The Ex Factor … and why “au revoir” should be “adieu”

People who know me reasonably well will tell you I’m a forgiving sort of girl … eventually. I do a fairly sound job of mentally analysing life events and coming to rational, fair conclusions when disappointment rides into town.

I also know that it’s exceedingly unlikely that my actions, neuroses and hang-ups alone were responsible for the various failures that have strewn my path when it comes to relationships; that said I don’t mind taking it on the chin when I mess up.

So my approach to relationship spillages, crashes and breakdowns is simple … learn from them and move on. Increasingly I find however that men will say they are “friends” with their ex’s, maybe like it’s a testament and honour to the memory? I really don’t know the answer here because the concept is most definitely alien to me. And here’s why.

It’s not that I’m a cold-blooded and heartless bitch; I may like occasionally to portray that image but the reality is I’m nothing like that. My feeling on this topic is that it’s impossible to have a purely platonic and caring friendship with someone you once had feelings for. Let me give you an example.

It must be at least six months since I finished with Mr Distant Cynic .. or maybe that should be “petered out” with. We had gone in the space of ten months from being keen to indifferent for a whole variety of reasons, needless to say for my part the indifference grew to the extent that one day it dawned on me that I hadn’t spoken to him for two weeks. The spark had well and truly gone out. Thank goodness. What was once a flame was now spent ashes in the grate of another seemingly pointless episode.

At the end of our little sojourn I finally made it to the place on the page that everyone around me had been at for some time; Mr Distant Cynic had capitalised on my loneliness when I relocated last year. He spends much time abroad on business so the set-up we had of me being available for him when he was home was efficient to say the least. Once that penny dropped I found it remarkably easy to make all the necessary emotional realignments at lightning-speed.

Now, given that we had spent ten months or so seeing each other on and off (more “off” than “on” towards the end needless to say..) there was a tendency to think we could be “friends”. I believe “staying friends” is taking the finality out of it, a little like a safety cushion to shield you from the blow that it’s all over.

Mr Distant Cynic had boasted on several occasions that he was friends with a number of his ex’s; indeed he once commented that a few of them were now married and that he knew for a fact that the new husbands hated the “arrangement”. I imagine a thoughtful and considerate ex would bow out but no, he found that quite amusing. Can you see where I’m going here?

And so yesterday when after several months of zero communication his message popped up on Skype, I sensed he was on an information gathering exercise. And I was right.

After opening gambit chit-chat he asked “so how are you? How’s business? Family? Is there a new man?”

I deftly answered the first three questions and body-swerved the fourth, knowing that he would come back to it again. And he did.

So this time I answered that yes, I had been seeing someone. I also added that it was early days but that he was probably the most genuine and honest person I’d met in long time. Because that was the right and true answer to his pointless probe.

Out of politeness I then asked “and how about you?”

“Yes am seeing someone …” he answered, “unbelievably she’s even busier than I am…. which suits me fine …. she is a very lovely person …”

So all in all, you might say that’s a great result for both of us, which of course it is but I feel that was a conversation we’d have been better off not having for one simple reason … pride.

We all like to think we left an imprint on the minds and hearts of our ex’s, don’t we? Not to the extent that they can’t move on and find happiness elsewhere, but in the moments when their minds drift off for a moment wouldn’t we like them to think “oh … she really was something else” (in the dreamy and wistful sense …)

You see, when I said I was seeing seeing an honest and genuine man, what I really wanted to tag on the end was “he’s the complete opposite of you”. And I’m sure he’d have wanted to come back with “oh bully for you”

And when he told me his new squeeze was a “very lovely person” I desperately wanted to retort “and I wasn’t, I suppose???”

These thoughts and desires are not conducive with leaving wistful imprints .. just a nasty aftertaste.

In truth I think maybe people have all sorts of other reasons for keeping in touch and for “staying friends”. Maybe they are harbouring a deep-rooted hope that it isn’t really over. Perhaps at some point they think “benefits” could be added to the equation. For me it’s quite straightforward; I’ll nod in acknowledgment if I bump into an ex in Tesco but that’s as far as I need to go.

Once you’ve said your goodbyes it’s better to nurture the memories rather than stir up the residual resentment.

After all … they’re called “ex” for a reason.

Answer me one question … what’s the worst that could happen?

I guess we can all point to times, people and events in our lives that we later credit with causing a seismic shift in our way of thinking. For me one of those times was my first job in field sales, the person was my sales manager, a lovable man who played the trumpet for the Salvation Army band at weekends and the event was a discussion we had about letting nerves get the better of us.

