a few friends and i were having this discussion this evening after a few drinks at our local bar and came to the conclusion that there seems to be an ever sliding scale. there were a lot of arguments presented for and against the one-night-stand. i can honestly say that i have never done it (perhaps this makes me a little ill-equiped to judge?) and as frustrated as i may have been in those between-boyfriend periods i can't bring myself to do it. 'silly' thought the biggest argument against the one night stand was a saftey factor. not just whether they where an axe murderer (not high chances really if we are honest.....i don't know many that hand out in bars and i hardly think you are gonna get that kinda weapon past even the slackest bouncer) but the possibility that you may be taking home someone with certain fetishes. yep. that med school graduate with the typical spiky hair and slightly metro-sexual, ryan-seacrest-like-highlights may have a passion for handcuffin women and whipping them!!! although i had to agree there was some chance of this happening unless such fantasies are very perverted the more adventurous among us will likely say "that all you got? you should see what i brought."

anyway, with a med student is it far more likely he is gonna open you up and sell your liver on the black market though.

the metro dude said, although he had done it in the past, at his age there seemed little point. he wanted a little more. whats the point if you don't know the person and won't ever see them again? they could be anyone and you just won't know. in the end we all lie, or to put it more nicely, put our best foot forward when we meet people for the first time. so who knows what people are hiding. the metro dude said that all it really left him with was hte desire to take the girl out to breakfast the next morning so as not to seem like a really bad guy who was just using her. ten points for effort said the girls.

i had personally said on previous occasions that there is always the problem of what to say. when you wake up sober next to what's-his-name in the morning what are you planning on saying? what if you can't even remember their name? what if they are dead ugly and now they are stuck in your bed, half comotosed from the several bottles of tequila? guys i know have however suggested solutions to these problems. chocolate bear, ever the dirty bugger, pointed out the the girl simply wouldn't be there in the morning. put her in a cab as soon as you're done. in everyone's best interests to avoid uncomfortable conversations in the morning he thought. the good guy suggested that should the girl still be there in the morning "shall we have sex again" is always a good ice-breaker. hhhmmm. not quite breakfast in bed and an invitation to meet the mother.

i suppose there are other arguments such as the fact that with someone you don't know they are simply not going to know what you are into. so can it really even be that good as as good as sex might be with somoene you are in a relationship with?

perhaps, with my somewhat traditional attitude, i am a little outdated. although i do not personally have a problem with my girlfriends that choose to go out and have one-night-stands the need to feel comfortable wiht someone i'm going to be that intimate with stops me. maybe a fuck-buddy is the answer.....that reliable guy you can call on for those between-boyfriend times when the frustration has you peeling the labels of bottles and biting the heads off innocent bystanders in hallways.

what do you think? does it devalue sex when you go out and just do it with any old person in a bar or is it really just that......just a physical thing that in the end doesn't mean very much?

....she is me. i should feel so ashamed, so disgusted with myself. part of me does. part of me is sad. is this the girl i am?

batman started dating the brunette barbie at work. she is quite pretty and as stupid as they come. has already slept with quite a few of the other staff. im biased of course but....slut!! they were just screwing around but he told me today that as of thursday they are now a couple. he is supposed to be leaving somewhere between august and november to work on a cruise ship. its his version of running away. he rekons that if we try again and it works then he won't be able to leave and he really needs to get away. sounds like the easy way out to me.

batman and i were just talking but it never ends that way. he was lying down with his head on my lap and started stroking my hair. i want to say that it was when he kissed me that there was no turning back but it would be a lie. it was more around the time i walked in the door. we have been fighting at work. he yells, i talk back, he sulks, i cry. after a raging argument last week we decided that pehaps we should try hanging out and that we should try to talk things out.

so this is how it happens. i don't like her but then thats not an excuse. i love him but that isn't an excuse either. he said he isn't going to tell her. some people never change.

i used to be stronger. or perhaps things have just gotten harder.

i don't know when exactly i grew up, when life became so hard, so real. i feel like i have been smashed into the gravel pavement. no one warns you that it will hurt this way. at some point my mum stopped being able to fix all the problems. at some point the injuries were no longer little scrapes and bruises but huge gaping wounds which it seems, the world at large is so ready to pour salt on. i want to know what i should be doing with my life, if i really love my chosen field or if i am simply afraid and clinging to the closest piece of the floating debris. i want to know that at some point i will stop loving the man who still has the ability to destroy me with just a look. i need to know that it is going to get easier, that it will stop hurting this way.

the problem is that it doesn't get easier does it? the truth is that it gets harder. when i was in my teens, the boy two doors down moved to another city and i was terribly sad. it was very shortlived though. a week later my world was right again. batman and i have been trying to fix things, to make it work for over a year now. he has cheated and lied. i have cried and yelled. we have talked all night. he has made so many promises and said all the right things. i moved in and it was all so perfect for a while. but the truth is that perhaps it was only because we were both holding our breath, so afraid that it would all fall down around us.

