10 Things To Avoid Doing On A First Date

I was thinking now that I’ve been separated from my husband for over a year and a half that it would be a good time to contemplate (dare i say it) “dating” again. Going on first dates isn’t something I have had to do too often in the past. Majority of my long term relationships have started from friendship so we already knew each other and the romance always kind of just blossomed from there.

So, I decided to do a bit of research to find out what the first date “faux pas” are so I can avoid them. Here is my Top 10 pick of the dating no no’s, some of which made me chuckle. (not to mention cringe a bit too)

Lesson 1: Avoid eating tortilla chips and salsa (check!)

“On a first date once, we were eating chips and salsa as an appetiser. He was telling some joke and when I laughed at the punch line, I inhaled the chip a bit too hard and it lodged in my throat! Suddenly, I couldn’t breath at all. There was salsa pouring out of my mouth, and I was doing that ‘choking’ signal towards him. So he came around and started beating on my back. After a few scary seconds, the chip finally dislodged itself. I don’t even want to think about what I looked like at that moment, all stained with salsa. It took me the whole night of apologizing to feel comfortable around him.”

Lesson 2: Check your date’s FB friends in advance (check!)

“I went on a date with this guy who was quite sweet. After drinks, we met with his friends. Unfortunately, I met his best friend – who I had slept with the week before who told my date. The fact I never called back the best friend did not go down well and I never saw either of them again.” Mel via Facebook

Lesson 3: Don’t mention any “cock” related phobias (check!)

“I had been talking to this guy online for a while, and we seemed to get on really well via email and he seemed really confident and relaxed. Little did I know I was in for an evening where I couldn’t get a word in edgeways, he talked for an hour solid about his phobia of peacocks. I thought he was kidding at first. Didn’t know he was looking for a psychologist!”

Lesson 4: Avoid visiting torture chambers on your first date (check!)

“On the first date with a lovely new guy we went to a castle for a wander around, and decided to go on a guided tour of the ‘torture chamber.’ A few minutes in and he suddenly staggered forward and fainted, landing face first in the middle of everyone. Cue an embarrassing scene with four men trying to pick him up. He was mortified as he hadn’t told me that blood and gore make him faint but it didn’t put me off as he is now my boyfriend!”

Lesson 5: Make a point of not getting in cars with baaaaa-rking mad men (check!)

“My first (and only) date with one guy started off with him driving at full speed towards a brick wall and slamming his brakes on at the last second because ‘it would be funny’. Then he proceeded to start doing dog and sheep impressions out of his window, and I mean panting, barking, baa-ing. He topped it off with turning round and licking my face. I made him drop me at the end of my road and pretty much jumped out before the car had”

Lesson 6: Don’t tell your date you believe in Santa (check!)

“I was on a first date with a guy, we had gone for a walk on the beach, it was going okay until somehow the subject of Christmas came up. It transpired that he genuinely believed in Father Christmas, at first I thought he was joking, but it soon became apparent that he was being serious. He told me he knew Santa was real because one Christmas he’d heard sleigh bells outside his window and ‘it couldn’t have been his dad as it was too high up’. The guy was 20”

Lesson 7: Don’t punch your date…unless he deserves it of course (check!)

“I accidentally punched my ex in the face on our first date and gave him a nosebleed! I then fell asleep on him while still watching a gig. Fun times! We were together for over a year after that.” Sabina via Facebook

Lesson 8: Don’t attend a date if feeling queasy (check!)

“A few years ago I went on a date with a guy from work. Turned out that he had an upset stomach, but didn’t want to tell me in case I cancelled on him. He ended up vomiting at the table, even though I said we could meet some other time. Then in the taxi home, he couldn’t stop farting, not all were audible. But they were definitely there. Didn’t stop him trying to kiss me goodnight though… Urgh… I still cringe now”

Lesson 9: Don’t start belting out show tunes during dinner (check!)

