This past weekend, I went to a Rugby Team boxing event. This rugby team has a peculiar little social dynamic that I could spend weeks studying. They’re naturally different from any of the recreational ultimate frisbee teams that I’ve ever been associated with, and seem extremelly dependent on one another. Popularity seems to be a big deal with them. I often say that I’d love to do high school all over again, knowing what I do now, and hanging out with the rugby team seems kind of the way to do it.
Don’t get me wrong, they are tons of fun. On nights when I go out with them, I know full well that I’d better have a clean slate the next day because I know I will be hungover. They’re generally accepting and mostly welcoming.
Back to Saturday. At some point in the evening, one of them came up to talk to me and the ladies I was there with. It was pretty obvious this guy was interested in me. I didn’t really have much interest in him, but whatever. He ended up hanging around my area for most of the evening and I left early because of the open bar.
The next day, my girl friend texted me to tell me this guy thought I was really cute. No one calls me cute. I am not cute. I am drop dead gorgeous. I never understand why people think cute is a compliment. Dogs are cute. Baby calves can be cute. I am sexy. That was strike 1. No wait, strike 1 was not having the balls to tell me himself, but rather calling my friend to tell her to tell me. My interest in this guy went from non-existent to less than zero.
I actually ignored my friend’s text. Which was probably immature of me, a quick “not-interested” would have been appropriate. So last night, she texts me again saying this guy wants to get together, in a group, for drinks. He also told her to tell me he plays in a band because I mentioned I like Rock. Stupid idiot, he told me that Saturday and it didn’t impress me then. Telling my friend to tell me, impresses me less.
So then I got mad.
My interest in this guy went from less than zero to hatred. I’m 31 fucking years old. I have a man interested in me who didn’t have the balls to ask for my number to my face. Then has my friend ask me on his behalf. THEN has my friend tell me things about him. Are you shitting me?
I can understand him not having the chance on Saturday, like I said, I left early…but then the extent of any conversations this guy should have had with my friend should have been: “Hey, can you ask FitDarcie if I can call her sometime?” That’s it.
To top it all off, this guy was about 4 leagues beneath mine. This pisses me off because not only do I still need to deal with pussy men who don’t have the balls to ask for what they want, but I have to deal with pussy men who don’t have the balls to ask for what they want and are not attractive.
It’s times like this I want to throw in the towel.
I learned of a very interesting phenomenon last week. I found out that there is some woman somewhere who sources talent for the Toronto Raptors to party with (read: sleep with). This woman sets herself up at a bar and offers young ladies VIP treatment that involves Raptors. The catch is, she makes the girls pay for it.
The reason I find this so shocking is because there is no way in hell I could ever fathom touching a professional sports player. They have to be the dirtiest men on the face of this planet (Tiger Woods, prime example). Sleeping with a professional sports player is like rummaging through the waste at an STD testing facility. I can’t imagine ever paying for STD’s.
Another reason I find this appalling is because I know that professional sports players are known for paying for sex all the time. If I’m partying with a guy who’s bringing home 20MM a year, I expect to have my drinks paid for and a ride home in a town car. I don’t expect to have to foot the bill. Ludicrous.
This reminds me of a time I was partying with Donovan Baily (Canadian Olympic runner). I can’t remember how we ended up in his VIP booth, but there was certainly no exchange of cash on my part. It was pretty boring. I never understood the VIP area to begin with. It’s usually a group of men who pay too much for bottle service and spend the whole night trying to convince women who are having an amazing time with all the people on the dance floor to come up to their booth, where you sit and stare at everyone on the dance floor. But that’s for another day. I was chatting with his friend, whom I knew was married by the ring on his finger. After about 10 minutes of dry conversation about the weather and what part of town I lived in, he asked if I would go home with him and have a threesome with him and his wife.
It took 10 minutes for that to come out, and I didn’t have to pay a penny for it. And he bought me a drink first.
Why on earth anyone would pay to have that offer is beyond me.
(Teenwolf you stinky pervert, I didn’t do it. I got in a cab promptly and went home.)
You know how it’s usually the woman who has relationship on her breath the moment she meets a suitable mate? Well…in 2010, men are just as likely.
Last weekend, I met a guy who’s interest in me was apparent within seconds of meeting. Here were his 3 strikes:
The dude was short, which is not optimal, but the only people who are really care about height are short people. This was apparent when I stood up at one point, and he compared his height to mine, not in a joking way, but in a how-will-we-look-walking-down-the-aisle kind of way. Fail.
