Vanishing Acts

When your in love, your with someone who's presence and aura you love being around, they make you smile, happy, comfy in your skin. You think just maybe he might be something different to the other guys, you know them idiots who have broken your heart - let you down, screwed you around and confused you. You think, maybe everything will be just right. Everything seems right, well it seems more then right, you go out, you go away, you talk and make plans for the future, he says his spare room can be your office when he gets around to fixing the damp, he says he'll take you to Paris and Italy. He says he loves you.

And then, when everything is going well, when your feet are firmly fixed into this relationship. He Vanishes.

First you think, okay he's just busy - his phones probably dead, broken maybe. So he'll ring, email or text when he can. Sure he will - he wouldn't just vanish would he?! Then the days roll on, and he's still not being in touch. He really has pulled the vanishing act on you. Thing is - I'm getting to be a bit of a sucker for these guys who like to pull the vanishing act - and it's not by choice, it's just that i seem to have fallen for two in the past twelve months. I think I need to rethink my relationships. Or at least, my choice of men.

So you start to internalise everything - was there something I did wrong. What didn't I do, or what thing, or action did I do that was so bad, so wrong that would force a guy to just - well just literally vanish. Don't get me wrong I didn't just sit around waiting by my phone for him to get in touch. I texted, I rang (for the phone to be slammed down) and I emailed. but not to the amount that would make me appear crazy- I'm not that crazy. Yet to only to be met with a blank wall of silence. Sometimes silence really does say more then the words "You're dumped".

So you're left with no answer. No answer is what you'll always be left with for trying to understand why things went wrong. You start to feel utterly worthless - why don't I deserve a reason, did I mean NOTHING to him so I don't even deserve to know why?! You're helplessly less in a state of purgatory. Not knowing which way to look, to turn or go to. You have to suddenly see yourself as single, what reason do you even tell your friends. To say he vanished on YOU sounds - well it seemed to me kinda pathetic - that it was my fault. Then you have to see, well try and see its HIM with the problem - he's not got the balls to tell you when things were going wrong.

Okay granted I think I may have been somewhat viewing my "relationship" through rose tinted glasses, over the past few months he was gradually getting more distant and kept backing away. Maybe he was a love them, f#@k them and leave them kinda guy, maybe he might my replacement. Maybe - well maybe he just wasn't that much into me. To be honest one thing that's made me see sense is the book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo "He's just not that into you" - to be honest I wish I had stumbled across this book years ago - it would have saved me enough confusion and tears to have lasted a life time.

The moral of the story - if a guy is into you - he will let you know.

The moral of my story - my guy wasn't into me, and he was letting me know that so so very clearly.

I've battled for days in the past two weeks wondering what to do. Strength and friends have stopped me from getting in contract with him. And still nothing from him. I'm resound to the fact that I probably never will get one reason why and I no longer feel the need to try and get him to get in touch with me - maybe that's just my current state of mind. Maybe he just doesn't deserve to hear from me.

The thing to remember is that it isn't your fault. That there are guys out there that will give you a reason if there ever needs to be one. I'm speaking this from two idiots worth of experience. I and you are far from being worthless, but we deserve better then the poor excuse that any guy that can do this act without feeling any form of guilt.

The uncoventional proposal

Today I posted on a female magazine based forum on which I regularly write upon (call it yet another addiction) a discussion regarding women asking men for their hand in marriage. I was wondering why women feel it is not their role to ask, what stops them and if it still remains a man's position. Don't get me wrong I have no man to marry, but it got me thinking. I started this topic on the forum in response to the growing number of postings by women remarking their wonderment and their wait for their guy to pop those magical words of proposal. While badgering their partners for years, no sign of a ring was in the pipeline. Yet surely after knowing your partners views on the subject of marriage, engagement and the whole wider "lets spend our lives together" situation, (I don't believe proposals should come randomly out the blue - you do have to some extent know your partners wishes on this matter) a woman could feel enough within herself to ask him to marry her? Therefore limiting this wait for a ring to magically pop up and a guy to fall onto his knee.

As a sociologist, somewhat a femininst and as a twenty something, I'm wondering if i'm getting too feminist in my assumptions? Or am I merely so unromantic that I consider it ok for a women to ask a guy to marry her?

Sure I love my men to be proper men. I like a guy to take control, to buy me flowers, to shower me with love (dreamer!). And okay the idea of a guy going down on one knee asking me those words, would be romantic. However - if I knew he wanted to get married, that we had chatted about it, and I believed we were in the "right" place in our relationship then yes - I would feel okay about asking him to marry me.

I'd do this merely to save my mind from passively wondering when, or if he'd ever get around to asking. I don't want be waiting till he randomly has his light bulb moment and think "hmmm marriage ... now!" drops on one knee and there you go. I have the ability to make my own decisions and make my own choices and act by them. I don't need a man, even in this situation to wait to make up his mind.

A lot of replies to my post in the forum claimed ideas that for a woman to propose it would somehow threaten a man's masculinity and therefore their macho position when it comes to romance, of this one occasion when a man can be romantic. Thus for a women to ask for his hand in marriage would therefore take away the man's role.

Then remains this whole notion of tradition. To some extent I believe traditions are there to be broken. I know i'll be one of them women that will have children late (if at all) and that's my choice. I don't really fancy getting married until i'm in my 30s (again my choice). That's my view. But I don't agree in the assumed tradition that only a man can do the proposing.

Many claimed that it would lack romance - but surely as contemporary, worldly experienced women, we have the ability within us to be able to make a night special and romantic for us to ask a man for marriage. Not only men in this occasion can be romantic!