“My mum set me up on a date with a boy who’d been in the school choir with me. We met at Nandos and within twenty minutes I’d discovered his entire life history, including how he had travelled around the country as a Frank Sinatra impersonator. “So you’re a good singer?” I asked. He paused, chewing thoughtfully, then he began to sing. A full-on theatrical number from Legally Blonde: The Musical. My face burnt as everybody stopped to look over. I nearly died of humiliation”

Lesson 10: Try not to get hit by a bus on the first date (check!)

“A colleague and I decided to meet in the day for a date, it was all going to plan, until I left the train station and got hit by a bus! Fortunately it was going slowly but it knocked me over and an ambulance was called. This of course made me late. I tried to call my date and let him know but all I managed to say was ‘accident’ and ‘train station.’ He came along to meet me – not believing the chaos was caused by me! Our second date a week later wasn’t any better, we did a charity walk and my leg went black so we spent our second date in A&E. We ended up getting married – he must have felt he needed to look after me as I was a liability!” Chloe via Facebook

After reading some of those horror stories i’d be happy just to get past the first hour of the date without making a fool of myself. I am the queen of clumsy though and attract crazy people and situations. I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before I am writing my own dating disaster blog.

The Alphabet of Me

A is for Arlene – the ‘me’ in this rhyme
B is for best friends – i’ve known a long time
C is for children – the 3 things I treasure
D is for demented – when tired and under pressure
E is for ex-husband – he can make my life tough
F is for family – there when times are rough
G is for grumpy – something we can all be
H is for hiding – where no one can see
I is for ice-cream – my saviour, it’s true
J is for juggling – when you’ve too much to do
K is for kissing – the ones you love more
L is for laughing – Till your sides are sore
M is for Mum – always supportive and caring
N is for Nachos – my favourite for sharing
O is for oxymoron – cause i’m cautiously daring
P is for party – i’ll drink till next morning
Q is for queasy – when hungover and yawning
R is for racey – my mind can be dirty
S is for sassy – and occasionally flirty
T is for together – with my family and friends
U is for understanding – when an ear you must lend
V is for vulnerable – when life gets us down
W is for woohoo – getting a night on the town
X is for xbox – when it broke i did frown
Y is for Yoda – Jedi master and knight
Z is for zealous – No, i’m just full of shite

Thanks for reading

xxx

The Power of Love

My blog for today is all about the word many people fear using and others long to say it to that one special person.

Love….

I have given this topic much thought recently for a variety of reasons, both good and bad. It’s amazing to me how such a powerful wonderful emotion can cause so much hurt and pain at times too. Understandable why people who have opened their heart to the possibilty of love only to have it broken are scared to love again. To go from feeling an almost euphoric feeling of elation and warmth to suddenly feeling that your world is ending is horrendous. Sadly, everyone must go through this heartache at some point in their life for it’s true “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” – Samuel Butler.

I’ve always been a believer that there is a special someone out there for everyone….now I’m not so sure. I am more inclined to think that there is more than one special person out there for us but only one “soulmate”. Too many people will go through life thinking they have found their’s only to suddenly meet someone out of the blue and feel a connection so strong it leaves them reeling. Some people have been lucky enough to find their soulmate and you can see it. The way they look at each other or the way they don’t even have to talk to know what the other is thinking. Then you have others who settle for a comfortable life together because it’s the “done thing” to do. Don’t get me wrong i think often the “done thing” works out long term but i believe they will always feel like something is missing.

Another thing I feel happens so often is you meet someone you have a strong connection with but it’s the wrong time in your life. It can be a chance encounter anywhere and there’s no explanation but you feel close to them instantly. You can’t understand why this one person has you feeling the way you do or why you feel drawn to them…you just know they’re special to you somehow. In cases like this the ol’ romantic in me believes that a path of fate will always bring you back to each other one way or another.

Everyday i change my views on how I feel about love. Some days I hate thinking about ever loving a man again cause when it goes wrong IT HURTS!! Then I start to think “Imagine going through life and never having felt it”….I can’t think of anything worse!

