Say what you really mean....

 Don't get me wrong, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I'm going to insult you or pass judgment on you and because I'm so spineless, I'll first say "look, no offense intended" or "with all due respect" because I want to cling to my opinion of myself as a good person. Politicians do it all the time and it signifies all too clearly you're just about to criticise or run someone down, yet so many of us hide behind similar phrases, like snails in their shells, thinking it absolves us of the very sentiment we're expressing...

 I am so completely over people who say one thing yet mean another; passive aggressive types, needling whiners, sooks, perpetual apologists, media personalities - I wanna use them for firewood. They, however, are like straight-talking Ben Chifley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Chifley) compared to people who say things like "I know I shagged your boyfriend and killed your dog and backstabbed you while doing it...but that's not really me. I'm not like that." Oh yeah? So who the hell was it?

 A few years ago you may have heard Christian Bale's rant during the filming of Terminator, Salvation. Suffice to say, Bale completely lost it on set, made an idiot of himself and was ridiculed worldwide because his behaviour revealed him for what he is: a petulant movie star. Then, when he did publicity for the flick, he gave interviews saying stuff like: "I did it, it's in the public space. I take the consequences for it. I'm not hiding from that. I went overboard."

 Fair enough, but then he follows it with this: "I'm not making any excuses, but there is an essential trust and it's not a tacit one, which is every sound guy says, 'We are not recording, we are not even listening.' So, well, there goes that."

 So even though Bale said "I'm not making excuses" he then proceeds to make excuses. He adds: "I do stress though, it's not in any way a trust that's there to cover up bad behaviour. It's not about that. I'm not whining, but it's an essential trust that's needed for creativity." So even after Bale says "I'm not whining", he then spends a minute...whining. Even worse, he tries to distract from the fact he acted like a dickhead by playing the Sanctity of Art card. People do this stuff all the time and it drives me nuts.

 A few weeks ago, I caught a rerun of The Bachelorette. The female star of series two, Meredith, had made a big deal of telling the paramours competing for her 'love' that she was not a great communicator, so when she put the mental effort into constructing a sentence, "you can believe it's true". In the final episode, Meredith told one of the last two contestants - Matthew - that she wanted to marry him, then turned around and accepted another dude named Ian's proposal. Whatever. Who cares? Stupid TV. Vile people.

 However, when Matthew very politely asked Meredith to explain herself she apologised, then said words to the effect that it wasn't the "real" her that lied to him and manipulated his feelings; see, she wasn't "like that". Umm, Meredith ... you were just like that. On friggin' international television.

 More recently, good ole Chk Chk Boom chick (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0L2VaTWs9s), Clare Werbeloff, apologised for any offence 

(http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/chk-chk-boom-girls-crazy-week/2009/05/25/1243103484275.html) she caused by using the term "wog" in her video-taped lie about witnessing a shooting in Sydney's Kings Cross...then defended her use of the word saying her generation "don't really take offence to it any more". Honey, you are a white chick from the suburbs, you don't get to decide if the word wog is offensive, us wogs do. We all do things we're ashamed of, we all say things we regret and that's why the apology was invented: you did wrong, say sorry, now shut up.

 The problem with too many people is they say one thing - like an apology - then they try to explain or justify themselves or diminish their responsibility for their actions. THAT IS NOT A FRIGGIN' APOLOGY.

 It's an excuse, which is not the same thing. My mate reckons you can win over just about any person you have wronged or offended by doing two things:

1. Say you're sorry. That's it. Don't explain yourself, don't rationalise your behaviour, just apologise. Take all the blame and shut the hell up.

2. Modify your behaviour. Don't do it again. Take the lesson on board. Make the person you have wronged rightly feel that they've had a positive impact on you.

And that's it.

It’s in his kiss.

 You've had a great first date. The conversation was stimulating, eating habits were acceptable, he doesn't live with his mother or look like a serial killer and he even offered to pay for dinner. You think finally, the search has ended, I've found the one who will adore my cellulite and jiggly bits forever, no other jerk need see me naked. You eagerly lean in for that blessed and magical first kiss and…………ewwwwwwww - did a Saint Bernard sneak in and replace my prince charming?

