People of Stockholm, Your Attention Please (Part 5)

A woman from Stockholm who clearly has my attention.

Now without wanting to turn this into some bloggy mess of a story with me moaning about life experiences (or lack of) gone by, let's just say that over the years my romantic life has had its patches of barrenness. Not a complete disaster, but I'll leave it there. That's not the point of what I am writing about.

No, the real point is that when you are single everyone tells you that the way to attract people is to relax, be yourself. If you look like you're trying then you will just turn people off. When I was single (and I am sorry to subject the ladies in the audience to this, but I am taken) I took this as gospel. In fact, I probably tried too hard to look like I wasn't trying and ended up looking quite obviously like I was actually trying. Which I was.

Anyway, the other great myth that you here when you are single is that as soon as you end up in a relationship you instantly become so relaxed and at peace with the world that you stop trying and hence, get this, attract people. Allegedly the way to get the ladies is to be with a lady.

Which is of course complete bollocks. Or is it? The fact is that I have been together with "my Swede", to use the hideous phrase that permeates on websites populated by foreigners in Sweden, for, ooooh, something like five years. I think. I could actually check it as, like the loving man that I am, I have noted down both the date that I met my Girlfriend and the date that we first went out together on the calendar on my computer. I've even set it as recurring yearly so I can wake her up in the morning and remind her why the day is oh so special. Getting back to the point, I am yet to see any evidence of this so-called attractiveness that comes from being together with someone.

Yes, that's right. You may struggle with this, but even though I am in a long-term relationship I am not actually dragging the ladies off me. Or talking to them. Or ever getting any sort of eye-contact. This could be something to do with being a ginger, balding, fat, thirty-something wearing clothes that were last cool when shoegazing ruled the gig scene. Or it could be because the myth that being together with someone instantly makes you attractive to masses of other people is utter rubbish. I prefer the latter, it helps me deal.

My Girlfriend, as those beasts tend to, has another theory. She feels that I am just incapable of actually noticing when anyone finds me attractive. She also feels that this explains the barren "patches" in my romantic history, but my take on that is that she needs something to justify her being with someone as fundamentally unfanciable as me. By dreaming up this alternative universe where the ladies are actually interested but the only thing standing in the way of me taking advantage of this is my inability to notice that any of this is going on whatsoever. Which is clearly bollocks.

So where am I going with this? Well, I'm not really sure. It's just that I am fed up of hearing this myth about being together with someone making you attractive. Its just such complete and utter bollocks that I just want to slap anyone that says it. All it does is generate some false hope for those going through *cough* "patches". For those people I say this: grab the first person that shows any interest whatsoever and don't ever let go.

M Panda