Truth is I’m getting to the point where I think “What IS love?” We all seem to think we are in love at one stage or another but do we really know or are we just going by what other people have described the feeling as? It’s right up there with many other questions i need answered, like why do men talk to our boobs instead of our face? Will Rimmel ever make a non-chip nail varnish that ACTUALLY doesn’t chip? Will i EVER work out the plot in Lost?

All I know is I’m trying not to feel cheated by love…but I’ve been duped by it once too often. I don’t want to end up being some cynical bitter old woman who spent the rest of her days too afraid to love again, but right now I’m dodging the word LOVE like bullets!! (and I mean the “in love” sense of the word) But apparently it’s what “the world needs now” according to Burt Bacharach so who am i to argue!!!

Below are some quotes that I feel are an apt way to end this blog.

Thanks for reading.

If love is so important to have that one doesn’t want to lose it, why is it when we find true love we often don’t notice it? – Anonymous

Where there is love, there is pain. – Spanish proverb

There is only one kind of love, but there are a thousand imitations. – Francois de La Rouchefoucauld

The courses of true love never did run smooth. – William Shakespeare

A person can be in love with someone forever till the end of time. But if that person doesn’t tell or show the feelings of love, it will be just another person living in a dream, lost of true love. – Anonymous

If the love you think you felt goes away quickly, then what you felt was never love to begin with. – Henry Mac

Somewhere there’s someone who dreams of your smile, and finds in your presence that life is worth while. So when you’re lonely remember it’s true: somebody somewhere is thinking of you. – Anonymous

There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not. – Francois de La Rouchefoucauld

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love – Charlie Brown

Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so – David Grayson

If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater – Anonymous

I thought I’d forget you, but I guess I forgot to. – Anonymous

“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart – Washington Irving

“Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest:
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers:
Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest,
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers
- William S. Gilbert

Footy, shell suits, hitch-hiking and menthol ciggies

My teenage daughter asked me last night why i always avoid discussing my teenage years with her. She commented on the fact i am always quite vague when answering any questions she may have. It made me realise she is absolutely right…i think i know why though.

Our chat last night got me thinking of what *I* was like at her age and the comparisons. Although my daughter and I are very similar in many ways her teenage life could not be more different than mine. Both in good and bad ways…but I think my reluctance to discuss my teenage years is my way of trying to keep her from making the same mistakes. Of course that’s an impossible task as no one can be protected from making their own mistakes. Infact, i think making the mistakes is a BIG part of growing up. Without the mistakes we’d not know our strenghs or limitations in life.

My daughter has just turned 15, she is top of her class in every subject. She is gifted musically..playing 4 different instruments and composing her own music. She rarely goes out at night and spends her time studying or playing her guitar. She is also a typical teenage girl…she loves clothes, shoes, make-up, boys (yikes) and her friends.

Then i think back to what i was doing at 15 and laugh…our lives could not be more different. Here’s why…

Even thinking about my early teenage years triggers of many emotions in me…happiness, sadness, anger, embarassment. But most of all they are the memories which shaped my life forever and i wouldn’t change them for anything.

I grew up in a tiny fishing village on the West Coast of Scotland. It’s a beautiful place and for a kid growing up it’s a dream come true….till you hit your early teens that is. As a child you had the freedom to run and play anywhere and your parents never had to worry cause it was a safe place and everyone knew everyone. Our days would be spent walking or cycling to shell beach, playing football (the amount of Club 5 footballs we went through in a week was crazy), running about up the croft playing armies, huts up the hill toasting marshmallows over a camp fire, kiss, cuddle and torture in the cattle market (not sure i could still hurdle those wooden gates and fences as quick nowadays)…it really was an idylic way to grow-up. Like something out of a movie at times.

I remember a time my parents would say to people “Arlene is so studious..she just loves to read for hours and draw”. I think they rued the day they said those words.

By the time we hit 14 all the things we loved to do wasn’t cutting it anymore. Where we lived there was nothing to do at night..no cinemas, swimming pool, youth club etc. We all of course still wanted to hang out together so this meant us hanging about at play parks or sitting on park benches. Boredom leads to radical ideas for excitement and so it began…goodbye innocent children, hello mischevious teenagers!!

