Renovation Theory

A friend of mine recently bought a house. As we discussed all the renovations she was going to make to her new home, it got me thinking that perhaps purchasing a property was not so different from dating.


For starters, there is a shortage of both houses and men in Sydney. Finding the perfect one can require hours of hunting, many lost weekends, and a little imagination, because what looks fabulous in pictures on the internet doesn't always live up to expectations in real life. It's amazing what the right light can do.


Both require a background check in order to make sure the foundations are healthy, because what seems glossy and wonderful on the surface can be riddled with termites or disease as soon as you start stripping it. And trust me, if that central supporting beam is diseased, you want to know sooner rather than later.


When it comes to committing to that final purchase, I have a tehory that it's best to go for a 'fixer-upper' rather than one that's already renovated.


Now, I’m not talking about turning a dud into a stud. I have no desire for my dating life to reflect an episode of Extreme Makeover. Instead, I’m talking about the guys that are almost there—good foundations, right post code but just requiring a lick of paint/upgrade on bowl-haircut. They have everything a girl could require, but just need a little customization.

Like houses, guys that are already ‘done up’ have an overinflated sense of their own worth, and thus sell for a premium that requires you to stretch your budget. You have to sacrifice far more that you were originally willing in order to have them. Sure they look great and you can have your friends over straight away, but very rarely is it to yourtaste--you may wish the kitchen was a different color, or that they didn’t wear their hipster jeans quite so tight.

Yes, fixer-uppers are the perfect antidote to the Man Drought, as long as you remember the golden rules of renovation: Measure everything first, and be sure you nail it properly.

In A Threesome With Facebook?

A friend of mine recently ended a relationship.

“The hardest part wasn’t actually breaking up,” she told us when discussing the aftermath. “It was changing my Facebook relationship status.”

“I know what you mean,” chipped in another girlfriend. “When I had to change my status, I waited for midnight on a Friday, when I thought most people wouldn’t be online, in order to minimise the damage.”

Apparently there are plenty of people trapped in an inadvertent threesome with Facebook. According to the site, approximately 60% of users have listed their relationship status, with the two most popular choices being ‘single’ and ‘married’.’ So what’s the big deal with your FB relationship status?

Putting stuff on Facebook is like getting in a pink stretch Hummer and parading around the streets with a megaphone. The streets of everyone you know. And for anyone that missed the megaphone, or for the hot guy you had a fling with back in your single days whom you’re pretty sure can’t read (one of many reasons it was just a fling), Facebook provides a shorthand—a little, crappy broken-heart symbol that appears in yours AND ALL 500 OF YOUR “FRIENDS” feeds. Facebook is many things, but discreet and subtle it is not.

And there are the stream of comments that ask ‘Are you OK?’ to which the correct answer is ‘Are you stupid? Did you not see the broken heart? That’s ‘cause it was STOMPED ON.’

One girlfriend told of the traumatic end to a long term relationship with her childhood sweetheart. “Five seconds after I’d changed my status, people were commenting on it. The first person to say something was a girl I hadn’t seen since high school. We hated each other and I only accepted her friend request because she’s fatter.”

I actually love following people that have just broken up on Facebook. They are just so determined to prove that they are having fun. The pretend parties, the extraordinarily slutty outfits, the status updates about ‘the best night ever xoxo’ just reminds me that there’s nothing wrong with sitting on your couch in your trackies eating Double Choc Chip for dinner, as long as Facebook doesn’t know about it. Because the thing is, despite the fact that you’ve broken up with each other, both of you continue to have a relationship with Facebook. Yes, truly men come and go but Facebook is for the long term.

In the past, when you’d have just got your girlfriends together to purge your "couple photos", you now have to painstakingly untag 1,583 of them by yourself. When you could have just given yourself time to recover, you can’t help obsessively stalking his page and drawing false conclusions from photos and wall comments.

Then there are those people who announce that ‘it’s complicated ‘ (Translation: I want him/her, they won’t accept my relationship request) or that they are ‘In An Open Relationship’ (Translation: No way is this a relationship but I like gettin’ some regularly until I find a REAL relationship). One can only image how many people these guys are poking or throwing sheep at.

As for me, my relationship status is going to remain blank. But in case you’re wondering, I’m looking for Friendship, Networking and Random Play.