Who are you judging?

Love is a fickle, fickle mistress.

It's effects are so intoxicating it can make even the most laid-back, reasonable and pragmatic person absolutely freak the fuck out and lose their shit. So, really not that dissimilar to booze.

Right in the face

 What I don't understand is when people say they're in love and they can't possibly see their lives with out the other person, they occupy their every waking thought, they wake up thinking about the other person and go to sleep at night doing the same. But then they go out on the weekend, have a few shots and casually bang someone else.

Is this love? Is this all-consuming, passionate, can't-live-without-each other love?

One minute they could be proclaiming their undying love for each other and the next, one of them is pulling on their jeans as they're hopping out the door of their latest one night stands.

A friend of mine is currently in a long-distance relationship. He lives on one side of the country and his partner lives on the other. They didn't start off with the most solid of relationships, he was consistently seeing other people during the formative months, however now he considers the relationship "excusive" and has done for a year or so.

NB: "Exclusive" being he's cheated on her intermittently over the life of their relationship - but she's still the "one"

So, he's thinking this is it, this is the girl I'm going to marry and spend the rest of my life with. I'm going to quit my well-paying job and move cross-country for her. As he's telling me this I'm thinking great. Settle down, have kids, do whatever it is you people want to do. But it's what isn't said that's ringing alarm bells for me.

Who? I dunno, I just woke up and they were here!

This guy, who has apparently found his dream-girl, who regularly scrolls through pictures of engagement rings wondering which one she'd prefer, is the same guy who can't wait to tell me about this "hot little thing" that he took to bed the night before. And apparently this sort of thing is happening more often than we know - and not just with one gender, women do it to.

What do people think they're playing at? They say they've found their partner for life, the one they will always want to be with, but can't bear to be without their nookie on the side. I don't know about you but isn't that warning enough to say that maybe, they're not the right one for you and that you shouldn't settle right now just because it's easy to do so?

I dunno. People are weird.

I judge so much I want to shout it from the rooftops!!

As my friends and I disastrously fumble towards our mid-20's, its becoming more and more apparent to me that these next years are to be used to effectively search out a mate, trick them into thinking your able to be fallen in love with, and then somehow etch out a satisfying and stable life for ourselves.

This "pairing-off pressure", which traditionally came from our parents or grandparents, is now coming from a different, more lateral source - smug couples of the same age. 

Smug off you smugging smugs

It's bad enough seeing people's relationship statuses on Facebook constantly ping-pong from "single" to "in a relationship" then back to "single" again all in the space of a couple of months. But what's worse is that when they're in these relationships,  they constantly vomit endless blabber about how proud they are of their hubby or how spoilt they got "just because". They then go on to patronise their Facebook followers by hoping that everyone, someday, will find a love like theirs. 

Pass the bucket. 

It's fucking fabulous that you got pampered on Valentine's Day, or if on your birthday your partner completely covered the bed in rose petals and then yourself in chocolate, before embarking on a wild night of passionate and animalistic sex. But, however much people comment on your updates with things like "That's so sweet babes, I'm so happy for you!!!!!!", remember one thing: No one really gives a shit. 

And they especially don't give a shit when you wish it for them with remarks like "You'll find someone some day sweetheart, I just know it!". What I don't want to hear about is how someday I might find someone who can stand to be around me for extended periods of time and who might consider staying with me for the foreseeable future. I don't need someone of the same age telling me that I'll probably maybe be happy like them someday. 

Why can't these girls (lets be honest it's mostly girls I'm talking about here) just be content having a "great" relationship with the person thats actually in said relationship, and not, the whole of Facebook? Why, for some people, must there always be this desire for public attention as an amazing and happy couple? And, for my last rhetorical question, shouldn't the only people who's opinion matter about the relationship be of the people actually partaking in the relationship? 

It mystifies me. 

And as the late Maggie Thatcher put it, "If you have to tell people you are, you aren't".

50 Shades of Judgement

For me, it started the phenomenon by infiltrating my twitter feed, celebrities started posting photos of the monstrosity with tag lines like, "Sick in bed, but still have Mr. Grey to keep me company." Then it started to be mentioned on my Facebook, and according to my feed "4 people are now talking about 50 Shades of Grey." Soon enough, I'd switch on the television and there it was, that ugly grey windsor knot staring back at me. It had allegedly taken the world by storm and apparently what the world wanted was a good spanking.