Now Gorgeous George was not the type of man you’d expect to see in a role of that ilk; typically I suppose these days we expect ruthless, results-oriented individuals to be leading sales teams. George was nothing like that; he was a “people person” in the truest sense of the term who instilled very early on in his team members that there is no such thing as inferiority when it comes to your fellow man.

And that worked both ways. In restaurants he struck up conversations with waiting staff and would chat for a few minutes with the vendor of a copy of the Big Issue as he handed over a pocketful of change. Similarly he explained very succinctly why nerves where often unfounded when it came to making a key sales presentation to a room full of decision makers.

“Deborah … tell me .. have you prepared for this presentation? I mean … have you really prepared? And don’t bullshit me …”

“Yes George”

“Then why are you so nervous? You know your stuff …. if you stumble a few times they won’t know because they don’t know what the “perfect presentation” should look like … you know that because you’ve written it!”

“But such a lot rides on this presentation George; I’m worried”

“OK, OK … then answer me one question …. what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Well … the worst that could happen is that I completely fluff it and we lose the deal”

“No … that’s not the worst that could happen. The worst that could happen is that one of them takes out a sawn-off shotgun and shoots you in the knee-caps because your presentation was so bad. Don’t you think? Surely that’d be far worse than us losing the deal because you fluffed your presentation?”

That was George’s skill; he instantly could bring a perspective to a dilemma you were facing that caused your angst to evaporate into thin air.

Now like many people I have laid awake at night worrying over the years. I’ve worried about relationships, about money, about work … and all my laboured efforts and sleepless nights I’ve chalked up haven’t made the slightest difference to any of the various outcomes. I still wake and avail myself of a bit advanced hand-wringing coupled with a toss and a turn from time to time, and it continues to not make the slightest difference. And then a few months ago a Facebook friend shared a nugget of wisdom offered by his first wife on the subject ….

“Worrying is like paying interest on money you haven’t borrowed yet”

I doubt anyone has brought worry into its allotted perspective quite as brilliantly as Janet Goodman did in that instance.

A little earlier today I swapped comments regarding my last post concerning positive attitudes and it led me to wonder why some people seem to get stuck in ongoing negative cycles that they can’t break. And this I find an odd quandary for me to roll around my head because I’ve worn the depression T-shirt a few times in my teens; I’ve taken antidepressants that made me feel like I was on another planet and I’ve woken up of a morning thinking “Oh God, not another day …”

But I guess the difference now is that I’ve lived to tell the tale. Several times over, and then some.

Confidence, positive attitude, call it what you will … it isn’t a skill, a quality or an attribute. It’s the knowledge that no matter what life has in store tomorrow, next week or next year I’ll deal with it. Good or bad.

I used to believe not knowing what the future held was a drawback, but now I see it as definite advantage. A canvas waiting for me to de-blank it.

I mean … what’s the worst that could happen?

Great expectations …. and the art of letting them go

There is one thing you can be sure binds us together when it comes to relationships …and to be clear I’m talking about all relationships here, not just the intimate ones. And that is this ..we’ve all been disappointed at some point.

That’s not to say that every relationship will let you down, but in the main there will have been a falling short of the mark that caused us to retreat, sob, lick our wounds and sob some more in the worst cases, and to shrug our shoulders in resigned acceptance in less severe instances.

When we invite people into our emotional space we attach hopes to them in terms of their behaviour and consequential outcomes, we hope, will weigh heavily in our favour. The more we like a person, the more hopes we attach. It’s like planting a garden. If it’s of critical importance to you that it blooms to perfection then you’ll tend it regularly, ply it with fertiliser, stand and wait for green shoots to appear. If on the other hand you don’t care one way or the other, you might chuck a few seeds about in homage to whatever BBC2 gardening bonanza caught your eye as you channel-hopped one evening.

Hopes, dreams, aspirations … if you hang on to them for dear life and fail to implement a qualification process that tells you whether they are realistic or not, they become one thing. Expectations.

Some where deep down we might start to conjure pictures of a happy ever-after with someone we just met or else we possibly imagine our child opening his practice in Harley Street thirty years hence as he walks into his new classroom on his first day at school. If you’re really adept at this process you will imagine these things happening before there is a “someone we just met” or before you’ve even taken a positive pregnancy test.

We like to dream, we should all live in hope (despite there sometimes being no apparent reason why that’s a good idea) and aspirations gave birth to the profession that is marketing. Expectations, however, seem to be the root of disappointments and let-downs, dashed and disregarded like insignificant pieces of flotsam and jetsam floating on the cruelly hostile sea of hope.

