Tinder Tales - Spanish Edition

Ahh Spain. The land of sangria and salsa, siestas and paella. And fuckboys. Don't forget the fuckboys. 

One of the (very few) things I've learnt about men here is a Spanish mans version of flirting is far from an English mans perverted grab of your butt on the dance floor in a club. Instead, they basically act like you're the actual love of their life and propose to you, be that on the spot or via tinder. They shower you with compliments and promises and although that's amazing for all of five minutes it starts to feel rather insincere and actually pretty damn annoying pretty quickly.

Well, with the exception of this guy 

Nice Carlo mate, nice.

My dates here in Spain have been even MORE colourful than those back home, believe it or not, and have provided my friends with many a good cackle. And I hope they will do the same for you. 

I will start with a more recent one - this was with a very pleasant young Colombian man who I met on tinder. Being an au pair, I only get my free time at the weekends, and because of this and the fact we both had plans for the few weeks after we'd started speaking, it took us almost 2 months to meet for the first time. He was very persistent and he went to a lot of effort. He found a lovely wine bar hidden away from the centre of town, and (apparently) ordered in several bottles of pretty fancy pants wine. (I say apparently as you can never be sure what's genuine and what's been said just to swoon you with these Latinos 🙄). We had a lovely evening, good conversation, lots of laughs, and he ended up inviting me to his apartment for a salsa lesson - NOT an innuendo, for an actual salsa dancing lesson, he was trained in it!

During the taxi ride, I unfortunately took a turn for the worse and instead of giving me a salsa lesson the poor guy spent the rest of the evening locked outside his bathroom while I was throwing up all the lovely fancy pants wine he had ordered in for us. Whoops!

I don't know if this next one counts as a date - however it definitely does count as a hilarious story that made all my friends die of laughter. So it was a Saturday night, and I went out to a nightclub with a couple of friends. Over the course of the evening I met an English guy - this was unusual for the club we were in as it was full of locals and not tourists, so I got super excited to spend some time with a fellow Brit. It turned out he lived here, so after an evening of dancing and chatting he asked if I wanted to go to his for a few drinks. In my oblivious, slightly drunk and overexcited state I accepted, so off we went. Everything was going great, we were both laughing, having fun, we had some beers and put some music on... And then out of nowhere, after the upbeat dancey chart music we had been listening to, a sad song came on. I was obviously not prepared for this and I inexplicably started to absolutely bawl my eyes out crying. Initially when he asked if I was crying I insisted that no, I was in fact allergic to something and when he asked what I just screamed 'I DONT KNOW'. Poor guy probably thought he was getting lucky and instead got a drunk girl crying on his sofa. Bet I reminded him why he left home! 

Again, this next one isn't an official date, but it alllllll began on my birthday. I believe one of my girlfriends and I had started drinking at around 1pm (it was my fucking birthday stop judging me) and by the time it was the evening I was so inhebriated I almost smashed an enormous mirror upside-down-twerking in the hotel room my sister had got as my birthday gift for me and my friends. So, you get the idea - the party was getting wild. We went to a club with our friend who was a promoter and I remember very little about the night - unsurprisingly. 

I woke up the next morning not in my hotel room with my girlfriends, but at our other friend, the promoters house. Turns out I'd lost everyone and this poor guy had had to take my drunk ass home. I frantically patted myself down when I realised I was in his bed and was relieved to find I was still fully clothed. 'Oh god, what a good friend, what a gentleman' I thought. Turns out the actual reason he hadn't tried anything on was because I was sick on his bedroom floor. Classy as fuck I'm sure you'll agree. We cool though, he's still a friend to this day (although I have no idea why he wants to be!)

I went out with a French guy a few months ago now, who over the course of the evening decided to tell me how every woman he goes out with just falls head over heels in love with him and also proceeded to laugh about the fact he's cheated on every girlfriend he's ever had. I don't even know what more to write about this date other than the fact that after this he was actually shocked when I didn't want to see him again... Seriously though?? SERIOUSLY??? ****internal despair****

The last actual Tinder date I went on was a local, from Barcelona. He seemed cute, funny, successful, so I was pretty pumped to meet him. He met me at the metro station and told me he needed to go to the supermarket. For the date I'd told him I would cook dinner so I'd assumed the supermarket trip was for ingredients for dinner and some drinks.

