They

I have had the fascinating pleasure of seeing what it's like being a FWB from a male point of view via a friend of mine who seems  to enjoy discussing his.... exploits. I shall call him Lot, short for Lothario. I always heard the term "modern-day Lothario", but I never knew where it came from, only that it was used to refer to guys who pick up a lot. Wikipedia to the rescue! Lothario: Lothario is a male first name which came to connote an unscrupulous seducer of women. Sounds about right!

He showed me a message in which one of his girls said something along the lines of, "I don't want to do this anymore, this will be the last time you ever hear from me." He claims that he did nothing wrong, and I think he's a good enough at reading people to know whether he has pissed them off or not, so I trust him on that point. While everyone else who saw that message was saying how he was in big trouble, I had a different reaction to that message - because I had done something similar myself.

This, titled Why You're Not Married, reminded me of it:


3. You're a Slut.
Hooking up with some guy in a hot tub on a rooftop is fine for the ladies of Jersey Shore -- but they're not trying to get married. You are. Which means, unfortunately, that if you're having sex outside committed relationships, you will have to stop. Why? Because past a certain age, casual sex is like recreational heroin -- it doesn't stay recreational for long.


That's due in part to this thing called oxytocin -- a bonding hormone that is released when a woman a) nurses her baby and b) has an orgasm -- that will totally mess up your casual-sex game. It's why you can be f**k-buddying with some dude who isn't even all that great and the next thing you know, you're totally strung out on him. And you have no idea how it happened. Oxytocin, that's how it happened. And since nature can't discriminate between marriage material and Charlie Sheen, you're going to have to start being way more selective than you are right now.

While I don't entirely agree with that, I have to say, there is some truth to it. There were a few times when I said to Charmeleon that I wanted to stop being FWB. I found that I wasn't really looking for someone else - at least, not seriously, because I guess one of my needs was being taken care of already. But like Mr Sheen, I kept going back for another hit. Obviously, I managed to stop eventually (and then got engaged, maybe that article is telling the truth... (I really doubt it)), but it was so easy going back.

Sometimes, I think that maybe there was a bit of Hollywood romcom in my reasoning. Like Hugh Grant in Two Weeks Notice, I think a part of me was hoping that since I wasn't around anymore, he would realise he missed me and want me back. Like Sandra Bullock, the female FWB filled certain niches that the guy never knew he wanted, and so once she was gone, he would be stuck trying to decide between two different types of envelopes and be completely lost.

Lot completely blew that out of the water. He doesn't seem to care all that much, and he is completely confident that she will return to him. I think he's even planning his next big conquest. I don't know, it just seems weird. I find it hard to believe that he doesn't care about any of these girls at all, as he seems to talk about them quite often, and not just to brag. He seems to enjoy spending time with them, and thinks about them when they're not around - that's a sign that he cares about them, right? Maybe I'm just biased because of how I saw the situation when it was reversed.

Either way, I'm also fairly confident she'll go back to him.

Flamboyant Bagel

When I was a kid, I was given the impression that the thing to aspire to be was rich and famous. Never only rich or only famous, the two of them were always tied together. Being the shy kid that I was, I never wanted to be famous, so I figured that meant I would never be rich either. I still don't want to be famous, and though I know a lot of rich people are famous, and a lot of famous people are rich, I don't think the two are necessarily tied together. (So maybe I have a chance to be rich someday.)

At my work's Christmas function, I was chatting to one of the waiters as we were setting up. He asked me if I worked anywhere else, and I assumed he assumed I was also one of the waiters and he was asking if I had another job on today (as he, and all the other waiters and chefs we hired, did). So I told him that I was on the social committee and helped organise the function. He said that he thought I looked familiar, and as I processed those words, a chill went down my spine.

I also recognised him - he was someone I saw when I worked at the casino. I would like to think I am a fairly inconspicuous person, not the kind of person you would look twice at if I passed you on the street. Except for a Halloween event I went to where I was at least six years older than everyone else and the guy running the trick or treating wouldn't give me anymore lollies because he remembered me, I think I'm not a very memorable person. So when someone does recognise me, it's never a good thing.

At this point, I was starting to panic. I made some vague statements while I was frantically trying to remember what kind of gambler he was. I knew right away that he wasn't a poker player, as I tend to remember most of the poker players, and they tend to be old Greek men or young Asians/Aussies, of which he was neither. So that left the roulette players. There are a few that I will probably never forget, and they're the ones that hate me a lot (there's an Asian lady who said she wished I were dead), but he definitely wasn't one of them. I had no memory of him being either a big winner or a big loser, so that left only one other option. He must have been one of those lonely souls. 