Now I can’t hold my hands up as a visionary on this subject for I too was practically olympic-standard at imagining the “whole roses around the cottage door” scenario when it came to fledgling relationships. And then after what seemed to be an indeterminable number of gargantuan bitter pills my friend Ullie spelt out my solution in brilliantly simple terms…

“You should never enter any relationship with expectations. They are the seeds of misery. Rid yourself of expectations and you will enjoy the relationship for what it is in real terms, not what you’re willing it to become”

Ullie was unequivocally correct.

Only yesterday I had a vivid reminder of how ignoring this advice can play out when I was targeted with a nasty little message left “anonymously” on Facebook.

Some time ago I became aware that a chap had taken a liking to me, he wasn’t my type in any way shape or form but he could be mildly amusing so we occasionally swapped banter. Every time I reaffirmed the distance between us, he seemed to ramp up his attempts to preen and parade himself in front of me like some prize-winning bull, often in front of his easily amused friends.

It became harder to feign a smile in front of Mr Jack T. Ladd, especially when he proclaimed pearls of wisdom like “You and I are so alike. We both have an air of mystery about us.” Explaining to him that it wasn’t mystery in my case, it was indifference felt like it possibly would have popped his balloon with a force he wasn’t ready for. So I chose to dodge him at every given opportunity, often very unsubtly.

My opinion on events like this is quite straightforward. If you like somebody and you throw out bait several times which they chose to ignore, then they don’t like you. Simple. And when if you’re a man throwing said bait, be in even less doubt. Continuing to puff your chest up that bit more and plunge in once again is only going to ensure that when the realisation sets in that the interest is not mutual, the catastrophe will feel so grave it should make the six o’clock news headlines.

And so Mr J T Ladd went on and on and on. And I backed off and off and off.

And then yesterday evening to my Facebook Honesty Box question “Tell me something you probably wouldn’t say to my face” I got this (anonymous) response ..

“I think you are a coward which i find disappointing. I would never have a problem saying that to your face mind you, just never got the opportunity.”

Now anyone who can’t be bothered to capitalise “I” isn’t worth a huge amount of bother anyway, but that just happens to be a bête noir of mine that I battle with constantly amidst the many grammar and spelling affectations that haunt me.

And, in case you are wondering, I knew this to be Mr Ladd … for one simple reason. He and people like him can’t just let their expectations go because they think everyone is waiting for their next promised installment, so when they sense the game is starting to run away from them they seize on that critical match-winner … the last word, preferably a nasty toxic one.

Building expectations is never advisable, particularly when you have no knowledge of the person you’re constructing them around. Which is why Ullie was spot on with her advice.

But if you really can’t help yourself donning a hard hat and erecting some scaffolding in preparation…. then learn to let them go gracefully.

Or even better … live in the moment and let the rest go hang.

The rise of the bullyhags … they ain’t pretty and they know it

It’s quite astonishing the truths you can uncover when you’ve lived as an adult for a few years. Of course living as an adult doesn’t always equate to your age; my son for example oft displays more maturity in one word than I can eek out of my whole being.

No … living as an adult in my book is recognising life’s lessons for what they are, and not blithely taking the same route, making the same decisions and arriving at the same unsatisfactory conclusions. If it didn’t work out last time the chances are fairly high that it won’t next. Being “grown up about it” means walking away on occasion, taking a risk without being consumed with fear and seeing that the hurtful actions that others display towards you is actually testament to their own inner demons, not yours.

Surprisingly I’ve witnessed some pretty hostile behaviour towards me since my marriage broke down over three years ago, and it still leaves me scratching my head as to why that might be. What makes it even more baffling to my little brain is that it has for the most part come from other women who I’ve come to call (affectionately, you understand …) the bullyhags. Surprising, baffling …. sad and grossly disappointing. You kind of hope your own gender will be batting for you … supporting you through the good times and bad. And generally when times are bad they will support you, but there comes occasion when your day starts to brighten that a few seem intent on spoiling it.

The bullyhags will offer up a few choice sharp and sarcastic words, some deliberate attempts to freeze you out of conversations and relationships and display an underlying inference that moves are afoot to undermine your happiness.

I recall being bullied first time round by the very unrefined Susan Smith when I was thirteen because she’d heard on the grapevine that I had taken a liking to her beau, the even more unrefined Mark Firth. I should point out that I never use real names in this blog unless (I’ve just decided) they have at some point displayed the characteristics of pond life. In this case I deem my decision to name and shame wholly justified.