WRONG.

This dude did a FULL ASS FUCKING SHOP, we must have been there for an HOUR while he compared the prices of shampoo and conditioner and laundry detergents. The shop he did was so big I ended up carrying THREE BAGS OF SHOPPING BACK TO HIS FLAT. Fucking heavy ones too. Then I cooked him dinner and when I asked if he would chop some garlic for me he said no. Literally no. ERM THAT IS THE LEAST YOU COULD DO AFTER I CARRIED YOUR FUCKING SHOPPING HOME FOR YOU MATE. And then after dinner he made me give him a back massage because he'd had some sports competition or something that morning. I think he thought I was actually his wife. Or a slave, I'm not sure which. (All jokes aside though, we did end up having a pretty good time, although I'm not sure why or how 😂)

That's not even all of them, there are more believe it or not, and they've all been equally enormous shit shows. My dating life as you can see has just become more material for a comedy sketch show in Spain than it already was at home. But as I've said previously, if I was in a successful functioning relationship - first of all I'd probably be very bored, and secondly I'd have nothing to write about! Every cloud and all that! 

Happy tindering peeps, and happy adulting! X

Spanish Stuff: Volume 1

Happy 1 month-iversary to me and my new love, Barcelona. It's going well, I think we are going to last. Just thought I'd fill you all in on some stuff I've noticed and / or learned about Spain and the Spanish culture so far, in case you are coming here, or just want a good bloody laugh, because some of it is hilarious. 

Firstly, they drive on the other side of the road. That's quite apparent pretty much as soon as you get here. You probably knew that already if you're not a retard like me. But when you've been here a month and you still try and get into the drivers seat instead of the passenger seat literally every day, you start to look pretty stupid. 

If you've never heard a Spanish family have a full blown conversation, it sounds pretty much exactly like the Eminem song 'Rap God' when he's doing the super super fast bit. There's no way an English person will ever be able to keep up so my advice is just smile and say 'Sí'. It's served me pretty well so far. 

When writing in Spanish, accents are very important. 'Si' with no accent actually means if. Not yes. Also año (year) with no accent means anus. As in arse hole. Watch out for that one.

Spanish men are soppy as fuck. Your tinder will just be full of kissy faces and heart eyes emojis. This is not my cup of tea, I'm English and am used to dating men who use 'banter' as an excuse to be  utter cunts. If I can't moan about how much of a prick you are to my girlfriends I'm not interested. Although sometimes their names are hilarious... 

Lols. 

Also I highly reccomend South American men, and there are no shortage of those here. Why do I reccomend them you ask?? Weeeellll I'll just leave this chart here.... 

I'll say no more.

If you're a low key alcoholic or an asthmatic smoker like me, then Spain is literally heaven. 50g's of tobacco is EIGHT MOTHER-FLIPPING EUROS, and you can get a 12 pack of beers for €2.85. I'm never coming home. 

Sangria hangovers literally feel like Satan hammered his way through your skull with a butter knife, took a shit on your brain and left a gaping hole in your head. Don't ever drink it for 14 hours straight (guilty). I've watched them make it and there is like 3 tablespoons of sugar in every glass . You've been warned.

If you go to the beach in Barcelona, you will be harassed every 30 seconds by people selling beers and blankets. DO NOT BUY THE BEER. I've heard a rumour they keep it in the sewers at night when they're not selling it - VOM. And if you do want a blanket, we managed to haggle a guy down from €30 to €7 so don't get ripped off. (We still didn't buy it, it was just for bants) If you don't want either of these items, I find screaming 'coño' at the top of your lungs to be pretty effective. Or just say 'Tengo un cochillo' quietly and I imagine they will leave pretty abruptly. 

Spanish people shout at each other a LOT. Don't be alarmed, this is just how they communicate. They're usually not having an argument, but sometimes it's hard to tell. 

Spanish people think English people are all alcoholics. Although in most cases this is true, try not to start bar fights or vomit in the street - athough this is normal and socially acceptable behaviour in London, it is not here. Weird. 

Spanish trains are by far the most bizarre 

I've ever encountered. Sometimes they just don't turn up. No announcements, they just never come. There are no boards showing the next trains at most stations outside the city, and a lot of the trains have no announcements on them either. And if you're sitting anywhere that isn't exactly in the middle of the train you will rarely see the station name when you pull into the platform. I have panicked several times and just guessed where to get off. It has usually been wrong. 

