And Here’s to You, Mr and Mrs Parents!

My parents are celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary today, Sept 9th. Happy Anniversary Natalia and George! And, to drop in a literal translation from my language: TO MANY MORE! ( LA MULTI ANI!)

35 years together, man, that is a long time. They have been together more than I’ve been alive! They are my parents and I am not 35 yet, so it’s normal (doh!) but you get the point: 35 years is a loooong time.

They are happy, beautiful, they do nice things together, they nag at each other, they are a team! And, while I doubt my talent at keeping a relationship going for that long, I think what they have achieved is a great partnership indeed.

So please all send them a positive thought on this beautiful September day!

PS Also, jot down Sept 22nd when this blogger will hit 33. Mum and dad liked their important life changing events to take place in Sept.

Phantom Affair

Following on my post on online dating (A Very Brief History of Dating), I have requested and been granted the permission to produce an anonymous case study of where modern day technology has taken our emotions.

A dear friend of mine, let’s call him M, is happily immersed in a relationship with his loveable, intelligent and exotic girlfriend. They’ve been together for a while now and things are looking on the promising side. Lately M has been showing signs of fatigue. He was less tolerant to silly jokes and his time with friends and family (be it on the phone or in person) has been sparse. Not one to leave such developments un-questioned, I took it upon myself to get to the root of the matter. What was going on? The man has a good job, a great partner, he is well liked and suddenly he decides that’s not good enough and sulks. WHY?

Roll on a couple of days later.

The setting: a posh pub in an affluent area of London.

The glasses: filled with velvety red wine.

The mood: tense.

ME: Go on now, M, what is up with you, you can’t fool me.

HIM (replying with a question, which always makes me think of that joke: Is it true that you always answer a question with another? Who told you that?): Is having an online lover cheating?

ME: I could have done with a bit of intro… Is an online lover cheating? Tricky one, my friend. Would you care to expand on the topic?

And expanded is what he did. He’d met this girl online. Hadn’t thought much of it, she was living on the other side of the world and he had actually found her friendliness irritating to begin with. She had seemed at ease with the situation while he was all awkward and confused as to what the point of that friendship was. So didn’t think much of it. It was something to do when he happened to be online, say hello and chat with this person. So far so good. I kept nodding in approval. I even said “Don’t be silly, everybody does that at some point. I had a friend I chatted with occasionally. He had praised my writing, I was prepared to make him a friend for life….”

But why did I think my situation had not led to similar consequences… I was still sane. M was drawn out and confused. He had basically fallen in the trap of the novelty of the situation: conversations became longer and longer, he used every spare moment to run to his computer and see if she was around and before he knew it, they’d become very intimate in those moments oblivious of their respective lives (they both had partners, whom they spoke so fondly about). It had come to a point when he was living this parallel reality, updated on the life of a faceless person on a regular basis, opening up to them, caring about them. Virtual talks, virtual walks, virtual flirting. The only thing “non-virtual” about this was his involvement.

What do you say to that? His girlfriend did not suffer a thing, maybe she put his tiredness down to hard work. He was not planning to meet that other person. He said he felt like he’s jumped on a train that was going nowhere. That sounds scary (although not unlike my tube journeys to work on a bad day).

As a friend I wanted to be non-judgemental. As a woman I got paranoid. What if Amore did the same, how would I feel? Not happy is the answer. But then again, what is it that drives a perfectly decent person to this kind of activities? Questions kept shooting through my head. I couldn’t think of an honest way to help him out. So I asked for some time to think about it, recommending that he took it easy in the meantime. Which depressed him, because I was clearly implying he was doing the wrong thing. But was it the wrong thing?

Here’s an analogy. In the world of film, traditionally rights were sold for TV, VHS, DVD, cinema chains, etc. Then internet came along and rights have been selling for online distribution. Would that mean that cheating has expanded its realms from the world of hotels, parks, his/her house to the all mighty internet?

What is your view on this? IS ONLINE CHEATING – CHEATING? I believe it is.