Next, after really trying to make me care about his “acting” career, he asked my age. When I told him I was 31, he flipped. He’s 40. “That’s 9 years. 9!“. Gee, how old do I look asshole? 36? Since when is it a bad thing for women to be younger than men anyway? And 9 years is nothing. That doesn’t even make me a gold-digger…if I was interested in dating an actor in the first place. Which I’m not. Cause they’re poor. Unless it’s The Rock. I’d date him even if he was poor.
And the final blow. After he’d calmed down about me being soooooo young, he asked “So. 31. Does that mean you’re in your sexual prime? Cause I still am.” When did it become socially acceptable to ask those sorts of questions within the first hour of meeting someone? What kind of answer is appropriate? I came up with the following in case this question ever comes up again.
“I am in my sexual prime. Actually, hearing you speak about all the starring roles you’ve played in major Hollywood movies is really turning me on. I’d love for you to take me into the kitchen and bang me over the dishwasher.”
or
“No. I don’t like sex at all. I like dating older men because they can’t get it up as easily and that means I don’t have to do it as often.”
I had a guy once ask me after the second date how crazy I was in bed. He needed to know because if I wasn’t into all his naughty shit, he was going to have to call it quits. He also told me that he didn’t want to take me to dinner because he didn’t want to spend money on me unless he knew for sure that we were going to end up in bed.
Seriously.
I never canceled my membership at my old gym, and Monday’s workout at Extreme reminded me why. I know Monday’s are typically a gym’s busiest day as people try to get off the weekend routine and into a more healthy week, so I was prepared for some nonsense. I typically enjoy late-day workouts, from 8 to 10pm, but I’m testing out to see how boring my life is if I get home by 7:30. So I was at Extreme at 5- rush hour.
I was standing at the smith machine, between sets, and looking around for a leg curl machine. I’m new there, so don’t quite know the layout, so I probably looked a little lost. For those of you who don’t know what a smith machine is, it’s the machine that helps you with your squats- so that if your muscles fatigue and you can’t push up, you can easily rest the bar. Like a squat machine for dummies really. So as I’m looking around, with 130lbs on the machine, some guy comes in and asks if I need help getting the bar on my shoulders. On a smith machine. The machine designed to help you put the bar on your shoulders.
Are you fucking kidding me. I have 130lbs on the damn machine…and you think I need help from some sissy ass guy rowing 25lbs? I immediately started missing the juice monkeys at my old gym.
Then something else happened. I was working out in the free weight area, and some douchenozzle picks the spot right next to me. He started doing some gay exercise I have a feeling I will see more of…sometimes certain gyms will pick up on an exercise some trainer comes up with and everyone starts doing it. I can guarantee you there are at least 3 people out there who have thrown their backs trying to do this one. It involved the 45lbs bar, a 45lbs weight on the ground, and a whole bunch of twisting and throwing. Anyway, the douchenozzle is throwing this bar around like he believes it wont slip from his drip and bash me in the head, then says to me between heavy breaths “So? You training for something in particular?” I can honestly say that no one has ever spoken to me at a gym while they are in the middle of a set. It could’ve been off some B-rated comedy show…except in the comedy show he would have let go of the bar and I would have hilariously gotten knocked out.
I didn’t get hit by a flying bar, just got hit on by a douchenozzle with a well-gelled receding hairline and skinny legs.
This gym offers a whole new audience to the FitDarcie phenomena. A whole new set of blog posts.
It’s sad this post needs to exist.
A while back, I was overhearing some ladies in the locker room complaining about a recent wax job. One woman was saying that she hated doing it, and did it solely for her husband. They got into a conversation about how she was now expecting her husband to wax his back for her sake…and the brief chit chat ended with a general comment about how society is so fucked up- that instead of fixing the problem of women needing to constantly be perfecting their physical appearance, we are making men do the same thing.
I spent a few months agreeing with this last statement. While I am gifted in being physically perfect, all the extras that I need to do on a daily basis for the enjoyment of society is a bitch.
I am also fully aware that in my lifetime, society is not going to start accepting hairy legs and untweezed eyebrows. So fuck you asshole men….you started this whole mess of forcing us to be perfect, so now it’s your turn. You want to be able to date a 10? It’s time to start being a 10. We women are sick of putting up with your disgustingness.