They also don't have bridges to cross over the platforms, you literally just walk over the tracks. Health and safety at its finest. 

Back to the positives - this is a place where my sleeping schedule is perfectly acceptable. I can sleep in the middle of the day with absolutely no judgement, because everyone else does it too. God bless you siestas <3

And finally, EVERYTHING on Spanish TV is overtly sexual. I was watching some Spanish sitcom with the 9 year old and 11 year old girls I au pair for at about 7.30 in the evening and someone threw an enormous pink dildo out a window which proceeded to hit a pedestrian on the head. There's an enourmous billboard we pass on our way into Barcelona that advertises a sex toy warehouse and condom commercials are on in the middle of the day. None of that is exaggerated for comic effect - it is very bizarre coming from a land where my mum still thinks I'm too young to have a boyfriend at nearly 24 and if someone so much as kisses on TV while you're in the same room as your family everyone becomes visibly uncomfortable. But hey, I ain't complaining. My crudeness fits right in! 

This will no doubt be volume one, I'll keep y'all updated with the weirdness and wonderfulness that is the Spanish culture.

Happy adulting peeps X

The Break Up Blog

Another fun part of adulting - Failed relationships!!! I was recently ‘involved’ with someone for the best part of five months. It didn’t end traumatically, my heart wasn’t shattered into a billion pieces and I wasn’t a hopeless mess – it was more just a bit of a shame, and it all came to a very amicable and mature end (first time for everything I suppose). 

My two (now ex) housemates, also had break ups in the time we lived together, and I thought it would be interesting to draw comparisons on how people deal with break ups differently. Bearing in mind the three break ups themselves were very different – one was the end to a 5 year relationship, the other an on / off 2-and-a-bit year relationship, and mine, the nearly-five-months-wasn’t-really-official ‘relationship’. 

Living with someone means you get the pleasure of being witness to every tear, tantrum and grimy detail of how people cope. 

Spoiler alert – there was a lot of wine involved in all three of our recovery periods!

 

The nearly-five-months-wasn’t-really-official ‘relationship’

- Don’t shave your legs for well over a month

- Drink daily

- Hold off from getting tinder because you know it is both a waste of data and also life

- Download tinder

- Get messages like this

- Go on tinder date on steak and blow job day 

- Give the guy steak and get his hopes up

- Dont give him a blow job

- Laugh at guy you didn’t give blow job to with your friends

- Get your sister pissed and make her download tinder

- Tinder swipe for your sister

- Consider other dating apps but then remember how many times you were offered money to do porn on OK cupid that time you downloaded it for 24 hours

- Go on nights out and spend too much money on drinks and forget about the £150 gas and electric bill you haven’t paid for 2 and a half months

- Panic over gas and electric bill

- Realise you have distracted yourself from break up by causing yourself anxiety about gas and electric bill

It worked for me!

The five year relationship 

- Initially cope shockingly well and baffle everyone around you

- Milk it a bit at work so you get to go home half way through the day and watch ex on the beach

- Stalk ex boyfriend intensely on every form of social media

- Consider career as private detective because you’re so fucking good at stalking ex boyfriend on social media

- Download tinder

- Go on Tinder date with minor celeb

- Document Tinder date with minor celeb on social media and make sure privacy settings are set to public, in hope ex boyfriend will see

- Dump minor celeb from Tinder

- Go on literally 1000 dates

- Make sure a decent proportion of these 1000 men are from work

- Give zero fucks when the men from work find out you've been dating all of them

- Dump all 1000 men and feel like fucking super woman 

- Snog a guy in front of someone who you know likes you, just for lols

- Get extremely drunk

- Go home extremely drunk and run a bath

- Get in bath

- Vomit all over self in bath

- Snapchat vommy bath to friends

- Fuck everything off and move to South America

Definitely worked for her

The on / off 2-and-a-bit year relationship

- Immediately get drunk

- Cry loudly

- Call ex whilst drunk and crying loudly

- Accidentally sit on housemates cat and almost break its neck

- Argue loudly with housemate

- Cry even more loudly

- Call mum whilst crying loudly

- Be fine the next day and immediately download tinder

- Tinder at every spare possible second

- Go on tinder date and fall in instant love

- Profess new found love to anyone that will listen

- Get bored after 2 days

- Go to gay bar 

- Get extremely drunk

- Fall in instant love with the first person you see

- Get bored after half an hour and find someone else

- Meet up with ex as ‘friends’

- Twice

- Get back together with ex

I suppose that worked for him too?

