The SMH reports that Wal-mart has dealt a blow to the lovelorn:
Wal-Mart has halted a program at one of its stores in Virginia to help single shoppers find love in its aisles, Associated Press reports.
Taking a cue from Wal-Mart stores in Germany, customers were encouraged to place a red bow on their shopping cart on Friday evenings to advertise their availability. “Flirt points” were set up around the store.
Customer Dale Firebaugh, 63, who had hoped to meet his match, said he was disappointed at the decision. “Where can someone over 40 who doesn’t smoke or drink or go to bars meet someone?”
Just before I moved to the US in 1996, I read Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City and was amused at the reaction of new to towners in San Francisco who were shocked to find that supermarkets and laundrettes were pick up joints.
In the new millennium, Brisvegas is home to persistent urban myths about a Coles suspiciously close to Mark’s place where singles purportedly position bananas strategically in their trollies to signal availablility (and whether they’re into lerve or a bonk) and boys buy cat food (though they own no cat) and roma tomatoes (destined to rot in their fridges) to prove to that special chick in the checkout line that they’re snaggy.
I must admit my local Woolies at Bulimba, though I’ve observed no such deliberate dating behaviour, is becoming increasingly glammed up. Woe to the urbanette who goes shopping in her old trackies and uggies these cold winter nights.
Quite seriously, what’s wrong with meeting the love of your life, or the lust of one night, at a supermarket?
I mean, for a lot of us (not “all of us”), Methodist dances where John met Janette, arranged marriages, and the local Rotary Club nosh-up no longer cut it. We have online dating, sms flirt, speed dating, and workplaces with formal policies on office romances. In America, there are dedicated dating sites for Republicans (tagline: “sweethearts not bleeding hearts”), Catholic singles (helpfully, you can browse by diocese), incredibly fabulous and funky New Yorksters, lesbians who don’t look like any I’ve ever known and disabled folk. That’s of course to mention the less MA-rated options.
Where do you go to find a partner in the late modern world?
If I wanted a partner, the blog would seem an ideal place for the pitch. I have always linked to
http://supermodelpersonals.blogspot.com/
and that’s how I would do it.
‘crabby aged ex-mod, hippie, punk with arthritis and a bad attitude, no longer wishes to provide lunch lust and laundry for any male, but very occasionally would like to share conversationally, the appreciation of various and divers performing arts. on the other hand, life is soooooooo much simpler alone.
Trailer-park, meth whore, just out of jail for beating up my baby’s daddy, needs it NOW.
You too can be a part of my downward spiral, and genuinely sick lifestyle.
I’m looking for someone to go shoplifting with, and to accompany me to court appearances, and appointments with my probation officer.
There’s a slight chance I will be confined to the house soon by an electronic bracelet, but that just means I’ll have more time for lovin’, baby.
I read this the other day and thought it was odd.
Specifically when they talked about Hardware megastores as a place to meet a handyman? Hmm - I think I’ve only ever met gentlemen in the seniors age bracket at Bunnings among the herbacide.
(Then again our musical taste might be similar.)
Actually I had a better track record among the retro seekers at the mega opshop. (You can browse for hours reading odd books and there are comfortable chairs.) And walking the dog - although that may be getting to be as big an urban myth as the Coles Banana Strategy.
Brownie, I reckon you could make some dosh writing personals ads!
Boynton, where’s the mega opshop? It sounds fab!
ps - Prisoner personals are big in The States too.
Even though basically it was a teethachingly cute flick, “4 Weddings and A Funeral” did make the point that libidos tend to blossom and flow during social theatre pieces like community hitching and ditching rituals - and where yer also dressed up to look real good while the booze flows like wine and you meet new people through semi-vouchable family and friends networks.
’specially wakes which are rilly good for reminding members of the opposite sex that all parties concerned are equipped to keep life going one. I’m certainly looking forward to more mates dying so I can get my leg over. And vice-versa I hope. “In the midst of death, there is life, etc, etc…”
My first response is that you have absolutely got to be kidding, but I guess it makes sense. It is a bit sad to see Walmart cashing in though, but I guess all companies already do that on V-day.
Perhaps I should buy some bananas.
Heheehe.
Yes, weddings and wakes. If you cant score, it must have been yours.
Not single these days, but IMHO the best bet is always cultivating friend networks and making an active effort to keep up with them. Someone always knows someone, who knows someone.