 You open one eye for a peak and yep - to your dismay it isn't Rover slobbering all over your face, it's him. Once again, too good to be true, you thank him for a wonderful time and never call again. Do lousy kissers make lousy lovers? Women seem to think so - a study done by the University of New York found that "women place more emphasis on a kiss and are more reliant on kissing as a mate assessment technique than men".

 The average woman spends 336 hours of her life lip-locked. If that's true, can you blame us for ensuring we enjoy swapping saliva with you? Plus it's not an easy task finding the person you want to share bodily fluids with daily - the average chick kisses 29 men in her life before she's found her smoocher for life. Most men view kissing as a means to an end. Women feel the opposite, it's a means to a beginning. Get it wrong the first time fellas and you can kiss (pardon the pun) goodbye the hope of exchanging of ANY bodily fluids ever.

 And I'm not alone in man bashing here - most books and articles written about the art of kissing are geared towards men, so there are a few serial slobbers, suckers and slug-tongues out there. It is worth the effort of perfecting the pash. Men who kiss their partners before leaving for work average higher incomes than those who don't. If that doesn't interest you, a good pash will usually end in something more, and the "more" does involve nudity.

 So what is a good kiss? Hard to explain really. A bad kiss is much easier to describe. A bad kisser can suck loose your fillings, mistake your chin for your lips, produce so much salvia you want to call OOO (police, fire, and ambulance number here in Australia) for a life saver to rescue you from drowning, act like a happy puppy and lick your entire face like a lollipop, stick their tongue so far down your throat they can taste your last Tim Tam, or dart about like they're looking for some lost keys. They press so hard, your lips are somewhere between here and desert and if they are not overzealous they are so motionless you're not sure if it's their tongue that's comatose or their brain for not trying.

 Bad kissing should be a crime. In some countries it is. Well, maybe not bad kissing, but perhaps the laws were initiated by bad kissing. In Indiana it's illegal for a moustached man to habitually kiss human beings. Don't know about you but I'm not a fan of tickly tonsil hockey. In Hartford it's illegal for a husband to kiss his wife on Sunday - obviously someone wanted a day off from poor pashing.

 In Iowa it's a crime to kiss a stranger - maybe if whoever was kissing random strangers in Iowa was a tops kisser he would have been forgiven. So let's outlaw bad kissing for good - it's hindering our population growth. Share your thoughts on the perfect kiss and maybe all the bad kissers will read and learn - or maybe all the bad kissers have hooked up with all the other bad kissers and don't realise that they are bad kissers because they have nullified the effect.

Maybe, just maybe?

Have you met Peter Pan?

 There is a new breed of man on the dating scene. Have you met a Peter Pan yet? They are the lost boys who refuse to grow up. You will find them bopping away at the bar on a Saturday night well into their 40s, still wearing Converse and jeans to work and driving around in their mid-life-crisis convertibles.

A fondness for the Xbox and a habit of using the word dude in every sentence is not the problem with these juvenile delinquents. It's much worse: the eligible 30 to 40- year-old bachelors in this town date the 20-something handbags.

 A close friend of mine is a 30-something gal on the hunt for a man. As you all know, at her age the competition is rampant and her eggs are soon to be on ice. She is a cougar battling the kittens in a real-life Ashton Kutcher/Demi Moore Age of Love. For her, no longer does the role of attractive arm candy cut it.

 By 30 you have got to have substance to combat the crow's feet and personality to offset the sagging of your once-pert breasts. Even then you will struggle. The men don't want the liability of an ageing womb. Unfair, but true.

 Furiously my friend has asked me time and again - why would men bother with young girls who couldn't possibly match them on an emotional level? Sure their butts are higher, their skin smoother - but that isn't enough to satisfy, is it? Do they need an ego boost or is it childhood-lost complex? What my friends don't want to admit is that the 20-year-olds offer something a 30-year-old can't.