The top 5 most essential man-grooming areas:
#1- Flossing. I’m going to help my dentist out with this one. This is definitely #1 on my all-list. Gingivitis is the #1 source of bad breath. Bad breath will prevent you from getting laid 99% of the time. It takes about 60 seconds to floss. That’s less than a commercial break. I find it extremely difficult to be sexy and amazing around a guy who I’m trying to keep 6 feet away from. It doesn’t hurt to keep some mints in your pocket and pop them periodically.
#2- Keeping nails short. I did an entire post on this a while back. I find long nails on a man completely repulsive. I’m not saying you need to get a weekly manicure, but you need to make sure the whites are never showing. And you know, manicures aren’t that femi. As long as you don’t get polish. While you’re there, get a pedicure, that wont be so bad either.
#3- Mowing the lawn. The 80’s are long gone…they are so long gone, that Hollywood is putting out time travel movies about going back there. Along with the 80’s went hair everywhere. Women don’t want you to look like a 9 year old, but we don’t need to see 40 yeas of growth down there. We do it…so can you.
#4- Daily shaving- Just because men are genetically able to grow hair on their face doesn’t mean that they should. There is no rule on who looks good with facial hair and who doesn’t…but in my experience, if your beard doesn’t grow all in the same direction, at the same speed, then you need to shave every day. We can tell when you don’t, and you look like a bum.
#5- Have name brand underwear- I don’t know why this is important, but it is. I like some good Calvin Kleins or Tommy Hilfiger. I feel like I’m dating the cheapest man in the world when I see Fruit of the Loom. And boxer briefs are the only type any man should ever wear.
I’m only here to help.
I was chatting with my friend Josh yesterday, who has the most fabulous stories of women stalkers and always says he’s going to guest post for me, but never does. Anyway, his current situation is that he’s dating a girl who he wants to dump, but, being a wussbag man, doesn’t want to tell her, and he’s hoping she’ll just go away. When I was counseling him on his options, I asked if they were boyfriend/girlfriend yet.
Then the conversation started about when a relationship starts. In this day and age, I’m sure Facebook plays a role in it, but I said that I become monogamous to a man after we sleep together…yet I don’t think I tell him yet. He says it’s when he introduces her to his friends. So really, until you actually have a conversation about it, it’s pretty much not a mutual thing. Maybe Facebook is on to something with it’s relationship statuses.
When do you go from just dating to in a relationship?
Last week marked a significant moment in my life. I, FitDarcie, officially became debt free. This isn’t a typical FitDarcie post, but it was a big deal for me, and I want to share it.
The Back Story
Growing up in a middle-class farm life, I was taught frugality. I recall the occasions in which my mom had to put something on her credit card. It was a HUGE deal. We heard about it every day until it was paid off. Basically, I was taught that debt was bad. Yet somehow, it never really took.
When I moved to Toronto, I had virtually no debt. However, I didn’t get a bump in pay to adjust for the cost of living. I was suddenly paying twice as much for everything on the same salary. I still did pretty decent my first year…all things considered.
It was year 2 in the T-Dot that did me in. I quit my stable job and took contract jobs. I was also horrible at what I had chosen to do, and worse yet at negotiating fees for my services. This is when I walked into the bank and asked for a line of credit. The $50 interest I had to pay on the line of credit didn’t feel like debt. It actually took me another 2 years to recognize it as debt, and add it to my overall debt balance I was still racking up.
It wasn’t at all a lavish lifestyle that was causing these bills to accumulate. It was paying cash for things I wanted (booze) then using credit for things I needed like food and rent, so I felt justified. My minimum monthly payments exceeded $300 at one point.
The Reality
The reality of my debt situation set in late in 2008 when my company starting canning people. I started thinking about where I would be if I no longer had a steady flow of income to come in. This removed the I-will-pay-that-off-next-month mentality. So January of 2009, I made it my New Years resolution to go on a spending diet. I was determined to get rid of my debt burden…and start being an adult.
The Method
I created a monthly budget every month. I realistically determined what I spend and where I spend it. I looked at what I could cut back on. Because I was living paycheck-to-paycheck, on payday, I paid my bills, made my payments towards my debt, then took out the money I had to spend until the next payday. I paid for everything with cash. This forced me to think ahead to upcoming expenses like transit, parking, gas and food. I knew that if I didn’t have cash to pay for it, then I wasn’t getting it. I started living cheaper…I’d ride my bike more often. While I as always good at choosing cheap places to get good food, I never bothered to factor in the parking fees I was paying to eat there. The little things were really adding up.
