Lost It?

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behaviour, Experience, life, musings, relationships, self-image, sex, thoughts

Have I lost it?

I was listening to Dara O’Briain describing how he found himself in the company of a group of young women (quite innocently) and was alarmed to discover absolutely no sexual tension in the air whatsoever.  I guess he’s fortyish and the women were eighteen to twentyish?

I think I understand where he’s coming from.  There was a time when women used to check me out: I’m sure of it.  I’m no “looker” now and I don’t think I was then either but there was still that possibility hanging in the air; that “maybe”; that fantasy of excitement.  Even when both the women I met and I knew that there was no chance/opportunity/desire/reason for any kind of liaison, the mere fact that the mental question had to be posed and answered was a stimulation.

So where am I now?  Has all of that really gone?  It seems so.  Could it be that it takes on a different form, or is that just wistful thinking on my part?

Stop Insulting Santa!

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humour, joke, life, musings

He’s a very nice old man who brought me lots of presents! He’s definitely not grotto.

Pick Yourself Up

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humour, joke, musings, thoughts

I saw this, liked it, thought I’d share it with my WordPress chums.

Naked

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behaviour, glamour, life, musings, naked, nude, nudity, photography, self-image, sex, sex 2, standards, strip, thoughts

Everybody has a body: no great news there.
Who does your body belong to?  It belongs to you, of course.
So who has the right to tell you what you can or cannot do with your body?  No-one.

Who has the right to say who you can or cannot show your body to.  Assuming you’re not forcing it on anyone, again, no-one has that right.
If Veena Malik wants to strip for FHM, who has the right to stop her, or tell her she can’t, or persecute her for doing so?  No-one.

Singers

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decisions, Music, rants, Talent, Talent Contest, thoughts

Folk I know can sing. Many of them don’t have good voices but I can’t think of anyone who is incapable of singing a note. Most can give a reasonable rendition of a song. I don’t think singing is a rare talent.
Not many folk I know can play a musical instrument.  I think this is a much rarer talent.  Rarer still is the ability to arrange a piece of music: to sort out the various instruments and vocalists, decide who plays what and when.  I don’t know anyone who is capable of this.  I am very poor at it.

Television is awash with talent contests.  In these contests, vocalists are held in high esteem, musicians are occasionally mentioned, arrangers are never mentioned.  This makes no sense to me.  Can anyone offer an explanation for this apparently counter-intuitive logic?

Let’s stick together!

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behaviour, Experience, happiness, humour, life, love, musings, rants, sex, sex 2, thoughts

I am blessed with an exothermic wife. Maeve can eat and drink whatever she likes and never gets any heavier. I’ve seen more fat on a butcher’s pencil! She still has the figure she had when she was twenty, now she’s forty-seven.
The downside is that she generates huge amounts of heat. This is great to keep me warm in cold weather but when she rolls over and cuddles up in her sleep, she cooks me. I sweat like a pig and, if I don’t kick her off, we end up glued together.

I probably shouldn’t complain: I think these are the right kind of problems.

Learn to argue.

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behaviour, Experience, happiness, life, musings, peace, rants, Self-control, self-esteem, standards, thought processes, thoughts

I see otherwise loving people wounding each other, because they don’t know how to argue. An arguement can be a constructive instrument if it’s conducted in the right frame mind. We will always disagree about things: that’s just human.  How can we do it without destroying a relationship?

A few hints that might help:
1. One of you doesn’t need to be right and the other wrong, just because you disagree. What’s right for one isn’t necessarily right for all: there are very few (if any) absolute truths.

2. Try to avoid words that show him/her to be wrong and seek the common ground.  You may be argueing about details or a difference of emphasis.

3. Try to separate the issue from the person. Don’t let an arguement get personal, if you can help it.

4. If things get heated, suggest a cooling off period and a reconvene. This could also be used to investigate any “facts” that are in dispute.  DO NOT lose your temper.

5. Listen! If things are getting edgy, try to hear the message behind the hurt.

6. Try not to be judgemental.  There’s a reason for everything (not always a good one, I grant you) and so there’s a reason for him/her taking the position she/he has.

7. Try to avoid thinking about winning and losing.  Focus instead on trying to find the best solution for all.  This can be very difficult but seek help from your arguee if you can.  Ask for a vision of what perfection would look like.

8.  They say you should never go to bed on an arguement.  I’d challenge this.  I think sleeping on things can help you cool down and get perspective.  Whatever works for you is best.

9. Ask yourself “how important is it? can we agree to disagree without significant legacy?”

10. Last, but not least, ask yourself “is it worth the upset I will cause if I continue to hold my position?”  Seriously consider capitulation.

Christmas Pun

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Christmas, joke, musings, rants, thoughts

Is the recent spate of Christmas tree thefts a case of Copse & Robbers?

Sex Imbalance

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behaviour, happiness, life, musings, parents, rants, sex, sex 2, thoughts

“Don’t you know that it’s different for girls?” said the song.  Well, yes, I do.  And I think I understand why too: it is, indirectly, a price we pay for being at the top of the animal kingdom.  Our development is protracted: we produce incredibly vulnerable offspring, gestating and nursing females.  The defence against this vulnerability is the caring bond between parents.  The love between man and woman is not an accident, it’s a survival imperative and one of the reasons we’re here.  Most (if not all) of the emotion, courtship, pairing, bonding, jealousies, lusts that we deal with in modern life build from this same base.  Women have an innate demand for support from their sexual partners and need reassurance before indulging in sex.  It’s not wrong (or right), it’s written into our beings.

I think sex is like rock-climbing: potentially very dangerous but, with the right equipment and people you can trust, exciting, fulfilling, and fun!  Sometimes, the additional requirements of women can feel quite restrictive and frustrating.  History is chock full of the conflicts this can produce.  I know even apparently “normal” men, who resent the power that women have over them.  The trade of the prostitute (and the stigma, persecution, law associated with it) is built upon the imbalance between the sexual desire in men and women.  (Yes, I know there are male prostitutes too!)

For obvious and selfish reasons, I wish women wanted more sex than they do.  I guess most blokes do.  I don’t expect anything to change anytime soon.  I reject absolutely any attempt to coerce women.  So, what is the way forward?  I don’t really see one.  I think a little understanding helps….. but not much!

True Meaning of Christmas

Tags

Christmas, life, musings, religion, thoughts, travel

Christians do a fair bit of moaning about what Christmas has become in the modern world: the commercialisation, the boozing, &c. I take their point but I think it is worth remembering that Christmas was originally a pagan mid-winter festival that the Christians hijacked and perverted to their own ends. The same is true of Easter. At least with Christmas they had the good grace to change the festival’s name.
No-one in their right mind believes that Caesar decreed all his subjects should go to the town of their birth to be registered in the middle of Winter, when the travel would have been so problematic.