University: Don't stoppp the paaarrrttaayyy...EVER.

So i'm looking around recently at all the people who are stretching their ears and having just gotten my navel pierced and planning on having another tattoo done, you start to wonder how our generation is going to look when we are 90...if we make it that far. The attitude of so many people today is YOLO and i'm just like...WHUT?!?!

The people who live above me are exactly the same age as me and yet they choose to run around and scream until 4am...you get to thinking. When is it time to bite the bullet and grow the fuck up. 

It's like when we decide to go to university we are prolonging our adolescence. Those people who go straight into employment have to grow up, because if they don't they lose their job and income. But with the government paying for the majority of our living expenses, lecturers not giving a crap if we don't turn up and only needing 40% on an assignment to pass, university students often find themselves not growing up at all. In fact perhaps we are all just regressing to the year 11 state before the stress of A levels takes hold.

Now i'm not slagging off university students in any way. It just seems like university is the easier option between getting a job or continuing on to higher education sometimes. I mean i'm sure i'll regret writing this in my third year when making the blood sacrifice every student gives in order to get their dissertation finished. But for whoever says that the country's elite are in our universities. I say to them: I dare you to walk down a student clad street past 11'o clock on a Friday night without getting puked on or without having profanity yelled at you by some inebriated 'Genius' or 'Future politician'.

The other thing i find hilarious as you look around the University Gym with guys pumping iron and women running on treadmills is that the majority of these people sweating, huffing and puffing will be either drinking themselves into a stupour or getting so high they don't even remember their own names only five or six hours later. I can't help but think that when our generation is old and wrinkly we will still be going out on the lash. How old is too old to be getting high, drunk and partying til the early hours of the morning? I mean lets be honest, how many of us want to picture ourselves on a porch in a rocking chair sat next to only a bottle of tequila?

The other thing about university is...there are some people who never leave! With being able to get funding from the government for multiple degrees, masters and doctorates why not have your life aspiration to be remaining a student for all time? Who needs a career when you have a student card and the ability to hang with 'the kids' getting smashed and then going for a Maccies? 

The only thing i can say about all this is that when i see them opening a night club for the over 80's in about 50 years i'm running off beachy-head full pelt. After all, it is true, we do only live once, but at the end of the day isn't it also true that we can live for up to a hundred years? That just seems like a really long time to me. Especially with the way people behave in todays' society.

Any opinions? Drop me a line.

Atargatis, over and out xxx

University: www.betterthanpulling.com?

So there is a lot of controversy nowadays about online dating, and after a recent experience of being signed up to one when trying to find a deployed military Pen-pal i got to thinking about what this crazy phenomenon actually is and how effective is it at helping an individual find their other half?

So we all know the stereotype for Online dating, you falling head over face for some guy you meet online only to find out he's some 50 year old balding, obese, unemployed loser who still lives with his parents. Now that's very well if you are a 50 year old, unemployed, woman living with her parents but what about if you are a young person, a student for example, looking for something serious because currently you exist in a world where the majority of people are looking for a good time and not commitment?

After looking through several profiles online it appears that the majority of young people aged between 19 and 25 on dating sites tend to be students. Now this could be purely because i was looking at the free dating services, and this could not be true of many paid services such as eHarmony and match.com but it seems as though it is far easier to take things slowly when meeting people online. Could it be true that in today's social climate we rush into things, hormones racing and  genitals lubricating before we really know someone? 

Attraction and compatibility are two very different things. But which is more important? If you are on the side of compatibility then i'd say you are probably more likely to find online dating to be effective because you are matched with people based on your interests, likes and dislikes rather than appearance. The other thing that scares the bajeezus out of people regarding online dating seems to be the fact that Photoshop is used so commonly we can never be sure whether the pictures we are seeing are honest in their representation of the person we are interested in. The last thing you want is to be interested in someone and when you finally meet in person you discover what was advertised is not actually whats in the box, and you are not attracted to the person physically at all. I suppose in that respect it depends how much stock you put in appearance over personality.

