I’m yelling TINDER……

 

It’s no secret to anyone that the TINDER app has taken off massively in the past year. 17 months old, the ‘dating’ app allows men and women to shallowly flick through potential suitors who are in their nearby location and decide whether or not they ‘like’ them. (I’m not on it, but I believe you vote ‘hot’ or ‘not’? Correct me if I’m wrong). If you both like one another, you are ‘matched’. I’m using quotation marks because ‘matched’ is a term I’d prefer to use loosely. Tinder is basically GRINDR for straight people.

 

 Like most dating sites, I find the concept quite weird – why can’t people just meet in person like the old days? I used to meet boys in the playground at school and we would be ‘married’ by the afternoon. Is it really so hard to find love in person nowadays? 

A friend of mine has started documenting her pursuers on the site, which is what inspired me to write this, from her album ‘100 sad days’ – and it is literally the best thing ever. I think it also says a lot about WHY a guy joins Tinder… and the kind of guy who is on it ….

 

 

 But is the problem the app or just men? I’m aware girls can be inappropriate also, but I’m yet to hear about a guy friend complaining a girl is sexually harassing him on Tinder.

 

I have to admit, I’ve always really hated the idea of Tinder, and I am yet to hear a positive thing about it – although it clearly gets some boys fast action. “The way Tinder works is the way people tell us they see the world,” says Chief Executive Officer Sean Rad. “They walk around, they see girls, and they say in their heads, ‘Yes, no, yes, no.’ ” Rad, 27, lives in Los Angeles, where the company is based. (I found this from an article on businessweek.com, BTWs)

That is SO depressing. Every guy who sees someone just thinks ‘yes, yes, no’? What?

Also, WHO are these people who meet on dating websites – Tinder in particular – who get into a relationship/married? The funny thing about these people is that NO ONE actually knows who they are. Where are they? They are URBAN DATING MYTHS.

And let’s say you do get married to your Tinder date. It breaks my heart how the wedding speeches would go: ‘I knew Kate was the one whilst I was speaking to her along with 50 other girls online’ is not what anyone wants to hear.

Does anyone know a male who joins Tinder for anything other than an easy fuck? If you do, salute that guy for me.

 

Obviously a lot of guys – not all, but many of them – are fairly one track minded. I don’t think this is anything new, I reckon if I asked my great great great great grandmother about men she would probably agree. Men are often excused for their weird behavior simply because ‘they’re GUY’S’, which pisses me off because it allows them to get away with it scot free instead of growing the fuck up. However, although women’s rights have improved in many areas, we now live in a culture in which porn is easier to access than alcohol and sex is literally everywhere. We are technologically spoilt, and there are naked people literally EVERYWHERE. Can we blame guys for assuming if a girl is on a dating app she MUST be looking for a bit of wham, bam, thank you m’am?

 

On the one hand, it’s naïve to think that, poor boys, it’s not their fault, they don’t know any better. On the other, having grown up just able to see old school dating fade more and more and online relationships step in (or stampede), I think for coming generations – as well as the current ones – I think it’s vital that boys are actually taught how to speak to girls. The problem is not due to mechanics (ie the it’s how boys brains work), it’s due to socialization. I don’t remember sex ed ever covering pornography, and definitely not how to respond to horny boys – and I think it should, because it provides people with unrealistic sex-pectations and attitudes, which dating apps such as Tinder fuel the fire with. They are too easy to access, and involve using the opposite sex (or same) like an online shopping basket. It would seriously be easier and probably more satisfying for me to swipe on the Net-a-Porter app than a nice guy on Tinder.

 

 

 

Women’s magazines: THE FUCK?

 

 I came across this amazingness earlier this week on @thefatjewish  ‘s instagram and it prompted me to think about magazines. Like most girls, I am usually pretty happy to flick through a few glossy pages. Vogue is usually my magazine of choice (I was given a monthly subscription as a Christmas gift) but if I’m waiting to see my dentist or WHATEVER, Tater or Elle will also do – I’m not fussy and this is probably because there is not a lot of difference between the ‘monthlies’. All contain fashion, makeup, and some kind of inspiring celebrity story. Every time I go on holiday, I also develop a weird obsession with the weekly magazines (if you’re a boy, think ‘heat’) which last for about two weeks and involves lots of lying to my parents at the end of the trip about who signed for lots of highly taxed goods on our bill at the hotel shop. However, I’ve come to start questioning the material I am reading. 

