9/11, UFO’s, the moon landing, t-pac’s death all conspiracy theories sold to the public in various ways but one which I think is the most dangerous to our society and the most abused is the conspiracy of love.
I’ve been described as a negative person with a pessimistic outlook on life which wouldn’t be a lie but you see I wasn’t always this way…..
It all began when a man came into my life and lured me into a false sense of security on love, to then leave filling my life with cynicism. He was a wicked man who preached the power of love through his truthful depictions of life but he forgot to tell me something crucial which would of saved me from years pondering which was that all of it was a lie. Screw you Nicholas Sparks, screw you.
The recipe to a Nicholas Sparks film has the following three ingredients; a large scope of ridiculously good looking love interests, a splash of death and a heap of bullshit. The leading characters lock eyes in a crowded place and just can’t help themselves to fall madly in love with each other. The only thing that can either bring them together or disrupt this new found love is the news of a death and each story is presented to us in an idealistic world where love trumps all, usually somewhere near a beach or a lake of some sorts. Oh and there’s a kissing scene in the rain, that’s just standard.
Dear John – we live in the 21st century so even if John (Channing Tatum) was so heartbroken to leave surely he would of wrote emails, far more efficient and quicker. But then this leaves the question of how many xxx’s does he put at the end of his letters? One is a bit too informal and he doesn’t want to seem too needy and put like five, but then again we are talking about a Nicholas Sparks film where all characters feel the need to tell each other every single feeling that they’re dealing with, so my guess would be that john’s xx’s would be in the 5-10 range.
The Last Song – the fact that Ronnie (Miley Cyrus’s character) would even get a boyfriend in the first place is laughable because she doesn’t even crack a smile untill three quarters of the way into the film. If you saw Ronnie sulking around a shop or sitting on a beach with one frown away from killing herself the first thing to come to mind would definitely not be “she looks like a fun date”. No, you would be like cheer up hen you’ve only gone and got yourself into one of the best universities in the world and if that didn’t work I’d offer her some of my Prozac. Oh you’ve got daddy issues Ronnie? Boo freaking hoo, join the club we meet every tuesday. I felt sorry for Liam Hemsworth’s character having to take her on a date, frankly I’d have more fun at funeral.
Safe Haven – this one I can’t stand just for the sheer fact that this concept was a complete rip off of ‘sleeping with enemy’ where Julia Roberts did a much better job of it. But again we see another man dealing with some issue which makes him so sensitive and attentive to the woman’s needs and desires that the only place she feels safe is in his arms. BLEUH. Josh Duhamel’s character Alex is a widowed father of two therefore the idea of him even having the time to find some other partner seems slightly odd. Being a single father he has to care solely for his two kids which means he would be working pretty much every opportunity he gets to provide a living for those children. Education in america is not cheap and I don’t think owning your own convenience store in the middle of some hick town can be too lucrative, just saying. So having to chase around after some ‘mysterious’ new resident in town who is paranoid about anyone knowing her whereabouts would be exhausting and just not worth in my mind. The fact of the matter is he would of been better off leaving her alone as his only source of income, being that lucrative convenience store, would not have burned down. Jokes on you Alex, jokes on you.
The Notebook – this is the most ridiculous and the source of all my agony. Seriously I don’t know where to begin here, you might as well call bullshit on the whole thing. Ryan Gosling’s character Noah, who keeping in mind you’ve only just locked eyes with at a fun fair, decides to climb up a moving ferris wheel to get your attention – that right there my friends is the first sign of someone with attachment issues. He writes to you every day for a year, even if Allie had received them which he thinks is the case surely you’d get the message by week three? Is he that needy and desperate that he needs to write every single day for a year, really? Even then, what do you write about after week two?
“Dear Allie, I worked on fixing my Dad’s house today. Have you got my letters? Noah xxxxxxxx”
“Dear Allie, Still working on my daddy’s house, saw a pretty bird today, Why haven’t you replied to my letters? Noah xxx”
“Dear Allie, Not much has changed since yesterday. Seriously why aren’t you writing back? Noah xx”
“BITCH ANSWER MY LETTERS – Noah”
And is Nicholas Sparks really trying to say that someone as good looking as Noah would not find some other girl he can inflict all his emotional baggage on to? Please.
Allie went about this whole thing the wrong way, she followed her heart where she should of went with her head. Maybe if she had looked at her relationships like an investment she would of realized that Lon was the one she would of went with. He was a lawyer of Southern money which would of came in handy when she was diagnosed with dementia, didn’t work out too well for you Allie did it?
What Nicholas Sparks fails to depict in his films is the awkward/nervous chat on first dates or the drunken phone calls where you make a tit of yourself, or deciphering the meaning of a facebook message. If life really was like a Nicholas Sparks film then I’d be married by this point with my second child on the way. You do not not meet your other half in a cafe when your eyes lock from across the room – bullshit, I call that a Wednesday and the look they give you is out of pity for sitting alone.