Break ups suck, and so does dating at times. I can’t explain how close I am to giving up all together and just getting several more cats. Will keep the blog updated with any more colourful dates I may go on, Tinder Tales part 3 coming soon! I also downloaded Bumble, was thinking when I have some stories together of doing a ‘Bumble Fumbles’ post? No? Ok, I’ll work on the title… I suppose I should be grateful really, I mean if I was in a successful functioning relationship what the fuck would I write about?! How dull!

Happy adulating peeps!

 

10 Of The Worst Things About Adulting

Hello friends, back on topic after last weeks feminism rant I thought I would share with you 10 of my pet peeves about adulting...

10. Cooking

So I think I might have mentioned previously I love food. When I moved to London 4 years ago the most technical thing I could make was a cheese toastie (big up Auntie Brid for the toastie maker). After a solid two years of McDonald's, Gregs and microwave meals, I have actually started to cook things myself from scratch. And actually, it's pretty fun and gives you a massive sense of satisfaction and achievement. However, when you start it's really quite daunting. Like, looking up a recipe online is enough to put you off. Why the fuck do I need 700 ingredients to make a pasta bake. Why do I need to buy more tools than it would take to fix a car when all I want is to bake a sodding cake. And also, I don't know about anyone else but when I get home from work I don't want to spend an hour making  some elaborate feast, I want to put pajamas on and eat ice cream and drink wine in bed. WHERE DO YOU FIND THE TIME??? Take aways, fast food and ready meals are too tempting, and I am extremely lucky I am not 50 stone. Actually looking over my diet I'm pretty lucky I'm still alive. Take tonight's dinner for example...

Yum.

9. Cleaning

I'm going to be very real here. I clean my room probably once every three months. For real. I only do a load of washing when I have completely run out of clean pants and have worn at least two pairs inside out. I have fallen out on some level with pretty much every person I've ever lived with because whenever the communal areas get too dirty to inhabit I just stop using them and pretend those rooms don't exist. I HATE cleaning. But on the flip side of that when it comes to things I eat off and drink from I am a germ FREAK. I have to stearalise mugs before I make a cup of tea. I wash every utensil and piece of cutlery twice before I use it (and then leave it for a week and a half after I've finished with it before cleaning it again) My main motivation to progress in my career is to earn enough money  to pay someone else to clean my house. High five to all the housewives out there - you deserve a fucking Nobel Prize. Aaaaaaand this post has just ruined any small chance I had left of ever getting married. Sweet!

8.Having to make your own decisions.

I have made pretty much exclusively bad decisions since I have been living independently.

'Don't get a cat, you can barely look after yourself' everyone said. FUCK YOU I WILL DO WHAT I WANT. And now I'm £50 poorer a month and I cant find anywhere to live because nowhere in London allows pets. Nice one me. 

Every time I go out on a week day and have to sneak to the toilet at work to puke up my McDonalds breakfast the next day I swear I'll never do it again. Then the week after I'm all like - Oopsie its 2am on Tuesday and I'm still in Be @ 1 with three cocktails a beer and a shot of Jaegermeister. I don't have the adult function in my brain. I think I will live the rest of my life like an unchaperoned child.

7. Working

You will never be able to pay me enough to get out of bed at 7am. The only reason I work is because benefits wouldn't cover my fags and alcohol habit. 

6. Commuting to work

If there was ever an argument for contraception it is public transport in London. There is ALWAYS a screaming child on my bus. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN CRYING ABOUT - YOU'RE NOT THE ONE ON YOUR WAY TO WORK, YOU'RE PROBABLY ON YOUR WAY TO EAT A DELICIOUS ASPARAGUS PUREE THEN SHIT YOUR PANTS AND HAVE A NAP. I think my anger towards children mainly steams from pure jealousy. And if its not a screaming child, its a stinky homeless person or a half naked lunatic. And don't ask me why because my commuting face is far from friendly, but I attract ALL OF THEM like a sodding magnet.  

