In Sickness and In Convenient Times

When a single person gets sick and nobody is around, it is fair for them to assume they will die alone and become the subject of newspaper headings containing phrases such as ‘found three days later’, ‘strange smell from next door’ and/or ‘lonely spinster’.

When a person in a relationship is faced with a sick partner, an equally unfair series of events unfold.

In theory:
Your partner will inevitably get sick from time to time. It is understood that when your significant other is sick they will expect some form of sympathy from you. This should be offered without hesitation.

In practice:
Your partner may get sick at times that are inconvenient to your plans, or claim sickness much more frequently than you had been made aware of in the initial stages of dating. Furthermore, your partner will inevitably at some point, exaggerate the duration of their sickness in order to get some additional attention. It is understood that no sympathy will be given to you, the healthier, kinder specimen, as you wait on them hand and foot during their apparent spout of headaches or mysterious cough which miraculously disappears during their favourite TV shows. You should know when to pick your battles without hesitation.

Opposedly, should the situation reverse and you get sick, it is fair to forget the tedious tasks you were forced to endure in the name of sickness. You rightfully wont recall how you felt unappreciated making your beloved dinner night after night due to a blocked nose they felt several days earlier. Your health is the most important thing you have, so you should not risk injuring your back on top of everything else by going and getting a glass of water yourself. If they really loved you they would understand.

Note: This remains the case unless you or your partner cry ‘Period Pain’ which trumps everything and should be tended to with the utmost forms of sympathy and gifts.

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Making New Friends: A Necessary Evil

Making new friends can be an exciting concept.
Or, most likely, it can be a tedious, annoying necessity because your current small circle of friends have decided to individually develop lives that do not entirely revolve around you.

The process of making friends is simple in theory, but unfortunately every person we meet is different.
You may be able to find some common interests with people you meet but you also run the risk of meeting people who enjoy talking about politics and therefore are not viable candidates to spend any time with.

If you find that at times your sudden desire to socialise (ie: wanting to share your sense of loneliness with someone else) does not fit the schedule of your busy, therefore unforgivable, selfish friends, then you too will need to begin the process of making new friends

To do this you need to think of friendship as an equation. Boring people are disposable and can be cut of the equation but good-looking people or people with nice cars are good solid answers and should be sought after. The formula for making new friends is simply selecting individuals to spend time with and beginning an elimination process. Eliminations should be based on important factors such as whether you can stand this person’s company, whether it will make you seem less or more attractive to others if this person is around you, and also taking into account how much money this person earns and the likelihood of you receiving any benefits from this.

A typical venture into making new friends is demonstrated below:

• Sit around at home
• Decide to make new friends
• Search Facebook
• Select someone you somewhat know
• Initiate chat
• Panic and wish to destroy all evidence when they have seen your greeting and not responded
• Receive a response
• Proceed to reminisce about every minor encounter you have every experienced with this person
  OR
  Talk entirely about mutual friends
• Try to find mutual interests, however small
• Keep conversation going by continually asking them questions
• Arrange to meet for coffee
• Quietly freak out about what to talk about at next meeting
• Get dressed in nicer clothes than usual and meet for coffee
• Say hello
• Order the same as them
• Feel off to a good start
• Talk about a funny comment they made on chat log
• Elaborate
• Talk about meeting place interior design
• Discuss
• Talk about weather
• Pause
• Mention “This is nice”
• Sip coffee
• Talk about what else you are doing today
• Look at watch
• Realise time is dragging on in this person’s company
• Try to remember what slithers of information made you decide to select them
• Long to sit by yourself
• Realise conversation has stopped completely
• Say “This is nice” again
• Quietly stress out about whether they are finding this awkward
• Realise this isn’t as nice as you had  hoped
• Start to figure out how to wrap up meeting
• Come up with an escape plan
• Excahnge polite words
• Say “We should do this again”
• Make an exit
• Vow never to do this again
• Go home
• Eat
• Sleep
• Wake up
• Eat
• Sit around at home

And so concludes another attempt at the annoying, often regrettable process of making new friends.

Repeat as necessary, until your standards become lower.

If you have found that any of the information written here has been useful to you, please don’t hesitate to avoid me.
We clearly have nothing in common.

New Year: Resolutions VS Results

Resolution:
Lose weight

Actual result:
Binge eat leftover Christmas ham and turkey until March.
Favour gifted boxes of chocolate for breakfast in place of cereal.

Resolution:
Be kinder

Actual result:
Get caught in traffic after New Years fireworks and throw resolution and abuse out the window.

Resolution:
Sleep more

Actual result:
Stay up till midnight to watch fireworks. Ruin body clock. Never sleep before midnight again.

Resolution:
Drink less

Actual result:
Collect all bottles of wine in house in an effort to allocate and re-gift. Wake up with hangover.

Resolution:
Meet new people

Actual result:
Send a private Facebook message that gets seen and not responded to. Give up on any further human contact.

Resolution:
Learn how to cook

Actual result:
Venture to shops with gourmet recipe in mind. Buy all condiments. Make recipe once. Never use ingredients again.

Resolution:
Travel

Actual result:
Look up airfares during holiday period.
Buy lottery ticket instead.