Summer in the City

The skin where my thighs meet is a little sweaty, and I'm trying to minimise the tell-tell signs of the heat, as my face is bright red, and my cleavage a little shiny with perspiration.

These are the issues I worry about in the heat of summer, rushing back from a glorious lunch with the Acting Girls.

As usual, our conversation centred around the perils and adversity of dating in Sydney. A city of 6 million, in which I estimate 1.5 are men in their twenty-somethings. And yet, we are all still single.

Kate-Hudson-look-alike and Femme-Fatal-Wanna-Be and myself, a self confessed Wanna-Be-Hollywood-Starlet.

I'm really not sure what there will be left to talk about when we are eventually in relationships.

Kate-Hudson is sleeping with the same guy as four years ago when she was 20, although he is still with his live-in girlfriend. She is chasing a CK underwear model, (who is the hottest guy I literally have ever seen), and I wish I had the guts to tell her, he's just not that into you. And so each acting class and party and function and casting, where he is, she makes a complete and utter fool of herself. A stray cat has more of a chance of getting in CK's pants than she does unfortunately.

Femme-Fatal is gorgeous, just struggling, like all of us, in the dating arena. She has never had a boyfriend and is a walking monument to Man's stupidity. She recently asked out Body Builder from class via text, after 6 months of intense flirting and prolonged kissing scenes. He said he'd love too. But when she suggested dinner and a movie his response was I don't think my girlfriend would be to happy with that. Ah, you kidding me? WTF!

And then there's me. We already know the story. I can't get a break. BM has laid off the stalking, and I'm enjoying the break from avoiding phone calls, incessant texts, and church stalkings.

I watched these friends, who I was so dubious of in the beginning, so pleased to have found such delight in the darkness of a city crowded by the illusion of happiness and friendship. Sometimes the greatest friendships arise out of the least likely places.

More than once in the past month, have I been thankful for the guidance of Carrie Bradshaw and the ladies of Manhattan. They taught us how to date, who not to date, and that being single can be fabulous.

The Single Leppor

I experienced the single torture on Saturday night.
Friends, who are now linked to the Previous Friends I Used to Dine With Category of my social mind, shafted myself and 5 single girls to the end of a table.
Bek and I (who is factually the only friend I give permission to read...and is actually dating a 21st Century version of James Dean) arrived 20 minutes late, had Loz rearrange the table so we could sit with her, and spoke excitedly with the Birthday Girl over our outfits and shoes. In come couple number 31...and suddenly the perfect night is whisped up into a furry of seat shifting. I'm not sure if it was the Birthday Girl or Nick-The-Dick who I have had hideously disgusting experience with, that forced us from the table with our friends, in favour of couple #31. It doesn't really matter. Fact is, we were placed, at the end of the three tables of our 'closest friends' and their husband-boyfriends-fiances, with the other 3 late comer singles. And one by one, we realised we were the single table.

I guess in moments such as these when you want to through a Prima Donna tantrum and storm out like a Maria Carey, composure and cocktails and fake smiles are all you can do. And so we sipped out Martini's and Cosmo's flirted with the Black English Waiter and pretended we didn't want to leave, in favour of some 'single party' where 'poor single people' mingle.

And thus, my conclusion is, I dislike couples. I vow, never to be That Couple. To many friends are falling subject to that fate. Those who vowed they never would when we were single girls sharing Champers and Hot Tubs late at night. (Bek, for the record you are not in this category!)

I will be an inclusive couple. I will be friends with all the singles who feel like lepper's and aliens. The world is cruel to us socially deformed girls without a boy's arm or wallet for support.

Did Sex and the City teach us nothing?

Sex and the Sydney City

Some of us are trying to do work!

My desk sits at the bottom of the stairs, welcoming the predominately elderly as they arrive to visit the gallery and enjoy the café, designed specifically for the aging. While our office staff pass me by and I enjoy this relatively 'younger' crowd, there are moments in my day, between complaining members of the organization with their wasting-my-time phone calls, and long loud lunches of women catching up, that I want to run screaming. I work for a non-for-profit organisation, that looks after old heritage buildings and beautiful properties. As you can imagine, this draws on the heart strings of the above 70 crowd, with nothing to do but visit old gardens and make phone calls, complaining to me about the state of our City and the councils tyrannical reign, pulling down old buildings. Somehow, it always becomes my fault that there is to much development, or a property is not listed in the yellow pages, or someone hasn't received their bi-monthly newsletter. I mean seriously, do they realise I am at the bottom of the food chain?

Right now, I am trying to do media reports, reading about politics, answering phone calls, usually two or three at once, and listening by a bunch of 70 year old women visiting their old school, screaming like 15 year olds and carrying on! They spent 15 minutes trying to climb the stairs behind me, stood under the old school emblem, told me stories of the scary headmistress and won't seem to leave. Ah, hello, there are people running a business here!!!

In other news, I watched Sex and the City movie this morning. It always fills me with a sense of nostalgia, a sadness for growing old, this impending doom that it will happen, yet I know I will do it with my friends. I have a SATC group. We are literally one character each. R

Rachel is Samantha, her latest claim to fame is that she 'f*cked a guys brains out' in the front of a Catholic church next door to her uni the other night.

Kylie is Miranda, a hard working, tough little bitch. This friendship is a little on the rocks. She seems to resent me a little because I have other friends then her, and in a recent move to escape her life down here, she met and boy (a dick head if you ask me) and moved 7 hours north to the capital of Nowhere. She begs me to come and visit, and I decline. I'd rather soak my feet in horse poo then spend a night in Nowhere. Besides, I'm saving for my big OS adventure!

Chez is sweet Charlotte. Chez and I are the ones who at 17 decided not to have sex because every one else was, and to wait till our wedding nights. One little mistake on my behalf - oops - but she stands strong in her convictions. She's the sweetheart of our group. The driven PR agent who mediates between bitchiness and is still finding her voice.

I am Carrie. I'm not sure if its because I don't fit any other category, or because I often fall into the paradigm that the world revolves around me. I like to think it's because I'm the most fashion savvy, or the witty writer. What ever it is, I'm happy being Carrie. She stands for something great. Episode after episode revolving around being single. Finding Mr. Right. Or Mr. Big. The most heartbreaking moment in all of film - k maybe not all - was when Big left her at the alter. Did anyone else's heartbreak too?

I like to think of us girls as Sex in the Sydney City. We're catching up tonight. It's been about a month. In that time, Kylie is still in No Man's Land with her abusive boyfriend, Chez and Rach have finished degrees, moved to the city and started working full time, and I am rearranging my life big time. We will have sushi for dinner, and talk about politics and fashion, and pretend life isn't happening. We will meet our sexy men for Salsa dancing, and go home, no longer living 5 minutes from each other like we did when we were 16. We will act as if we are the girls who have just finished school, exited about the future and life starting.

Well it has started, and it has taken us by surprise. I want to grow old with these girls. I want to find myself on my 50th birthday, dressed head to toe in designer, looking "Fifty and Fabulous" and know I did life with my best friends.