Another trick I learned was to cash in on my rewards points. I carry 1.9MM cards in my wallet to collect points for everything, and never used the rewards. I did calculations on what the points were worth in dollar values, cashed in the ones I could, and transferred the balances between them to make my rewards bigger. All the clothes I bought for myself through the last 15 months were purchased this way. It was amazing.
I also learned to shop. Let’s not forget that I ended up losing my job last year. I needed to buy interview clothes,etc. Finding a job has costs too. It was easier to shop at that time though I guess…I had nothing else to do. But I ended up finding the most amazing deals, and still looked super sharp.
Another big help was that I told everyone about my debt. I even told my mom, which was huge. I had to admit to everyone that I wasn’t really “doing it on my own”. I did it to embarrass myself. I was humiliated to carry all this debt. This wasn’t the way I was raised. It really helped by making me think twice about slapping down my credit card in front of the people around me. I always assumed they’d be gossiping about me after, which probably wasn’t the case, but it helped.
The Present
So, last week, I made my final payment. You have no idea how amazing it feels…like a massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
What troubles me though, is how, as I’ve been telling my story to my friends, the majority of them are in worse shape than I ever was, and don’t seem to see it as a problem.
“Bah, that’s nothing compared to what I have.”
“Well, you can never be completely debt free.”
“Something else will come up that you will have to pay on credit eventually.”
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I had to buy it then or I never would have”
I actually think I got more encouragement to spend throughout the year than I got encouragement to save. I think this says something about our generation and responsibility. The recession should have taught us something, not given us an excuse to dick around.
I’ve recently become addicted to the HBO hit, Entourage. Having never seen an episode before 3 weeks ago, I’m now caught up on seasons 1 through 5. I think it’s great entertainment, but can’t help but resent the message it’s sending to men.
Women can differentiate between fact and fiction. Men can’t. This is why they all expect women to behave like porn stars. Here’s my beef with each character:
Vince
He’s the main guy. He’s hot, charming, innocent, famous…he can get any woman he wants. This is sadly the most believable character. If he truly existed, yes, he could get any woman he wants. My problem is that none of the women he bangs ever try to see him ever again. This would not be true in the real world. In the real world, once a woman knew where he lived, she’d find reasons to drive by and bump into him randomly. This is setting a bad example. Now all the hot, charming, innocent and famous people will think that women don’t mind being disposable. Fail.
E
This guy reminds me of my friend Randy, who you might know from the comments section. In physical appearance only. Anyway, his character is supposed to be the smart one, but he’s a complete fuck-up. If my friend fucked around with my life as much as E does with Vince’s, I’d defriend him on Facebook for sure. Also, he gets ridiculously hot and tall women. No offense Randy, but I don’t see you ever getting hot babe who’s 5′11″.
Turtle
This guy is my personal favorite. I know if he existed in real life, I’d get a real kick out of him. What pisses me off about his character is that he always gets Vince’s rejects. Women will run to Vince, when Vince chooses someone else, Turtle swoops in and takes the woman. I hear about similar occurences with rockstars and roadies, and I just can’t see it actually happening that way. For example, when I went to see Lenny Kravitz with my sister a few years ago, we tried (and failed) to get backstage. Not once, ever, did the thought of banging a security guard to get back there occur to me. I can’t imagine any woman ever saying “I can’t get the man of my dreams, so why don’t I just take this fat, unemployed loser instead?”
Drama
This guy has the most character, in my opinion. A washed up actor who hasn’t let go of the dream and is now living in his younger brother’s shadow. The guy is a complete loose cannon and a nut. What pisses me off about his character is that he’s a greasy, ugly, old, wrinkly dude, and is told that he is all the time, but his ego is always still big enough for him to try to hit on every model around. In real life, this guy would have such self-esteem and depression issues that his pharmacist would know him by name. He’d also probably be on Celebrity Rehab with Dr Drew.
Then there’s the fact that every single woman in the show is ridiculously hot. Like they are all 10 out of 10’s. They are also all really slutty. I’m pretty sure it works the other way around. The 10’s are the ones that never give it up.
And Ari. The agent. I have nothing bad to say about this man at all. If you guys know of anyone who is identical to this character, let me know because I would love to meet him.
I signed up for a membership at Extreme Fitness. I’m not a fan at all of the chain clubs, but my company has a really good rate with them, and they are right across the street from work, so I figured it’d be good for getting some extra cardio in, and maybe some yoga. There are several reasons why I hate chain clubs…they are primarily geared towards people who don’t have as strong a knowledge of health and fitness as I do. Also, I worked at a Bally’s for a few months as a trainer. As a trainer, they spent more time teaching us how to sell high-priced training packages to students than they did on any aspect of physical fitness.