Except in Brisbane, where, bacteriologically, everyone has slept with everyone already.
Seems to me gravatars are the blog equivalent of the banana in the trolley. Lets people know that, since you’re about and commenting, you’re in the mood either for a stoush™ or something more. Of course on recent threads we know all about that.
Get yourselves some images, all you gravatar-deficient commenters.
Kim - You forgot the Objectivists Ayn Rand Dating page.
I notice that, jess of Launceston, Tasmania is number 3 on the newest 10 females advertising.
Liam that would require effort :p
I once sort of shared a house with a guy who if he was unpartnered that week would take a book down to the Botanical Gardens and without fail he picked up everytime. Seemed a bit weird to me but he had the stats to back him up. I saw them when he bought them home. They were all v. attractive (bookish) women. He wasn’t anything to write home about in the looks deprtament or the personality area either.
Actually I had a better track record among the retro seekers at the mega opshop.
So you are the retro they are seeking?
FXH, I’m guessing there isn’t much to do in Launceston.
And bands/multimedia projects. Even though I’m a plumpish solid citizen, halfway to my use by date by some yardsticks, I still dabble in arty-farty performance stuff, and yes being on stage still pulls the chicks. Anyone still pretending to be domesticated after 40 when they don’t have to be is basically born, and will die, one boring mofo.
Now I hafta go and fool around with AV samples from Barbarella, Donald Rumsfeld, Zulu and Tarzan’s New York Adventure.
” A good many dramatic unknown unknows begin with tribal chanting in New York.”
Kim - it was the “Salvation Thrift Emporium” in inner city Melb that I lived near for years and years. It’s since changed its feel from Emporium to Store - but still mega.
Looking back, I don’t think I was ever kool enough to be considered retro, FXH. (Mr FX Holden himself) Kitsch maybe.
Even though I’m a plumpish solid citizen, halfway to my use by date by some yardsticks, I still dabble in arty-farty performance stuff, and yes being on stage still pulls the chicks.
And snores like a foghorn.
There should be more emporia, Boynton. Then jesses from Launceston wouldn’t have to turn to Ayn Rand for solace.
“And snores like a foghorn.”
Hey, once I fall asleep it’s someone else’s problem.
(cs, did you get the email I sent to the backpages email address? If not, contact the Fluteman for details)
Hey, once I fall asleep it’s someone else’s problem.
Better than an alarm clock, as the brain cells kick in.
(No Nabs … and what? The Flutester is holding out? Noted.)
Rise from you slumber,
in unvanquishable number,
Shake you chain to earth like dew,
that in sleep had fallen on you
ye are many, they are few.
Bugger, didnt work. All gravitas and no gravatar.
It’s got to be moderated first, LE. It’s not like some suburban supermarket or Carry On film.
It’ll take a few days, Lefty E. They have to be given a rating as to how family-suitable or pornographic they are.
Oh, its being ‘rated’. Here’s hoping for a conceded pass.
Who will be first to go for a bunch of bananas as a gravatar, given Liam’s earlier comment?
That’d either be a [G] rated gravatar, or an [R], depending on the postmodernism of the raters.
Is an upraised banana simply a text?
A sign rather than a text?
Btw - upturned bunch in the tray at the top of the trolley means “young single hottie looking for lerve” and downturned bunch means “young single hottie looking for sincere relationship”. Just in case Nic is serious.
To clarify, lerve in this instance signifies lovin’.
Oh, ok.
Well, in the mass democratic spirit of blogdom - which obviously I abhor as an elitist - I picked this one. I believe it captures l’ eau de elite gauche.
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/p/phillips/
Very suitable, Lefty E.
Why, thank you Kim. I believe my views on your gravvy were stated drunkenly some weeks ago … and I stand by them sober!
Thank you, Lefty E! Merlot-less Monday, hey?
Those’ll be the lefty elite waters you’ll be passing through your kidneys onto RWDBs, right?
On the said Coles, I’ve found the careful pondering of which colour chilli to select is an informal “flirt point” to use Wal-Mart’s term.
Indeed Liam. I call it the trickle-down effect.
Sadly, yes Kim - had a lecture to write for tomorrow. Merlot is my muse, not my plough.
Or something….
Happy Byronic roving in the arms of academe, Lefty E!
Or something….
Night!
Ok Kim night!
shake your chains to earth like dew!
