by Philippa Yelland.
Tall, dark, handsome … part 1
A WHILE AGO, I was going out with a journalist who’d been in the Special Air Service (SAS) in the army. He was mesmerisingly handsome with eyes so blue you drowned in them. One afternoon, we were chatting about hunting.
‘Would you like to go hunting?’ Blue Eyes smiled.
I hyperventilated.
‘Sounds interesting,’ I replied as languidly as I could, wondering if I could borrow some frightfully elegant riding habit.
‘This weekend? I have all the gear and we can get up about 4am.’
‘So early?’
‘Yes. Have to get in position.’ Blue Eyes was focused on the mission already.
‘Er, position?’ I looked puzzled.
‘Yes. Before dawn, so we can’t be seen.’ Now Blue Eyes was baffled.
‘Uh, where will we be?’
‘In the hide,’ Blue Eyes was loading his kit bag already.
‘Ummm. How will we be catching the fox?
‘Fox?’ Blue Eyes shook his head. ‘No. Rabbits. Feral pigs, dogs. Shoot ’em. We’ll be in the leaf litter. Or the hide if you’re too wet.’
To be continued …
Taller, darker, handsomer … part 2
SOMETIME AFTER the SAS-journalist-hunting, er, experience, a tall, dark and handsome acquaintance responded to my request for an interview about extreme adventure travel. When I’d first met him, he was running ultra-totally-off-the-radar-crazy-danger-stuff at which even SAS dudes would blanch.
We met in a pub at the south end of Sydney’s Hyde Park. If anything, he was even taller, darker and handsomer (yes, yes, I know it should be ‘more handsome’ but it doesn’t flow) than I remembered. The interview was going extremely well: sparks flying, jokes bubbling, eyes flashing.
I was an experienced journalist, totally professional and a wise woman of the world who never mixed business and pleasure. (Stop laughing, dear friends.)
I asked him about his most recent adventure. He smiled. ‘I’ve been to Antarctica.’
‘Hmm,’ I said in what I hoped was my coolest, most professional voice. ‘And what were you doing there?’
‘Teaching the blokes how to survive.’
Oh … kay. As Bill Murray said in Tootsie, ‘I think we’re getting into a weird area here.’
I paused before asking my next incisive question. ‘Er, how’d you do that?’
‘Walrus races,’ he smiled. ‘The guys had to run up to a walrus, brush its whiskers with a hairbrush, put lipstick on – the walrus, that is – and kiss it.’
‘Then what?’
‘Run.’
To be continued …
Taller, darker, handsomer … part 3
AT THIS POINT, Taller Darker Handsomer (TDH) asked if I’d like to go to dinner. Dear reader, to say that I swooned would be an understatement.
So, we began to walk along Oxford St. Not many places open. In fact, nowhere was open. On past Taylor Square. On past the Charles Chauvel Cinema in Paddington.
I was beginning to feel a tad faint. I’d like to say this light-headedness was from walking downwind of the alpha, alpha testosterone. If I did, I’d be gilding the wilting lily. Remember, dear reader, that I was wearing fishnet stockings and stilettoes.
I don’t know how many of you have worn this combination of – er, well – foot and legwear. I can tell you that it’s not a workable plan when accidentally doing dinner with TDH iron men.
My feet had net-razors slashing at each step. Cinderella’s sisters were exsanguinating my toes, my heels, my insteps. By the time we reached Centennial Park, I was almost crying with pain. I said my contact lenses had grit in them.
Finally, I could not stumble one more step. I had to bail. I mumbled something to Mr TDH about having an early start, and that I’d had a wonderful night. I stumbled around the corner.
I tore off my patent leather stilettoes and threw them at some passing addict. I ripped the fishnets open at the toes and let my feet walk naked on that blessed pavement. Forget sex – bliss is that first moment of flat, bare feet on bitumen.
Even-tempered, intelligent & tall
ODDFELLA WAS THE TALL, dark and handsome gelding I learned to ride on. He was perfect in almost every way – even-tempered, intelligent and a big horse at 17 hands. So, you can imagine my excitement when he came up for sale – however, sensible equestriennes know to have confirmation tests done before signing up for years of vets’ bills.
Next day, Iff to take our dog for his needles. A new vet had joined the practice and, being a journalist, I asked him what he liked doing best in VetsVille.