 THE FUCK?

It has often occurred to me that the reason I don’t really stick to a particular magazine is due to lack of inspiration. A conversation with my cousin confirmed I’m not alone: as she quite rightly put it: “Women’s magazines are boring – I know how to do my hair and makeup and I don’t need to read through hundreds of pages of adverts to figure that out”. She also agreed that men’s magazines – for us at least – are far more interesting.

 

I realise this is a big statement to make – I don’t ‘hate’ women’s magazines, I just wish there was more to them. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but there seems to be something really backwards about them, and I often feel really fucking patronized, and it’s annoying! In November, I was in the bath, and I just wanted some downtime with some interesting articles (hopefully) and a few pairs of shoes. I started reading an article. It was a 3 page spread on a woman who has a hobby which is – wait for it – MAKING JAM! SOO INSPIRATIONAL! THIS IS THE STUFF GREAT ARTICLES ARE MADE OF. The highlighted quote from the article read: ‘How could I have known that the politics of jam making had its own set of rules and regulations?’

OMG, this is almost too dramatic to handle. How could she have known? How on earth did she manage to get through that stressful period in her life?

The content of women’s magazines is misleading, the sex advice in particular. Who walks past the magazine stand and reads the cosmo headline: ‘How to orgasm EVERY time you have sex!!!’ and actually thinks it will work? If it was the case that all you have to do to understand how you can orgasm is read an informative magazine article, they would be selling a lot more copies. 

 

On the other hand, when I buy GQ (don’t judge me), although there is still the usual mix of fashion and grooming advice, the articles contain much more DEPTH. I can read about sports, film, TV, food – there’s even a jokes section, people. This makes much more sense to me and seems a much more solid investment. I may not be dying of excitement at every article (I will never be able to pretend I care about football) but I will finish my bathtime read with satisfaction and humour. And there’s only so many models one can look at in a women’s magazine without feeling kind of fat, so looking at the James Franco’s of the world makes me waaaaay more happy.

 

I don’t want to change the world. Just women’s magazines.

 

 

Topic of the week: Blowfish

This week’s blog is dedicated to the growing number of females in London town who have had their lips done. All of a sudden they appear to be everywhere – passing me on the street, creeping up behind me in Selfridges, all the sushi restaurants, at the fish counter in Waitrose….

  

What confuses me is not even so much the amount of girls getting their collagen fix, but the amount of girls getting EXACTLY the same trout pouts. Am I missing something here? Is there a doctor doing a 50 % off deal on lip injections? My initial response was to blame Kim K, who is also the perpetrator of the caterpillar eyebrows trend (FYI: colouring in your eyebrows so heavily it looks like you let your baby cousin loose with a brown crayon on your face is NOT CHIC, and you look more like a character of similarly NOT CHIC show The Valleys than an exotic member of the Kardashian clan). However, at least Kim’s many lip jobs don’t bear resemblance to a creature of the sea. My views on surgery are fairly open: whilst I do think that it can be an addictive process which only ends up making you more insecure as you strive for perfection which is unobtainable, it can look good if you have the right surgeon, who understands that less is more. But lip jobs baffle me.

 

It’s the whole concept behind why women get their lips done which I don’t understand. If you’ve had your trout pout done (it brings new meanings to the term plenty more fish in the sea…), it doesn’t make you special, because everyone else who sees Dr Lips is getting the same lips as you. When a man looks at your lip job, he is definitely not thinking, Oh, wow, her lips are amazing, I wonder what it would be like to kiss those lips. He is thinking about you kissing a region a little more southern. To put it bluntly, as I was told by a male: ‘They’re thinking about you sucking their dick’. (We can fuss all we want about men being so complicated, but they’re really quite simple: Me, My Dick and I, is the general life line).

 

 It’s also the rudest because half the time I feel like the people who have had their lips done are angry with me or sulking. Why do you look so unfriendly?