The other crazy thing about online dating is that it connects people from all across the country, sometimes even across continents if you are looking for some foreign flavour in your life. So from what i can gather, how this crazy phenomenon works is you get chatting on the website and once you are comfortable enough with said partner you can exchange phone numbers and take it from there. An ingenious friend told me that when it comes to online dating she employs the app Snapchat. This means that she can pretty much be sure that the photos she has seen are really of the person she likes because you can't really alter the pictures you send that much. This app also protects your and the other persons privacy because it means after the picture has been viewed for 10 seconds you can no longer see it. This then prevents some random person longingly viewing photos of you and your cat if you become disinterested of stop contact.

If you've ever seen the movie 'You've got mail' you know that most women are expecting romance, flowers and a great and harmoniously synchronized connection that transcends this world. Unfortunately you soon realise that the majority of people you meet online, especially young people are looking for some instant gratification. It's like you are signed up for two seconds and suddenly you have 50 messages asking for cheeky photos and its like... I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU...WHAT THE FUCK! The other problem young people have is usually getting messaged by people who are not in the age range they are looking for. The answer to this is simple, you just don't reply. I just can't help but loose a little faith in humanity when i realise that there are girls out there sending nudes to guys who they've never even met before and chatting up men who are old enough to be their Dad.

Those 3 little words that strike fear and wonder also come into play with online dating: "Shall we meet?" Meeting a potential partner can be scary and nerve racking. The other thing is what if they've come from the other side of the country and have to stay with you over night after you've discovered that you would rather spend a night with a pig in a wig? It's a difficult situation and if i knew how to navigate that one i'd tell you. All i can say is... STAY SAFE. 

The thing that made me laugh was while researching this blog i came across a notice on one of the dating sites i was looking at that said:

"Please do not exchange bank details with anyone you meet online, we cannot be held responsible for any illegal behaviour committed due to this kind of information being exchanged."

This too shook my faith in human kind to the core. I mean not being funny, but how bloody stupid do you have to be?

So what do y'all think of online dating? Yay, Nay or 'not until im 50!' Drop me a comment!

Have a magical day!

Atargatis, over and out! xxx

University: Treat 'em mean keep 'em keen!

We're all brought up in the belief that we should treat others how we want to be treated, so when was the memo sent out that i apparently missed saying that perhaps one of the most effective ways to attract someone is to treat them as if you aren't interested at all?? Perhaps even treat them a little cruel in order to 'keep 'em keen'? We all knew the drill in Year 1,2 and 3 at school, when a boy likes a girl he punches her on the arm. But when did it start being the other way around, and when did it become standard to treat someone like crap as a way of showing affection. Have little boys stopped outgrowing the 'punching on the arm' phase? Or is it something they crave from the opposite sex as a sign you really like them back. Is it really okay to treat em mean and play harder to get than a decent pair of shoes for under a tenner? Or are we all just being mean for fear of getting hurt?

The problem with playing hard to get, is where do you draw the line between just being mean and acting like a complete bitch. With the amount of potential partners that after a short amount of time reveal themselves to be completely wrong for us how can we root out the ones that are worth our time, if we are constantly acting like we are unaffected by anyone. What ever happened to everyone being nice to each other and make as much effort as possible for the people we care about? What is so wrong about being enthusiastic about our feelings for each other and when did cynicism get so damn popular! Call me crazy, but when did we start playing all these complicated games with one another, so much so to the point that when you don't know the rules, and when sometimes you don't even know which game you are playing you end up not only losing the game, but having your feelings hurt in the process. What happened to people just telling each other honestly how they feel. Wouldn't it just be so much simpler? I mean sure sometimes we would get hurt and not always like what we hear, but it would avoid wasting time with people who weren't serious about us. This in some ways is why i prefer being friends with men, with men there is little secrecy or bitching but simply blunt honesty. Then again when we it comes to relationships, the man can be just as much to blame for playing games, so are we screwed either way?

A good friend of mine said that there is a difference between playing games and keeping our autonomy. How much of ourselves should we be giving away to our other halves? Is it okay to ignore someone for a few days to check they are still interested, or is that playing with fire if we aren't ready to learn that they just really aren't that interested. Is ignorance really bliss or is better to have all the cards on the table? I find it hard to believe that there is actually a relationship out there where not at least one person is thinking about where it is going in the long run, if there even will be a long run. I know i personally always want to know if there is a future for such a relationship, better you know before you get attached that after right?

Just a short little rant from me today, keep it clean people.

Atargatis over and out xxx

Subtitles please?