And so having my polo mints snatched on a daily basis because I had embarked on a crush that was the first of many unsavoury repetitions cast me in the role of the bullyhag’s future victim.

The only good thing about being intimidated in such a manner when you’re a child is that it’s done in a very obvious and visible way. Other children witness it and there can be no doubt as to what’s going on.

As an adult it can be a very different affair. It’s often done subtly, at close quarters and quite viciously. There’s often no warning nor is there an obvious reason why the perpetrator has selected you as their would-be prey. As I said … baffling.

I was a little girl who spent her entire childhood trying desperately to please and impress her father so it comes as a bit of a blow to think that there are people out there quite willing to take you down just because they don’t like the cut of your jib. And for no reason other than that.

Friends have said this is often the work of a jealous mind which always amuses me. Given that some offenders have been in secure relationships with no obvious problems financial or otherwise, I wonder how they think my life feels at 3am in the morning when I have tossed and turned in my bed wondering how my bills were going to get paid and what my future held. And I wonder how they think it feels when I look at my son and worry that I’m letting him down and not giving him the childhood he deserves. But then again, given that the bullyhags are adults I’m sure they take all that into consideration before they launch their subversive venomous attacks.

Put quite simply it appears the bullyhags like to select victims that they deem “getting a bit too big for their boots”, someone who may appear to be making progress and who just needs to be taught a lesson. I guess you only have to acknowledge the column inches in the newspapers given over to tales of woe, tragedy and torment to appreciate that bad news will outsell good any day of the week. We just don’t seem comfortable with the nice stuff. That seems for me to be one of the biggest tragedies of all.

Clearly because I’ve written a whole post dedicated to the bullyhags I’m admitting that I do get affected by it all .. but less so these days simply because I don’t have to wait for the bell to go at four o’clock to make my escape.

Inferiority is a state that’s much easier to fend off when you live your life as an adult.

Was that the bell?

It has to mean something … otherwise it will be blogged, drawn and quartered.

I really have no idea where time goes … it seems only two days ago I was discussing with a friend how I felt I needed to leave this blog alone for a while due to the fact that I believed it was getting a tad repetitive and that I thought I was starting to sound like I had as much luck with men as the village spinster (although arguably my memoirs might make for better reading). In fact it has been over a month since I last posted.

So in effect I have done just that. I kicked off my heels, cracked open the gin and took a blogging holiday. And that has to all intents and purposes been fine, except for the fact that I’ve felt the urge to blog about a couple of incidents but couldn’t for two rather pertinent facts. The first is that I must now have one of the most public personal lives that doesn’t belong to a celebrity (of my own making, granted) and the second being that a friend informed me recently that my candid approach to recording my take on the opposite sex could have a detrimental effect on my search for a meaningful relationship.

And that, ladies and gentleman, has been the sum total of my month away from these blogging shores. I now know what I’m looking for.

A meaningful relationship. A relationship that means something. Not marriage. Not co-habitation even. It just needs to “mean” something.

People oft think I’m a bit of a flibbertigibbet on the one hand and a ruthless user of men on the other. I never worked out how those two married up  but apparently it is possible; after three or four Babychams laughing at ridiculous jokes I can turn into the female Don Corleone of the dating world. I take no prisoners you see. All wrongdoers are exposed with a mere tap-tap-tap on my rather slinky Mac keyboard.

And so they should be! I’m not entirely sure that I’ve been specific about the criteria by which I judge my dating experiences in terms of suitability for “outing” them Debsy-style, but it’s really quite simple. Men that act like arses will have their arses exposed, and to clarify, “act like arses” means at some point they have treated me (and probably many like me) pretty shoddily.

I never use real names, but if they were to read the post, they would know to whom I’m referring. Job done.

My friend (of the candid approach comment) informed me that a man would need to have “balls of steel” to get into a relationship with me, knowing about this blog and my tendency to whip out an exposé quicker than you could say “second date”. For my part I found that a bit harsh ….. but then we always do see onlooker’s views through sterile binoculars don’t we? In essence I found his “balls of steel” comment quite funny … or was I merely pleased with the fact that I was starting to appear formidable in the dating arena? In retrospect I’m not sure either interpretation is desirable.

The unfortunate fact is that recording my experiences in this blog have become my way of laying them to rest. Every time someone has told me how funny they thought a particular entry about a disastrous date was, I’ve jumped up and down on the grave of the memory of said incident, knocked back an imaginary martini, thrown the glass at the wall and screamed “next!”

We all need to review, investigate, understand and conclude. My conclusions just happen to involve sharing my findings with about seven thousand others on Twitter and Facebook. What the heck’s formidable about that?

