So just got back from breakfast, in a rather spectacular hotel in Porto Santo.
This has to be the happiest place on the planet.
People are actually walking around…smiling.
Like all of them.
You can tell the families that are newly arrived;
Still barking at their children
Still tottering around on high heels
Still queueing at customer relations to book trips and restaurants and babysitters,
and complain about inconsequential nonsense that they won´t care about in a couple of days.
Then after a couple of days they settle down,
and get into a new flow..
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I think on holiday you settle into the routine that you would naturally have in the wild.
And for me…shallow – maybe…
naughty – definitely…
I employ a Scoring System.
It works for most things
but on holiday
when you only get time for an instant snapshot
a first impression
It is a ´Couples Scoring System´.
Put simply:
You score each of a couple out of 10.
The perfect or imperfect 10.
And what immediately jarrs..
Is those more than 2 awry.
So an foxy 8/10 girl with a weedy, 4/10 bloke ..that seems weird.
And a 10 boy with a 3 girl…
Well – she is either spectacular at cooking
has serious and generous ´skills´
or earns a fortune…
but otherwise…my arrogant and limbic brain gives them 6 months.
(I know, I know…it is SO not about how you look)
And sometimes you talk to people…and you just KNOW!
Like they have this secret, laser beam connection, and it only takes a look, or a twitch of the eyebrow
and they don´t even need to start the sentence to have the other mentally finish it for them.
The Scoring System is just for fun
Try it.
Look at your mates
are there any that seem spectacularly wildly apart
on the scoring system?
It is only for fun – don´t shoot me ‘
and ignores everything I believe in…
but
well.. it seems to be fairly accurate.
But why is that?
Why is it we are predisposed to find that perfect person
who is just like us.
Not in every respect, but on balance
Our deficiencies – they fill in the gaps.
The bits we do better – they need help with.
How do we do that?
Pheremones?
Intuition?
On this holiday I have met some interesting people.
An older widowed couple who found love in their 70s.
They don’t want anything much but companionship
(and roodies too – they were keen to impress)
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A beautiful young couple called Charlie and Charley
who were so perfect together you could practically franchise them
and a delusional religious couple who were so fervent in their desire
to be perfect for each other that they ignored all indicators that they
were the diametric opposite.
6 months seems generous.
Then there were the cool 40s couple who quietly, coolly
and dryly just rocked each others worlds…
There’s someone for everyone – they say.
And past the excitement of initial attraction
(the main area the scoring system comes into play)
people with successful relationships seem to end up with someone
- just like themselves, or
- just who they need to fill in each other´s jigsaws.
(do you know – every which way I tried to phrase the sentence above…it still sounded faintly rude)
It occured to me that possibly; the epic, ‘like in books or films’, partnerships happen,
when people have both 1 AND 2.
So that might be a glorious, perfect ´love at first sight´ meeting of the minds and/or rude parts.
But maybe the happy ever after stories are written when slowly, over time,
people meld, and happily adjust, and unconsciously shift and become much more like their partner
– and naturally step up to fill in any gaps.
I heard a couple of ladies at the bar talking about their other halves the other night.
Ok I was earwigging.
I´m nosey – I won´t lie.
“Over 5 years we´ve been married, and he´s still SO messy.
Drives me mental.
He gets in from work, plays with the baby, (toys everywhere)
Gives her a bath (never empties it)
Leaves his clothes all over the place.
And when he helps me with the cooking – quite frankly its easier to do it myself
as he uses EVERY pot and pan in the house….
He was the same when I used to visit him at Uni.
I will change him, if it kills me”
“Have you ever talked to him about it?”
“No – I shouldn’t have to! He should see how annoying it is…
He´s too busy half the time running around with the baby
making a noise and getting her all excited before bedtime.
And he has the cheek to get irritated when I don´t want to go to the park
or swimming with the baby
because I am so knackered from sorting out our finances all weekend
he says I am not interested in family life.”
“Men, eh?”
“Yep – bloody men…”
«incidentally..he´s a 5 and she´s an 8
I could have saved them a lot of time if they´d asked for their scores early on.»
Only joking.
Half joking…
Problem there isn´t the score – but the fact that the ´changing´
wasn´t natural, or voluntary
or even mutually agreed upon,
so it damned well wasn´t going to happen.
Fun loving, great dad, bit of a messy boy
could be treasured by a less energetic parent as family entertainment officer.
And an organised mum who was good at bringing order, is the very person
that Captain Haphazard needs for keeping the whole family working smoothly.
These two are digging their heels in, and being RIGHT, and waiting for the other
to come round.
Unlike the old couple I mentioned earlier…
who sit together laughing all day.
I watched when he got up for the loo
he calls it “visiting the office”
(HILARIOUS I love him)
And she fetched a cushion while he was gone to go behind his back
(his neck gets a bit achey this time of night without a cushion)
and when he got back, he´d found a passage in his book
that he knew would make her laugh.
He didn´t remark on the cushion…but said in a thick Cockney accent
“ooh this chair feels ´ANDSOME”
and kissed her on the cheek,
and they both fell about about the passage in the book.
Charley and Charlie I´ll tell you about another day.
They are Cool.
But the religious couple….
I want to get a run at that one.
That could be a whole series.
Talking of running – I appear to have taken it up since I´ve been away.
Despite saying I never would!!
A beach full of partially clad people will motivate a girl nicely, like that.
Ooh and I have recorded a 5 minute beach workout..
(The eagle eyed among you will see child #3 wade into the sea behind me at 4min 23sec
and the shadows af 2 topless Portugese people walk past at 2min 11sec
I was too knackered and sandy to re-record it…)
Will get that online when I get back to Blighty on Tuesday.
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CLICK===>>> FITCAMP <<<===
In the meantime I know everyone is as desperate as I am
to get back to FitCamp.
It starts on Monday 6:30am
I have quite a lot of All-Inclusive food to burn off.
Wanna join us?
New system this time,
Different exercises for complete beginners
regular exercisers
and FitCamp fanatics.
Something for everyone.
(Like an All-Inclusive buffet.
But if makes you hotter, not fatter!)