‘Big animals. Horses. Cattle.’
‘Oh my goodness,’ I gushed. ‘Could you do a confirmation test on a horse I’m thinking of buying?’
That afternoon, Dr X pitched up at Oddfella’s paddock with his sensible Gladstone bag, even more sensible brogues and a big smile.
He felt the horse’s legs, checked his teeth and various bits. Dr X then turned to me and said, ‘I wouldn’t buy him – he’s a bit long in the tooth. The thing is, you have excellent fetlocks. Would you like to have dinner?’
Dear reader, how could I refuse?
Loving losing misplacing mis-filing
GLORIOUS DAUGHTER #1 asked me last night, ‘Do you think it’s better to have (a) loved and lost, or (b) never to have loved at all?’
(Yep, that girl’s been reading her Tennyson.)
As a veteran of loving-losing-finding-misplacing, mis-filing, I felt I had the battle wounds and the street-cred to instantly shoot back a resounding ‘A’.
I added that losing didn’t necessarily mean breaking-up ’cause ‘he’ was wrong in sooooo many ways.
As the coda to my fetlocks’ tale, I’ve finally understood that you can meet the right person at the wrong time. Dr Vet was one of the right men at the wrong time – I wanted to gallop around different paddocks. In horsey parlance, we were on the wrong diagonals.
Perhaps there’s (c) as well – to have loved, lost … and re-found. (And no, this is not a shout-out to Dr Vet. It’s an admission that I can be very thick sometimes and take an eon of time to realise a truth that most others have known for centuries.)
On learning to fall – off horses, out of love
I HAD AN EXCELLENT horse-riding teacher – his first class was ‘how to fall off’ so you weren’t afraid to make mistakes. Feet out of stirrups, kick legs back, let reins go, slide off. Do at walk, trot, canter.
Invaluable lesson. Didn’t put it into practice a few times and had some painful splats.
This all came to mind as I’ve been talking/writing with a dear, dear friend about 21st century notions of love that derive from the Romantics. Bruce, who’s a scientist, is analytical. Me? I’m not into equations and theory.
Bruce, m’dear, I opined, you can read and expound all the theory you like. At some point you have to plonk your arse in the saddle, feel the fear, the exhilaration, the flying – and do it anyway. Sure, it’s scary at the start, unknown, bumpy. Gradually, you learn to trot (rising and sitting) and then canter. Ha, and you thought I was going to draw an analogy between riding and loving.
That said, I’ve come across some disastrous croppers in love. So, it’s time to follow my own pontificating and know when to fall out of love without breaking too many bits. Or, perhaps better still, to relax into the saddle and see where the horse goes.
We do not go out with separated men
REPEAT AFTER ME, we do not go out with separated men. Write this out 100 times. And then write this out 100 times more.
They are separated, they are not divorced and therefore they are not available. So, why are you wasting your precious time with Mr Not Available?
We also do not go out with men who are legally divorced yet still married emotionally. That’s a really tough question to ask and an even tougher one for him to answer. Of course he’s going to say he’s divorced emotionally – ask him if he knows what that means? If he’s still having coffee with his ex-wife of three, five, 10 years, then run for the exit. Right now.
Continuing this theme, we do not go out with widowers who are still emotionally married. One of my Magnificent Mature Matrons (MMMs) was married – briefly – to a man who’d been widowed for some years. He still had his dead wife’s clothes in the wardrobe and photo on the wall some years later.
My friend’s marriage to him did not last.
If a woman leaves a marriage, then it’s over, whereas if a man leaves, then the jury is still out. My extensive survey of MMMs shows this to be the case – so you need to suss out who left whom, why, and for what reasons.
Yes, yes, I know I’m being tough. I want to save you oceans of tears before bedtime – and they’re always yours.
Nightmare on George Street
SITTING IN ‘MY’ CAFÉ YESTERDAY, reading newspapers and looking cool and nonchalant and professional. Interesting article must be noted. Reach into executive black shopping bag. Can’t find pen. Tip contents onto table.
Two pairs of knickers, four pairs of socks, one bra fall out and then onto the floor.
I drop my handbag on the pile and scoop the nightmare into the shopping bag. I remember, I shoved them in last night to save doing another trip upstairs with the washing.
Memo To Self: Don’t Be So Lazy Next Time. The Underwear God Is Laughing.