So. Meaningful. That’s the sum of it. And by meaningful, I mean just that.

Welcome back friend.

I was joking about the Babychams by the way.

How to write your dating proposal …. it’s all in the pitch.

A friend asked me briefly yesterday for my thoughts on a particular dating site; he stated that he thought it was less of a “cattle market” than the others he had seen. I agreed that it was but went on to add in my usual negative fashion that I reserve for this topic that said site had been a dead loss for me.

I make no bones about it; internet dating and I are not a match made in heaven. I suspect it’s in no small part due to the fact that I like quick results, so after half a dozen dismal attempts at finding the man who will emotionally complete me via my broadband connection I’ve “logged off” the whole idea. But my conversation with my friend did cause me to realise that my impatience is possibly due to my previous career in sales on the battlefield that is the city of London …

This was a job where strategies were not given an infinite amount of “time to work”. If there was no sign that you were making significant progress after deploying all your heavy artillery then you either a) completely re-thought your strategy or b) scrawled it off your prospect list and started hunting elsewhere.

I really was that girl. I was the one in the Armani suit stood on Waterloo concourse huffing and puffing because the train was ten minutes late. I was the girl sat in the American Bar at the Savoy sipping champagne with my girlfriends on a Wednesday evening just because we could.

I was also the girl that brought in £3.5 million worth of new business for my employer eighteen months before they decided to dispense with my services when I tried to return from maternity leave. So you see, it’s not always glitz and glamour … at least not once you’ve had a child.

The taste for all things designer and bubbly soon left me. Having a baby tends to do that to a woman. Priorities not only move, they get completely re-written. But the one thing I’ve never lost is the understanding that to get someones interest, be it in your product, your ideas or even you, you have to whet their appetite first.

To this end I would suggest anyone writing a profile for a dating website look at it in the same way as writing a sales proposal.

What you’re selling is you of course, but what you want to do is stir enough interest in your audience to motivate them to contact you. Don’t worry that you might be contacted by people you’re not interested in, of course you will, but you need options when it comes to internet dating and plenty of them.

The first thing anyone needs to decide is what type of match are you looking for. In the interests of keeping this post sensibly concise let’s suppose it’s someone like me; someone looking for a relationship but not to be engaged by Christmas and married in the spring. Here are a few pointers you might like to consider …

Photograph– Make sure you include one; not posting one looks suspicious (I’ve already talked about that). And make sure you’re smiling on it; in the main it’s only professionally-taken shots that don’t make unsmiling people look like convicts. Another vital point is make sure you’re properly dressed … a man naked from the waist up spells out P-L-A-Y-E-R only. You may be proud of your gym attendance record but keep it in your back pocket for now.

Written profile– Keep it relatively brief, two paragraphs only. Remember this exercise is only about getting people interested in you, they don’t need to know every last detail at this point. Mention any avid and passionate interests you have (that aren’t related to sex) and never, ever, ever mention your ex. Ever. Make sure your spelling and punctuation are correct … trust me, a thinking woman’s crumpet does not start off “well where i start im new to this my mates say i look great for my age i luv a good laff and im looking for that special laydee ….” You get the picture I’m sure.

Follow-up– When people contact you either initiate conversation with them or politely tell them “no thanks”. Don’t ever ignore them. The world is too small these days to risk gaining a reputation for being ignorant for the sake of not typing a quick message.

So, I’m sure there are those of you out there who are thinking “so if she’s so red hot at this, how come she’s single?”

The answer is this … you don’t always have to believe in the product to be able to sell it. You just have to get the buyer salivating at the thought of it.

Job done.

Dishing the dirt …. what do women really talk about?

From time to time I’ve heard it said that women can be far worse than men when it comes to talking about the opposite sex. Clearly it depends on how you define “worse” but if the commenters were inferring that women talk more than men, then naturally I’d have to concur with this opinion.

Women of my generation talk about all manner of personal detail quite openly amongst each other. We talk about it seriously on occasion, in the manner that you might discuss a post-mortem report (maybe not the best analogy but you get my drift) and at other times we will venture into jocular territory.

A common misconception amongst men however has to be that we discuss “quality” issues …. like a panel of judges as men are paraded in front of us. That’s not the case. Well … to be perfectly honest it can happen, but only in my experience where the man in question is little more than a fantasy figure. Take Johnny Depp for instance. I will get as bawdy and raucous as a rum-soaked sailor if there’s a magazine piece featuring the gorgeous Mr D in the same vicinity as my girlfriends and I. This I have to say is totally unfair to a man with a face to melt most red-blooded women in an instant as he is obviously hugely talented to boot … but heck, I don’t suppose he lays awake at night worrying about it.

