Archive for the 'Relationships/Men' Category
January 8 2010: QOTW: Social Media and Relationships
Filed under Q.O.T.W. & Relationships/Men with 16 Comments
So I’ve just read this article, and I’m curious. Most of the readers of this blog are as similarly active on the internet as myself – if not more. You might be a blogger, or a Tweeter, or you might visit a million forums. You might be an IRC regular, or just a frequent commenter on other blogs. Bottom line is, you spend a (relatively) large amount of your time on the Internet – probably more so than your average Joe or Jane.
I’ve got an online presence. I blog here. I Tweet near-daily. I use my LiveJournal occasionally for private entries. I’m relatively active in my local Melbourne LiveJournal community. I (try to) comment on other blogs regularly. I’m part of a forum (and have been very active in other forums). I’m very active on Facebook. I chat on MSN semi-regularly with online friends. I’ve met nearly two dozen ‘online’ people IRL, all over the world.
On the other hand, Dylan doesn’t understand why I blog, why I tweet, and how I can be so close to people online. It’s not to say that he’s a Luddite though, because he is incredibly tech-savvy. His interests online though, extend to browsing innovation and technology blogs, and research on various topics. For instance, we recently bought some pot plants for his place, but he spent about a week researching different varieties and their properties online before making a decision. We’re looking at purchasing snorkelling masks, and he’s already spent days researching different brands and styles.
We spend equal amounts of time online – but whereas my Internet usage is based around interaction with others, his is very much self-contained. This is actually probably reflective of our RL persons as well though – I’m more likely to spend time chatting to a friend, whereas he’s more likely to spend a day figuring out a way to rig up a way for the garden solar lights to light up his bungalow to save on electricity bills (true story – he’s still trying to figure it out).
Question of the Week: If you’re in a relationship, what’s your respective approaches to social media, and how does that work out for you? If you’re not in a relationship, what combination (one techy one not, two techies, or two non-techies, etc.) do you think would work best?
January 3 2010: Triumphant and Vindicated
Filed under Relationships/Men with 21 Comments
On New Year’s Eve, I sent out a generic celebratory text message to everyone in my phone (if you received it, you’re awesome enough to be programmed into my phone):
Cause I’ll probably be drunk and not so text-coherent closer to midnight, now is probably a good time to say: happy new year! Xxmanda
I received a message in return from a blast from the past: “If you came to mine, I’d fuck the shit outta you”. Charming kind of guy, a real dreamboat. Sure knows how to use a line to catch a quality woman. My reply was simple: “You’re so sweet, but I’m very happily in a relationship. :) Hope you got some anyway, xx.”
Is it wrong for me to feel triumphant and vindicated that after the years of teenage heartache he put me through, I finally got the chance to reject him completely? It’s almost as though the chance to reject him made all that pain worthwhile, because I finally got the upper hand. This feeling might mean that I’m a nasty and petty bitch, but guess who doesn’t care, because it feels fantastic?!
For the record, xx is my standard closer for most personal texts and emails – it’s not indicative of actual love/kisses for the person!
December 29 2009: The Obligatory Post-Festive Season Entry
Filed under Family & Life & Money & Relationships/Men & Style & Uni/Work with 4 Comments
Despite the whole not-very-festive environment I’ve been brought up in, I think it’s almost obligatory for personal bloggers to have a post-festive season entry summarising everything they’ve eaten, received, and done? Far be it for me to flout this unwritten rule of the blog community – prepare yourself for long-windedness.
Christmas Eve
I actually worked for most of Christmas Eve, packing up boxes for an impending office move (as previously mentioned). This was about half of the total amount of boxes – it was a long, sweaty and dusty day. I did manage to get home by 5pm to clean myself up before heading over to my aunt’s for an Asian-style Christmas Eve dinner though. This essentially means that all the ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ bring a dish (Asian cuisine of course!), and we all stuff our faces with food. Chicken wings, lamb chops, potato salad, curry and vermicelli noodles with pickled veggies? That’s our version of Christmas fare.
Then of course, the adults start playing endless rounds of mahjong and drinking endless cups of tea as soon as dinner is over, while the children are relegated to a back bedroom to entertain ourselves the best we can. We might be in our twenties and late teens, but my cousins and I (and the children of other family friends) are still considered to be the ‘children’. Admittedly we fit into our designated roles remarkably well – we played Taboo and Pictionary with a few glasses of wine each, well into the early hours of the morning.
As a side note, I am vaguely communicating with my parents again, in that we can be in the same room without screaming at each other. Polite conversation with my mother is a good start though, as well as the fact that my father deigned to speak a sentence to me: “Refill my cup of tea”.
Christmas
I woke up on Christmas Day at Dylan’s house with presents to open! As a joke gift, he bought me a Hello Kitty candy set – as an Asian female, I’m obviously supposed to love Hello Kitty. (Which I do, secretly, but don’t tell him that because it’ll only reinforce the stereotype.) My real gift though, was a body board – and to celebrate Christmas, we drove two hours down the coast and spent the day at Cape Paterson together so that I could have my first ever body-boarding experience. We could have gone to a more local beach, but as Melbourne is situated within a bay, he decided it would be more exciting to drive further out past the peninsula so that we could surf in the actual ocean with real waves, rather than within a calmer bay.
I had a blast – absolutely an overall awesome day. We’re now contemplating getting into snorkeling as a hobby, as the coastline around Cape Paterson is absolutely littered with rock pools and marine life. I’m considering buying snorkeling sets for his birthday in February, though I guess ideally we should have the equipment by mid-January when the weather will be calmer and it’ll be easier to snorkel in the open ocean.
Oh, and I made him a type of mini-hamper gift with things he likes – a selection of different nuts from the market (walnuts, almonds, macadamias), a bottle of our favourite wine (Brown Brothers Moscato), a new coffee percolator and some organic coffee beans (he’s sick of drinking instant coffee at my place, so now he can have actual coffee), and some home-made dark chocolate with ginger. Nothing remarkable, just a few things I threw together into a basket, but he seemed to like it, so all is good.
Boxing Day
Boxing Day is a big day for my cousin and I. It’s traditionally one of the biggest retail days of the year with enormous post-Christmas discounts, and we have gotten into the habit of taking full advantage of the sales. We ended up shopping from eight in the morning to eight at night, across two different shopping centres. I ended up buying:
- A woollen underlay for my mattress – $89.95 from $299
- Leopard print micro shorts – $9.95 from $69.95
- A print top – $14.95 from $79.95
- Earrings – $5 from $14.95
- A headband – $5 from $29.95
I was remarkably controlled this year in my spending – the woollen underlay was my biggest purchase by far, but as I had been needing one since I moved out, and managed to pick up a trans-seasonal one (works in both winter and summer) for a third of the original price, I think it was a justified purchase. The top and shorts were a bit of a splurge as they’re really too casual and ‘fun’ for work, but I really think it’s about time I start dressing my age. The accessories were just cute cute cute, and cheap enough for me.
Overall, it was a fairly chilled couple of days. There was no blatant displays of consumerism (sure I went sale shopping, but didn’t go overboard!), and I only stuffed myself with food for one meal, so it was probably a million times more controlled and less indulgent than most people’s Christmases!