There are a few of them who hang around the casino. They never gamble, they only watch other players, give players advice, and talk to the dealers and supervisors. To be honest, I think it's a pretty clever way to get money at the casino. You hang around and give players advice. If they lose, they lose and it's their fault for listening to you. But sometimes they win, and if they win big, they tend to give a tip for the advice. So it's a no-risk way of making money.

The sad part of it is, I think some of them are just lonely - if you think about it, they might get a $20 tip from someone, but they might only give good advice to a tipper maybe once or twice a night, so if they hang around from 8pm until midnight, that's $20-40 in 4 hours, they'd make much more working at McDonald's. So the real reason they hang around is because it's the cheapest place to find people who will listen to what you say and pretend it's interesting (I sometimes think of retail and hospitality workers as poorly paid psychiatrists). They're usually OK to talk to, if you don't mind hearing the same stories over and over again, but sometimes I want to shake them and ask why they don't take up a hobby or try to make friends online or something.

Back to the waiter, I was a bit wary of chatting with him now. I didn't want to give him the impression that we were going to be friends. That might sound really snobby, like I don't want to be friends with him because he's a waiter, but that's not the reason at all. Cue flashback:

When I was working at the supermarket, there was this guy who would come in every now and again, and he would always buy certain items (no dirty thoughts here, it was stuff like curry powder). One day, I mentioned that I noticed he always bought those items, and he said he was making a Sri Lankan curry that his mum taught him how to make. I said that it was pretty cool that he knew how to cook, and made general complimentary remarks (as you do when you are a customer service oriented person like me! *cough*). The next time he came in, he ended up coming through my checkout again, and I asked if he was making the curry. He seemed surprised that I remembered, and told me that he was. Then he asked what time I finished, and I said 8PM (it was around 5 at the time).

Some of you might be hearing a few alarm bells here, but asking what time someone finishes at a supermarket is a fairly standard question. After you tell them, they either make a sympathetic face and say that it'll go by faster than you think (it never does), or they make a cheerful face and say, "Oh! It's nearly over!" (Worse are the people who just have to go through even though you've put up your sign saying you're closing, and then when you tell them that you were supposed to finish 5 minutes ago they say happily, "I'm really glad you stayed open for me!")

The alarm bells were correct, as he was waiting for me outside the supermarket when I finished. I was smart enough not to let him walk me home so we hung around outside the supermarket for a bit. Then he said he wanted to buy me something from Kmart and even though I kept refusing, he kept insisting. Then he said that he "liked" me and I suddenly felt really bad. I hadn't meant to give him the impression that I was flirting with him or anything. I am really bad with faces, and even worse with names, but for some reason, I seem to be able to remember insignificant facts about people. This seems to give people the impression that I care about them, which is usually true, but not always. So I think that's what caused the misunderstanding.

I imagine being famous would lead to that being magnified and then.... hello, stalkers!

Blast From the Past: MB

This really should have been something I did a long time ago, as the events that unfolded are something that, in hindsight, I see should have been handled much better than they were. 

I think the first thing I remember about MB is pancakes. I found an old email thread where we were talking to each other about pancakes, but then aliens and my sisters somehow got involved. I don't think that really counts as flirting, and probably a good thing, as I was still with AG at the time. And for some reason he wanted to know the elasticity of my forehead - I don't think I ever found out why! I think that's a good indication of what he was like - quirky and unpredictable. I have previously mentioned the fine art of composing flirtatious SMS messages, well, it was doubly difficult to compose a reply that was sufficienty witty, but also had an off-beat kilter to it.

Seeing as he and Lena lived so close to me (and a park), they somehow managed to convince me to go running with them.  (MB says: Believe it or not the running was your idea as you got it into your head that you didn't want to limited enough not to be able to do anything such as be a firefighter) If you think Lena is evil, wait until she's pushing you to keep running for one more minute. (MB says: Rob also came with us running (perhaps not at first) and we were not the only two dancing/running around each other at the time, only they had a much happier ending.  I like to self-indulgently think we played a helpful hand in their early courtship.) The running was torture for me, but it was nice to have people to chat to in a non-online manner. I don't know what it was, but something about the atmosphere made this the closest to D&Ms I ever had with people I knew in real life. I told them a bit about AG, and when we were in one of our broken up periods, I thought maybe I could convince MB that I was a super awesome person and that he would want to be with me. And I was sure my parents would have been much happier if I had been with the 3 years older MB than the 13 years older AG. (The fact that it was even a factor for me is a bit sad, but that's just how it was.)