Now it comes as no surprise to anyone that women “like to talk” … John Gray has made a fortune from explaining in his “Men are from Mars …” books the opposing behaviour a man will display when faced with emotional pressure. Women now know that it’s perfectly normal for a man to “cave”, i.e. disappear into a puff of silence, when he feels that he may be getting out of his depth in a relationship or when he starts to experience the gear shift from “casual” to “serious”.

We girls of course will huddle around several bottles of wine, play some Amy Winehouse in the background and dissect and analyse the why’s and wherefore’s to explain the latest example of puzzling male behaviour. The fact is that we will come to our own conclusion if you fail to provide us with one. Talking is what women do. We share, we offload and we (occasionally) rationalise.

And the greatest discovery of my recent years is to find girlfriends that I can tell anything to. My darling Mum often thinks that seeing me on a daily basis will provide her with everything there is to know about me. Not so.

My girls Natalie and Sharon are in possession of the full Debsy facts . They know if and why I’ll do something, and they know the outcome often before the thought has even entered my head. We have consumed wine into the early hours and laughed until one of us needed to be placed into the recovery position. And what is the subject of our favorite topic? Well contrary to popular male opinion we very rarely discuss male “performance”. It’s a common misnomer that women mark men out of ten in that regard. We don’t.

What we do in practice is provide a support system for each other. We girls need that. And only another girl truly knows how bad it can get at times.

There have been a few episodes over the last few years when I’ve needed to be emotionally held up, when I’ve felt my legs couldn’t carry me anymore. A true girlfriend doesn’t need to hear the full detailed explanation; she gets it straight away.

What women will do when they get together is to help strengthen the weakest in the brood … whoever it happens to be at that time. We may talk of a man’s role in the whole process and if he’s at fault then yes, some sticking of needles in effigies may take place. It helps us feel better to cast the wrongdoer in the role of the villain, to put him on trial and consequentially to hang, draw and quarter his reputation by the third bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

Men have told me that they discuss football, cars and women when they get together, but I suspect the discussion on women is based largely on bravado and speculation than much else.

And yet all cannot be lost …. I’m sat listening to an old track by the Doobie Brothers, written by Michael McDonald and Patrick Henderson and the lyrics are …

“Darlin, I know
I’m just another head on your pillow
If only just tonight, girl
Let me hear you lie just a little
Tell me I’m the only man
That you ever really loved
Honey take me back
Deep in my memory
A time when it was all very right
So very nice….”

So guys, if you can put it to music and sing it, what’s wrong with talking about it?

In praise of the plastic surgeon’s knife …

It appears the season for perfection-bashing is upon us again, my friends. We are rising up against the need to be physically improved and are firing potshots at those who seek ways and means to achieve such. Oh good.

Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson has called for advertisers in magazines to come clean about images that have been digitally enhanced, namely those of female celebrities who aren’t in the first flush of youth having the tracks of their years airbrushed away. Jo wants to see it all; wrinkles, open pores, blood shot eyes … you name it. We don’t want to see blemish-free skin in our over-priced magazines …. we want acne-scarred reality! So all you Photoshop experts out there may find half your toolbox redundant shortly if Jo gets her way.

This suggestion has opened up the floodgate that spews forth periodically in this country on the subject of cosmetic surgery and the various procedures offered.

It’s barbaric. You should live with what nature granted you. Even if they do swing around your knees after breast-feeding. That crooked nose that was the cause of much playground teasing? Get over it.

The theory that supports this notion in a rather wobbly manner is that “enhancements” (be they invasive or not) perpetuate the need to be physically perfect, which in turn fuels the growth of conditions such as anorexia and the like.

So potentially if I were eighteen years old I might look at Andie MacDowell telling me “I’m worth it” in a magazine and think “oh my God she looks so great at forty-something and I look nothing like that” … and I’d rush off to part company with my lunch. Or it would affect me mentally to the point that my physical image became the only thing that mattered to me in life.

This is one subject that has wound me up like a watch spring for years, and here’s why.

When I was a child I ate every scrap of food my mother put in front of me. I was praised for it. I consequently became a plump little girl.

At the age of nine my mum announced I should be put on a diet.

In my late teens I had two bouts of anorexia that were not serious, but they involved restricting calories to four hundred and fifty per day. After a number of consultations with a psychologist it transpired that a rebellious phase I was going through with my Dad was to blame; the only control I felt I had over my life was to restrict my food intake. Couple this with the notion kicking around in the back of my head that I was a bit on the pudgy side, and you can see why I ended up where I did.

