real and it didn’t seem like I was going to find my taste of magic in Buenos Aires.
Until…
During a night out at the Tango Porteno, in the middle of a tango extravaganza, female magician Inga Savitskaya appeared and dazzled us with her Invisible Partner act. Lesson learnt: always be in the pursuit of magic!
Embrace your sensuality:
From shamelessly indulging in dulce de leche, the sweet caramel treat Argentina is famous for , to giving into the erotic tension of a tango show, the Argentians are decadent, hungry and sensual beings.
After watching the intensity of dancers on a lunch time wander through La Bocca, a colourful downtown neighbourhood, I wandered down the cobbled streets of Galerías Pacífico .There, the most handsome, well-built men made a point of stopping what they were doing to openly stare and appreciate the sight of me.
Bearing in mind that I was in work travel mode and didn’t do anything fancy to my appearance, other than tie my hair up in a braid, I was equally flustered and flattered at the same time.
Far from being creepy, these men’s visible appreciation of me made me rediscover my sensuality. I made a promise to myself then that from that moment on I was going to embrace my inner sensual self by wearing sexy underwear and make-up and styling my hair everyday. Not for any guy but for myself – to celebrate the strong, independent, creative, free-spirited, beautiful, sensual, world traveller and woman I was.
To paraphrase your uncle Herman, I was in the prime of my life and I should be out in the world, swinging from the chandeliers ( or at least taking life by the horns!).
Kids,every so often online news agencies and magazines picked up on my never-ending hilarious tales to you. In February 2017, your aunt Nadia convinced me to share some of my horror dating stories with her.
Kids, generally I took a break from online dating in February each year before I met your father, because the month of love tended to bring out the crazies.
Image credit: AmandaLee
Unfortunately, I didn’t heed my own sage advice in 2017 and so I was confronted with the good, the bad and the downright ugly of online dating:
The good:
MusoSuperhero (31) was a comic book lover who enjoyed playing in a band on his off weekends. He was fun, keen to chat to me daily and was always texting me when he had a moment to ensure I didn’t think he was neglecting me.
With his quirky sense of humour and dedication to his family, we seemed to be a good match and I couldn’t wait to meet him. More about him in a future story!
The bad:
Sigh…. for every good online dater, there are the bad apples. Like FratBoy24 who, after assuring me left, right and centre that he would NOT ask me for nudie pics if I gave him my number, promptly did so.
Boy, don’t make me slap you:
After refusing to send him photos of my lady pillows steadfastly over the course of Valentine’s Day, the asshole started ghosting me.
F*** it! NEXT!
The downright ugly:
In this category we have two horrible contenders. Let’s start with Turkish Delight.
A halting banter, because of his broken English, ensued for the better part of a week and we’d agreed to meet the following week.
In the middle of a standard “how’s your day going” conversation, Turkish Delight hits me with: “How big are your bum and tits?”
Nothing in the conversation leading up to this was sexual in any way so where the hell did that come from?
After berating him for treating me like an online escort, I blocked his ass faster that he could say “Güle güle”
If I thought that was bad, OkStupid dutifully spat out this gem:
I kid you not!
Gods, why was finding someone to date so bloody difficult?!
So it’s that time of year again and you find yourself Bridget Jonesing through life, do you stay at home and hide or do you celebrate?
As tempting as it is to stalk your crush’s profile for the umpteenth time…don’t do it for the love of your own sanity. You know that he knows that you’ve been watching. So put down the ice cream and step away from the computer or close the app on your phone. There is only one option for us single gals and that is to throw yourself a Big, Phat Party and celebrate! How? You ask. Here are my Top 10 survival tips for single gals on Valentine’s Day:
1. 50 Shades Darker – oh come on now let’s not be coy you’ve read all 3 books so go grab a group of your nearest and dearest gal pals and go watch the damn movie!
2. How about a good old fashion book club (*wink*wink*)? Discuss the 50 shades book with your girls whilst imbibing copious amounts of bubbly and discussing at great lengths why piercing blue eyed Ian Somerhalder was not cast as Mr Grey.