The amount of mis-communication between the sexes nowadays, you gotta ask yourself how the hell anyone ends up doing anything right. It's recently come to my attention that men and women communicate very differently. With women it's a lot of so called 'subtlety' whereby saying what we actually mean seems a foreign and somewhat stupid idea. With universities teeming with sexual relationships, first time lovers and new relationships it seems the CV writing classes would be better off replaced with a 'How to speak woman' or the much simpler class 'How to speak man.' It seems funny that i tend to choose male friends over female ones because i like how they get right to the point and don't fuck about in saying what's on their mind. However when it comes to relationships, in the mind of a woman we cannot accept that what a man says is what he actually means. A man could say 'Honey i'm not really in the mood to go out tonight, i'd rather just stay in and play World of Warcraft', and we take this to mean 'yeah i don't want to hang out with you because you drive me nuts and i hate you, you crazy bitch." It seems like a massive over exaggeration, but to a female the male counterpart should always be thinking about/wanting to spend every moment with his girl, hence the quizzical looks from men when after they have dropped this seemingly coldly logical and unintentionally hurtful bombshell they are greeted with dagger filled looks and late night phone calls filled with the questions of 'are you cheating on me?' and 'have i done something wrong?' from the woman. 

I say all this perhaps like men should know this about women by now, when the truth is we are highly unpredicatable creatures. Whereas some women won't analyse anything at all, other will spend hours obsessing over what has been said/texted. This is equally hilarious because what men say they nearly always without a shadow of a doubt mean with a conviction of 100%. So women are sitting around analysing what men say, and men are sitting around taking women at their word. You then come to the question of, why the hell aren't we just pairing up with people of our own sex, wouldn't that just be a hell of a lot easier? I ask myself this question all the time, and i honestly couldn't tell you why we bother trying to be with people who speak an almost foreign language when we have people who are from our home territories. I don't pretend to know what it is like to be in a homosexual relationship, as i have never experienced this myself, but i have to wonder, is it easier being with someone who thinks in a similar way, and not having to deal with the divide of the sexes? If it easier then being gay sounds awesome.

I then get to thinking, maybe it isn't the sexes, maybe it is us as individuals, and maybe i have simply never met someone able to communicate with me in a harmonious manner. One in which mis-translation doesn't end in arguments and the traditional and almost hilarious to use phrase 'You just don't get it do you!?' I often wonder, if it's just me, but then after looking back through history and watching Shakespeare's characters also struggle to understand and communicate with their women, you start thinking that this problem could just be about the most universal thing we've experienced.

It makes you wonder how women and men ever exist in harmony, i know there's all that ying and yang bollocks out there but honestly, the guy leaves the cap off the toothbrush and there's women looking for a bloody carving knife. Then there's women yammering on during the big game and a guys got out his hunting rifle. When you think about all the wars between religions, doesn't it seem mad that we haven't seen a war of the sexes before? I'm not talking about suffrage either, i'm talking full on tanks and guns warfare. All i can think is that the women would get a bit too caught up in what colours the tanks would be, but would be more organised, whilst the men would die from poor hygiene and too many people falling and drowning in toilets after they leave the seat up. To think that science is evolving so fast, that in a hundred years we may not even need sperm donors to conceive and that perhaps maybe we may soon be able to engineer our own sperm. Are men becoming redundant? Not even just men, with incubators that mimic the human womb and genome technology being what it is, could we one day make even women redundant?

Now don't get me wrong little men readers, i love you all very deeply, and for me you could never ever be replaced. But my point is at times the sexes want to kill one another for our differences, so how is it we ever end up living together, settling down and having babies. I suppose that's where the chemical reactions and somewhat magical mystery of love and attraction comes into it. This affection that stops us ripping the balls off of our partner, that bridges the divide created by Venus and Mars and allows us to indeed, exist in harmony (apart from the obvious disputes about toothpaste caps and toilet seats and what not).  Makes you think doesn't it? Ain't love grand!

Do you think we could ever make one of the sexes redundant? Do you find it easier to be friends with someone of the opposite sex? Do you think or know whether it is easier to be in a relationship with someone who is the same sex as you?

I'm dead curious so leave me a comment!

Atargatis,(going to find my carving knife as the toothpaste cap is off again!) Over and out! xx

University: How do you break a vicious cycle?

