Month: April 2015

I like girls to be willing participants when they get with me

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Disturbing how rare it is to hear those words from a guy.

Before people think I’m suggesting all guys are rapists, I’m not. I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about the bit before that when someone first comes onto you.

The other week I had been hanging out with guy for about 4 days and on the 4th evening he kissed me. Later I said to him I was surprised he’d waited 4 days to try anything if he liked me but he said he hadn’t felt anything back from me until that day and likes girls to be willing participants when they get with him, you know as in actually want to kiss him too. And it was so oddly surprising to hear him say that.

And he was right. There had been some times in the days before that where I’d thought he might try something and it made me uncomfortable as I hadn’t worked out whether I liked him that way yet (he had a beard, I don’t like beards, it confused me so I needed time!).

And had he tried anything on those other occasions it would probably have been dreadful as I wasn’t fully in yet but people don’t generally seem to stop to consider if the other person actually wants the same.

Especially if you’re in bars a lot of the time there seems to be no consideration from those hitting on people as to whether the other person actually wants to kiss them too.

Even if you have given no indication of being interested in the other person they still go for it. They just think about what they want.

But wouldn’t it be so much nicer if the other person actually really wanted that kiss too?

Why does it only take one negative comment to take us down?

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Literally just one, and it can ruin your entire day. Even if everything else has been good in your day and other positive things have been said to you that day, just one bad one and it takes it all down.

I’ve suffered from this for years, in both work and my personal life. I pride myself on being good at my job but even when I know I’m doing a good job at most things, just one bad thing and it makes me think I’m bad at my job and failing in some way

When it comes to work maybe it can be put down to imposter syndrome (where you never really believe you’re good or competent enough to be doing the job you are) so you accept the negativity more easily as you’re subconscious goes “see I was right”. But in our personal lives too? Do we really have that little self belief?

I was having a good day the other day, not the best, I’d spent most of it travelling so it wasn’t exactly a very exciting day, but nevertheless I was happy enough and good things had happened in the day. And then I got one message from a friend, which wasn’t even really negative, they just didn’t react in the way I expected them to and seemed a bit dismissive.

I may well even have just misunderstood the tone but it instantly affected my mood and self belief in such a surprisingly strong way. I dwelled on it, I focused on it and forgot everything good that had happened that day.

I was even conscious of it happening and so tried to focus on the positive things of the day instead but even whilst actively trying to change my mind set it was so difficult to pull myself out of the negative affect of just that one comment.

I watched a TED talk a little while ago on why negative things have so much more of a detrimental affect on us than the positive which is the only reason I was conscious of it. But still even with the knowledge that we have to work harder to get over negatives I didn’t do very well at it. I guess I need to practice more.

It may not have worked for me yet but it’s a great talk. You can see it here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7XFLTDQ4JMk

How can you object to riding on elephants but not prostitution?

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Seems like two very odd things to put together I know but I just don’t understand how, if you have enough moral sentiment to care for elephants that you wouldn’t apply that care to your own species.


I don’t know where I stand on the elephant riding thing (part of me is against it, part thinks why is it any different to riding a horse) but someone I met last night expressed they wouldn’t ever ride one as it hurts the elephants. They would, and do, however frequently have sex with prostitutes though.


So much so they spent a good 5 minutes telling me about how great they think Phuket is as you can go out with your mates but then pick any prostitute at the end of the night. 


Now my views on riding elephants may be undecided but they’re not on people using prostitutes in the way this guy clearly does. I think it’s pretty abhorrent. So much so (and I’ve considered this in the past) that I think if anyone I was going out with told me they’d used a prostitute before that would be a deal breaker for me. 


It would be a deal breaker as I think it shows pretty disgusting lack of respect for you fellow humans to pay someone to have sex with you when they don’t want to (I make the assumption the prostitute doesn’t want to have sex with the person in question as otherwise surely they wouldn’t have to pay). That to me shows you don’t care about humanity as you’re willing to enforce yourself on someone.


But the elephants they care about?


It makes so little sense to me that someone could care enough not to hurt an elephant’s neck but yet have no regard for any emotional harm they cause another human by using them in such a way. 


I have to assume this guy doesn’t really actually care about the elephants, he just thinks it’s cool or in to say he does as I don’t know how else to understand these two conflicting views. Like I really just don’t even know where to begin.

The only person anger screws over really is yourself.

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I had an extremely ex-brat moment the other morning and the only person who lost out as a result really was me.

(I know I’m travelling so not technically an ex-pat but there is really no better word to describe my behaviour that morning than ex-brat).

