Metrosexual is in now... along with smoking?

An article in today’s Daily Mail (I know I know, I can hear to booing and hissing from here…) has sparked great debate on a forum I frequent. Now, normally I’d just add my own little witty retort to the mix and be done with it, but this article in particular is linked to something I feel very strongly about.

Smoking.

My hatred of smoking is pretty well known by those who’ve known me longer than 5 minutes. I hate it. It makes me feel sick to be around it, I hate the smell, and I get close to wanting to kick the living crap out of anyone who blows smoke at me or my girls or we‘re forced to breathe it in because they‘re too god damn selfish to realise the concept of personal breathing space.

For the record, I have never actually tried smoking. I‘ve never wanted to as I have hated it for as long as I can remember. But this isn’t a hatred without reason, I spent 16 years of my life surrounded by it constantly with my mum and dad both being very heavy smokers. I was constantly ill, have a cough myself like I smoked 40 a day, I was bullied for the smell of it on me and constantly told my parents were going to die because of it.

Well.. They were right. My mum died from lung cancer in 2005. After 40 odd years of addiction. I watched her slowly die from something that she had no control over. It was awful and I’m beyond understanding as to why ANYONE would willingly smoke. You know it’s bad for you, you know one day it will eventually kill you and you will leave behind a huge great gaping hole in the lives of the people you left behind that will never, ever heal.

Ok, so admittedly I’m a bit militant about it because of my mum dying. But yet, my boyfriend is a smoker. I dated a smoker for 18 months when I was 14/15. I hated it. It was disgusting, mainly because he was one of these ‘I don’t care what you think I’m going to do what I like how and when I like’ types, that and being a complete and utter cock, but I digress. I always said from that day on I wouldn’t date another smoker. And I didn’t. Up until May this year that is. Pretty much 10 years of being a good girl and sticking to my smoke-free guns.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not the lie down and take it type (There is a joke, but no, I won’t do it :D), and my boyfriend is fully aware of how much I hate it. Thankfully, he’s the courteous type. He won’t force me or the girls to be around it and knows that if he did we’d be over faster than a man who suffers from premature ejaculation in the Ann Summers bondage section. As much as I hate it and am pretty vocal about it, I can’t and wouldn’t ask him to stop. Simply because it’s not my choice. If he wants to slowly commit suicide that’s his choice as much as it upsets me to think he could end up like my mum… (ooh there I go being all militant again!). I’m not the type of person to force ultimatums on people, “I hate smoking, quit or we’re through”. I just couldn’t do that. As much as I think smokers are selfish for not considering the effects on others, I’m not selfish enough to ask someone to change the way they are to be with me. If they’re special enough, then I just put up and shut up. Ok, less so of the shut up part..

I suppose the sad fact is that as non smokers we kind of HAVE to ‘put up and shut up’. Mainly because it’s not our choice and we have no real say in what smokers do. When the smoking ban was brought out a few years back, non smokers rejoiced in the fact we’d now be able to enjoy a night out or a meal without stinking like an ashtray the next morning and waking up with that god awful smell in our hair. But now we have another problem. People still smoke, and they do it in groups where they CAN smoke. i.e. outside of entrances and in beer gardens, and speaking as a non smoker who has a lot of friends who smoke, unless you’re going to be Little Miss Social Outcast and stay indoors while all of your friends are outside lighting up then again, you have no choice. It’s a catch 22, so even with the smoking ban, we STILL get to wake up stinking, kiss guys who taste like ashtrays and put up with the wonder that is 2nd hand smoke.

But this is where I come to my original point… the article which has caused so much debate on a forum I frequent.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-566351/The-electric-cigarette-gives-nicotine-hit-gets-round-smoking-ban.html

Electronic cigarettes, smoke free, and carcinogen/health effect free (subject to further testing obviously). You simply charge them up and off you go. Pure nicotine without any of the nasties, and a realistic look and ‘smoke’ effect for the Malboro Gestapo. So now us non smokers can rejoice in having to inhale nothing other than steam produced from vapourised liquid nitrogen.. Huzzah!