A non-Shakespearian Heroine in Stratford

This weekend Amore and I took a spontaneous trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. This is in line with our getting-to-know-England-better plan. Also, with 3 degrees Celsius extra on our doorstep (this weekend’s Sunday Times illustrated article on global warming is not for the faint-hearted), we said to ourselves maybe it’s time we did our bit and cut down on those tempting cheap weekend flights to the sunnier sides of Europe. What the heck… We live in England and when somebody mentions High Wycombe we still think they are talking about Scotland…

So, we got on the train at Marylebone Station, one of London’s oldest and most charming, my personal favourite (have you seen their florists?). Two hours later we are in Shakespeare memorabilia heaven: there are souvenir shops, statues of characters from his plays, a tour of the haunted house that once belonged to the man who inspired Falstaff (the Bard’s brother in law).

There are, of course, the theatres, the lovely country pubs, the beautiful riverside walks and the overall olde worlde charm that sold England to me in the first place, all those years ago. We had a fantastic day and I recommend it to anyone who wants to get away from the hustle and bustle of London at the weekend. Not a place for longer than two days, methinks.

The day is also memorable for the sight I’m about to describe. As someone else was commenting, it’s got to be one of the strangest sights I’ve ever seen. As we were walking along the river enjoying the sunshine and eavesdropping on a tour guide, we saw this elderly lady coming from the opposite direction. When I say elderly I mean proper elderly, early 80’s at least, with a hunched back, snow white hair, a scarf and a long pink raincoat. Like any of our grandmothers, only older. She suddenly stopped, looked around her and decided on putting her large black bag by this big tree on the riverbank. Nothing strange about her yet. She wanted to have a rest. Well, here’s where I was wrong. I kid you not, ladies and gentlemen, the lady leant her bags against the tree, put herself in position and took off for a jog!! Up and down in a leisurely manner, stopping to draw her breath and then off she went again… I had never ever seen anything like this before. She was so fit, so the opposite of what you’d expect from a 80 something year old lady quietly shuffling along the river. She went on like this for at least half an hour while Amore and me were sipping our Stella’s at what we were told was the best known pub in the world (The Black Swan, also known as The Dirty Duck). She then stopped and dutifully did her stretching after which she recuperated her bag and went away. I can tell you that she made a lasting impression on a wide open air audience. She was our non-Shakespearian centre stage lady. She did make me smile. Amore thought she was not all there and felt sorry for her (How would you feel if your granny took off like that in the park?); I thought she was an eccentric fitness fan. Good on her.

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Let’s just say it was enough to make me reconsider the extent of my weekly exercise routine (three times a week walk from Farringdon to Elephant and Castle).

So here’s to you, the jogger in a pink raincoat in Stratford. You made the trip less about Shakespeare and therefore less predictable. Have you considered the marathon?

A Very Brief History of Dating

I start this post from the basics: Wikipedia’s definition of dating. It does actually re-direct you to courtship, which gives the concept a somewhat more vintage feel, but it defines it in a nutshell thus serving as a good trampoline for this post.

Courtship is the process of selecting and attracting another for an intimate relationship such as love, sex, commitment, living together, marriage, and having children, or any combination of these. Courtship may last days, months, or even years, but some lovers skip courting altogether as in cases of love at first sight or arranged marriage.
Many couples stop courting or going out after they have chosen to remain together, or after they have married, or after they have children. Those that do still may still call these outings “dates”.

My intention here is to depart from the standard boy-meets-girl scenario and talk about a particular form of dating. One that has become an intrinsec part of the overall getting together game (mating game would have sounded a bit too much out of an Attenborough show about friendly penguins).

You will have guessed by now that this is going to be a post about online dating. Hmmmm… There is enough material here for a novel, an encyclopedia even. Or – why not – a manual on the evolution of the dynamics of relationships. Volume 2007.

Seeing that I have called this post the way I have, let’s rewind back to 1998. A dear friend of mine is telling me she is going to meet up with a guy off the internet. On paper/e-mail he sounded fab: good job, decent age when you’d expect a man to be past the times of exploring avenues ever so new. The photo ain’t that bad either so what do I say? ” Are you sure about this? What if he’s a psycho?”