University, especially for freshers is one of those places that induces all kinds of bad habits. The question is, when do this habits become a vicious cycle and how do we break these cycles and move forward. As any fresher (except possible law students and science students) will tell you, the first year is a bit of a doss compared to A levels. This leaves us time, to keep things tidy, create a more healthy balance between work and play, and most of all, take up hobbies and increase or better our skill sets as individuals. But then that's the thing, does anyone actually take advantage of all this free time to better themselves in the first year? Um, from my experience, not in the slightest. So many people (including myself) are happy to settle for second best or simply hanging around their flat eating super noodles, going out getting pissed, then lather, rinse repeat as needed. So how the hell do you break a vicious cycle?

It could be said that the most vicious of cycles involve relationships, when two people continue to have the same arguments, never reaching a resolution, or when an issue is resolved in theory the problematic behaviour still carries on. It's even harder to break a vicious cycle when feelings are involved and you are trying to hang on to someone, even when they are no good to you at all. Sometimes a vicious cycle will transcend a single person, in a single relationship, and the cycle will include several people. Could it be then that we should try going for someone we are in fact not attracted to or would never usually attempt a relationship with? Or are we all just stuck falling for the same type of people, with the same emotional issues and all in all, leading into the same soul shattering conclusion of pain and heartbreak over and over and over again?

I cannot accept this, and personally, as i am currently attempting to break a vicious cycle with my own relationship pattern, i cannot help but hope someone will come along and change everything, breaking it for me. But what if it isn't the other persons fault and someone else can't fix it, heaven forbid i think it, but could it be perhaps MY fault. It's a tough thing to think but sometimes when in a vicious cycle one has to ask, is this really a vicious cycle, Or just a very long sequence of shitty luck? Is it something i am doing, knowing the outcome will be the same but still attempting it anyway? I mean isn't the definition of madness doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome? It's an interesting idea to think that perhaps when having had a string of bad relationships, maybe it isn't a cycle at all, but just the way of the world. Now always leaving work until the last minute, KNOWING that it will cause panic and lower quality product, THAT'S definitely a vicious cycle, especially when one, as so many people i know, vows never to do it again, only to find themselves 3 months down the line doing an assignment that's due in the next day.

The other thing about university is whether we like it or not, it's full of people doing drugs and  drinking heavily. It's easy when you first leave home to go through the whole 'kid in a candy store' phase, but seriously people, trust me, your roommates tend to get pissed off when they repeatedly find you in a puddle of your own urine/vomit every morning. Not that i'm saying once in a while isn't to be expected, but there will always be one or two people that can't help but lose control of themselves, over and over again, despite the consequences to those around them or to detriment of their own lives. This in itself is a vicious cycle, because the more we indulge these substances the more we rely on them.

It's a well known saying 'forgive and forget' but what do you do when you are stuck in a vicious cycle with a friend? Maybe they're always cancelling to spend time with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or letting things 'slip accidentally' that you've told them in confidence. Maybe they are simply leaving the lid of the bin open creating an awful smell. How many times is too many times to forgive and forget, when do we stand up for ourselves and speak our minds, or simply just walk away? It's a well known fact that the best friendships are built on a foundation of white lies and mutual hate of the same people nowadays, but how many times is it acceptable to overlook bad behaviour when it starts being to the detriment of our own feelings?As a 'hard' person i want to say you explain the problem once and then consider cutting them out of your life if things don't change, but then again, that's a little harsh. It's true that two dots make a line not a pattern, and so surely we should give at least 3 warnings before we fly completely off the handle.

It's a sad fact that the nicest people are always the ones who get walked over the most, usually because they give so many chances and want to try everything before giving up on an individual. But it really is true nowadays that everyone should put themselves before anyone else. We have to protect ourselves, and look out for us before we can be there for anyone else.

If it's out of fear you are stuck in a cycle, maybe fear of being alone, fear of losing a friend or maybe even fear of the unknown, don't be. The only way life can get better if you are in a cycle such as the ones i have describe is to move forward and break that cycle. This life is what you make it, and is not awfully long, so what we should do above anything else is pursue happiness as if it were the last doughnut on earth, ruthlessly and without mercy to the people around us. It sounds harsh, but fuck it people, the only person who can make you happy is you. So get to it!

Any advice or thoughts on vicious cycles? You know what to do!

Atargatis, now prepping for pursuit of happiness, and possibly some food, Over and out! xx