3. You know those 2 for one happy hour specials? Now you can have BOTH 🙂 Get your Carrie on! Yay you! (please don’t drive if you choose this option)
4. How about a Movie Marathon? Jacob and Edward vs Carrie Bradshaw ? Take your pick…or why not watch both…?
5. You know that ridiculous amount of money you would’ve blown on a romantic weekend away for two? How about that awesome pair of Manolos that you have been eyeing since well before christmas? Go BUY those damn HEELS!
6. Hop on to The Entertainer App and find a great spa deal for you and your BFF…or take the whole gaggle of girls. What could be more fun than being pampered with your friends?
7. Travelstart has some great domestic local flights for only R499 one way, so perhaps you should still take that weekend away for yourself! Enjoy the Dolce far niente….’the sweetness of doing nothing’ on your own weekend Eat, Pray, Love.
8. How about spending some time with your loved ones? Prepare a nice home cooked meal for your family, crack open that bottle you’ve been saving and share some good laughs.
9. Do something you’ve always wanted to do. That chocolate truffle making course? Abseiling off of Table Mountain (not me) ? Learning how to surf (maybe)… cute instructor included 😉 #Justsaying
10. Last but not least, most importantly, is make time for you. Don’t get so swept up in the day’s activities that you forget the greatest love of all is self love. Take time to nurture that with perhaps a quiet stroll on the beach to gather your thoughts. Or pen your thoughts in a journal. Create a Vision board of your goals, dreams and desires of where you see yourself in the next few years. Don’t be so hung up on not having a romantic partner that you lose sight of the most important person in your life……YOU!
There you have it ladies, whether you’re a Carrie or a Bridget wishing you a fantastic Valentine’s Day filled with Love!
“Say you’ll share with me one love,one lifetime /Say the word and I will follow you”
Kids,as my solo trip to New York came to an end in early January 2017, I was no where near ready to say goodbye to the Big Apple.
More importantly, I wasn’t ready to take my leave of the person I was there – a confident, free-spirited traveller who wasn’t afraid to take on new and amazing adventures or experiences.
The girl you see in the picture above is radiant with satisifaction; has a lust for life and most importantly, she is happy …
Happy,guys, honest-to-the-gods happy – the black moods that sometimes dominated my Capetonian nights and days;the insecurities that overwhelmed me at home didn’t exist in New York.
And while I know I was living in a bubble because life isn’t all subway rides and walks in Central Park; I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the Mother City to be the awkward singleton who doesn’t get invited to her godchildren’s birthday parties because her status makes the other guests uncomfortable.
In New York, I grabbed opportunities to be the centre of attention by the balls (including being the fake VIP guest on an NBC Tour show):
In Cape Town, I was so used to being second or last choice, I didn’t even bother volunteering for shit at all.
In New York, I rode the subway often and only got lost a few times -in Cape Town, the train was a last-minute,I’m fucked and I need transport resort:
I fit in New York – for the first time,it felt like I fit my surroundings.In Cape Town, I was always a beat or two behind everyone else -people who had their shit together; people who shared the same sense of humour and the same boring plan for life; people who effoetlessly met their spouses/co-parents/lovers/partners and lived the picket white fence lifestyle. I couldn’t catch-up and I was tired of trying.
Happy New Year from New York!
I wanted to stay in New York where I belonged,Kids …
But all good things must come to an end and,though I had to leave , I made a promise to myself (and one that would set me on the path to meeting your father and finally having you!) : I’d live every day of 2017 as fearlessly and passionately as if I were in New York!
Kids, in the Spring of 2016, I felt a lot like Kate Winslet’s Iris in one of my all-time favourite movies, The Holiday …I was once again hurting like someone had tortured me for hours in the pits of Hell because the object of my unrequited love had been a complete and utter f***er!
See, after years of knowing me and after I had sent him a personal, secret birthday message on his special day, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named neglected to wish me on mine.
“Mom, you can’t expect everyone to remember your birthday every year!”, I hear you say, but, my loves, this is the same self-centred jackass who regularly stalked my social media feeds, liked posts and shared them and could quote things I’d said or done which he shouldn’t know about, on a regular basis.
And that was besides the stalking -in-person; standing on corners of streets watching me or sneaking up behind me at events and getting so far up into my personal space, it was indecent;that he did too.