 Aside from perky assets, they have time on their side. Every man knows that if he meets a 35-year-old stunner, she has a few good years before she is going to want to have children. And if there is one thing we have learnt about this kidult generation of men, it's that there is no room for two babies in the relationship.

 There are 60-year-olds still scampering about in short pants in this town who think they can pull girls my age. It's this arrogance that annoys me the most. One such bachelor said dating 20-somethings was easier. They laugh at lame jokes, they are happy to go to Maccas drive-through for dinner and they think downing shots is totally awesome.

 They are complication free. This guy is 38 and single. But he is not panicked. Not desperate just yet. He knows he has at least 10 years to take a wife and in the meantime he is going to party as if it's 1999. Us women are just expected to wait on the shelf and hope we don't spoil before we are chosen. If the tables were turned and it was the men who bore children, things would be very different.

 They could be the ones sobbing into a box of tissues while we femmes took our sweet time to settle down. That sense of urgency that makes these Peters fly away would suddenly make sense to them. It is much tougher being a mature woman looking for love than it is for a man.

 But you can't live in Never Never Land forever, boys.

I absolutely refuse to starve myself in the name of becoming a size zero.

One of my friend’s New Year’s resolutions is to lose a few kilos this year (and she’s as skinny as a rake!), so at the moment she’s dieting, and I’m not sure our friendship will survive it. When we caught up for a meal recently, I noticed my fondness for her starting to decline – and I’m not sure if it was her hunger pangs or my frustration that should take the blame for my lack of enthusiasm.   Just to clear here, I’ve told her I think she is perfect the way she is, and wouldn’t be any more beautiful if she were a few kilos lighter. But telling a determined dieter they don’t need to lose weight is like telling a rapidly approaching freight train to take a right hand turn for a spot of leisurely sightseeing.
  I have a very healthy dislike for dieting. I’m not a fan of starving myself in the name of vanity. It was one thing for Ghandi to embark on a hunger strike to protest the British rule of India, but people who limit their food intake to diet shakes in the name of size-zero jeans probably can’t afford to restrict the amount of nutrients reaching their brain. And my friend has quite an impressive brain, which is why it’s such a shame she’s obsessed with all this dieting mumbo-jumbo.
  Like a religious zealot, or a pyramid-selling fanatic, she’s constantly lectured me on the benefits of cutting certain foods from my life. While this very tiresome conversation isn’t enough to push me away (I can easily deal with her ranting and raving by eavesdropping on couples at the next table), she’s recently taken her obsession one step too far.
 When she told me she was living in a carb-free zone, I presumed that was just isolated to her daily food regimen, but it seems I’m now required to be carb-free too. At lunch the other day, she pleaded with me not to order a bowl of fries because they’d be too much of a temptation for her. She also frowned when I said I was eyeing off the tortellini, because it would remind her that she hadn’t had pasta for weeks.
  Don’t get me wrong; I want to be a supportive friend, but why should I be forced to diet in her company? It’s unfortunate she’s friends with the ultimate enemy of the late Dr Atkins – who’d probably turn in his grave if he saw the enormous amount of carbs I eat every day. Besides, I’m Italian – carbs are our life!
 At our last catch up, out of respect for her I held back from eating chips and even left my complimentary bread roll untouched. As I begrudgingly ate my salad, I couldn’t stop staring at the plates of mash and toasted focaccias whirling by my head en route to other diners. I felt those pangs of denial every dieter knows so well – and I wasn’t even dieting!
 My friend sat opposite me glowing with pride, knowing her willpower had made it through another meal without succumbing to carbs. Yet I was left feeling unsatisfied and hungry, questioning the future of our dining relationship. I love my pal, but my relationship with bread and potatoes is so strong, I won’t have anyone come between us. In the same way King Edward VIII walked away from his throne for the love of Wallis Simpson, I might have to walk away from any friend who tries to deny me wheat.