Unfortunately for me, MB had a girlfriend. I was kinda crushed, but I kinda felt it was to be expected. I can't remember the reason, but during one of our running sessions, he mentioned that he and his girlfriend had broken up. Unfortunately again, I was back with AG. I can't really say why I went back to him, considering I was pretty sure I was interested in MB. I guess it was pretty selfish. I decided since the person I really wanted was MB, I was going to break it off with AG, for good. The planets aligned, MB and I were both single, and eventually went and got pancakes.

There was Spy Vs. Spy, WarioWare, table tennis, but there was no movie, instead, the episode Once More With Feeling from Buffy is what always reminds me of him (we watched it at his college, along with a bunch of other people). He had planned a trip to Sydney not long after we got together though.

It's all fun and games until someone misses a period. Which I did. Seeing as it was the first time it had ever happened, there was only one conclusion that came to mind - I was pregnant. MB and I never got to that stage (as I wouldn't have sex with him until he beat my record in Freecell), so that meant it had to be AG's. I don't remember a whole lot about this period of time, but I remember feeling like I was sinking into a big, black hole. Starting uni, I felt like it was the beginning of my amazing career in whatever I wanted - anything was a possibility. It took one small thing to take that feeling away. Suddenly I was thinking about how my parents would disown me, I would have to live off Centrelink and move back into one of those housing commission flats. I'd have to go full time at the supermarket in order to make ends meet. I'd be one of those tracksuit wearing, single mothers who has three kids with all different fathers and is just barely staying sane.

Telling AG was not an option for me. Even though I thought my parents would disown me, the thought of disappointing them by admitting I had been sneaking behind their backs to see AG was too much. I thought about telling MB, but it didn't seem like the right thing. Firstly, it wasn't his fault, it was mine. Secondly, that is a lot to dump on someone when you've only just started going out together.

I had no idea what to do, and different scenarios kept playing out in my head - none of which was a good solution. I became more and more depressed, and felt so alone (it probably didn't help that I was pushing pretty much everyone away). The one thing I knew I had to do was end things with MB. He seemed to be the kind of honourable guy who wouldn't necessarily take care of the baby, but would stay with me to help me through it (perhaps out of pity). I didn't want to make him have to make that kind of decision, as it was completely unfair to him.

The stupidest part was, I hadn't even taken a test at this stage, because it would only confirm what I suspected to be true. A part of me was hoping that maybe I just had the dates wrong and everything would be OK. But days and days went by and still no sign of blood. I ended up telling the entire story to Meshu and he said that he would take a pregnancy test with me (in spirit, as he lives in another state). This is one of the reasons I am so thankful for Meshu, I think this was a turning point for me (though I don't know if he ever did a test as well).

I worked up the courage to go to the supermarket (not the one I worked at) and buy two pregnancy tests. Standing in line at the checkout with two pregnancy tests is one of the most shameful things I have done (why didn't they have those self-checkout things back then?!). It is really hard to pee on a stick. Plus, you need to catch the middle part of the pee, so it can't be the start or the end, but how are you meant to know when it's the middle and not the end of the start, or the start of the end? 

The test came up negative, which was partially a huge relief to me, but mostly I was still convinced that I had done it wrong, as my period still had not come. I did another test later, and it also came up negative. I figured two tests should have been enough, so it must have meant I wasn't pregnant. 

What happened next is something I am not proud of. While I was incredibly relieved that I wasn't pregnant, I was suddenly filled with so much hate. Massive amounts of hate for AG for making me go through what I did. Hatred towards myself for letting it happen, and for not doing anything about it sooner. Hatred at the world, for being so stressful and unhelpful. This is something I struggle with a lot, even now, but when I am angry/upset, rather than confronting the source, I tend to funnel that anger into whatever happens to be at hand. So when MB came back from Sydney, I was upset at him for not being there for me, and that just lead to him becoming the center of all that anger and hatred.  I couldn't think of him without getting upset.

A part of me knew that it wasn't his fault, so guilt started getting mixed in. Why was I treating someone so badly when he had shown me only kindness? I avoided him like the plague while I tried to get everything sorted out, but the more I avoided him, the guiltier I felt. Which just made me feel even worse whenever I thought about him - which was most of the time. I tried to distract myself by doing as many other things as I could, but eventually, he confronted me and I told him I didn't want to be with him anymore. I even returned the tiger figuring he brought me from Sydney as a mental gesture of me ending things. I told him a partial truth, that it was because I thought I was pregnant and seeing him made me feel guilty, but I was too ashamed to admit anything else.

I acted very poorly, and I am quite fortunate that he is still willing to talk to me. I should have apologised years ago, but I could never bring myself to do it, and then it became one of those things where too much time has passed and you feel silly for bringing it up again.