5. Managing your own bedtime.

I have spent the last 4 years of my life tired. Every night I say I'm getting an early night. And every night I am up till 1 am watching YouTube videos and cat vines. Is this something I can sue Apple for because I'm pretty sure I didn't do this before they equipped  me with an Iphone?

4. Managing your own money.

Like what the actual fuck am I going to work for when I spend half of it on rent for the shoe box bedroom I'm living in in the house I share with 20 other people, and the rest goes on electricity bills and toilet roll. I haven't shopped in like 3 months. Actually that's a lie, I shopped last month but this is another good reason that I shouldn't be ALLOWED to manage my own money - I made it to the last week of the month with £300 (which is a genuine first in 4 years) and instead of putting that money towards the deposit for the imminent move I have coming up, I spent it all on Topshop clothes and a pub lunch. Worth it!

3. House Sharing

Working in the property market has brought me to the very depressing realisation I will NEVER be a homeowner. Unless I win the lottery or have some really rich relatives I don't know about, I literally have no hope. And I also have no hope of affording to rent a one bedroom flat in London. Not even a fucking studio flat. Average price is genuinely over a grand a month in this city. BEFORE BILLS. So that means I will be house sharing until I'm 40. And that means I will have people complaining about my dirty dishes for the next 18 years. Moaning at me for being too loud. Chasing people 5 times before the transfer me the money for the God damn council tax. Having explosive, screaming arguments with people about crumbs on the counter in the kitchen and then not speaking to them for 3 months and having to avoid whichever room they're using until they're finished. Landlords who are unreasonable CRIMINALS like mine now.

2. Dating

Dating is just a constant roller-coaster of disappointment and anxiety to me. I meet someone who's creepy and weird - disappointment. I meet someone I like - anxiety. Why haven't you text me for a WHOLE HOUR. YOU LIKED SOMEONE ELSE'S SELFIE ON INSTAGRAM. I DON'T CARE IF IT WAS A BOY YOU CAN ONLY LIKE MY SELFIES. It's emotionally stressful and also time consuming and it's bloody expensive. Why do we have to go to some fancy cocktail bar, cant we get a 4 pack of fosters each and sit in a park??

1.The realisation this is what it will be like forever and you have to get the hang of all this shit on your own.

I just want someone to tell me how to do it all. Please. MUMMY.

I'm getting there. Slowly. Kind of. Let me know what you hate most about adulting, because misery loves company. Now I'm off to drink some wine and watch pointless videos on YouTube and forget that I'm moving out of my house at the weekend and I have nowhere to live and I haven't started packing yet.

Happy Adulting x

How Do I Tinder - Part One

I will start by apologizing to any family members reading this (except Aisling, you fucking love it) and also any family friends. Not that any of you are under the impression I'm any kind of perfect angel, (HAHAHA) but I doubt you will want to read about my various experiences with trashy Tinder men. In fact, just stop reading now. Thanks.

So. By now I think I should be some kind of Tinder expert, I think I could probably write a dissertation on it. Yet after a year and a half of vigorous tindering I am apparently yet to master the art, as alas, I sit here alone with a beer, a fag and my cat. I'm basically Bridget Jones, just 10 years younger. Cheers!

After an extremely bizarre final Tinder date (which I am sure I will write about another time), I have actually taken the plunge and shakily and hesitantly deleted the app. I am in recovery, three weeks Tinder free. There have been ups and downs, nights when I've been left alone unsupervised and nearly relapsed. But here I am, and though at one time I couldn't imagine life without my sweet sweet daily fix, I feel so much better, I feel healthy, I feel free.

Anyone who knows me and wasn't aware of that, I know, I know, it's utterly shocking and you never thought you'd see the day. Close your mouth.  The original idea for my blog was actually going to be about my 'colourful' Tinder experiences, however I swiftly decided against this because I realised nobody would date me if they knew I would write a blog about them for everyone to laugh at afterwards. And that would also mean the skeletons of my dating closet would be out for the whole world to see, when they belong firmly padlocked in that closet. Forever. Like Hozier says, future husband, you shouldn't care none about what my hands and my body's done. PREACH HOIZY!

So, I will fill you in with but a few of my most colourful Tinder experiences, for now I'll condense it to the best and the worst...