At Extreme, when I asked for my membership card, they said I had to go through the physical assessment first. I could not get the card that I had paid for until I went through their sales pitch basically. I tried to weasel out of it, but there was no way. Fine. So last night, I spent an hour with Karlene.
I tried to be polite about it. I went through the motions. She made me answer a questionnaire about fitness and all that. One of the questions was to take a list of fitness goals and rate them in order of which was most important and which were least important. For me, improving my current amazing body was at the very bottom. I mean, there’s not many ways to improve perfection. My top 3 goals, from the list she gave me, were to increase my happiness, decrease stress and feel good about myself. Nothing that indicates any specific physical goal. This upset her. She asked me repeatedly to revise my selections. I kept telling her that I was very satisfied with my current physique. Somehow I offended her by loving my own body.
Then she asked me what I wanted to change about my fitness routine. I told her nothing; that it was all working for me. She asked me over and over why I signed up for a new gym when I had no intentions of quitting my old one. I don’t know why my answer of “proximity to work” didn’t sit well with her.
Then came the assessment of my body fat percentage. According to her retarded scale, I was 23%. Which puts me neatly in the healthy zone. She shoved the answer in my face and asked if I was ok with that. Uhm. Yes. Would she rather I had been in the obese zone? Where else did she think I should be?
She wanted to test my knowledge of workout equipment and proper form. I will allow that since ditching my trainer 4 years ago, there are probably some form mistakes I am making. I tried to throw her a bone by pointing out where my weak spots were. She rolled her eyes. To my face. At Bally’s, that wasn’t part of our sales techniques. She asked me to do a squat and pointed me to the 35lbs bar. I typically squat 125, and asked her if there was a squat deck somewhere we could use instead. She looked at me like I was insane and told me to just use the damn 35. When I said that she wouldn’t be able to gauge my actual form, she said she didn’t care. Again, amazing service.
Then we had to test my flexibility. I’m not as flexible as I would like to be, and when she asked how I rated my flexibility on a scale from 1 to 5, I said I was a 3. She asked how flexible I wanted to be. What kind of answer am I supposed to give? I want to be able to be comfortable if a car lands on me and I am sandwiched in half? I asked her what kind of answer she was looking for, and she said “forget it”. I was being polite, I didn’t tell her that I was a personal trainer, or that I was FitDarcie. She was not being polite to me.
Then I went back to her office where she asked if I wanted to come back for another assessment in 6 to 8 weeks “to see if you’ve reached any goals. Oh wait. You refuse to set goals.” I pointed out that I had listed decreased stress, increased happiness, and feeling good as my goals, based on the list that she gave me. Her answer? “Those aren’t fitness goals.” Well why were they on her form? She didn’t even wait for me to answer whether or not I would come back for another assessment. She just didn’t book me.
When we got to the front desk in time for me to get my card, the lady at the counter asked if I wanted to pick up my card on my way out. Karlene said “She doesn’t come here to work out, so she’s leaving now.” I actually had planned on doing some cardio, but that Karlene bitch pissed me off so much I didn’t want to be in her presence.
Dear Extreme: I do apologize that I know what I am doing in the gym. I am sorry if I don’t meet the criteria for your target market, but you seem to have no problem taking my money anyway. If you’re going to require me to take part in an assessment I don’t want to do, at least have the courtesy to be nice about it. Maybe even give me kudos for having no body-image issues, for being educated on the subject of fitness and for already having achieved my fitness goals.
Assholes.
This may be a bit of a shock to most of you…so I’m going to come right out and say it. I, FitDarcie, am getting married. I know it’s not what you expected to hear from me, but when it happens, it just happens.
I’ve been keeping him a secret at his request…something about not having our lives so public. (And also because of my track record for getting dumped). We met around Christmas time, in a bar, and quickly fell into a mad, passionate relationship, that has been progressing like a tornado. I’ve always heard that, at this age, you just know. I’ve been looking for so long, that when I found him, it was pretty much instant.
He proposed to me last night, sitting in his truck outside of the liquor store. I know, you’re probably all freaking out at the non-romantic gesture. But please remember how much respect I have for booze. To me, it as the most romantic thing ever.
We haven’t discussed details of the when/where yet, but stay tuned as I air all our dirty laundry.