I have a small problem with this however. It’s glamourising smoking by portraying itself as a fashion accessory. It’s being sold as a ‘fashionable way to get around the smoking ban for all you hip young cool cats’. Fantastic. So instead of having ‘proper’ hardcore smokers with all their ‘RAWR! WE HAVE A RIGHT TO BREATHE IN CARCINOGENIC POISONOUS AIR AND MAKE EVERYONE BREATHE OUR 2ND HAND SMOKE AND YOU CAN’T STOP US! RAWR!’, we’ll have a bunch of metrosexuals and wannabe fashionistas flouncing about with the next generation of fashionable gadgetry. In my personal opinion, NOTHING looks more common than smoking, and nothing looks more tacky than someone smoking thinking they look ‘cool’. But I digress…

So then what happens… “I’ve forgotten to charge my cigarettes, but hang on, I’m addicted to the nicotine.. Oh god oh god oh god” *goes out and buys normal cigarettes, aforementioned catch 22 resumes, person dies an untimely death a few decades later*

I personally think they’re marketing this all wrong. These could be used as a really successful quit smoking aid, and personally, I think they’re going to end up doing more harm than good. They should be trying to help people quit altogether, not glamourise it and make it ‘cool’ again. How long would it be until they find out that these are harmful, and people start dropping dead from their internal organs being frozen by the liquid nitrogen vapour they THOUGHT was steam?

“Would you like an Icepop Johnny? Sure! Here, have my lung on a stick…”

fan-fucking-tastic.

"We hold these truths to be self evident..

...that all men are created equal.."

Uh, no. Sorry Mr Jefferson. While you may have been well intentioned when you decided to include that little ditty in the Declaration of Independence. You are, in fact, wrong. I'm making the general assumption here that by referring to 'men', he was in fact referring to man as in the human race, rather than men. For all we know Mr Jefferson could've been a sexist bigot, but hey, who are we to judge colonial America.. I'm sure they MEANT well when they stole all the Native Americans' land for their own and burned thousands of women in the Salem Witch Trials.. but hey... let's not digress.

My point is simple. We are not equal. Whilst we may all share the same basic genetic structure and we are all of course the same species (although even that is debatable considering SOME of the 'specimens' of the human race I've had the misfortune of knowing..) we are in no way equal. All people are humans. That is where the similarity stops. While the media may enjoy force feeding us the whole crock of crap that is women are now equal to men and all that bullshit, the realism of it is in fact, rubbish. Women still earn less on average than their male counterparts, and men still see women as the 'good little wifeys' as characterised by the 1950's etc. Women cook, women clean, we pop out the next generation of their super egotiscial empire, but we can't be smarter, or more successful, or wealthier, or happier, or more talented, etc etc etc, than men.

But it doesn't end there. Sex, religion, race, age, intelligence, personality, humour, dress sense, complete and utter mental retardation.. we are not equal.

A little exercise for you, simply to prove my point.

Think of someone you know. Now, name 5 things that they share the exact same characteristic as you. For example, income, job, family circumstances, intelligence, qualifications.. just to give you some ideas. Can you? No. Exactly.

Fundamentally to all be equal, we would all have to be the same. We're not, and we never will be, and therefore we will never be equal.

Ok, so admittedly maybe this is a small rant, and the trigger of this rant was something that happened to me the other day. I was basically the victim of ageism/sexism at work. I saw a client, and was basically told that I couldn't know anything because I was young, and therefore he didn't believe me. Fair enough. I also picked up on him feeling threatened by the fact a (young) woman knew more than him.

Now, I'm not petty. But I have to admit, that if I ever come across anything like this, it's always men feeling inferior or threatened. Maybe our old traditions from past generations are struggling to be killed off, who knows, but it sucks to be on the receiving end of it.

I think it's just a male ego thing.