I was hurt AF but still, wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt until…
We ran into each other at an event a few days later where, not only did he brush my birthday and his non-wishes aside, he couldn’t be arsed to congratulate me on a big career achievement properly and was quite mean about it too.
As he stood there, droning on about some unimportant thing, trying to engage me in conversation, I saw him clearly for the first time in a very, very long time.
Underneath the gorgeous face I had devoured with my eyes a million times over the years, aching to run my fingers over his handsome features, lied the true face of a narcissistic, cruel, sadistic jackass who knowingly and willing toyed with my heart and emotions for his own f***ed up pleasure.
My heart broke a little, thinking that it couldn’t be possible that someone I loved and cared for so deeply could be so incredibly cruel…not after I had spent so long, and especially the past year, supporting him, praising him and making him feel good.
In the past, if I so much as said a bad word to him, I couldn’t stand the hurt look on his face and I’d want to fix it immediately. So, how, HOW could he inflict pain on me so carelessly?!
When silence crept up on us this time, it wasn’t because we were lost in the bubble of each other – it’s because I had nothing to say to someone who was only looking for a fan club and was stealing my joy.
For years, I’d been going around thinking and telling friends how amazing he was, how talented, how sweet, how special … but actually, I was all of those things and he was denying me the right to be them.
I could tell that he knew the exact moment I fell out of love with him completely… he could see it in my eyes and the way he wasn’t having an effect on me as he’d had before.
Like Iris in The Holiday, I was miraculously cured:
Heartbreak and surviving it was by no means easy but as your aunt Lutfia often said to me, it takes a certain amount of bravery to fall in and out love with someone who doesn’t reciprocate and realise that you deserve so much more.
Kids, I am exceptionally good at flirting with anything that moves when it comes to getting something I really, really want – like chocolate, another helping of dessert and a discount on my travel bookings.
It was a hot, gorgeous day at the mountain and I was waiting for my 12pm appointment. I figured it would be a routine tour of my company’s operations and I would be done with it but man, alive, was I in for a nice, good-looking surprise!
The minute I laid eyes on Wes in the reception area my tummy did a funny somersault and I started having all kinds of inappropriate fantasies.
Blonde, blue-eyed with a slight Goth vibe and extremely cute dimples, Wes was my type to a damn T and I hadn’t had that kind of reaction to a guy in a LONG time.
Which is exactly when my inner Bridget Jones persona decided to rear her clumsy head…. F***!
I got so flustered by how hot Wes was, I managed to walk into a door, knock into an open gate, drop my phone and blush so profusely, I looked like a dragon had scorched me – all in the space of 10 minutes.
The fact that he seemed to be bemused by my blunderings did not alleviate my embarrassment. I finally let the poor guy off the hook by leading him to a cable car and agreeing to catch-up on email before our next visit, where I would hopefully be much more composed.
Besides the fact that it was literally my bread and butter, just trying to stay up to date with everything that was happening out in the digital world and my loved ones ‘social lives was incredibly tiring.
Not to mention the soul-crushing depression that comes with knowing exactly which people couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge my special day… I didn’t need that kind of rejection!
I’ve told you about how I became selectively social both online and offline after turning 30, right?
For my 31st birthday, I decided to try a social media experiment: I would go Internet, Wi-Fi, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest, email and WhatsApp free for 31 hours.
Friends and family were freaking out about how they were going to contact me:
“We’ll do it like people did it in 1985 when I was born … send snail mail or pick up a damn phone and call me!”
Physical interaction in the digital age was going the way of the Dodo and I, as a relic of the glorious 80s, refused to participate in its untimely demise.
Besides, if I wasn’t spending my birthday with my eyes glued to a screen, it freed me up to take in the (hopefully) handsome and available male sights all around me.Who knows if your Dad might have been lurking around somewhere?
I’d had countless unbelievable experiences ( hotel stays, theatre shows, concerts, restaurants meals and events) through my work as a travel writer and met world-renowned illusionists (with the front page newspaper coverage and national TV broadcasts to reflect my efforts) through my magical PR job so having my crazy dating and running stories recognised by Garmin was an all-new writing career high!