Neutral Bay Woolies in Sydney was meant to have the banana set-up too, about 10 years ago. This was sufficiently persistent that it made the light-n-fluffy section of SMH a few times (in the wired era, this corresponds to the right hand sidebar), so it probably started happening then even if prior to that there had just been false rumours.
I’ve had a few conference romances, Naomi. But they were all people from other cities so nothing ongoing transpired. The sexiness of the academic colloquuy!
I always found the supermarket to be a winner - with or without bananas.
Naomi, it’s good that you found your opposite at a history conference. It must have been a pretty amazing coincidence for two of you youngsters to have been there together.
The idea of hooking up at most of the history conferences I’ve been to creeps me out. [shudder]
Nice story Naomi.
I met Mr. Kate at the Newtown RSL. At an Alex Lloyd gig, back when he was actually OK. Alex Lloyd that is, not Mr. Kate, who has always been much better than OK. There were no bananas involved. He impressed me by mentioning a book he was reading (can’t remember which book though).
Has anyone actually met a prospective amour at the shops? Or a bookstore? Or a cafe? I’ve only ever met boys at drinking establishments.
I know quite a few couples who’ve hooked up through the Labor Party. Some last but mostly they’re very combative relationships.
Liam, I can imagine…
or maybe just the desire to escape it and do something interesting - like have dinner and sex!
Yeah, that too!
Young sociologists are always sexy of course.
The weirdest student pollie relationships were always those between Young Labor types and Liberals. I can’t think of any that lasted. But they were probably less combative than Laborites together because they no doubt had to lay down ground rules about arguing over politics.
Kate, I have massive crushes on several bookshop employees. Does that count?
Also John Della Bosca and Belinda Neal. A match made in Sussex Street.
Ewwwww. I just started thinking about Latho sowing his “wild oats” when he decided he wanted an “open marriage”.
I met one Ms Luke at a Labor function - the WA election win. She was on the bar at the time, so we had ample opportunity to chat…turned out she was a Liberal voter though. Still, it lasted long enough to have a few good stoushes on the subject.
I did date a Southern Baptist Republican girl from South Carolina for a year though….hmmmm, that’ll teach me to pick up at university outside the archaelogy department.
Is there a good way to meet fellow Popper fans with a view to lerve?
Popper?
Was she studying archaeology to find evidence for biblical events etc, Luke?
Since we’re talking about the AFP in another post, one of my exes now works for the AFP (met him at the pub too).
This frightens me somewhat, not personally, but in a “I can’t believe he’s in the police force” kinda way.
Evidence? Factual support for Southern Baptist beliefs? You must be joking Mark.
I did always have fun needling her about working on 12,000 year old archaeological sites, in an Earth that was only created 7,000 years ago.
Liam, duh, God put all that stuff there to test our faith, doncha know? There’s nothing inconsistent about it.
I was thinking of all those “we’ve found Noah’s Ark” type claims, Luke.
I did once point out that it was a bit hard for the world be created in 7 literal days, as the sun isn’t created until the fourth….she wasn’t a big fan of that line of questioning.
Just imagine if I’d gotten started on old Ponitfex Maximus….she would have said I was of the devil.
(*shudders*) Mark, please.. people are trying to discuss romance here….
I first saw Ms Elitist while playing in my band. I spied her gorgeous self from the stage - she was with some other guy at the time - but I decided then and there she must and will be mine!
So, outrageouisly, mid-song, I started declaring in Spanish that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever espied.
This was translated, unbeknownst to me, by her Colombian friend. And the rest is history.
Now we have a pretty little daughter. Borne of Spanish and song.
I meant Luke of course. Me lern how tu reed won dae.
Spanish and song? Geez, that knocks me into a cocked hat.
All I have in the romance department is a take of whiskey, poor lighting and a lecherously raised right eyebrow.
Luke, try this:
Que Lindo Liam…
Or try this rather more direct approach:
‘Yo quiero mirar en tus ojos para siempre…..’
Or try Latho’s open marriage line:
“wanna climb the ladder of opportunity, baby?”
Ewwwww. I just don’t like to think of Latho as a sexual being.
I prefer Los Panchos, LE. Only the best South American cheese.
I have some spanish: I don’t know how it is written but you say it: besse me mucho senor compacion esta noche. I like to get straight to the point.
It hasn’t worked yet. I have nothing to contribute to this thread. Nothing.
I know…. apologies..
And forget I ever said ‘John and Janette in the pool room at yarralumla’.
Times like these you miss Hawkie, really.