Fifty Shades Of Ghey

I was in K-Mart one day when I saw the book piled high in what must have been a specialty 'sexy' display. Sheepish housewives milled around it with their drooling, toothless toddlers strapped into their shopping carts, staring in every direction but Mr Grey's. They were not so subtly waiting for an opportune time when no eyes were on them, to reach out and nonchalantly grab the novel in all it's titillating glory. I imagined they would smuggle it home in Coles shopping bags filled with dog food and Huggies and greedily indulge in the so-called erotic novel while their beer-bellied husbands were passed out next to them in an Emu Export induced coma. I couldn't help myself.  I had to see what all the fuss was about, why women were falling over themselves to read this kinky romance novel, plus it was only $10.

I immediately read it cover to cover. Now don't take that the wrong way, it was not because I was gaga over Grey, it was because I was waiting for the eroticism to begin, for something actually arousing to happen. After I begrudgingly finished it, the first thought I had was, how come this 21-year-old virgin can orgasm not only the first time she has sex (which apparently didn't hurt one incy-wincy bit) but can then go on to have multiple orgasms every-single-time? In the words of the late Nora Ephron, "I'll have what she's having." I don't know if it's just me, but the sex scenes within this "book" seem to last for approximately 1.5 minutes, which is why it made me assume at first that it was written by a man. So, we can assume that either Mr Grey is other-wordly good or Miss Steele is having some mechanical help that isn't mentioned (iVibe anyone?)

Images of monkeys sprang to mind, dressed in little bowler hats and polka-dot bow ties maniacally banging away at type writers with cigars dangling from their mouths and saying, "this is totally average and mediocre writing but there's enough "thrusting", "naughty but nice pain" and "biting of the lip" in there for a best seller."

E L Gibbon

In fear of this sounding like a book review I think I'll come to summation with this; Read it, or don't, either way you'll either be judged for your close-mindedness or your complete lack of literary taste.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Judgey

I feel there's two categories that you find yourself in upon hearing that one of your school friend/acquaintances is planning to marry:

1. "Oh wow, is just so lovely to see two young people connect spiritually in this materialistic and violent world," says the eternal optimist while padding barefoot around her earthen-tiled kitchen floor, preparing gluten-free vegan dishes for her dread-locked busker boyfriend.
2. "Oh wow, that's a train wreck waiting to happen," quips the single, hard-skinned, realistic, money-hungry, promotion chasing, barren workaholic.

JF lands very firmly in the latter. It's not that JF is against marriage completely, we just feel that unlike buying clothes at an 80% off sample sale, the decision of marriage is not one that should be rushed into.

Now excuse me while I put my glasses on and look down my nose at you.

JF's distant cousin Condescending Owl

Foxy fun fact 
Marriages in 2010:     approx. 120,000
Divorces in 2010:       approx.  51,000
Percentage:                              42.5%

If that last number (or the thought of looking at the same person's orgasm face for the rest of your life) isn't enough to put you off marriage, then I don't know what is.

You may think you lust love someone so much that you want to spend the rest of your life with them, but at 21/22, you probably don't. You probably don't even know what you want to be doing as a career, what political party you back or what style of clothing suits your figure best.  I believe humans weren't made to be monogamous, its not natural, but that doesn't mean to say that its not a rewarding and fulfilling endeavour if you choose the right partner and I just don't think we know who that is in the first two decades of our life.

JF in something blue on it's wedding day 2078

Girls get so caught up in the whole parochial childhood fantasy of the big white dress and the softly tousled hair blowing in the breeze that they forget what the whole point of marriage is (read: whole point of the first Sex and The City movie). My disdain for over the top, flamboyant and try-hard-status-making weddings is almost as large as the mountain of food on my plate from the self-service reception buffet. Obviously I'm joking, there'd be no self-service buffet at a 22-year-old's wedding, as the average 20-something barely earns over $50,000 the reception would most likely be held at Mc Donald's or something.

It's sad to see that the traditional, romantic concept of marriage has been grotesquely distorted and cheapened by this "young ignorant marriage phenomena".

If there are couples who make it, I would like to know who they are in 30 years time so they can watch me eat my hat.

P.S: There's probably a lot more to say on this issue but Judgey's eyebrows have been raised enough for one day.

