Everyone knows it. I’ve been shouting it from the rooftops for months. Being single is just about the best thing since sugar free ice cream.

Imagine my surprise then, sitting with a friend whom I’ve known for, like, ever and has been one of my dearest male friends and someone I can’t imagine not having in my life…. And finding myself strangely, disturbingly, scarily daydreaming about what it could be like to date him.

Oh my God, am I losing…

I’ve recently blogged about an Octopus Wingman. What about my experiences as a Wingwoman, you ask, pleadingly?

I am quite a little bit of a social butterfly. You know, especially near to pay day. I make an effort to mingle and meet new peeps, hoping that someone will share my penchant for good manners and have them join me on my Manner Mission.

One of my Eastern Capers has recently moved to Skaapstad, and, being the welcoming, embracing…

“ In sociology, manners are the unenforced standards of conduct which demonstrate that a person is proper, polite, and refined. They are like laws in that they codify or set a standard for human behavior, but they are unlike…

When I was in junior school, I had to wear a hat. Whenever we crossed the road, we’d have to do a little curtsy hat-raise to the drivers who’d stop for us.

Needless to say, at 10 years of age, nothing could’ve made me more embarrassed. I hated every second of it and would even walk the long way round just to avoid it.

Strange thing, manners.

They’re like youth. You never realise how wonderful they are until you’re getting…

For over half of my life, I’ve had a crush on Johnny Depp. I own every one of his movies and have the entire lifespan of 21 Jump Street on tape. I can’t get away with having his posters up on my bedroom wall anymore, but you can bet I still have them safely stowed away.

Every single man I’ve ever loved has been a slim brunette with stubble and a penchant for rum and black cigarettes… Some even had Cubist tattoos.

Recently I even…

When I was younger, my arguing repertoire consisted of pulling my baby sisters’ hair and to run as fast as my 8 year old chicken legs would carry me.

Aaah! If only I could get away with that behaviour now. Boyfriend: “Babe! How could you have spent our grocery money on shoes!!” Me: *pulls his hair*, yells “weh weh weh” and bolts…

You can be in a relationship for months without having to argue. But… it’s such a smorgasbord of…

I’m not going to pretend to be holier-than-thou/learned/academic. There is nothing quite as stupefying as someone who’s so unbelievably, excessively attractive that you’d offer to bear their children before they open their mouths.

Halfway through a scintillating conversation with your friends, you see him glide across the room- time stands still- you sit, gobsmacked, muted, suddenly the ridiculous song playing in the background seems to be singing *only* to…

Oh God, I did it. I swore I never would. I became ‘that girl’—Miss Nice. You see, I have black hair, red lips, pale skin, 34C’s, I’m French-Scottish and I’m born in Year of the Monkey… I tend to scare them off.

I thought being ‘the girl next door’ might make a refreshing change. I thought, well, I’m getting older, let’s try charitable and nice. Less Joan Jett and more Betty Crocker.

One of the fab things about being friends…

I used to joke that I have become so jaded, that I go along to my first date in a tracksuit. In fact, jaded is kind of a massive outrageous understatement of how easily it was becoming to believe that men are just confused, selfish and mostly not very nice.

I’ve met many creative, talented, successful, attractive men in the past year. But very few of them have actually had the remotest idea of what they want, or been honest about it (except for one, Mr…

Most single lasses have one. The straight guy friend who’s like a brother. You love each other to pieces despite the fact he can’t braai for shit and you never approve of his girlfriends (they’re never good enough).

He is super protective, never forgets your birthday, doesn’t mind when you sing the wrong lyrics to his favourite songs and is always there for you. You wouldn’t dare try and have a relationship because well, eeeeuw, he’s like…

Einstein said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Of course, Gary Player also said “Practise makes perfect”. Ok, I’ll just sit here while the intelligent make their minds up. Wtf.

In this wonderful warzone of love paradoxes I felt lost. I really should have left a trail of breadcrumbs...

The GPRS says one thing: I am a serial…

Stop being so unreasonable. What does that even mean? Stop being me so you can be more you all over the place?

I think that in all relationships it’s important to have requirements, boundaries, and, dare I say it, expectations. But, what is reasonable to one person may be utter ludicrousness to someone else…

I have been reading a few books about dating, relationships, etc etc. Steve Harvey keeps saying that men respect women…

Denial. Such a lovely, graphic little adjective, isn’t it? I must say, for a word that mostly is inherent in men refusing to see a doctor when they’re bleeding to death, I seem to be doing it very well.

I have been shoving it up your noses from day dot-“trust the gut” I yelled, “vote gut for President” I preached, yada yada yada. Snore. Do as I say, not as I do.

I stand up and raise my hand, I am guilty as charged.…

It was a new year: new resolutions, emotional stocktake. Wow, what a very annoying little ankle-biting Yorkshire terrier bitch 2010 was.

Looking back on the year from a heart-health point of view, so so so so much happened. Which was the very last thing on Earth I expected to be the case.

January 2010 felt like The Apocalypse. My Knight in Shining Armour turned out to be just another phoney in foil. The little magic carpet that I had…

Every single man, woman and teenager I know has had one of these. The flight of fancy you embark upon after meeting someone you know you could really really like. The Grip.

You crush on someone. If you’re anything like me, it’s hideous. If there was a video camera inside your head, your dreams, your libido, it’d put you to shame. If that video was leaked to YouTube, you wouldn’t be able to live a normal life. I’d have to change my name and get a face…

Everyone who knows me will tell you how I have always, always lied about my age. Instead of wearing baby pink lipstick and a push-up bra to seem younger, I have worn red lipstick, eyeliner and black-as-night nails to seem older.

This year, all that will change. Blowing out 30 candles on a crowded cupcake, it hit home that, well, I’ve…. “arrived”. I’m here, I’m adult, and, hot-darn, I’ve earned it.

Seeing as though this is a…

And my friends wonder why I have a growing disdain and general malaise directed at the male species. Allow me to regale my most recent experience (read: trainwreck).

I find myself often shaking my fists at the heavens and muttering under my breath a vague little wish that someone would just at least step on the scene to cause some intellectual entertainment.

Clearly there’s a genie living upstairs with a wicked sense of humour (more like…

Aren’t we a tad too late in the game to still be subscribing to the ‘caste’ system?

Surely, would’ve been my standard response. Until something curious happened to me, right here, in democratic(-ish) Cape Town, full of enough shape, colour, size and sexual orientation than you can shake a stick at.

I know him, but he doesn’t know me. His name precedes him. He’s quite the man about the too-cool-for-school. He wears unpronounceable…