we went to the park at 5 in the morning and played on the swings. we lay in bed all day. he taught me to cook two minute noodles and rice risotto(its incredible how much of a bad cook i am!) and we would lie together for hours. he watched my girly movies. i watched his stupid action movies and listened to him talk about comics. he would get furious every time i was late and irritated watching me straighten my hair. i would get upset he didn't call when he said he would.

love is an amazing thing. i wouldn't wish it on anyone.

it has become so complicated that one could not understand without knowing the back story. so here it is, the prologue. it is perhaps a confession of lies i have told, moments that should never have happened, love that should never have come to be.

it began in april of this year when i invited goldilocks and two other girls from the resturant where i work out to lunch for my 21st birthday. goldilocks invited her boyfriend, a guy in the bar i had liked long before i knew they were dating. i had hardly spoken to him at work but we chatted heaps over lunch and without telling anyone, footed the $300 bill for lunch. he and goldilocks had to work that night so we met up for drinks afterwards. she went home tired, but ever the party boy, he came out to one of the only places still open, a pretty seedy gay bar. after far too many drinks we ended up dancing. I cant remember much of anything after that but aparently i tried to kiss him and threw up a lot. he had to walk me back to his and goldilocks apartment after i got us thrown out of a cab. i also managed to have him questioned by police as to what a black guy was doing in the middle of the night with a half passed out white girl. not my finest moments.

we started hanging around for a few drinks after work. we talked for hours. at the staff party goldilocks was tired and went home. the boy and i ended up on a boat cuddled up in the same bed. then we started hanging out outside of work. i crashed my car so he started driving me home. i didn't sleep with him or even kiss him but it was cheating none the less. he would stay over and just hold me. he told me it wasn't working with goldilocks and moved out of their apartment.

she was leaving in a month anyway. she was here from overseas and so her visa only allowed her to stay a year. their relationship had no future he said. he told her that he didn't want to stay with her any longer and then be heartbroken when she finally had to leave. when they broke up she was devastated. he was her first boyfriend, first person she slept with, first flowers....first love.

i felt awful so i called her, offered to talk, to hang out, to bring over chocolate and girly movies. she was just a girl at work. we weren't really friends but she had no one and she seemed so lovely. we went out for coffee and i listened to her tell me how hurt she was.

i started seeing the boy more and more. i had told him that i wouldn't date him even if he broke up with her but we both knew it was a lie. within about a week i was his girlfriend. we decided that it was best not to tell goldilocks. she would be so hurt and we were both worried that she would just jump on the first plane home. so it stayed a secret.

i decided that as much of a nice girl as she was that we would never really be friends. she was leaving soon. besides, i already had a lot of friends. what i had never had was a guy a really liked and cared about. a true comitment phobe, until i met the boy i had never had someone i could see myself with of trust enough to just be honest with. so i made my choice.

at 5.30 this morning i watched the man i am in love with go home with the french girl. he had slept with her once before of course. on saturday night she told me. he had promised me that nothing had happened. he had lied again. after she told me, she looked at me and apoligised. he had told her that i liked him still. actually he had told her all about me, all about our relationship. aparently the story of how he destoyed me makes great pillow talk.

i told him he can't do it anymore, that i can't watch him take home the girls that i go to work with everyday. i tried to explain that after everything its just too much to take. he held me and told me that he was sorry. that he cared about me so much and that it hurt him when i tried to keep my distance from him.

they left one by one leaving the three of us standing outside the bar. he said goodnight and turned and walked away with the french girl. i called him back over. he couldn't be serious. could he really leave me there, alone in the city on the brink of tears. i watched them walk away together laughing and joking not beleiveing that any person could purposely be so hurtful.

i don't even recognise this person anymore. im crying all the time. i stay out till 5.30 in the morning drinking cause i don't want to go home. if you are out then you don't have to be alone. if i am drinking it is a little easier to forget that my heart is breaking, that while im downing vodka he is holding her the way he used to hold me.

i feel nothing anymore. on friday i drove home so drunk i can't even remember it. i just don't care. there is nothing anymore.

he tells her he loves her every night before they go to sleep. he cuddles and kisses her the way he used to kiss me. he has been sleeping with her since june. he has been dating me since may. he was mine for a month.

it was stained sheets and text messages that gave it all away, that saw me driving home in tears. everything was a lie. every word out of his mouth. all the promises. he had been cheating on me for almost our entire relationship. why would he bother? its not like im an easy fuck. we broke up twice and got back together. our relationship became a huge amount of work and a lot of hurt. why didn't he just let me go? he could have walked away. left me.

i offered him more of a casual arrangement. he held me close and told me that he cared about me and wanted more than that.

he has gone back to his ex. a friend of mine who he was seeing for four months before we started dating. she is here from overseas and was devestated when they broke up so we thought it would only hurt her to tell her we were dating. she was going to be leaving in a few months so we thought we would just keep it a secret till she left. it wasn't easy when we were together. its unbearable now.