Judging Me Judging You Ahaaa

Nanny Judge

There's been a series of stories lately that have literally made me want to facepalm and repeatedly smash my forehead into the nearest wall/desk/domesticated animal.

Canada, eh?
The first one I read a couple of days ago was about a Canadian man that had been arrested because his 4-year-old daughter drew a picture of a man holding a gun during her kindergarten art class. The Canadian father explained the drawing was supposed to him getting the monsters and bad men, the school didn't think so and rung the police and child protection. The police then arrested him without a warrant, ransacked his house, told his wife she had to go with him to the police station and their baby would have to go with a child services officer. Luckily Granny was around the corner to take care of baby Sundae (small facepalm here also due to name choice). So anyway, the man had all his rights violated, told to disrobe, bend over, lift ballsack etc etc and was then pressured into retroactively granting permission to the police to search his house.

The kicker in this story is that they did find a gun.

They found a plastic gun that shot soft foam darts. Face. Palm.

Wet az bro
The other story that caught my judging eye was about an English gent that was rescuing his plastic bag from a model boating lake in Hampshire when he had a seizure and fell in. Bearing in mind these pools are barely 3 1/2 feet deep, he was left in there for up to half an hour because fire-fighters and paramedics, who were all Brits that could swim (amazingly), didn't have the right "training" to go in and get him out. The first fire-fighting crew to arrive hadn't been trained in water higher than ankle-deep. Facepalm. They then decided that the man must be dead as he had been in the water face-down for 10 minutes. Then, when a policeman volunteered to go in and get him out, he was told not to. Facepalm.

I imagine that conversation to go something like this:

"I say Rumpole, what do you think about this poor chap? Quite the predicament he's in then aye?"
"Indubitably. One would have to say he's in appalling form, he's been bobbing up and down like a cork for almost 10 minutes Sarg."
"10 minutes you say? Dreadful situation. Surely he must've carked it by now then?
"Right you are Sarg."
"Jolly good show, I must say!"
"Shall I hop him and fetch him then?"
"Don't play the hero Rumpole! You'll get your knickerbockers wet. Wait for the coastguard."
"Oh yes, good point, fancy a cuppa?"

Let's go swimming! No! It's wet!

If you're interested, read the whole thing here including the $5000 a day paramedic helicopter that wasn't used. Faceypalmy.

What I want to know is when did everybody become so bloody scared? What happened to showing a bit of gall? If it's not parents bubble-wrapping their children, it's people leaving other people to die because they're too scared to violate the rules and regulations.

What happened to unbridled bravery and raw courage? Our grandparents lived in a time where you threw your body over your army-mate's to protect them from bomb blasts. Now we're too scared to get our socks wet? Actually, there's nothing I hate more in the world then wet socks, but I believe I could make an exception.

Sometimes, rules are so lame.

Trial by Judgement

This is a bloody good effort if I say so myself. I’m wearing biker boots, saggy jeans, maroon man jumper and military green homeless cat woman coat. Everything is two sizes too big. I have no makeup on and have been getting an average of five hours sleep. My hair is greasy, flat on top and tied in a spinster’s bun with bits sticking out and not in the cool yet casual kind of way. I am carrying an academic paper and a mechanical pencil. I have drawn the line at rolling in the dirt but the only thing I could do to make myself more unattractive would probably be to switch my boots for a pair of running shoes or Crocs.

Surely the only attention I could attract is from well-wishing charity workers?

I say a Hail Mary and walk in.

“Hi, I’d like two lamb kebabs, both with sour cream and one with chilli, thanks.”

“Ok, lamb kebab ... sour cream .. chilli... would you like anything else?”

“Yeah chips thanks.”

“OK chips ... thank you this is ... $18.80 ... where are you from?”

“Er, here?”

Surely...

“Yes but you have such a beautiful face it is not like Australian girl.”

“Yeah, I’m Chinese.”

“Ahah see I knew it! So many pretty China girls just like you, my friend Talik here loves China girls! Talik! Come here, don’t you love China girls ...”

Hatred.

Don't Judge The Bird, Judge The Worm

The Bird: Sometimes there's no other option

I enjoy going food shopping. I feel empowered being able to amble up and down each aisle, perusing the goods on offer, each one of them begging me to choose them. The bright packaging tantalising and taunting me saying, "If we look this good on the outside, imagine what we taste like on the inside".