I am not a princess, I’m more than used to doing lots of things for myself but apparently I’ve forgotten that it’s pretty normal to do your own washing and not just hand it over to someone who brings it back, clean, folded and dry 4 hours later. So when I arrived at my hostel in Phuket I was actually annoyed to discover that when they said “laundry service” what they really meant was a washing machine that you had to use yourself.

And I didn’t even consider it as a viable option for a second. I went off in a strop to find somewhere else where I wouldn’t have to deal with the great hardship of doing my own laundry!

I mean it’s absurd. I spent an hour walking around (in which time I could have done one load of laundry) but nowhere would do it as I wasn’t staying at their hostels.

When I went back to my hostel they even agreed they would take the laundry out of the machine after the first load (since I had two and waiting was part of my objection) but by then I was so annoyed by the situation I said no and walked away.

I was actually annoyed, about doing something that I’ve done at least multiple times a week, every week, for years.

And the only person who lost out by my inability to just accept the, actually pretty normal and not at all difficult, situation was me. I was the one who ended up still having half of my clothes (and pretty much my only ones for hot weather) that needed washing.

It’s a really petty example, and I’m still appalled with myself for how much I objected to it, but having not felt annoyed or angry for a while it did remind me that actually that’s what those emotions usually do to us. We get trapped in them and lose sight of what course of action would allow us to cut our losses and still come out at least having achieved what we set out to.

Hopefully next time, when probably a more important situation, I’ll remember and deal with it better.

We’re the only ones who don’t listen

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Animals knew there would be a Tsunami in 2004. Well maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, they might not have known it would be a Tsunami but they knew something was coming and that they needed to get to higher ground.

We’re the only ones who didn’t.

I discovered recently that at the national parks in Sri lanka they didn’t find lots of dead animals after the Tsunami as you would have been thought. All the animals (even the elephants, and think about how slowly they walk) made it out the way. They had all gone and found higher ground and waited it out.

It’s so incredible that they all could have known to do that and with enough time for even the elephants to make it, but they did.

We think of ourselves as the smartest animals on earth but it seems we may be a little mistaken. We didn’t know and we never usually do when it comes to natural disasters.

If all other animals know we must have at some point have been able to tell that sort of thing too.

Clearly though we stopped listening. And we’ve probably now evolved so far from that we couldn’t listen properly again if we tried.

It’s such shame.

Think what else we may have been able to know if only we’d carried on caring enough to listen.

I think I’ve become too relaxed

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Never thought I’d utter that statement but in 3 months of being away and most of my travel having been overland I’ve almost missed 2 flights!

And I’m a early bird to airports usually. Mainly because I’m habitually late for anything non work related in my life so have to compensate but I compensate well and I’m usually there as much as 3 hours in advance a lot of the time (much to the dismay of anyone normal travelling with me). And I get pretty twitchy at the airport about making sure I’m in the right place, at the boarding gate early enough etc.

But some have I have now almost missed two flights and the only reason I can think of is that I’m just no longer that tense. All the time. About everything.

The first flight I almost missed was because I didn’t stress when having to queue for ages to check in, even though I was aware it was getting to an hour before my flight as I figured loads of normal people don’t check in till 40-45 mins before, it’ll be fine.

Not so. Just as I got to the front of the queue an attend walked past, said where are you going, then “it’s too late, check in has already closed”.

I think the look of sheer shock and horror on my face must have helped as he reluctantly agreed to let me check in if I went quick and ran. So I did and was fast tracked through everything just to then spend 40 mins sat waiting at boarding gate where, once you go in you can’t go out. Totally pointless.

The second was yesterday where, whilst waiting at my gate I decided not to anxiously check the departure screen every 5 mins for updates and just read my book instead.

They changed the gate.

The announcement wasn’t in English.

I didn’t realise something was wrong till they’d already go to final call for boarding!

Maybe I need to hold onto a little bit of that old tension just specially for when at airports!

Making lasting friends in 10 min

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One of the favourite people I’ve met so far on my travels is someone I met for 10 minutes. In a bar. Whilst wasted. And I mean properly wasted.

But she is one of my favourite people from my travels so far and we still talk at least a couple of times each week.

It’s so unlike how we usually form friendships in normal life but I love it.

I’ve spent days travelling with some people who I know I’ll never speak to again, but someone who I randomly met in a bar for 10 minutes, sure!

Another couple of my favourite people from travelling are two people who I literally just went out and partied with one night. We were in places where it was too loud to talk almost the entire time so we barely spoke. But you just get a feeling from some people so quickly, almost like “yes you’re my type of person” and you know you would chose to hang out with them rather than just doing it through circumstance.

It has nothing to do with how long you talk to them or how well you know them, you just get it.