The Dreaded Unfollow

There's some rather childish stuff going on in the world of Facebook at the moment. Shock, horror! Facebookians being childish?! Well I never.

As a result I don't really go on my private account very much and have limited what most people can see. And yes, I'm aware of just how counter productive that sounds considering I put my whole life on a blog. But I reserve the right to be contradictory mmkay?

Instead I spend all my time on Twitter. It's way better. Don't ask me about Google+ just yet, I've only been on there twice.

Ding ding!

Yes it's confusing when you start, but right when you get over the whole "I'm talking to myself" thing is when someone will actually start talking back and, hey presto, you've got some new mates.

The difference between the two, for me, is that it all comes down to The Dreaded Unfollow! You Facebookians would know it as The Dreaded De-Friend! Dun dun duuuuuun.

You see, when you're on Facebook you go about your merry way and your friends list stays the same unless you go in and manually remove someone (or they remove you...). With Twitter though, there is random unfollows.

It's like Twitter goes premenstrual and just ditches some of your best mates without asking you and then demands a kilo block of chocolate and a Drew Barrymore flick.

Now even though everyone knows this happens, I still get that sinking feeling every time it's brought to my attention with a "I tried to DM you but you're not following me..." Always with the ellipses, like it's just hanging there waiting for the YOU BITCH I'M NEVER TALKING TO YOU AGAIN to be tacked on the end.

My head starts to spin: They'll think I don't like them! Will they now unfollow me now? Have I offended them? OMG they're gonna think I'm a snobby cow! Noooo!

Oh the shame! What happens next is a quick dance of re-following, public damning of twitter and assuring said person that it was definitely just a glitch in the matrix system.

All the time knowing that when it happens the other way around, yes I do wonder what happened, then shrug my shoulders and think mah, it's the internet, real life is what matters.

Do you panic when you've found yourself victim of The Dreaded Unfollow/De-Friend?

He Did What!? Wednesday - By Not Tonight Dear

The Great Back Flip Fail of 2004 - By Not Tonight Dear

It took my husband quite a few years to learn the art of gift giving. Meaning that he had to learn to buy something for someone regardless of whether he liked or approved of it. You see for the first possibly ten years of our relationship, the only things I would receive (or anyone else for that matter) were things that he felt were gift worthy. If he didn't like what you suggested, you didn't get it. It really was that simple. For the record I have nagged him enough things have changed a lot around here but for now let's go back to the days of only buying stuff he liked or saw a need for, m'kay?

Turns out I should have been a little wary when he agreed to me wanting to buy our one year old a trampoline for her birthday. It turned out that his idea and my idea of a trampoline were at slightly differing ends of the trampolining scale. He decided that if we were going to buy a trampoline, we were going big. His arguments for the purchase included the fact that it's weight limit was 150kg, you know, so that more than one child could get on at once. How many one year olds does it take to get to 150kg and do we want that many children on there at once anyway? Without a net?

Anyway, the day came that said trampoline arrived - and managed to take up the majority of our back yard - and, of course, said one year old was ecstatic. No birthday present for the big Number 1 fail here. She could run laps on that thing. And she did.

Fast forward to a couple of days later when our one year old wanted to jump on HER trampoline but was ordered to stay inside with Mummy while Daddy did some "exercise". I'm sure you can imagine how impressed I was that he was outside while I was indoors with the screaming kid who was not buying the argument offered from her dad. I can still remember seeing her staring out the back door pining for "just one jump".

About 15 minutes later while on the phone to a friend I hear him call me. And call me. And call me. I was already slightly annoyed that he wouldn't let our little girl on her trampoline so when he called me for the fourth or fifth time I stormed out to the back yard and (use your imagination on the amount of expletives that may or may not have been uttered) asked him what the problem was.

Seems he had fallen off the trampoline and smashed his shin open. To the bone. And needed to go the hospital for stitches. When questioned on whether it was a result of him trying to do back flip after back flip he adamantly denied that this was how it happened. Still angry with him, I called our nearest A&E to enquire on the wait time. An hour. "Great," I said. "I'll send him with a book." He bandaged his leg - he was in luck because it was his left one so not required whilst driving. Did I mention there was not an ounce of sympathy being handed out? - and headed off to the hospital.

Turns out the dickhead my darling husband had not fallen off the trampoline whilst attempting his gazillionth back flip but fell off because he was dizzy! Although I'm pretty sure he wasn't dizzy from doing laps on it. You?