Obviously, I end up buying the item that's the cheapest per 100g, but that's beside the point. I love to browse, the fundamental difference between a man and a woman is the love affair the latter has with browsing.

We like to pick random foodstuffs up, lazily read the label, run our eye over the nutritional content and say something like "Ooh this one has less carbs than our normal one", then proceed to pick up our usual brand, hold the two items side by side and look at them for longer then probably necessary. 9 times out of 10 we end up picking our regular item.

So you can imagine my irritation when the touched in the head monkey-woman Coles have hired to stack the shelves, drags her knuckles off the ground and pulls her cart full of re-stackables directly in front of the curry paste jars I was just about to move on to.

May or may not be an exaggeration

This woman, if you can call her that, has not only manoeuvered her trolley in between my cart and the shelves but has angled her ample frame directly in front of me.

Now, I'm on the small side of average height, so it's no feat for someone to be taller than me but this woman, this woman was huuuuuuuge.

Not only was I unable to reach out and gently caress random items, but I couldn't even see around this abominable snow-thing to lovingly sweep my gaze over the different sizes of pasta shells I probably wasn't going to buy anyway. It was an outrage!

I stand on my tippy toes and reach up to tap her on the shoulder and ask in my sweetest voice if she wouldn't mind moving over a little bit.

I get nothing. I try tapping again.

Suddenly the animal speaks, "Tell me whatcha want and I'll pass it to you," the thing grunted at me.

"But I'm not sure what I want, I'm browsing at the minute, so if you wouldn't mind..."

"Just let me know what you're ready love."

Well just where did this (wo)man get off, doesn't working in customer service mean she should be servicing the customer, i.e. me? She is cutting into my browsing time and my shopping buddy doesn't appreciate my browsing to begin with, I start to panic that I won't be able to fondle the different gnocchis when my worst nightmare was realised.

"Come on, let's go I've got shit to do."

My shopping mate is moving me on, this is worse then being moved on from the police, I beg them to permit me a few minutes more in case the bullpig finishes with this shelf and I can swoop in and stare.

Nope, they're not having any of it. We were on the move, I had no choice. Curses!

As we round the corner I turn back to look at the proverbial thorn in my side, she looks at me and smirks. What a ball of flubber.

Bitch. I flipped her the bird.

A Judgmental Letter To Isabel Lucas

Dear Issy,

I hope you are keeping well over there in Hollywood and not busying yourself too much with all those movies and commercials I've seen you in lately... 

None of your movies spring to mind that readily, to be honest, but I do have a shocking memory! I really (only remember) enjoyed that faintly disturbing commercial you did a while back about an Australian winery/resort, that meat looked rather tasty and I bet that cleansing/symbolic rebirthing bath was very refreshing and also must've left you quite refreshed!

(Note the difference between an event feeling refreshing and leaving you refreshed afterward i.e. a can of coke is refreshing but does not leave you refreshed. Learned that the hard way)

On the subject of bathing, I'm curious to know as to when it is that you will be taking one? I appreciate your style and the kind of look you're trying to achieve and in some communes in the middle of the country I'm sure there are many more who look quite similar. However, those hairy-armpitted greasy haired aging children of love most likely do not have access to running water let alone razors, shampoo and a revitalizing intensive hair treatment.

We Still Know That You Haven't Washed Your Hair All Summer

I understand that taking a shower/sitting in a warming massage chair at the hairdressers while you pay someone else to wash your hair can be tiresome but it's a price we have to pay to have clean hair - and by the looks of your do, I think we can safely assume your pockets are very small indeed.

Issy's Ideal Wash - What's Wrong With This Picture?

I strongly suggest you use that hefty cheque you received from that fantastic(?) commercial and bank roll a personal hygiene campaign, I've already started making plans and have thought of a catchy cause-name:

"Irrigate Issy"

I feel like you could ask some of your fancy famous friends to donate a few couple mil to the cause, if they are cold towards the idea of paying to hose you down and throw lice powder at you then we could put a different spin on it and convince them that they misunderstood the reference and its actually a charity to bring sprinkler systems to Istanbul. Tell them it's very dry there as it's in the middle of a desert and the water table is so low they are unable to tap into it. But Issy, under no circumstances are you to show them a map of Turkey.  