I had also been blessed with a less than perfect nose; it looked like it needed chiselling to smooth off a couple of bumps. Only twice did anyone comment on it, but I can tell you their names, what was said and the date they said it.

Whilst none of the above caused a total destruction of my self-esteem, they didn’t exactly nurture and cultivate it.

In my mid twenties I got into a conversation one day with a client (I had embarked upon a well-paid sales career by then) about her nose job. I thought “wow … I could do that …. I now have the money to change this damn-awful hooter ..” And so I did. I went to see my GP, he recommended a plastic surgeon of note who was local and I paid said surgeon to fix it.

Then around three years ago I paid another surgeon to fix my breasts. No implants, just an uplift.

This time I’d had just one comment about the offending body parts by an ex partner, after I had told him how much I had hated them since around the age of nineteen. He made a crass joke about them which in turn shattered what little sexual confidence I had at that time.

Now of course I know that I could have sought counselling for my obvious deficient self-image, but I chose not to. I instead opted for the permanent and non-equivocal solution of the surgeon’s knife.

Am I pleased with the results? You bet your life I’m pleased.

Am I now  “hooked on surgery” and selecting my next op from the extensive menu available? No!

My view is this … there were a couple of things I wasn’t happy with so I got them corrected. If I pranged my car I would take it to a reputable garage and get it put right; I don’t see the difference. My body is the vehicle I drive around in every day.

Yes it possibly does make me a little more self-obsessed than the next woman, but so what? Why do other women (predominantly it is women I find …) feel the need to lambast me and others like me? The only person I am hurting (temporarily) is me. Do I parade around after the event and tell women they are sub-standard because they can’t go bra-less? No!! I haven’t even talked about it publicly until today.

I feel no urge to tell them to rush to the hairdressers and get their roots done. I might think it, but I don’t say it because my philosophy is …..live and let live.

There is little I don’t know about the subject of poor self-esteem …I’ve had first-hand knowledge. I do think the time is right however to stop wailing on about the cosmetic surgery industry and to start instilling our young people with self-worth so that their image becomes secondary.

So if you’re looking to be perfect, that’s fine by me. If you’re looking to stay the way you are, that’s fine too. Now ….. please …. enough!

Let me end by making one last observation … the pre-op me would not have had the bottle to write anything like this.

And you can’t alter that, with a surgeon’s knife or otherwise.

Physical attraction …. does it have a lot to answer for?

In this heady and dynamic world of social networking, online dating and cyber chat, this question looms large in front of me  …….why and how do we determine the connections we make?

How we make potentially romantic contacts is of course different to those we make for business or other social reasons ….. or is it?

Most online dating sites offer you the choice of either posting a profile photograph or not, but when I tested both options for myself I got around eighty per cent less interest without a snap as opposed to with. It was actually a man who advised me to try removing my photo but the sad truth soon emerged that when a woman is post-forty, men expect the worst. I’m sorry guys, but you do …. So the moral here is …. middle-aged daters need to validate their applications with some sort of evidence that they won’t frighten small children and horses, especially if they are female.

I’ve already talked about how when browsing men’s profiles that don’t have pictures, I’ve been automatically suspicious. No matter how “nice” someone is online, if on meeting them they turn out to look like something that could be towing the British army’s tank division single handedly, I will lose interest pretty quickly. Call me shallow, but there it is…

I’m Debsylee, and I’m an attracto-holic.

When we get a way down the dating line the cracks often begin to appear, of that there is no doubt. Take Mr Bunched Up as my most recent example of this; perfectly presentable (thanks to his relentless gym regime as he was keen to point out … ) but the personality of a giraffe on acid soon negated any good work he had done in the body shop. So whilst attractiveness might get you a second interview, it’s not necessarily going to secure the position of significant other …

In socio-business situations it’s slightly less obvious, but the basic model is the same. As a single girl I’d have to admit to having two types of contacts, those (male and female) who are married/attached and therefore kept well away from any flirtatious activities, and those attractive males who aren’t married or attached …. they go into a mental file labelled “Let’s not rule it out”. That’s not to say I would necessarily start plotting a takeover manoeuvre, but on a good day with a fair wind … Who knows?

Physical attraction, therefore, seems to be the number one motivating factor that determines whether communication is pursued with significant interest initially … or not. If the interest grows with the onset of emotional, spiritual and mental attraction too, then you’re on very fertile ground and you’d better prepare for all possible outcomes. Just in case.