Naturally I'll start with the worst. DISCLAIMER - I am not being a total bitch here, this dude does not have me on Facebook and will never read this, so I can be as brutal as I want, and besides I'm pretty sure the feeling was more than mutual. We will call him... Tom. Tom's profile was quite artsy and intriguing, a lot of black and white photos and tartan scarves etc, he definitely caught my eye. He had this strong bone structure and serious look constantly on his face in all his pictures. He wore specs, the kind of geeky specks that pretentious dicks in Camden (who I totally get wet for by the way) have made sexy. They were round with tortoiseshell boarders. He had black floppy hair, and this look in his eye that said one of two things - either 'I am looking into your soul right now, reading you like a book while simultaneously undressing you' or 'I'm a fucking serial killer, run'. I think I've made him sound pretty hot, but I do have to admit he had the kind of face that personality was going to determine which way it went. He was either going to be unbelievably sexy or be a creepy pedophile. Think Ryan Gosling... Kind of fucked up looking but has the potential to be (and in his case is) SO HAWT. You get what I mean now? Yeahhhh... So we started chatting and much to my joy he turned out to be a writer, a photographer and an artist. That level of pretension is more than enough to get me going, like seriously get this girl a mop and bucket. And he had this way of writing messages that made me feel like I was a character in a 50's romance novel, talking to a mysterious, hopeless, sexy, failing artist who was subtly pursuing me. I was utterly convinced he was going to be my Ryan Gosling. 

He asked me to meet him under the London Eye after work one Monday, and who could say no to something that romantic right! So there I was sitting on a bench underneath the London Eye, looking out over the Thames planning our wedding (hahaha kiddinnnnnng), and I see a figure out of the corner of my eye. 'Thophia', a voice says. I look up. I see a rather boney, approximately 5'5 man in a an extremely posh suit, wearing leather gloves and carrying a briefcase and one of those expensive black business mans umbrellas. He didn't just write like he was from the 50's, he looked like he actually WAS from the 50's. And no, 'Thophia' was not a typo, he had a pretty serious lisp too. I just wanted to say 'No. No I am not Sophia... Good day Sir!' and get up and RUN. And don't get me wrong here, (as much as it sounds like it) this was NOT just about how he looked. He had this extremely bizarre way about him, he was standing in front of me with one arm outstretched for me to take his hand, and the other folded behind his back. Like, what? What the fuck? Why are you doing that.
I gave him as big a smile as I could muster because I didn't want to be rude, and got up to give him an extremely awkward kiss on the cheek. He awkwardly walked me to the very expensive OXO tower where he had booked us a table and then he probably spent about £40 on two cocktails. I will not go into too much detail about the date, other than I literally cringed for the entire hour, I couldn't stop fidgeting, and I don't think I made eye contact with him once, we kept misunderstanding each-others humor and then sitting in silence, and it was just HORRIBLE. I am probably the least awkward person in the world - like I could make conversation with a fish, and any other bad date I've been on where I knew there was no chemistry, I've managed to see it out and make decent conversation and generally quite enjoyed it, even though there's that tinge of disappointment that I'm not getting a shag. (Sorry Mum)
This was next level. I've never been so polar oppositely different to anyone in my life, or felt such a strong longing to leave anywhere, ever. I would rather be stuck in a lift with a human sized turd than live through that date again. And just when I thought I had managed to escape, he insisted on walking me 20 minutes back to the station, (I'm sure just to be a gentleman as there was no way he was enjoying himself) and we filled this time arguing about whether Southwark station was linked to Waterloo East station. Needless to say, we said a horribly awkward goodbye, and we never spoke again. Except for when I sent him a picture of the Jubilee line tube map to prove that Southwark IS in fact linked to Waterloo East station. He was a nice man and utterly harmless and really quite sweet - but so not for me, and I was so not for him either. I think he thought I was mildly retarded.

Sooooo that story went on for a lot longer than I anticipated, so lets call this part one of my colourful Tinder experiences, I'll give you a positive experience for next time.

Dating is hard, but never give up hope - do however give up Tinder. There is no hope on Tinder, it just eats your soul. And also, you get messages like this.

No, I didn't find that message on the internet, that was genuinely sent to me.

Happy dating peeps, and happy adulting x 

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