Someone once told me they were glad to be called shallow because it meant they were attractive enough to have that luxury. While this was, on their behalf, an utter fallacy, it’s an interesting idea. Shallowness is one of those things that we all fall prey to, and when we do, we tell ourselves it’s a one off, an exception, and that normally we wouldn’t behave like this, whereas to beautiful people who are used to getting by on the virtue of their looks alone it is every day sort of thing.
That’s not to say that beautiful people are also shallow, more that they benefit from it frequently, and rarely make a fuss. After all if you weren’t terribly bright, but had wonderful opportunities falling in your lap all the time, you’d take advantage of them too! It seems so unfair to those of us who are neither stunning nor infectiously charismatic, watching those who are less intelligent or driven than us suceed, but I like to think, like Earl, that karma has a funny way of sorting things out.
Let’s take for example, the time I attempted to put my brain on hold and date someone who wasn’t very bright. I’m not saying he was as stupid as my old flatmate who had anal sex ‘by accident’, or the intern who I watched stand outside our building for half an hour staring at the bell without pressing it, or even the girl who I convinced that ‘Smoksumgras’ was a nearby shopping centre, but just plain old not that sharp. My motivations weren’t entirely wholesome though, obviously. He was pretty, and sort of funny, and we’d had a drunken fumble and it had been quite enjoyable, so I thought that in the absence of a better candidate I would just hang out with him for a bit. Men, intelligent, funny, successful men, did this all the time I told myself. In retrospect this sounds really cruel, but he wasn’t picking out the flower arrangements yet either so it all seemed fine.
We went for exactly one date. One. In fact if we’re specific about this we went for half a date. In which time he had checked his hair behind my head so often that I had shouted at him, he had refused to eat any chips and marvelled at my capacity to pack them away, and told me I was being all fancy with my reference to Chairman Mao. The minute I finished my first drink I looked at my watch and asked if he wanted to hop it back to mine and watch a DVD. Although I thought we were both under no pretensions we did end up having to actually watch the DVD before making out, which seeing as I’d seen Vixen at least fifty times was slightly tiresome.
After he left I told myself it could be ok, we’d just talk about Hollyoaks (yay!) and people we knew. We’d eat separately and I’d just tell him to be quiet and look pretty if he started asking questions. Or start making out. Either way it was all going to be grand. After a while we’d almost definately have enough of a shared history for it not to matter anymore. Or we’d have moved on.
The latter occurred soon than I thought it would when, the next morning, I logged on to send him a message on Facebook to find him in a relationship with someone 7 years my junior. And that’s when I realised that he was way smarter than me any day.
Photo of Rock Hudson by unknown. (Please note I do not think Rock Hudson was stupid, in fact I am sure he was really really smart, as well as being smoking hot. Sigh.)
When I was a teenager I thought I wanted fast cars, fast people, bright lights and the big city. My life was so mundane that I wanted someone to come and sweep me away into a new one. So I waited patiently for someone to spin my world around but they didn’t come. My brain constantly resembled a 
When looking for books to review I realised that 
What I Learned This Year.
Although at one point 2009 seemed like the year that would never end, the last month especially, the finish line is finally in sight so I thought I would make a list of some pertinent things I learned this year. When I say pertinent I mean, ‘really obvious things that most people have probably figured out by now, but that surprised me, and which I still frequently forget’.
1. If the thought of going out with a particular person makes you have a panic attack, then don’t do it.
In January I rang Alex hyperventilating and crying because I was “going to have to be Conor’s girlfriend even though he’s mad and twitchy and has horrible teeth that look like the Berlin Wall”. He patiently explained that I didn’t have to be anyone’s girlfriend if I didn’t want to, and then hung up to watch Hollyoaks.
2. You are (probably) not going to die alone with cats.
And even if you did cats are pretty cool and can do awesome stuff like eat with a fork or chase a laser for hours, so maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
3. Don’t exchange numbers with someone the morning after if you have no intention of contacting them again.
This is less something I learned, and more something I wish everyone else would learn: If you do give your number over then prepare to be contacted, and either have the balls to say “I’m a prick who gave you my number because I thought it was ‘what you do’ and didn’t want to upset you because I can’t handle emotions.” or arrange a date and see if the other person is any cop.
4. Pretending to like things that you actually hate is pointless.
See: politics, Belgian cinema, thrash metal, Nietzsche, and kale.
5. Although drinking can help you talk to new people, being trashed only helps you pull douchebags.
Because once you’re so wasted you want to dance on a pool table the only man who’s in any state to cope with you is one who’s been drinking since yesterday afternoon.
I learned some other things too obviously (like where Minehead is, the best way to cook salmon, and how to network a printer) but they’re less relevant to this blog… anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful New Year’s Eve, and that whoever you snog at midnight is a keeper, or at least a good kisser.
Ace photo of Takashi Murakami and Kirsten Dunst taken from their video Akihabara Majokko Princess for Pop Life: Art in a Material World