I’ve pursued contact with a couple of men that really should have been parked when an alarm sounded but because I was visually hooked and the mental pairing was progressing well too, I chose to ignore the siren and battle on regardless.

Cat in the Hat is a perfect example. He was a substantial number of years older than me, but very learned, great with words and had a fabulous American accent. I was without doubt in the latter stages of “liking too much”. So when he chose to impart the information that he was going to have a “surgical procedure” that would involve some pumpage in – ahem – intimate moments, I chose to brush it off as unimportant.

Now, sane, rational and clear-thinking Debsy would scream “you what???” at that prospect but no, not the case for the newly mesmerised and smitten Debsy. My one remaining slightly concerned and clear-thinking brain cell chose to discuss it with Mr Distant Cynic, who after composing himself mentioned that a fit and healthy woman in her forties would soon tire of mechanics in the bedroom … I maintained that true love would see us through. How deluded was I? More on Cat in the Hat on another day. Needless to say the relationship was soon a deflated  version of it’s former self (not as the result of any test-drives, I should add …)

One lady commented to me some time ago that being very beautiful can be a curse; it can attract the wrong sort of attention. I can see why that would be … beauty can act like a magnet, attracting people from every direction. If the attractor has a well-honed selection process to eliminate all the ne’er-do-wells and retain the gems, then all well and good. But you can only imagine the number of times you might have to fall flat on your face to get that system operating well, without sentiment or emotion.

When all is said and done we remain a species that acts first on the visual; we might like to think we’ve evolved but the truth is that the progress has been negligible.

We may be phasing out beauty contests, but that just puts the judges back out on the streets ….

Don’t tell me to grow up … this is as far as I go

A little while ago I saw a discussion on TV about people’s mental age and after giving it the once over to ensure it wasn’t simply more garbage plumping out daytime TV, the thought crossed my mind that I could well have an explanation here for ongoing sillyness that those around me have to endure.

When I mentioned this to my father he too indicated in familial fashion that he thought it was rubbish, until I pointed out to him that my brother (who is three years my junior) in practice acts fifteen years older than me. At least.

My dear old dad had to concur that it was true; I am still a little girl (my words and not his, but I’m sure the thought ran through his head as he sighed in accepted resignation)

Only yesterday I visited my “older” brother and we took our offspring to the park. During the visit said bro shot me a glance that said he was mildly embarrassed when I got my swing to at least eight feet off the ground at it’s peak. The only thing my biological age has done is instilled a fear in me that now stops me trying to do the 360º.

And then this very morning my five year old boy caught me with my hand in the Maltesers bag at breakfast time. I smiled nervously at him explaining that it was OK for Mummies to have chocolate instead of weetabix, at which point he muttered … “Oh Mummy …. sort yourself out”

I have to say I found his middle-aged approach to my perceived weakness a tad worrying, until I realised that it could actually work well for the both of us. I’ve long since known that I need the voice of reason whispering in my ear on occasion, I just didn’t think it would be coming from a person quite so tiny.

Our teatime dancing sessions that more often than not involve gyrating to Girls Aloud have become legendary. I rarely can wait for the ice cream to have been devoured before I’m up shimmying to Can’t Speak French; we can now perform the cheeky wiggle with such panache that you’d think we’d choreographed it personally for Cheryl and co.

This is all standard parental practice you might think, until I admit to the fact that these dance frenzies take place all the time … even when I’m alone. I’m guessing I’m possibly around the nine year old mark, so perhaps I still have some jurisdiction over a five year old.

I think little Debsy only came out to play about two years after said son was born. I really was a proper grown up until then; you need to be in order to select the drugs you want in the labour ward.

So what drawbacks does this have in practice?

It can make me an incorrigible tease; I’ll push and push until I’m staring over the precipice mouthing “oooops ….”

And coming from a family of “adults” (save for my auntie who is around the same “age” as me), I frequently get cast as the “lost cause”. I do tend to find that dipping my head and flashing my eyes gets me out of most bothersome situations though, along with extra helpings of cake.

Of course, the grown up version of acceptable cheekiness is flirting. Oh, don’t we love that? Once you have the grown-up attributes to drive as fast as you want down the suggestive highway, it’s the most fun you can have that’s legal, calorie-free and non-taxable. And when you add a childish predisposition for high jinks it can add a propulsion that leaves standard interaction stalling on the start line.

Whatever the true reason is for my apparent refusal to grow up, you can be sure of one thing…

Tea will be late tonight due to last minute dress-rehearsals of “Love Machine” taking place in a dining room near you NOW …