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Tanya is many things: Wife, mother, counsellor, mediator, financier, secretary, nurse, chauffeur, teacher, chief "cuggle" giver and blogger at Not Tonight Dear (best blog name ever!).

She has been blogging since 2005!!! Yes, you read that correctly! 

Her husband and her three gorgeous girls have just welcomed a new member to their family... no, not a baby, a super adorable puppy with an usual but really cool name.

You can join the Not Tonight Dear fanpage on Facebook and follow Tanya on Twitter.

Next week: Life With A Fussy Eater dishes the dirt on her own kind!

Send your S/He Did What!? submission to Glowless@wheresmyglow.com
(You don't have to be a blogger, or even to ask first, just send it in!)

Gender Stereotyping: Too Cute To Be A Boy?

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook (wait, what? You don't, go do it now!) you would have seen me say:

"Today at the shops the bag-check woman fussed over Tricky then said "You're too cute to be a boy" - Gender stereotyping now at a Kmart near you!"

Most people assumed I was saying that he had been mistaken for a girl and I was upset. She knew he was a boy because she'd already asked his name (quite possibly to figure out that very fact). I don't care when he gets mistaken for a girl, it honestly doesn't bother me... it has happened a few times, even after people have asked his name, because it sounds very similar to a girl's name.

Now I won't lie, a little part of me immediately swells with pride because my genetic material is partly responsible for creating a child who has been deemed 'attractive'. I will use his cuteness as proof that there is good in me somewhere.

But the rest of me, a much larger portion, is a little sad that even at age one he can't escape gender stereotyping. Society is already telling him how he should look and how he should act in order to be a boy. It's a little tiny pigeon hole that potentially takes away a lot of great experiences for him.

A few people on Twitter realized what I was saying and joined in with stories of friends/strangers/family members saying annoying, gender stereotyping comments. The ones that made me cringe the most were hearing that Tattoo Mummy's boy should get a haircut because only girls have blonde curls, and  Cloud Love Baby who was told "with a squeal like that, he should've been a girl". Really? Boys don't have blonde curls? They can't squeal?

Well he is cute...

Map Guy and I were quite conscious of not buying gendered toys for Tricky, even though we knew he was a boy from his anatomy scan. We instead focused on bright coloured toys, blocks and books, LOTS OF BOOKS!

When he did receive a 'boy toy' car as a gift, I felt I should even it up a bit and brought out one of my dolls. He plays with them equally and I love it; making vroom vroom noises with the car then hugging his dolly. He is developing in to a sweet little boy who is rough and adventurous sometimes, coy and cuddly at others.

I'm not the first to talk about gender stereotyping, not by a long shot, but I hadn't yet experienced the effects of it myself until yesterday, and it just makes me more focussed on assuring that Tricky grows up to be who he wants to be, not who society tells him to be.

I will do everything in my power to make sure he has a balanced view on the world and doesn't learn that there are things just for boys or just for girls. At least not from me.

Do your kids have gender neutral toys? All toys?  Do you mind when they get mistaken for the opposite sex?

Service, Or Lack Thereof

See my pants? They're cranky pants! The latest trend.

I never dared be rude to anyone when I was doing paid work; my parents instilled in me a strong work ethic and basic manners. If I was having a bad day, not one of my clients would have known. I might bitch to my colleagues at lunch time but a paying client gets treated like they are my only concern in the world while they're there.

If you are in a customer service role (or any role for that matter, but not a sausage roll) you represent a company... whether you're wearing a uniform or not, behind a til, schmoozing corporate big wigs, serving food, whatever, you are doing it in their name. You are being PAID to be nice... it's not that hard!


This week I had a run in with customer service dude who, had me spouting "Back in my day" and tutting in my head, like the fuddy duddy that I am.

I went to the toy sales to buy a trike for Tricky. I like to call it a trikey. Anyway, there were rows and rows of toys and I couldn't find the one I was after but then I spied a little catalogue that had all the bigger items in it with their barcodes. Across the front it said something along the lines of "No need to bring bulky items to layby, just bring this catalogue'. So I did.

The girl rolled her eyes at me and said she'd have to call someone to go get it because she couldn't sell me something from a catalogue. Right, even though it says it on the cover? Fine, call someone, I'll wait.

