Living On My Own

No... not the song by Freddie Mercury!

I was talking to a friend earlier this week about what it is like to live on your own. It's been a while now since I did it. Now, don't get me wrong, I prefer living with someone than not, but one thing that living on your own does for you is clear the mind.

Only recently another friend of mine has moved into their own place. She is 28. It's the first time she has lived on her own in her life and she is starting to find out things about herself. Some things she likes. Others she doesn't. But it certainly is an eye-opener for her.

When I first started living on my own it wasn't really through choice, but through necessity, and at the time I didn't know who I was or what I wanted, because up until then all of my choices and decisions were made with the complicating factor of taking somebody else into consideration. It was only once that was taken away that I was able to actually make decisions for myself, taking nobody else into consideration but myself. And in those first few weeks I learnt more about myself than I had in the 22 years previously.

It is something that I would heartily recommend to everyone. I know that for some people it's not possible because they're already in a relationship or have a commitment to living somewhere and cannot get away from it, but even for a week, or a weekend, or even a day, I would recommend taking yourself away from everyone. Leave your phone at home. Don't tell anyone where you are going and just get away from it all. You will learn so much about yourself it's scary.

Why Cheat?

I was talking to a very close friend of mine the other day and the conversation turned to being unfaithful, and it led to me asking myself a very simple question... why do people cheat?

Firstly, I would like to point out that I am making a distinction between having a quick roll in the sack with someone and actually having two concurrent relationships. While I feel that both of these are wrong, it is the second one I will concentrate on because it is that I sincerely don't understand.

My first thought was that it's possibly something to do with the alleged "excitement" that is derived from "getting away with it", and if that is true I have to pity them. How you can take any pleasure from causing someone so much pain is beyond me? Yes, it might be exciting, but I can think of plenty of ways of channeling my need for excitement that doesn't hurt anyone.

Secondly, I thought, maybe it is "hedging your bets". Not wanting to finish a relationship that is going wrong until you're sure that the new one is better. On the surface this is definitely a "better" reason than the first, but that's only on the face of it. If you look at it a little closer you will notice this. Why does the person have a basic need to be in a relationship? Obviously the thought of being on their own is so abhorrent to them that they cannot face even a couple of weeks of it.

The third reason I could think of was a simple lack of willpower. Someone is offering you something on a plate and you don't have the cajones to resist. I can understand that, because I have been in a situation where (not in my current relationship in case my wife reads this!) I have basically been handed it on a plate, and I resisted. It was difficult because the relationship I was in at the time wasn't the happiest and broke down soon after, but the fact that I was in a relationship immediately prevented anything from happening.

The last reason I could think of was that the person is trying to protect their partners feelings. The idea that they didn't want to tell their partner that the relationship was over in case they were hurt by this is frankly a laughable concept. If they cared an ounce about their partners feelings they wouldn't be partaking in extra-curricular activities in the first place.

So there you have it. My idea of why people cheat. As you can probably see, I don't understand why people do it. If anyone out there in internet-land disagrees (or agrees) with me. Please post your comments. Maybe if they do I would understand things a little better.

Food :( or :)

Resumption of Hostilities...

Well, I suppose since Easter has just passed it's time for a resurrection of sorts. The Phoenix Daily Blog is back.. I knew the title was probably over-optimistic because my ability to hit a deadline is similar to the ability of Dirk Kuyt to hit a barn door with a Bazooka. But anyway...

I quite often spout about football, but I thought I'd leave that for today and talk about something close to my heart. Food. That more than anything else is my joy and my curse.

I don't know whether you know but I suffer with a stomach condition. It's not serious, but if I eat the wrong type of foods my stomach tends to blow up like a huge balloon! This wouldn't necessarily be a problem except the foods I'm not supposed to eat are the foods that tempt me the most.

I love food. I love cooking food and I love eating it. I love other people eating it and telling me it's good. And I love eating other peoples food too! There in a succinct few sentences is a complete explanation of why I'm "rather heavy!".

There seems to be some sort of anti-male agenda when it comes to weight-loss. Don't get me wrong, men aren't "allowed" to be fat anymore than women are, we're just not "allowed" to be seen doing anything about it, apart from pumping Iron in the Gym. Unfortunately I have little wish to be stacked, racked, packed, or muscled in any way, I would just like not to be fat!