Now, I am going to be frank and admit to a higher than usual degree of paranoia. Where it comes from, it beats me, probably from some childhood experience, as is the case with everything that is not right in your life. Let’s blame it on the parents…

In my defense, though, in those times, meeting up with a faceless individual whose only relationship with you is based on typing sounded a bit crazy. She herself agreed thus keeping the way she met her now husband under wraps with many of their friends and family. The “now husband” bit reveals that particular story was a success. As she then put it to me: how is it different from meeting a guy in a bar? Well, eerrrgh, I don’t know how….You see them first, true, but that doesn’t mean they can’t turn into a monster of boredom or the drunkard from hell. Always looking on the bright side, me.

Roll on almost a decade later and if you’re single and have not given online dating a try, you are wasting your time. At least that is the case in my circle of friends. Many have tried it out.

Conversations amongst young and old rate www.match.com higher than www.meetic.com, whilst the newer discovery www.mysinglefriend.com is winning many over through the endorsement of the always pregnant, TV tough cookie Sarah Beeny. On her site, you basically big up your friend “without their knowledge” they are then chuffed at the surprise of it all (ha!), upload some witty comment themselves and before they know it, the virtual doors of your singlehood are crashed down by eager suitors. Hallelujah! Ladies and gentlemen, where does that happen in real life, if you are not Eva Herzigova or George Clooney?

There are even specialised religion-oriented sites where you can make sure you avoid unwanted outsiders and stick to your own. No extra comment on this one. You know who you are…

And I am pretty sure that a bit of time in my hands would yield a variety of dating websites catering for the pickiest amongst us.

My friends’ experience with online dating stretches across a broad range:

* some met their current spouses on the internet

* others have had to go through a lot of strange characters to get to a decent partner material.

* there are of course those who were asked if they liked setting fire to things which I’d rate as rather alarming. They had this conversation on date numero uno and a second date followed! Why??

* there have been trans-continental liasions as well as trans-generational ( call me a skeptic but who buys the 62 year old guy and the 24 year old girl story….not me, not you and certainly not him)

* there have also been cases of “is he ever going to make the next step??” series of dates when eventually the said dates were classified as a waste of time; in this online dating business people are serious and not inclined to waste time with niceties; Get to the point: unless mentioned otherwise, you are not there to find another male friend…

In my case the jury is still out debating as to where I stand on this issue. On the fence would be the answer at the moment. Would I try it if I were single? Probably. Would I look forward to the experience? Probably not. I’d be petrified.

The over analyzer in me has a few issues with this modern way to meet your match:

* although I myself would be involved in the process, I could not help thinking: “What’s wrong with him? Why is he here, if he is so perfect?”

* I would then wonder how I’d fare against the other 500 women he met that month

* So I’d end up paying ridiculous money to make myself look fab, thus letting myself in for a big and unforgiving fall should a second date occur ( spend the same money again now that I’m in or let him see the real me? Would not call this a win/win situation.)

* Also, very importantly, what if we don’t like each other? Do I stand up and go home? Or, worse, would I have to continue dining on my own should he up and leave?

I guess we can all conclude that I should stick to more traditional ways. I said it before, I met Amore in a bar in Shoreditch and that will do me fine.

But I am intrigued by how fast times have moved. Is internet dating a good thing to humanity? Clearly it is, for many. Virtual matchmaking is fastly replacing any other kind of happiness accommodating third party.

GSOH, LOL, :0), :0(, XX, watch out for the new language of love….

To be continued…..

Nostalgia?

I try to go home to Bucharest at least once a year.

Anybody who lives away from their home town will know what a typical visit back home is like: staying with mum and dad and seeing as much as possible of grandma; doing a different friends’ round every day; attending at least one big family gathering around a table full of yummy food ; walking around to take in the ever so familiar yet now transformed places of your childhood.

Not only is it a trip from London to Bucharest, it is also a trip from 2007 to the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Last time I went back was in August 2006. My lovely grandma handed me this small transparent plastic bag containing a red piece of cloth. “I thought you might be pleased to see this” she said. What on earth could it be? I quickly took it out and was hit by a rush of nostalgia. I had discovered my equivalent of Proust’s Madeleine! The object in question was this red scarf we used to wear in primary school. It was a symbol of the former PCR (Romanian Communist Party) and I remember being ever so chuffed when chosen to be what they used to call a “pioneer” (term for young communist).