 

  My point is all of these women look exactly the same. They are paying good money to look like a TOWIE reject. Call me old fashioned, but surely beauty is about being unique and happy with yourself? How is something desirable if every other girl walking down Oxford street has it? I hate referencing this because it’s clearly subjective, but for arguments sake: Are the most ‘beautiful’ women in the world not successful because they posess something which is not really obtainable simply by nipping to the London Clinic in their lunch break?

 

To conclude, I am OVER IT. Most of these women also take all of the best Louboutin sizes and it’s pissing me off. Last year I bought a pair of lady peeps for £525 and a year later the price has been mysteriously upped to £695. The whole WAG look is far too accessible and getting tackier by the minute, ruining brands I once loved and upping prices by the second in an attempt to delay the situation. I can’t even buy a Hermes belt anymore, because I’ll look like an arsehole. In the words of Regina George: What is happening to the world?

 

Bart’s etc….

Having become bored of most things west end related, this weekend I decided to explore some bars south of the river. If you are from London, you will know that venturing out of your post code and comfort zone is pretty terrifying (I don’t usually travel further than Picadilly, and even that feels pretty foreign to me). But this weekend, I decided to go over to the dark side (Chelsea) with a partner in crime and change my usual routine.

 

 

Our first stop was Bart’s bar in Chelsea Cloisters on Sloane Avenue. Having researched the bar on my buddy the internet I was excited, as the general feel of it seemed to be a jazzy, speak easy kind of thang. I had also heard they have a dressing up box, which although did not appeal to me (I’ve had an inherent fear of catching fleas since I was about five and got a cat) did intrigue me.

 

Bart’s is slightly hidden inside Chelsea Cloisters, which is cool but slightly awkward if you are a couple of girls wearing fur jackets waiting for a friend to arrive or find the bar and trying not to look like hookers/high class escorts. After passing an ominous looking black door with a bouncer, we were whisked inside through another equally ominous looking black door, until finally, we were inside.

 

Although I had checked out some photos online, I didn’t realize how tiny the place is. It’s absolutely MINI! This is neither a good thing or a bad thing – unlike many other small bars, you don’t have to elbow your way through clusters of wanker bankers with your boobs out to order a drink, and it eliminates that super awkward too-spacey-therefore-awkward-standing-around cringe which you get if you get to a club before 1am.

 

The menus are hidden in books above the bar, which is pretty cool but also worrying if, like me, you are clumsy as FUCK and have enough worry about things falling on your head anyway. However, the drinks are pretty awesome, the bartenders are friendly and you don’t get charged the standard SW3 price of a million pounds for a gin and tonic. They serve shots in teacups (CHIC) and despite the fact it’s small, you don’t have to worry about getting your butt grabbed like you do in most west end places. The crowd is mostly 20 something socialites, trust fund boys and city workers, but the vibe is pretty friendly and most people tend to stick to their group of friends, so it’s definitely the place to go if you don’t want to be harassed by weird men! BTW, the shot of choice is OBVS a crackbaby (passionfruit juice and champagne: tasty and dangerous)

 

 

After Bart’s, we headed to Eclipse on Walton street. Eclipse is cool, and the whisky sours are amazing, but if you’re a girl and you haven’t had your lips done, you won’t fit in. If you’re a man and you’re not a sleazy footballer or a married investment banker it will probably be equally as difficult. If you’re looking for someone to fund your next boob job, this is your place.

 

 

The final stop was Maggies on the Fulham road. Maggie’s is also owned by the people who run Bart’s, and its equally as funky and cool. A Margaret Thatcher themed 1970s club, the drinks are served in flower pots and – believe it or not – Margaret Thatcher’s head. We only stopped here for about 20 mins (so much to do, so little time) but it was the following: a fun crowd, amazing (but dangerous) drinks, and good old school music. It’s the kind of place you go and feel like everyone is best friend’s from school. If you’re looking for a fun and silly night out with friends, I highly recommend it!

 

A short and sweet blog today, (some idiots decided to employ me, so I’m very busy and important now) but hope you enjoyed reading!