Anyway, keep up the good work of hanging off the arms of men who are 10000x more successful than you,

Love always

J.Fox

VULPES: a Judgee

I had a hard time getting on board with Captain Judgement’s skilful ripping of Tituba to shreds. It’s not because judging people on their clothing is shallow, superficial and unbecoming of a cultured fox. Because it’s not. It’s mostly because it’s hard for me to do and not feel like a Beyonce-ass sized hypocrite.

Irony: different from hypocrisy

For work I have to speak in front of my class court room, leaving me wide open to a lot of little judgey eyes. On this particular day, I was wearing jeans that let’s be honest, are a little bit tight on the rear.

Just so you know, I didn’t buy them small on purpose; I got them off the net and some misogynistic troll in Germany told me to order them two sizes down as apparently this brand of jean is made that way. In fact they’re exactly two sizes too small for me. Danke, wanker.

Anyway, on this particular morning I was late, there was nothing to wear, I put them on and left. Actually they look good and are quite slimming when pulled up properly (it’s very difficult and requires lying down and various leg-to-the-side movements).

At first everything’s fine since I’m sitting down. But come writing on the chalkboard time, I have a dilemma: the jeans have come down a bit, my crack isn’t showing, but they are definitely not at optimal hip height. The thing about jeans is that if worn at the correct height they can be as tight as you want but if not it's just poorly executed style (PES). Not quite Susannah trying on Trinny’s pants bad, more like that slightly too tight shorts boy from first year uni. (Nice guy, just slightly too tight!)They cut off your legs a bit, restricting your movement ... The whole thing’s really NAGL¹.

JUDGEE PROBLEM 1: Do I pull my jeans up so that they look better, or do I leave them as they are so as not to draw attention?

The following table illustrates the situation perfectly. You can see my ‘pay-off’ or shall we say ‘self esteem gain/loss’ depends on the type of people in the classroom and my own action.

	People in classroom
	Judging bitches	Non-judgemental
Pull up jean	-100	100
Don’t pull up jean	-50	0

Strategy 1: Don’t pull up jeans

If I don’t pull up my jeans and the classroom is full of nice, understanding girls who have no self-esteem issues and oblivious boys, nothing happens. I don’t look great, but they don’t care. My pay-off is zero.

If on the other hand, I'm teaching a classroom full of Captain Judas’s, I'm in trouble because apart from the aforementioned issues, the pants are sitting too low making the back pockets crease so it looks like I have a massive VUL². Which I don’t fyi, foxes don’t even wear underwear. Now not only do I look like shit, I’m misunderstood as someone who wears Spanx that aren’t even working. Self-esteem drop: -50.

Example: VULPES

Strategy 2: Do pull up jeans

This option results in the jeans looking better, but it’s complicated by the fact that the action of pulling your pants up when everyone is watching you is SABL³. Not only do you look uncultured and generally bogan, you’re also drawing attention to the problem at hand, thus revealing your insecurity.

If the class is miraculously filled with slightly too tight shorts boy type characters, then they’re not going to care about matters surrounding public decorum. I can pull up with no fear. Jeans look good. 100 self esteem points!

Of course it’s obvious what will happen if they are little judgers, they will hone in on the fact that my pants are slightly too tight, that I know about it and am uncomfortable about it, they will feel superior to me in every single way. Self esteem -100. I will require many packets of sesame snaps to get over this.

So, what’s a fox to do?

I’m not going to bore you with economics, but suffice to say if you actually applied game theory to the situation, (which I definitely did not do) there is no best option for me. Winning isn’t worth the chance of getting screwed but doing nothing doesn’t get me anywhere either.

So in the time honoured method of cornered foxes and teen girls on Maury, I went with option 3: ‘pretend not to give a fuck’. Tell myself I am above matters of the flesh, my mind is too brilliant to be concerned with such trivial issues. ‘She has a certain je ne sais quoi about her’, people will remark when unable to find the words to describe my casual, yet cool demeanour.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide how well that went and how many fucks I actually gave about my pants situation (the length of this post is in no way indicative of my caring). Anyway, the point is that at heart I will always be more Tituba and Slightly too tight shorts boy than Trinny or Susannah.

1. Not a good look
2. Visible underwear line (goes hand in hand with (1))
3. Such a bad look (common adjective for (2), often said in scornful agreement to someone pointing out (1))