So a guy called Scott turned up and when asked if there were any in stock he moaned "Yeah, up the front. Heaps of 'em" then audibly sighed when asked to go get it. So sorry, to put you out, Scottie, were you busy scuffing your shoes along the aisles?

My rather condescending "Mate, I'm just doing what you're own catalogue says to do" was met with a shrug and and he went to get the WRONG ONE. The girl tried to assure me was the right one while the lovely Scott buggered off to do something important, like skulk around the menswear section where no one would see.

I might not be the smartest person in the world but I'm pretty sure I can tell the difference between a pink bike and a green bike. I couldn't be bothered arguing anymore so just put down my deposit and figured I would exchange it when I picked it up later.

As I walked out of the store the loudspeaker boomed "Scott back to lay by please, Scott". Yeah, you bastards, I told you it was the wrong one.


Do go around tutting in your head at the lack of customer service? Can you spot the difference in the picture?

A thief, a dobber, a trouble maker and a whinger

On Thursday night I ditched parenting duties to go to a fancy pants wine and whiskey tasting "Twitterati Party". Say that three times fast. Go on, I'll wait... it's cool, right?

The party was hosted by Jason Jordan at the Inglewood Hotel to celebrate/commiserate the end of financial year. As someone with zero taxable income, EOFY means bugger all to me, but hey, if you're going to put on the wine and whiskey, I'll come to your party.

I got tickets to the event after getting a text message from Georgia of Parental Parody fame a few weeks ago which said "FREE WINE TASTING THING ON TWITTER... DO IT NOOOOOW!" or words to that affect. So it was only right that I picked her up on the way there. And by I, I of course mean Map Guy.

There was some slight stalling whilst getting my boobs out in the carpark to feed a rather vocal and cranky pants Tricky (what, like you've never gotten your boobs out in the poorly lit, slightly dingy back carpark of a pub), then it was time to make our entrance. We headed in and tried to find where the gig was; Georgia noticed people with their heads buried in their phones... I noticed the wine table.

We gravitated towards it and started sampling the massive range of four bottles. The guy doing the pouring was trying to tell me all about "this one which is a little bit older and little more full bodied" to which I replied "Well so am I, so I'll have that one". He gave me half a sip. Surely my predictable quip deserved at least half a glass?

It didn't taste like battery acid so of course, I wanted some more. He was busy serving and chatting to other people so I just helped myself.

Luckily the guy didn't see me do it because a few other guests told me (whilst I was half way through the drink) that apparently, only the taste was free, you had to pay for the drinks.

I went back and checked and there it was, written in chicken scratch on a scrap of paper "glass $8". Stingey bastards! I don't go to a free wine party to pay for my drinks, it's part of the zero income thing I've got going on.


So I guess I am a thief.

I planned to stand behind Georgia and Adam from TweetPerth if anyone said anything. Safety in numbers and all that jazz.

Screw it. On to the cocktails.

Then I met Jason, and being the fantastic, grateful and slightly drunk person that I am, I complained about mentioned my surprise at the lack of free drinks and offered myself up as the criminal tweep who stole a glass.


Now I'm a dobber, of both myself and the establishment.

He said he had no idea it wasn't free, and from the look of shock on his face, I'm inclined to believe him. When handing out the door prizes he announced to the room (jokingly) that I was a trouble maker... at least he didn't say what everyone else was thinking; that I was a lush who was just after free drinks (they were right, by the way).


Now I'm a thief, a dobber and a trouble maker, are you keeping up?

Anyway, there were some fab photos taken by this guy Karl, who I was eyeing off for a while doing that whole 'Do I know him? I think I know him? It's definitely him' dance in my head. Karl and I used to be friends, we got drunk once and got kicked out of a club together about eight years ago on Christmas Eve. Good times.

He took some nice photos, and I'm unsurprisingly holding a wine glass or cocktail glass in all of them.

Cocktail glass, hidden cocktail glass but peace sign, wine glass

'Twas a fun night of catching up with my Twitter pals and I was home by 10pm thanks to #1 Hubby giving me a lift home while I ranted in the back seat wondering just how much I could drunkenly say in front of a very worldly five year old.

Oh, and just quietly, there was no damn whiskey. Now I'm a thief, a dobber, a trouble maker and a whinger.

Do you celebrate/commiserate EOFY? Or not give a toss?