Cupid has flown the co-op!

A seemingly easy topic to tackle, yet it took me several attempts to merely start this post, so many angles!
I have no feuds with celebrating love or even that little brat Cupid and it has nothing to do with the fact that I am single, so let’s make that clear.

My issue is more with the hundreds of couples that seem to have formed overnight, walking around town with a smug look on their faces, playing tonsil tennis on the streets, flaunting their “love” and their “in a couple” status. And when you cross their paths you have to wait for them to walk first because the pavement is not big enough for them and their love and you’re only a single person, you are nothing to them, a pest, and a waste of space. Today they do not envy your freedom.

This “couple” status that seems to give them the permission to take over the place with their balloons, chocolates, cards and public displays of affection, flowers everywhere, on the train, in the office, it’s their day, if you’re single (have flower allergies) It’s best if you stay home and out of their way, you’re merely an inconvenience, the town belongs to them, life belongs to them today.

Have you tried booking a table for dinner? IF you get through the busy line and manage to get a table for 10pm near the toilets, you’ll have to eat the Valentines set menu with heart shaped deserts and love potion chicken soup and other sappy romantic whatnots.

I give up – Chinese takeaway tonight it is.

Cupid did not strike this year, maybe he misfired his arrow and got himself in the ass! Or one would hope, but from all the love that seems to be spreading around the world, I’d say well done Marketing geniuses, you have truly done it.

How can people readily fall into these obvious traps and go ahead purchasing millions of pounds worth of perishable rubbish to commemorate a day (and presumably their love for each other) invented by marketers to help their clients craft targeted campaigns to take full advantage of the gift-buying frenzy, making it second to Christmas spending-wise.

I understand why there is no “I am single and loving it day”, single people are more cynical and think more clearly, their judgments are not clouded by love fumes etc, where’s the business genius in that! hmmmm
Actually…..that’s not a bad idea! I call dibs!

Oscar Wilde said “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance”
so before pretending to love someone else and showering them with confectioneries and material possessions because of an ancient roman religious man called Valentine who may or may not have been gay or because of a couple of TV adverts brainwashing you into conditional loving, learn to love yourself (not in that way you pervs) and spend the evening with friends or yourself doing something fun or interesting but do not engage any couple you may pass on the street or the bar, do not wish anyone a happy Valentines day and for gods’ sake don’t cry about being single, because today is actually your day not theirs, they are the clowns who are being bled, pressured into spending their hard earned cash in silly chocolate boxes, silly red cards and lingerie, you’re single and in control of your cash, time and feelings, all year long.

Dz-chick…bring on the 15th Feb!

Smile-it-forward

Another dreadful journey on London underground this morning, amidst all the armpits, newspapers cutting into my cheek and stale beer stench, something strange and wonderful happened, someone smiled at me, it was puzzling at first, then uncontrollably my facial muscles contracted and produced a smile (a beautiful smile at that) and we both acknowledged eachothers’ wretched position, from that point on, I forgot the smelly armpit, the leftover curry and the bad cologne and just wore a faint smile on my face that relaxed my tense muscles and I thought: it’s not that bad

So I went on about my interminable journey to work, my facial muscles relaxed and poised, I smiled at the next person who held my gaze, she smiled too and then it hit me…

It’s infections, you can catch it like the flu, it spreads like it was airborne and changes the atmosphere. It reminded me of a movie I watched once that made me weep like a child “paying it forward” based on the novel by the same title by Catherine Ryan Hyde starring that little cutie pie of a boy who started a movement called pay-it-forward, whereby he does one act of random kindness to three people and instead of having them pay him back, he asked them to 'pay it forward' by helping three other people, who would then each 'pay it forward' by helping three other people, who then go on to do the same in the hope of changing the world, of course the little boy died and it was all very sad and Hollywood like. 

I started reading on smiling, the physiological and emotional side of it and I became fascinated with smiling, in Islam, it is said that a smile in the face of others is considered charity or a good deed, and I thought that was so beautiful and I can see how a small facial contraction as it were can have huge effects on a whole group of people, a bit like a butterfly effect.

So I take it upon myself to always smile and smile back when people smile at me and sometimes you don’t know why you smile at some and not others and no it has nothing to do with being attracted to that person, notice how it is always women who initiate the smiling, old people smile, children smile and sometimes they stare at you in fascination (in my case it must be due to my striking beauty), don’t get me wrong, I am not walking around like a smiling moron flashing my teeth, the wrinkles are just not worth it, I endeavour to draw the line at a faint smile but certain people you cross on the train or the shop insist on sharing a thought or a joke with you, so again you smile (showing teeth this time) and nod in agreement but secretly hope it'll be the end of this chapter, but it usually never is!

Notice how it’s always women who smile at other women, children or older people, never at men, a women smiling at a man could be perceived as an open invitation or forward flirting and vice versa thus people of the opposite sex seem to refrain from this odd behaviour, unless there is an actual attraction but seeing that we live in England and males behaviour is fuelled by beer, women will continue to smile and support each other, I don’t want to hear anyone whinge about what a waste it is a lot of beautiful women are lesbians though.

In Graph 1.1 above, I have demonstrated clearly and with obvious elegance and skill, how this is going to work for the recently lobotomised and the ones who don’t’ speak English (no correlation between the two).

I smile at three people a day, in turn these same people, will each smile at three other people and so on and so forth and we watch the wrinkles grow and good mood spread…maybe this will shift the energy around us and ……(insert more Anthony robins crap here)…making our worlds better.

Are you cringing yet? Well you should be.

The point I am trying to make is: smile it really isn’t that bad.

Despite all your cynicism, frustrations and hormonal imbalances, smiling is the only thing that is consistent and can alter all the negative feelings you may have and it really is an inexpensive way to change your looks, I mean have you ever seen a smiling face that was not beautiful?

See? Beautiful

Dz-Chick…smiling always :-) but with good anti-wrinkle cream 

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NB: Do not attempt to psychoanalyse me through the handwriting - you don't know it's me.
Also, the last picture gives me the icks!