And yes, I am being slightly (if tongue in cheek) sexist here. Where men and women are concerned we are definitely not equals. I doubt sometimes we are even the same species. The men are from Mars women are from Venus stuff? Bullcrap. That would mean that mean have some kind of similar link, if on a very rudimentary level. Martians and Venusians (I have NO idea if that's what we would be called..) would mean that we are both species of alien. And therefore would be linked, in the being an alien aspect.

I seriously doubt we are that closely linked. I believe that it is more something like... women are oxygen (Essential for all of life, provider of sustenance and energy, and also potential of great destruction if combined with the right elements.) and men are like..... toenail clippings. ie useless and hurt if you come across them on accident. THAT is more like how Men and Women are related. ie WE'RE NOT. Men are just an entity unto themselves (Pretty sure they say the same about us too.. but we know the truth... they don't. The 'tards.). They're a weird breed. Painfully simple, and yet impossible to figure out. Like... painting by numbers, but you have to mix all the colours yourself, you're missing the colours black and white, and your paintbrush is, infact, a chicken nugget.

I've given up trying to understand them. As soon as I think I've figured them out, they change. Like if you finally figure out how to play basketball, but then the court changes to an ice hockey rink. It's impossible.

So ladies, I have one piece of advice for you.

Accept the fact that we'll never understand how they work, but also gloat in the knowledge that we will always, always, be the superior race. ;)

Past experience is not always a good thing.

Just when I thought I'd gotten over my irational fear of being in relationships, I have an "Eeeeeeeeeek!" moment. No reason, no rationalisation, just a fleeting feeling of 'Oh my god I'm in deep and that's scary!'. I should clarify that this is in no way because of him. I love my boyfriend. More than even I probably think about. It's taken a fair while to get to here, as he knows. Not because of him, he's wonderful and one of the few men I've met who is just himself and doesn't put on this false facade to try and attract women. The real reason is because of my past, well, 'experiences' with men. These admittedly have been mostly within the past year, and I basically became afraid of falling in love. To me Love = Pain, hurt, heartache, tears... and so I shut off. I didn't trust any man, didn't believe their intentions, their motives, I didn't actually think that any man can be worthy of putting my heart on the line again.

And then I got closer to my now-boyfriend. We'd been friends for ages. A good 1 1/2 - 2 years before we got together. He's had a thing for me for a fair while before we did eventually get together. He wasn't exactly subtle thinking about it, even if he meant to be, but at it actually took him telling me to realise it, at which point I was going through a whole load of shit with someone else and couldn't really take it in properly. That shit took me a long long time to get over. Or should I say it took me a long time to get over him and what happened, and because of that I wasn't myself for a long time. Earlier in the year he (my now boyfriend) and I actually fell out because of all the shit that was going on. So I had a spell of about 2-3 months where I had very little contact from either the guy who caused me the heartache, and my now-boyfriend. In this couple of months I sorted myself out. And then when I started talking to my now-boyfriend and we got closer and eventually started dating. However, I was still scarred by the previous events which left me really hesitant to take the chance again.

But, I gave it a shot, and here I am. :) Happily in love with my boyfriend, and bar a couple of clashes of stubborness (we're faaar too similar in that.. lol) things have been great. We've now been together nearly 5 months, and for the first time in a loooong time I'm feeling much better about myself and less blinded by fear of the whole 'L' word.

The odd thing being that today I had a fleeting 'eeeeeeeeek' moment. Out of the blue. For no real reason other than I think I scared myself with how much I've let go of the whole fear thing. The fear was my safety blanket. The fear was going to stop me getting hurt and heartbroken again. But now I'm relinquished that, I'm running on blind faith in him not breaking my heart, which is a scary concept for me. I feel out of sorts when I can't control situations. Ok, that sounds bad, I mean control as in it's my responsibility for my own happiness and security, and to essentially hand that over to someone else is rather daunting.