Online dating sucks, it totally sucks
ANOTHER EXTENSIVE SURVEY of women (yes, the same 10) shows internet dating sucks. Most of my friends are doing it and they all agree 150 per cent that it sucks. There’s no polite way to put it.
Men who are around the sixty year old mark want forty year old babes who ‘look after themselves’ and ‘want to please their man’.
Can you imagine any sixty year old woman saying this?
Most of the women surveyed said that if a man can’t be bothered to have a decent photo taken, then you have to wonder how much effort he’ll put into a relationship.
And, selfies taken in front of the bathroom mirror do not count as a decent photo. Nor do photos with the man’s chest and neck only showing, nor blurry shots of Adonis chug-a-lugging a bottle of Scotch, nor of Adonis holding catfish in one hand and a cold Great Northern in the other.
Most sites have an opening paragraph beside each photo – it’s the bait to hook you into opening the profile. There are some rippers. One fifty-eight year old Sydney/Melbourne man (he can’t decide) introduces himself and writes, ‘I really enjoy the act of making love and/or sex and the comfort that comes with it, when the two actually make love just from the act of holding each other sometimes.’ (Dear reader, could I make this up?)
Some dating sites let you send a wink before having to pay for stamps to write to Adonis. So, a man ‘winks’ and you ‘wink’ back.
The jury is out on the next step. Google pundits on dating are divided on who then buys a stamp to start the conversation.
Is your return-wink the online equivalent of you saying, ‘Here’s my phone number’?
Or, do you email back as the equivalent of fluttered eyelashes and widened eyes?
IF A MAN CAN’T FIND CAPS LOCK TO TOGGLE IT OFF SO HE CAN TYPE IN UPPER AND LOWER CASE, THEN YOU HAVE TO WONDER HOW MUCH EFFORT HE’LL PUT INTO FINDING YOU.
Dreading that first date
DREADING THAT FIRST coffee-date with the ‘hottie’ who winked at you and then actually bought stamps and sent a message with relatively few typos and no mention of The Shawshank Redemption?
One theory I’ve read is that adult love re-creates patterns of childhood, that we’re drawn to familiar sufferings, and that we’re all crackers to greater or lesser degrees.
So, I have some tantalising suggestions for your opening gambit with Mr Possibly Right.
You: ‘I’m crackers in x-y-z ways. In what ways are you crazy, Mr Possibly Right?’
Mr PR: ‘Where do I begin?’
The rules have not changed
YES, DEAR READERS, there was a sexual revolution (and men loved all that commitment-free sex). That revolution sucks. Here is the new regime: if a man is interested in you, he asks you for your phone number, then he phones and then he asks you out. If he doesn’t, he’s not worthy of you. You can hint but he has to do the heavy lifting.
I’ve done an extensive survey of my 10 closest MMMs and they all confess that it’s never worked out when they phoned the guy or texted him or sent smoke signals or shoved a homing pigeon in his letterbox.
We may have changed. Men have not. They are hard-wired to hunt woolly mammoths and women. I say this from sad experience. It never, ever, ever works if you do the hunting.
Sorry.
Mature magnificent women would love this not to be the case. We’d love to meet some smashing guy and ask him out. Stop. You’re doing all the work. And, don’t fall for it when he gives you his phone number and suggests you phone him. Give him yours, and suggest he phones you.
If he doesn’t, move on. Life is too short and then we die.
If he does phone, then don’t settle for going to his place, walking on the beach in the moonlight and then sitting on the couch watching The Shawshank Redemption. That’s a slippery slide into his bed.
No. You are worthy of a stunning meal and great conversation. After all, if he won’t stump up for the opportunity to spend uninterrupted time with you, then this does not augur well for a deeper future together.
Five minutes to midnight
IT WAS THE LAST HOUR of the last day before my remaining RSVP stamp expired. I had vowed to end my search. A wink blipped on my profile. Mr Engineer’s message was polite, in upper and lower case and he’d like to meet for coffee. Oh, and could he phone me to arrange a venue?
As his voice honeyed over the phone, I thought, ‘His photo is recent and he can spell.’
Coffee the next morning? Yes, I almost yelped. He brought flowers, declared he wanted to marry not just have a bonk each fortnight, and asked would I like to visit his farm. He’d read more books than I had and he wasn’t an axe murderer. His farm really did exist. Five months later, dear reader, we married.