I really wonder what a man's view on this matter is. Do they really feel that it is their role to do the asking? Would they feel threatened and "hurt" if their girlfriend was to ask them? Or would they just think they were taking the piss? Or as I hope they would think, would they feel it romantic and sexy that their women, their partner loves them enough to ask them?

Faded glamour

War Time Femininity - taken from 1944 Yank Magazine

There seems to be a missing glamour to contemporary femininity. I surround myself through my passion for Hollywood musicals in a magical lost era - I am use to a feminine body which is happy, smiley, curvy and long legged. These films and these bodies hold traditional feminine traits of seeking love and acceptance, caring for her friends, battling against all the odds to find her parted lover. These films, these delights of cinema may have changed the production and position of the role of film within everyday society, they are built upon a femininity and glamour which seems to elude and be lost from our contemporary world. Nevertheless their femininity and their stories couldn't ring more true? Aren't we all still seeking to find our lover? Our partner? While battling masculine assumptions of the right place for women within society? Although we are now not all fighting to be on the stage as in 42nd Street, we are remaining in our battles between home and workplace.

These actress, the chorus girls and the faceless names of feminine bodies making up he background scenes, hold a femininity which is simplistic yet so overtly beautiful. Tight cast however in dumb, simple playful roles. Yet these roles, however marginal and narrow they may be, they failed to curtail the power of their womanhood in the likes of Betty Grable, Vivien Leigh and Ginger Rogers. The former becoming a noted beauty - the pin up girl for American GI's in WWII, her glamour radiating a friendliness, American beauty.

While women have marked their position within society, in addition to taking more powerful, central roles within major films, how come they - (or so it appears) have lost their glamour, their flare and their femininity? Is being beautiful, being overt in your feminine body, your feminine appearance, a pre-selection for being seen as dumb within films?

To some extent I see Keira Knightley as the contemporary exception. The radiating beauty, one natural and simple flows from her intense stare is one, I believe would allow her to fit most perfectly within the era of the black and white film. She still somewhat maintains this lost appearance of femininity and glamour yet with a noted intellect. Yet does this tight cast her into roles of passionate (or passionless) emotionalised women? Her role as Georgiana the Duchess of Devonshire within The Duchess invokes a passion somewhat drawing back to the drive for desire and love matching those of Scarlet O'Hara.

But has the glamour of the musicals, of dramas, being truly lost in a world of manipulation and airbrushing? Has natural glamour and beauty being replaced by the flare of the movie maker and the digital power of the computer? Is being in touch with your femininity, of making it overt within film or photography too against the assumptions and calls by feminists? To be so feminine is that a compliance with masculine desire? To meet their visual needs and wants?

My empty blue sky

I've done more in my life then I have say a year ago, for sure. I've dated two guys, loved two guys - but also lost them. The second well that was rather recent. But I've found out more about myself - my desires, my loves. My DVD collection for sure has grown. So has my imagination about wanting to be like Betty Grable - or at least have her sophistication and glamour. This time last year I was in my whirlwind Masters application. My MA decision has being one of the best choices I've ever made in my life (reminder - personal last minute decisions may be the most productive - hence the success of the tattoo and random hair dying).

The people and experiences I have come to cross through doing my Masters have opened doors and occurrences that I never thought I had the opportunity to experience again. Not only did I sneak another year at being a student - I met people that actually understood me - my way of thinking, following the same dreams to make a statement, to fight societal assumptions, to be the people that want to not only mark themselves upon the world, but do something about the society we find ourselves living within.

Yet for all this - I wouldn't say I was happier inside. But what is happiness? Is it the ability of being able to wake up every morning alive? That should make you happy right? Sure it does, but surely there should be more then merely being able to breathe to make you happy? You can breathe and feel dead inside, like your body is merely undertaking the processes to keep you alive but inside your not feeling anything. So what else could be happiness? I know I enjoy the sound of bird singing, of seeing summer flowers blossoming, of finding a book you just can't put down, of laughter and smiles. And I guess they make me happy.

I feel I have everything going for me, that I have life on my side. But I feel like I'm searching for a happiness that I can't find. One that is normally too dependent upon other people. But is this such a bad thing?

I'm searching for how to make myself happy. Always searching.

An introduction

I would like to formally introduce you to the life of this twenty something.

I can't suggest that this life you may end up ending about will be overtly interesting. I'm not famous, I'm not born of any historical patronage nor do I spend every night sleeping with faceless men. I'm merely me. However interesting or not that is - hopefully will be revealed over the forthcoming months perhaps even years.

I will somewhat be hiding behind the anonymity that the Internet offers. I know this is a somewhat naive belief (a question I hear you ask?! Are we ever really anonymous upon the world of the net?!) - I am clearly stating, typing out word for word what makes up me, what makes my mind tick (more often what does not make it tick) what I think and what scares me. I hope in turn by revealing the inner darksides of my mind, the things that stir me, things that make me note and wonder will reveal more about me as a contemporary twenty something seeking to make a tiny space for herself in the wider world then merely addressing you with my name, age, address and date of birth.

I hope I'm more then my personal details.

I am who I am - I am a soon to be finished student, I'm a female struggling in the world of the big C - that of the Credit Crunch. So overtly over qualified for a job that will pay the bills and lacking the experience needed to get a step on the ladder of the career of my dreams. I've loved and lost too many a time, moreover too many a time I have lost. I fail to understand the world, and to be honest I don't think the world really understands me. I dream of the glamour of the 1930s (more of this will be sure to come). I yearn for the world of romance, glitter, dancing and showgirls.

I'm torn between what I want, what society wants of me, and what people think I should be.

Hopefully this will become a space for both you and I. I dream of this becoming a fully interactive space whereby everyone can post regardless.

I offer you this introduction, and I hope if you somehow stumble over this blog, that you will offer yours.