The truth is that it’s not just Nicholas Sparks that is polluting our minds with these false expectations of love. Everything from Disney to The O.C I call bullshit on, fairytale romances do not exist. For example Disney’s Sleeping Beauty was severely adapted to impose this idea of love upon us from an early age. The real ‘fairytale’ was that the prince could not wake up the princess so he left and married someone else, however the King stumbled across the princess’s lifeless body and he too was unable to wake her so he decided to rape her. She woke nine months later from the pain of child birth, that is love my friends. Case and point.
I used to believe life could really be like Nicholas Sparks film but then I woke up and smelled the shite. What he tells us is that if you’re ridiculously attractive and have abs of steel you can get away with being a pain in the arse. Now I walk away from these films with an overwhelming sense of “Dafuq?”.
Mark Twain once said, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter”. Mark Twain has clearly never heard of Jellybaby Thursdays then.
I like to think that your choice of cereal can say a lot about what stage in life one is at. For example, this morning I grabbed a box of sultana bran completely ignoring the box of coco pops next to it, and instantly I was aware that I am no longer an adolescent. As I stared at my bowl of bland-dry-bran with despair, I realised that I had made the conscious decision to become more like an adult. When did this happen?
The stage of life I and most others my age are at feels a bit like limbo. I’m too much of an adult to have as much fun as a fresher, but too young to be as boring as an adult. With that sentence I‘ve wiped out two thirds of Glasgow’s nightlife as potential options. That’s not to say I don’t still get shtfaced – oh I do, I just feel it’s not as socially acceptable as it once was at 18.
Octo wednesdays used to be the shit, you could go swimming, go on a bouncy castle and get married by elvis all in one night. I used to love Jellybaby Thursdays at ABC, I was it’s number one advocate! It was like you could run around in a playground with alcohol, however a recent return confirmed that it was in fact a playground – full of children. Unfortunately going to these places now seems tragic and pathetic, it sucks.
A couple of weeks ago I was out at a club engaging in conversation with someone on le dancefloor, as you do, and before i knew it I came out with:
“so what’s your thoughts on Syria?”
It was, as Cady Heron would say, word vomit. In my mind I thought that would be a good conversation starter but I was wrong. The response:
“I’m just trying to dance man”
There, in that moment, I’ve never felt so old. Now my patter was never that good to begin with, but really, is this what my chat has came to? Opening up a debate for foreign policy in the middle of Subclub with someone who’s clearly chewing their face off??
The opposite attitude occurs when you hear that someone your age is being too much of an adult; living with their partner, getting married or actually becoming a parent themself. Hearing such things I instantly revert back to my teenage self –
“AW HELL NO”
Even if the bank would let me I am far too young to have a mortgage. I can barely look after myself let alone another human being, that one really isn’t an option though as I’m missing a vital part in that situation – a man. With marriage at this age I don’t think people realise that marriage is for life, hence you are stuck to the same person FOR LIFE – why rush you’ve only got like forever to do it!
I feel I’m too young to go to the Corinthian on a Saturday and spend half my night in the casino pissing away what little money I have. I genuinely don’t know what is more tragic: middle aged steaming women, falling about the corinthian in their jaeger stained Lipsy dresses or 16 year old boys dancing topless in Jellybaby. Yes, I have seen both.
Therefore we find ourselves in limbo like situation. I want to go out on weeknight like a fresher but at the same time I don’t want to be shoved about on a dance floor by youths who were six years younger than me in school! I’m trying not to judge Mr Twain, I’m trying but I think for the time being I am going to need to stick with the Sultana bran.
(Saying that, my mum even doesn’t let me have coco pops in the first place as she said it makes me too hyper)
Have you ever been on your own in a public place – I call it just another weekday but that’s another story, and forgot that you were in fact alone?
Unfortunately I do it all the time: I’ve started bouncing my shoulders to “n***** in paris” whilst being at the gym like I was in some sort of club; I might have accidentally picked my nose whilst being in the library, much to an onlooker’s horror. You’d think by now I’d be immune to the embarrassment but no.
The other day I was getting money out at a busy cash machine, and at the end of my transaction, before I took my money, the question “would you like advice on your account?” appeared on screen, my reaction;
“Haha. eh NO.”
This sudden outburst prompted the guy behind me to ask “Is it out of money?”
“aw, eh no, sorry it just asked me if I wanted money advice and I was like obviously not…..”
“………………….oh.”
– SILENCE.
It was distinctly awkward, however I was still laughing to myself by the fact that my financial situation had got so bad that cash machine’s were now offering me advice on how to deal with my account.
If there is one thing I do in life with consistency, it’s avoiding checking my bank balance.
Always- *CASH ONLY*
No, I do not want to know how skint I am. No, I do not want to see that red little minus sign next to numbers. No, I do not want to be depressed. I’d rather live in blissful ignorance over my financial situation, thank you very much.
I am hopeless with money. Literally hopeless. When I turned 18 I thought I was being sensible by not getting an overdraft so I rewarded myself with a shiny pink credit card. That didn’t last long.