What I learned about myself: I can't funnel anger properly, or confront people. Instead I tend to run away and hope the problem will disappear when I get back. I am really lucky to have the friends who will support me, even though I push them away. I prefer to handle problems on my own, and tend to avoid asking for help even though I really need it.

I think I have come a long way in the last one, but the other three definitely need work.

(MB says: It was good to read this as I sometimes felt that I was a small blip on your experiences, while on the other hand our short lived venture meant a lot to me, especially back then.  Could I change where things ended up I don't think I would have, as without that closure to our relationship I don't think I would have moved on to the girl I dated in Singapore which is the first time I ever felt like I was in love even if it ended when I came back.


I am currently now living with my girlfriend in the happiest relationship I've ever been in.  Which I hope is just the auspicious beginning to my happy ending.)

Smurfs, Christmas and Interest

I've been reading through Nome's blog (Nome was the former lead designer for HoN) and came across this particular post talking about some of the troubles new players have when they first play HoN or DotA. I agree on all of those points, but I think one of the biggest barriers to new players is the attitude of other players. This has been made much worse by the fact that HoN is now free-to-play, so the number of 'smurf accounts' has gone up dramatically.

Smurf accounts are accounts that high rated players create to play against low rated players (though there are players who make new accounts simply because the queues are too long at higher level games - naturally it's a positive skewed distribution, as there aren't many pro players). Since this is their "fake account" they don't care about stats so much, but it also means they will be matched against players far weaker in skill than they are. And because most of their first games will be in the non-verified category, it is likely that they will be matched against people who have genuinely just started, at least for their first few games. Because they are much better players, they can typically win games on their own. This leads to a few problems, two in particular:

-players who shouldn't win, do win. I played in a game where me and my team were fairly average, but the other team featured four players who seemed to have no idea what was going on and one player who was incredibly skilled. He was enough for them to win the game, which meant that the clueless players all received a higher ranking than they should have. While this would get balanced out in their next game, where they should lose, I have played with someone who was 1600 and still had no clue (the starting rating is 1500, where you typically win or lose 5 rating points per game).

-everyone is a smurf - or so some people think. We played a game with Mark the other day, and during the game, someone on the other team implied they thought Mark was a smurf (he made a new account when HoN went free-to-play, and his current rating is 1000). Even when I play on my own "smurf" account, a lot of the time the games end with people complaining about smurfs.

(I would just like to say here that I don't really consider my smurf account a smurf account in the sense that I don't (always) play in order to beat people of a lower skill level to me. I use it to play heroes that I wouldn't normally play so that I can learn them without people complaining, "OMG, how did you get to 1700, you are so bad?!" I also think for a while, I was getting a bit of support burnout and just wanted to play other heroes.)

The problem with all the smurf accounts also means that new players never really get to learn the game because they are so severely punished for any mistake that they make which discourages trial and error. Add to that the fact that experienced players are constantly abusing them for every little thing they are or aren't doing. The only way for them to learn is to read up on a lot of theorycrafting, but they will probably never do that because their experience in playing the game is horrible. Plus, it's incredibly boring.

Olek suggested this a while ago, which was to have a "noob period" where you play your first 5 games against other new players. I think it should follow the Starcraft 2 model, where you have a practice league. Of course, this doesn't stop smurfs from making accounts and entering the practice league. But it does help divide the genuinely 1500 rated players from the new players, and you are less likely to encounter the pro players who don't want to wait in queue for a game.

Christmas baking is half-done!

This year, I went with a chocolate cupcake, fudge brooooooooownie (in honour of the Mumble channel), a choc-chip cookie and a Mars bar slice. I would have made shortbread or gingerbread, but we don't have a working oven, and the thought of baking 6 cookies at a time wasn't all that appealing. When Julian suggested rocky road, I thought it would be awesome, as it didn't require cooking, but nobody I polled said they liked rocky road, so I went with the Mars bar slice instead. That was the baking for my co-workers, not sure if I can actually be bothered making stuff for friends as it took almost the entire weekend. But I kinda want to because I'm still sad I couldn't give Vinnie a fudge brooooooooooooownie on his birthday.

Lastly, I've been thinking about what makes a blog interesting. Lately, I'm starting to think maybe I fall into that reality TV category, where people watch because it makes them feel good that their lives aren't so bad. Not that I think my life is bad, but some of my posts involve me thinking about on the train wreck events in my life, and I think it makes people feel better about themselves. Maybe the other part of it is the fact that people are usually surprised to find I write the things that I do. So maybe they enjoy reading about the "private me". If you aren't shy about it, I'd appreciate it if you told me in the comments or via email why you read my blog. =)