This particular scarf is from the end of primary school which would explain the emotional hand written messages from long forgotten classmates. I wonder what they all got up to? What are their stories?

This finding prompted me to write a post about life as a child in communist times. Those of you who know me and have heard the stories look away now.

I was born in 1974 when Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime was starting to become increasingly dictatorial. He’d been president for just under 10 years and the obsession with power was getting the better of him. But I was a child growing up in a loving family and never really felt I was missing out on anything at all. Funny thing, human nature: you just adapt to whatever is thrown at you as long as you’re surrounded by love and care.

Rather than unfolding pages and pages of autobiography, I’m going to reveal the 10 things that I feel would help you get a bird’s eye view of what growing up in communism meant. Some of the patterns will not sound unfamiliar to those of you who went to Catholic schools. Just worshipping a different Big Guy.:0)

1) Every day we went to school between the ages of 7 and 14 we had to start the day by singing the national anthem. TREI CULORI CUNOSC PE LUME. We then got on with the classes. And we were blessed with a level of education which I am yet to encounter anywhere in free schools around the world these days. It’s only fair to give credit where it’s due.

2) We were not allowed to communicate with Westerners which would probably explain why I now boast with travels the world over and a considerable network of international friends. You spoke to a foreigner and you were in danger of some infiltrated Securitate plain clothed officer catching you.

3) We would sometimes be summoned to go stand in the city’s big parks for hours on end, so that when Ceausescu passed by our coreographed mass of pupils, we would be asked to clap and cheer. I remember at the time we didn’t see it as exploitation but as a welcome break from normal school routine.

4) We would be entitled to limited amounts of oil, sugar and meat per family per month. Knowing Mr. Costel from one of the state butchers was a great bonus as he would sneak extra chicken out the back door in exchange for a bribe.

5) Most of us studied Russian, which I loved, but many of my colleagues wouldn’t have chosen. I was fortunate in that I later on got a job in Moscow for a good few months and had a ball, making all those hard Russian lessons worthwhile.

6) We had two hours’ TV programmes a day from 8 to 10pm during which we would have the privilege to watch Ceausescu and his wife visiting some heavy industry monster plant; or – if we were lucky – we’d get a North Korean film about young communists and their fight for their utopian views.

7) We were told capitalism was evil yet we all looked to the USA in awe and many of my friends’ parents immigrated in those days in almost life threatening conditions ( on ships, backs of trucks, etc.)

8 ) We saw beautiful churches moved from the front of the street to behind the big tower buildings. They stood for a culture that clashed with Ceausescu’s views of contemporary Romania. Similarly, we saw amazing old buildings brought down to the ground. They were a sign of the past glory of Romanian aristocracy, so they were replaced with grim 10 storey towerblocks instead.

9) We even had our folklore adapted; the vaguest references to old times would be swapped with fresh new ” I like to work in the factory” stock.

10) We were HAPPY. Yes, maybe living in blissful oblivion of what we could have had access to, but as strange as it may sound, I wouldn’t change a thing.

This will put things into perspective. The country’s come a long way and is flying high at the moment. Looking at my shabby red scarf I cannot help smiling at its significance then and now.

If you’re still awake, thank you for reading! :0)

Cogito Ergo Sum

Saturday evening. Nice quiet evening in for amore and me, cooked up a quick pasta with red pesto (you can never go wrong with that) and sat down to watch some TV. Not much on, but eversince I’ve discovered the magic box called Freeview, if nothing else, I managed to broaden the choice of not-so-good films/shows.

So far so good. Ad break comes on and all of a sudden I feel enlightened. “The Sunday Times in collaboration with Mensa brings you the chance to challenge yourself with this interactive DVD quiz”. Hurrah! I love challenging myself with quizzes of the Trivial Pursuit, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or University Challenge variety. I have this strange tendency to get the so-called difficult questions right and fail on the ones that are considered to be basic.