And yes, I'm fully aware that I overanalyse things. It's just how I am. I think too much. This is more just a general musing about how much I've changed emotionally in the past 5 months. I'm only blogging about it because I've finally realised that I've crossed a huuuuge step for me. I've let myself fall in love again and put my heart on the line. THAT'S whats scary. I'm back to the old me of taking chances and 'feeling' again, instead of shutting off my heart to the world. And finally back to the thinking of even if it does go wrong and I get heartbroken, all of this will have still been worth it, because right now I'm feeling great, very much in love and very, very happy. :)

What a difference a day/month/year makes..

Wow, it's beena fair while since I last blogged. But there's been so much change. I suppose part of me not blogging has simply because things have been so busy and I've had my mind so focused on other things.

The main thing of course being the car/money situation. Well I'm happy to report now that I have my car! :D After 4 long months of heartache and saving I finally have a car. I have to admit that possibly about 70% of it was thanks to help from my dad, and I'll remain ever grateful to him for everything that he's done since my ex screwed me over back in May. But now I have my car. I've had it exactly a week today. :) And in that week I've possibly driven nearly 250 miles and used nearly a whole tank of petrol enjoying my new found freedom lol. I've been to see friends, I've done proper food shopping at tesco instead of being ripped off by my local village store, I've done things with the girls.. it's been such a lifeline I can't even begin to describe it. Finally I can do things of my terms and it will eventually (I hope) open up new prospects for employment and just generally lead me to a more successful life.

As cheesy as that sounds, you don't realise how much you need a car until A) you lose it and B) you get it back again! :)

Money wise the situation is going to have a few iffy patches coming up. Obviously adjusting to having the additional running costs of car ownership, plus my ex has decided to cut my child maintenance. I won't go into that on here. You never know who is reading but it's going to make things potentially very difficult for me for the interim. The joys of the benefits system and no doubt I'll end up with another overpayment and blah blah blah yadda yadda. Just wish things could be agreed and then stuck to. Save messing me and the girls around. *sigh* But of course I have no control over it... but aaaaaaaaaanyway, I digress.

Job wise I'm still doing the same as I was, it's getting a lot of work now. and it's difficult juggling general advice and debt casework but I'm slowly getting used to accepting that sometimes you can't do everything at once and it's helping me start prioritising and reorganising myself.

Along with work I've now starting my Open University Social Sciences course, the first essay of which is du the 3rd Nov :eek: but I'm currently a couple of weeks ahead with that :) Tis interesting so far but not really linked to economics etc at the mo but it's all good and will link in eventually :)

The girls are well, Ashli is LOVING school, she can't wait to go each day, and KK is happy as a clam. Individually theya re wonderful angels capable of no evil.. but when they're togeeeeeeether... :\ lol

So although my current life is non stop, chaotic, busy and generally stressful, I still wouldn't change a thing. It may not be perfect, but where's the fun in perfection? It's the little oddities and the things that crop up which inevitably make us remember what's so great about the good things that happen. It enhances our appreciation for when things go well.

Funny old world we live in.. this time last year I'd split up with my husband and started becoming properly involved with my ex best friend ie 'theguyIwaswithbutwasn'twithbutwasbutonlyonhistermsbutwasiwithhimornot' guy. I still haven't blogged on that properly.. but I'm getting to the point where I don't think about it anymore. I'm sad I lost the friendship, as he now won't speak to me at all. I'd like to think that he'd like to be adult about it and at least talk to me, rather than doing the current thing of pretending I don't exist... but ho hum. Whatever helps him sleep at night. I'm not losing sleep over it. The live I have now is better than anything I had this time last year, all bar a few ups and downs. I have wonderful children, wonderful friends, a truly wonderful boyfriend who means the world to me (AND who hasn't broken my heart or treated me like shit, but there's still time on that one! lol /end cyniscism) and generally life is good.

Now... if I could just get a full time job, and more financial security I'd be laughing.

You hear me karma? Hello?...... helloooooooooooooo?? ....

God damn it.