i sit there like any good girlfriend and listen to her tell me how the guy i love holds her at night, how he kisses her and how long they have been sleeping together. i smile and say nothing. i could tell her that he has cheated on us both, lied to us both. but then i remember how utterly heartbroken i feel every night when im alone in bed, how i can't stop crying, and hours spent wondering why he couldn't love me.

i smile and say nothing.

at about 6pm on wednesday night my precious china girl tried to take her own life.

something in a tearful phone conversation alerted the bf who ran home to find her sitting in the apartment beside an empty bottle of antidepressants. an ambulance took her to the emergency room and her two closest friends rushed to be with her.

it is the phone call you don't ever think you will get. it is the seemingly endless hours of waiting when you don't know what to say. it is the most awful moment on the way to hospital when you stop to think and suddenly reaslie that the friend who you love and adore could have been gone forever.

the bf tells me she has talked about it before. the parents that drove her to it seem unmoved by the near loss of their daughter, writing it off as a stunt. nothing will change. we are all far to scared to think about next time when perhaps no-one will be there to catch our precious china girl before she falls.

it is often said that you cannot choose who you fall in love with. we can only hope that ther person who we fall for happens to be gorgeous, well educated, has a bit of spare cash to flash and not too many 'issues' (the mother issue being the most dreaded!). Of course more important that all these things is that he be single.

in the past i have added many more specification onto this list. it has gotten to the point where i have become far too picky. however, in the past month or so all common sense seems to have gone out the window.

mr wrong.

i met him at work. this breaks rule number one. don't EVER screw the crew.
he has a girlfriend. as she also works with me and is totally, irritatingly lovley, she has becaome a good friend.
he has a kid. the issues this brings are far too many too list, not the lest of which is the mother (different women to the current gf.)
he is a serial flirter. yes if all these other problems disappeared and we got together i couldn't possible ever trust him.
he isn't even that hot!!!!

he is charming, totally lovable and just.....i have no idea what it is i like actually.

i am trying me hardest to just be his friend. unfortunatly it isn't working out. i see him all the time at work so he is not easy to forget. the fact that he keeps on being so nice isn't helping.

everyone keeps telling me that i just need to forget about him. keep away from him. i know all the really good reasons to do so. i know im only hurting myself. if only it were that simple.

i apoligise for my absence recently. i was working about sixty hours a week at my two jobs in order to save some money before going back to university. at the end of this year i want to go to cambodia and visit my dad who i havnt seen in two years. I also want to fulfill my lifelong dream of going to new york in the mid year break in 2007.

unfortunatly my annoyingly lovley dentist told me this afternoon that the bill for the work i need done is just over a thousand dollars. apparently the shape of my back teeth means they are basically food traps and hence i now need four fillings.

the money carefully set aside is as good as gone. the hours of hard work all for nothing. it seems that as soon as i make headway and really try for something that it falls apart around me. while everyone else was enjoying their holiday i was working everyday because i beleive that if you want something badly enough and work hard enough you can make it happen.

they say that one must suffer tremendous dissapointment and struggle to truley appreciate sucess. i wish i could just be happy with where i am, with an average life. on good days i wonder how it is that people live without a dream. on days like today i am certain that they are better off with their white picket fence existance. those already on lying in the gravel do not have far to fall when life decides to kick them to the ground.

its the phrase that one should never utter until the age of about 60 or over when an "age" of sorts has actually passed. it is the mantra of the older generation, those convinced that the world was a better place when they were young. well they didn't have ipods but for the most part they are probably right.

china girl and i have been saying this to each other quite a few times recently and today at work was a prime example of how "back in my day...." kids respected their elders. yes i know...my day was only really a few years back. apparenlty a lot has changed though. i ended up getting into an arguement with one of my staff at the cafe today over how long she was allowed to take for her break. after telling her to take 15 she duely informed me, her manager, that in fact she would be taking 30. by law she is of course entitled to 30mins and had we not been so busy i would have given it to her. anyone that has every worked in hospitality knows that if there is a rush very often you just don't get a break. thats life. deal with it or you are in the wrong industry. anyway, a little arguement ensued in which she was rather rude. i could't beleive it. not only am i older than her, i am in a higher position. when i talked to her about it later she just stood there smirking like it was a big joke.

the teachers at my sisters school are treated very rudely by students who have made several cry and subjected others to some minor pranks. on a more daily basis they receive no respect and bad behaviour is more common. it would seem that respecting your elders is no loner en vogue. certainly we should not long for the days where children were "seen and not heard" and the cliche of "older and wiser" held the words of adults to be unquestionable. it is definatly a good thing that youth now have a strong voice and are not afraid to call people on their decisions or mistakes. has it gone too far though? perhaps there are times when adults or those in authority are not correct but when age and experience should grant them a certain amount of respect. perhaps youth need to learn that thinking you are right is not everything, that sometimes a bit of old world curtesty and respect would not go amis.