Meeting THE parents

Eeeeek! This weekend is going to be an important one. The boy is coming to stay and meet my Mum and brother (Dad will be away) for the first time. He doesn't know this yet (but he will once he has read this), but I am getting super nervous... He is lovely and I'm sure my Mum will approve of him, but I feel more anxious about this visit than when I met his parents. That can't be right.

As making good first impressions goes, meeting the other half's parents must be the most pressured environment in which to introduce yourself. And it doesn't make it any easier when your family didn't approve of you having a boyfriend in the first place. Argh!

I know that I shouldn't expect us to become a model family in one weekend, but I can't help wishing that it all goes perfectly. Smiles, laughs, good times - all that Hallmark jazz. Essentially, I want us to be an advert for happy families! TOO MUCH PRESSURE. And it is all my own fault. I need to put this into perspective...

I want to marry this guy so there will be plenty of time for him to get to know my family. But I want them to like him and approve a marriage before the whole thing takes place. Vicious circle of nerves and wants and needs. And needless worrying. Do I really need to care if he doesn't automatically click with my Mum? She can be quite shy and guarded with new people so I shouldn't be surprised or worried. Besides, I know they will get on once they both put the nerves aside and are able to enjoy each other's company (she is worrying, too). I'm just not sure how long that will take. HURRY UP GUYS. Please?

All in all, I think there is too much social pressure on this single event. Films like Meet the Parents do not help either. Funny, but not reassuring. Will I be able to enjoy seeing him after three weeks or will I be preoccupied from the merriment by that idiot girl in my brain lying in wait for disaster?

Eeeeeeeeeeeek! Breathe. Phew. 

Soap Operas >dramatic pause< Gasp!

The soap opera: one genre of television programme to which I am not totally addicted. Well, that’s not entirely true. I do watch Hollyoaks (yes, the worst soap) every night, but that is more of a flat bonding exercise than an overwhelming addiction. Also, it is a soap that has such ludicrous storylines and such implausible characters that it makes you laugh rather than cry.

And that is my issue with more mainstream British soaps (Eastenders, Coronation Street, etc.). They are so inescapably depressing – I just cannot even begin to understand how someone can sit through all of that misery day in, day out, without going completely bonkers. For me, television is an escape from reality; I don’t want to be thrust into its infinitely drearier version!

Perhaps the main attraction to soaps can be explained by the TV phenomenon that henceforth will be known as: The Jeremy Kyle Principal. The main appeal of the soap opera (as well as the Jeremy Kyle show) is that regardless of any problem that you may have in life, you can count on the life of your favourite character being far more dismal. People always say, “you never know how good you’ve got it.” Well, you soon perk up about life once you tune in to the latest melodramatic tragedy that has bred havoc and devastation on the streets of the soaps.

Soaps can throw up some gripping storylines on occasion, but they often make the mistake of drawing plots out until the audience reach the point of desperate disinterest. There have been many times when I have shouted at the TV in an oddly apathetic rage “just tell him about the affair, you stupid woman!” Soaps can be enthralling, but they can quickly become frustratingly dull and monotonous. 

This is not helped when the writers are just as bored as we are, and the actors were hired because they know the producer’s husband’s nephew. I will not deny that there is some fantastic talent in the British soap industry (writers and actors), but unfortunately the genre is currently saturated with mediocre to subpar talent.

Just as I hope for at least one happy ending in my soap of choice, I do hope for a soap opera saviour to land and save us all from the sad state of British soaps. Why can’t our soaps be more like Latin American ones? With characters named after rival countries insulting each other, missing dogs names after wayward Presidents, and international law suits (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12198502)!

Long Distance Relationships

Three words that no one in a relationship wants to hear in the same sentence. They are the eerie calm before the storm, the raging fire before the smoke, the beginning of the end. They are my life. My name is Tanita... And I am in a long distance relationship (cue applause).

After only seven and a half months in the same town (as a couple), my boyfriend graduated and left me at University with a further two years on the clock. He lives around 300 miles away and leads a busy life as a trainee actuary. I have commitments in my small town to my degree and my part-time job. It has been almost eight months since we have been so far apart, but we are still going strong. How in the hell? Right?

I am not going to deny that the long distance thing has its challenges. Everyday that I am not able to hug him, hold his hand, or stroke his hair is a day that I resent. And the moments that we can catch together are always bittersweet. Regardless of how much I try to relish the time that we have in the same city, those words are always in the back of my mind – long distance relationship – taunting me with their unyielding power. We can have all of the fun in the world but at the end of it one of us has to leave. And no one can veil the sadness that comes with leaving the person you love alone on a train station platform… Every 2 to 3 weeks.

Me and my beau <3

But we go through all of that heartache because we love each other. There is a future here and we are not going to let three measly words jeopardise that. No one has ever made me feel so safe and loved within the same room, let alone from 300 miles away! Why would I let him go without a fight? And it is a fight. But we both put the effort in, and that is what counts: phone calls everyday, Skype video chats when it’s convenient, and even the odd handwritten letters. It is such a cliché, but communication really is the key. Just because you aren’t in the same town, doesn’t mean the rules change.

Agreeing to be in a long distance relationship is probably the dating world’s number one faux pas, and many (including myself, 8 months ago) would have you believe that it could never work out. After all, cynicism is the easy way out of an unavoidably arduous and heartbreaking situation. Love, though, is the easy way in.

I am in a long distance relationship with the love of my life and I wouldn’t change it for the world.