Before you think I’ve fallen deeply in love with the image in the mirror, let me explain: being foreign, I get questions to do with language, foreign culture, politics, etc. But I know nothing about things like children’s nursery rhymes, the detailed geography of England, the order of the English kings and queens, and so on.

Overall, though, I get above average results. According to the results of my last IQ test I could be an architect or a teacher. Not bad, better start studying for either…

Anyway, this morning I sent a reluctant amore to brave the rain ( “It is good for your cold to get some fresh air”) and get me a copy of The Sunday Times with the promised interactive DVD. It’s called BRAINPOWER – EXERCISE YOUR MIND.

Ladies and gentlemen, you are reading the blog of a person who got 11 out of 25 right. I am depressed. I mean, yes, I got it right that Mandela was released from prison in 1990. And that George Orwell wrote 1984 in 1961, but the rest was a disaster. I could not figure out what number was next in a chain of completely random numbers. Ditto for the letters. As for geometrical shapes that were supposed to come in some sort of logical chain, you can forget about those. The result: I was declared a middleweight brain. A middleweight brain??? Moi? I got so depressed and declared this morning’s purchase of the paper the worst £2 ever invested. Honestly, who do they think they are?

Anyway, I have now calmed down and I am not using all the intellectual words I can think of to impress amore, who was laughing his head off hearing the “wrong answer noise” one too many times…I will have that noise in my head for a while yet….My door buzz sounds a bit like it, maybe I should change it…
Are you into IQ tests?

Neighbours

This was going to be a post on resolutions. As timely as it might have been, I’ve seen the topic treated to death. In quite original ways, might I add. And resolutions – I have plenty. Just think they are too boring to share. What are they going to be if not about weight loss, finances, holidays, being a better human being….?!

I was then tempted to talk about Saddam’s hanging and ask for your views, etc. It was news that shocked everyone I’m sure, on more levels than one. I am not however going to talk about that either.

What I would like to talk about briefly is a rarity in London: I actually know and (shock horror!) LIKE my neighbours.

This is the city in which many turn their newspaper away from you on the tube if you try to read over their shoulder. This is the city where if a spotty fake Burberry-clad teenager shouts super-human decibels down the mobile or bullies the bus driver, nobody would even acknowledge it happened. This is also the city where my previous next door neighbours got married and had a baby and I hadn’t even known the wife was pregnant!

And now, all of a sudden, I am in this unbelievable position of actually counting the people I share my house with amongst my amigos! We watch movies together, we chat, we even go out together. I’ve just come from a dinner downstairs with my lovely neighbours A-L and JC. What a great pasta JC cooked! Bolognese with an exotic touch of cinnamon and cloves. Yum, thanks again, guys!

And E. and P. I’m sure will be lifelong friends. We clicked from day one and I wouldn’t even get mad at them if their washing machine leaked onto my living room ceiling (again). Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you that speaks volumes. I am usually the note-writing type: “Please refrain from leaving my garden in a state after using it for your BBQ!”..”Please do not slam the main door. There are enough cracks in the walls already. Moving your bike out of the main entrance hallway would also be fab! Thank you!”

Come to think of it what a jewel of a neighbour I am….!

I know to many of you this is going to come across as normal, but believe you me, it is not the norm in London. Neighbours are a rare commodity and if the Londoners amongst you have good ones, you, too are lucky.

So, here’s to E, P, AL and JC! A bunch of great guys, please don’t move out of Number 9.

Do you know/put up with/like your neighbours?

HAPPY NEW YEAR, LA MULTI ANI, FELIZ ANYO NUEVO!

BIG HUG AND ALL THE BEST TO EVERYONE AND HAVE A BLAST IN 2007! LOTS OF LOVE,
B.

Christmas – What Does It Mean to You?

Last night, a cold, dark and rainy Sunday night, I got a call from a polite young man called Jacob. Jacob was conducting a phone survey for some acronym unknown to me: IMC? ISM?

I felt ever so sorry for the poor guy’s mission for having to a) work on a Sunday and b) ask a boring and no doubt repetitive set of questions about Christmas spirit in my household.