Therefore, going to cash machine’s brings me both joy and sadness as I have a love/hate relationship with banks. They give me money, yet they only contribute to my blissful ignorance of living in a state of denial, prancing about like I am some sort of lady of leisure.
“Wagamamas? -YES.”
“Gumbo? – YES.”
“Cocktails? – do you really need to ask?”
(maybe I just like food too much)
What I find laughable though is when, on occasion, you may actually refuse an offer to do something with the excuse of being skint, the response;
“just come, I’m skint too I had to go into my overdraft this week”
Relief comes over you hearing that you are not alone in this situation.
“it sucks doesn’t it, how much you in now?”
“like -£50”
SORRY?!
I like to compare this situation to exam time when the smartest person in your class say’s they’re shitting it for an exam, when you know perfectly well they started exam prep three months prior and will walk out with a first. Bitch please.
Ugh, people who are good with their money annoy me. I call them boring. Because there is an upside to being in debt. With that shiny pink credit card I got a trip to thailand out of it! Yes, I may not be able to get a mortgage but hell, I drank pina coladas with tiny asian men and if that doesn’t warrant a good story then I don’t know what does.
I always think it’s funny whenever I read or hear of people using social media as a form of self escapism, re-invention or for offering a sanitized version of yourself. Most of the time that is true but it provides many functions: some people use it as a way of keeping in touch with friends; or, in my case, it’s mostly used for creeping on people (hee hee). But nothing is funnier than those that use it as a form of self promotion.
A good friend once said that “selfies are just a form of self advertising for boyfriends”.
This couldn’t be more true in my opinion.
Urban dictionary offers many explanations to the phenomena of ‘selfies’;
“a picture of yourself that is planned to be uploaded to facebook, myspace or any other sort of social networking website”
“the taking of a picture of yourself and posting it on facebook because you have extremely low self-esteem and you need people to comment to tell you how hot or pretty you look”
PREACH MY BROTHER, PREACH!
The latter is a tad harsh but it’s still my favourite. These days facebook looks like match.com with the amount of selfies blocking up my newsfeed. But don’t get this post construed now, I LOVE IT.
Nothing pleases me more than seeing a photo of someone pimping themselves out for potential suiters cause let’s face it, that is basically what your doing. If it’s not used for self-promotion then what is it used for? What is the point in them?
I am all for technology helping me look better, holla, I’ll take every option available to me. But pointlessly posting a photo of yourself pouting with sincerity, why bother? People will only ever be disappointed when they see you in person because there’s no ‘x-pro 2 filter’ in real life much to my dismay.
I use social media as a form of entertainment which it certainly does provide. I think selfies are HIGHlarious, and even funnier when it’s a male culprit (oh they’re out there).
Although when you’re doing it more than once a week it starts to get boring (I recently had to unfollow half of the Kardashians from instagram, they take self admiration to another level).
But let’s take a moment to give these folk the respect and recognition they deserve because it takes guts opening up yourself for scrutiny, especially when it’s based on your appearance. This suggests that these individuals do not have “low self-esteem” or feel the need for people to comment on “how hot or pretty [they] look”, bitch please – they know they look good. Maybe those who aren’t posting selfies are envious, in fact they are the one’s who lack self-pride and confidence in their own appearance.
Or maybe they just don’t wanna look like a fanny, either way keep em’ coming.
80% of the time I despise being a female. Not that I’m transgender – no, no. Purely because I’m lazy and being a female takes effort, one which I just can’t be bothered with.
Being a “lady” sucks. I HATE having to shave my legs every two days, putting on make up takes 20 minutes out of my sleeping time which I looooaaaaaath because there is nothing I love more than sleeping, except maybe a buffet breakfast. Waxing – ugh. Heels – don’t get me started.
(And I wonder why my brother calls me Helga….)
That’s not to say that I don’t make an effort, on occasions I do. What I can’t fathom is how some girls (/females/women, whatever) manage to look perfect ALL THE GOD DAM TIME?!
And the thing is we all know one. We went to school with one, we work with one. You can’t escape them.
She’s the Marnie from ‘Girls’ (well maybe pre-season 2), she’s a Natalie Portman, she’s an Emma Watson type, generally the person who seems like they’ve got their shit together.
You know the type – impeccable style complimented by their long perfect hair, studying some fancy nancy degree and who’s facebook photos looks like they should be in a magazine.
Clean cut, preppy girls, who’s life basically seems instagramed – Ugh.
HOW?
In them, I see what I lack I can’t help but resent them. They make me wanna take more pride in my appearance and reevaluate my life choices but then again, I can’t be assed.
The amount of effort and self control it must take to be a Marnie looks exhausting.
Let loose gurl!! stumble out of a club every now and then – get shitfaced – trip up – embrace the ugly photos. There doesn’t seem much fun in being perfect.
If you’v got the time and effort to be a Marnie, then respect gurl, respect. You give me something to strive for, but me? I’ll stick to being a Hannah for the time being. Getting shitfaced in a mesh top with no bra on seems like more fun. But then again I have no dignity…
helganation 