Suddenly we were all shell suit wearing spotty teens. We’d hang around in gangs of 4 or 5 (sometimes more)..but obvious groups were starting to form. You had the snooty girlie girl gang, all they cared about was what people thought of them and their appearance. All the boys fancied them but found them highly annoying at the same time. You also had the “floating” group who basically spoke to everyone and never put themselves in a particular gang…they were also good at being 2-faced and would take great pleasure in telling people what others were saying about them. Then there was our group…we didn’t care what people thought of us, we were happy playing football, wrestling with the lads (literally wrestling about the ground), hanging about together having a laugh and not taking life too seriously. We were always happy to take on the snooty girls..infact we thrived on it. (as i’m sure Gayle and Angie will agree) Soon alcohol was introduced and before long our pocket money wasn’t going on sweets, juice and crisps anymore…we’d club together for cider. Sitting at the play park counting out our money deciding who we’d ask this time to buy our booze for us. Where we lived it wasn’t difficult. You just asked and you got the respone “Aye, what are yas wanting?” Everyone older than us had been there so knew what we were all going through..the alcohol buzz was our only excitement in a village with one street!!!

Of course it didn’t stop there, we had to try smoking too. I for long enough used to smoke like it was a cigar..i’d blow the smoke out immediately without inhaling it. Then one day someone said i wasn’t even smoking properly so i inhaled it and coughed my guts up for about 10 minutes. It didn’t stop me and before long i was a frequent puffer. We used to smoke big long white menthol cigarettes which at the time we thought was cool. Yes, life was good, we were having fun and no one was getting in our way. But it was also getting very boring…we needed new excitement.

Our new excitement came by way of hitching to the next small town about 15 miles away. I still remember the first time myself and my 2 best friends Angela and Gayle decided to do it. You’d think we were hitching to another country..we just kept nervously giggling and looking at each other. Little did we know that heading to Lochgilphead that night was about to change all our lives forever.

When we first stepped out the car we had hitched a lift from it was like a whole new world to us let alone a small town just up the road. Being strangers people automatically started talking to us…a group of guys in particular who became a major part of our teenage years. Both for good and bad reasons (too many to go into without writing a novel), but they are definitely a big part of most of my (and my friend’s) memories between the age of 14 to 16.

As much as I have so many brilliant memories from that point in my life i also have so many bad ones. The gang we got involved with were troublesome and it’s only now I realise how much so. They introduced me to things i’d never even contemplated before and at the time I thought they were cool. I foolishly believed that if i did what they were all doing it would make me cool too. I was seeing one of the boys in the group also so i never wanted to look like i was young and immature in front of him. They were all older than me and I didn’t want to seem like the young naive one. (even though i was)

My life spiralled downwards and before i knew it this gang was all i cared about. I had drifted apart from my closest friends and the family I was so close to hardly seen me anymore. My parents were sick with worry and I feel terrible now for all the upset i caused them both. I was staying out at night…sometimes for 2 or 3 at a time. In short…I had become totally blinkered to what OR who was important to me…and i didn’t care.

A series of events finally led me to get up one morning, get dressed and go to the local career’s office. It was like I walked there in auto-pilot as i just remember sitting at the ladies desk and asking “What courses are available in Glasgow starting as soon as the Summer is over?”

I left the career’s office and breathed deeply..this was the start of my next chapter. Now all i had to do was tell my parents i was moving to Glasgow asap.

There was no goodbyes to anyone…I packed my stuff and left the next day to live with my sister in Glasgow and i’ve never looked back. I dread to think what my life would be like had I stayed there..and I try not to think about it.

No doubt my daughter will read this blog and maybe understand why i don’t talk too much about my teenage years. Hopefully she will recognise the fact that i seen sense in the end and realised how important it is to work hard to change and improve on the mistakes you make.

I really have more good memories than bad ones to share with her..which I definitely intend to do. It’s not fair to deprieve her of some of the funny stories I have all because i don’t want to talk about the bad ones.

It’s time for me to allow her to make her own chapters in life now.