I must admit, I was also a bit reluctant about answering the following questions:
1) How many hours do you work in a week?
2) Are those hours outside or inside your household?
3) Do you live on your own?
I could envisage my flat being visited by the obliging Jacob and his good friends in the hours that I had duly told him I’d be away.

But I decided to believe that people are fundamentally good and answer his questions. How Gordon Brown’s future as a prime minister comes into the Xmas spirit equation, I don’t quite know. But I answered with my honest view on that and many other wooden topics.

He finally came to what made sense in the context: WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS MEAN TO YOU?

I don’t know about you, but I am winding down for Christmas already! There are a couple of weeks left to the 25th of December and a work trip in between, but I am already doing a lot of thinking about what tree decoration to get and where to put the tree. I think I’ll put it in front of the exercise bike, that way I don’t see it anymore ( the bike, not the tree). Christmas in my house is going to be about abolishing the guilt of no exercise.

I am also the referee of an internal struggle: part of me detests the over-commercialization of what is supposed to be a simple celebration with your loved ones. The other part says: go out and blow your December pay, that emotional moment of handing them what you always knew they wanted is priceless. To quote our sensitive friends at Mastercard. The conclusion? I’ll limit those that I’m getting presents for to a handful of lucky ones.

Now, the other thought going through my mind in the run-up to X-mas is the dreaded (?) drawing of the line. Another year is about to end, so what have I achieved, what have I lost, what would I have liked to change and is still where it was in 2005? Cant help being reflective and a bit nostalgic. I am not going to get into details ( “well, I was hoping for a new such and such, but it didn’t happen…”). No. I’ll just let you reflect on your own issues.

Lastly, Christmas is about food! Cooked food, bought food, food shared by your neighbours. I am planning on indulging on a culinary excursion of no precedent. My parents are coming to visit and I am going to treat them like kings. Not a day will go by without them trying out something new. It’s all planned!

I wish there were some snow in the London Xmas combo, but I guess with global warming and all, the chances of that happening are ever so slim.

This is it really, no big story today. Just a few things that Jacob didn’t have time to listen to…

I wish you all a lovely time over the winter holidays!

PS I’ll probably be back here with a new post this week, but what’s wrong with an early start on good wishes?

The “Procreation Paradox”, by Topolino

Why do people have children? Versus adopting, I mean. There is so much hunger in the world, so many children already without anybody to take care of them and still we procreate.  And we want two, or three or even four of our own offspring as I heard someone recently.  Why? Our chances of survival as species would be much greater if we took better care of the humans already inhabiting the Earth. Why create more? One may label it selfishness. It’s easier to put a label. The explanation might be found buried somewhere deep inside the complicated maze of human psychic, but let’s just simplify and say that procreation is a very natural desire. We want to be biological parents so that we can leave something behind, so we can continue our existence on Earth, we want to see ourselves in our kids. People turn to adoption when adoption is their only chance of becoming parents. It takes altruism and guts to adopt. Yes, guts, more guts than childbearing and labour entails. Because, I believe, of all the reasons, the most prevalent is a practical one – we don’t want any surprises. We don’t want to take any risks with adopted children whether it’s about health issues or psychological or temperamental. We think it will be easier and more comfortable to deal with someone who was made out of our own ‘material’.

 (MINE! MINE! MINE!)

Surprise-surprise!  I am a mother and every day I marvel at my son’s uniqueness. I created a new human being, however it is not a replica of my own, it’s a whole new person with his own personality and his own thoughts, desires and actions. A new person who has nothing to do with me! And the differences will increase and the gap will get even wider as he grows up and matures. Hence the paradox.  I am a biological parent and still I often ask myself “where did he get this?”, “how did he come up with that?”. There is a twinge of pride – of course – I made this being and there is pride despite the fact that this new person has nothing to do with who I am. But I MADE him!I guess we are having children because it’s a way of uncovering our own potential, it’s our chance to create something important, and our chance to better ourselves. BUT this is a double-edge sword. By expecting to become better people through our children, we put a lot of pressure on them. However this is subject for another article J