Amanda, that line should work nicely, keep trying it. Reminds me of the Spanish version of ABBA’s Gimme Gimme Gimme A Man After Midnight:
Which is needless to say much more direct than the English.
Amo, amas, amat.
Latin love sonnets, anyone?
Nunc est bibendum.
I met my husbang in the shed. Most convenient.
One of my least successful non-pickup lines was at cocktail party.
I picked up a nibbly and said ‘Small savoury pastry to bed with me tonight?’
She looked at me askance. [which was a bit saucy]
I explained “Volo-von cooshay avec moi, ses wa?” [for some reason in a Sean Connery accent]
See? Wit!
Unfortunately with a f#$@ in front. Yeah I know.
“I met my husbang in the shed. Most convenient.”
Well, it is nice to have all the tools in one place, Zoe.
Oh. That’s right - you said he was bigger than me. Damn.
That’s terrible, harry. A pun worthy of Homercles.
I’m was pretty sure that the banana pulling technique was a gay thing. It was only on Wednesday. My next door neighbour is raving queen and Coles NF used to be one of his favourite places to pull.
Agree with FX’s comment about reading a book but it is all about positioning and of course not sounding like a donkey.
Q: What are you reading?
A: A book?
Q: How is it it?
A: Not very good
Q: *walks off*
I met my wife at a party to farewell a mutual friend of ours. We talked for about five hours straight. I would have met her anyway that weekend at a sports training session, but it would have taken longer for things to get going. The main sport that I play is often played with Men and Women on the same team, so there are always quite a few hetero couples around the place. Definitely some female couples too. The male ones are probably there, as I know gay blokes who play, but never met any who were out and with someone who also played.
Naomi, I dare say you are right!
Russell, NF Coles is a lot straighter than it once was.
I found once or twice that having been born in the same year and having similar recollections of 80s/early 90s clubs and bands was a great conversation starter at a bar. And as Lefty E points out above, Brisvegas is the town of half a degree of separation, so it soon snowballs into “ah, she’s my cousin’s ex-flatmate’s boss now”! Ah, love in a northern town (bad 80s song reference).
I got better.
I don’t know that I seriously thought I was going to pick up with the lines, but they were too good not to say. And if she had leapt into my arms, she would have been, by definition, the most wonderful woman in the world. QED.
There was the ‘It’s not easy to say this but Gzrnmblmpht.’ Didn’t work at all. [Tripod used the same joke several years later, which shows that genius is occasionally not unique.]
Oh, and Spanish doesn’t always work. Two mates and I dressed up as Mexicans and serenaded a girl I was keen on on the stairs of Women’s College. Two guitars that they could do the ‘dum dadadun dadadun’ thingo on, and a bugle that I couldn’t play. None of us spoke Spanish so we used lots of ‘enchilada’ ‘hasta hwella innuedno’ faux spanish etc.
It rhymed.
Apparently we were quite loud.
It didn’t work.
She just looked confused and then I borrowed her biology notes.
Funnily enough, a year later one of my compadres of that evening was at Manning bar and chatting to a resident of Women’s College about mutual friends, who then apropos to nothing, mentioned some crap serenade done by dodgy Mexicans the year before.
My friend admitted ‘Yeah, that was me and some friends.’
See? Fame!
“Argh, Harry! what other non-pick up lines do you have.”
Naomi, now I just rely on having a refined, elegant dinner party as described here: http://forbattle.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_forbattle_archive.html The post entitled ‘The Morning After or With friends like this, who needs to order-in a drunk idiot who puts their bum on your head?’ [sorry for the scrolling].
“Ah, love in a northern town (bad 80s song reference). ”
Yeah, but the DreamFactory were singing about a horrible wasteland that no-one would really like to go to and… oh. Right.
Well brainy fecund gals I have some slightly bad news for you here
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=56345
It gets worse if you’re a lefty brainy fecund gal cos you can forget migrating to Noo Zulland, you really need to migrate to…..Gulp!
Where are all the men like Husserl gone?
In other pop sociology news, young women are adopting strange role model:
Like. Whatever.
That’s stupid. The only ‘young women’ I know who adopt Paris Hilton as a role model are vacuous 14 year olds who aren’t old enough to know better. And I don’t think it’s her they’re emulating but rather the life of someone who’s so rich they don’t have to face any of the consequences of their stupid, delinquent behaviour.
Gah. I really resent that implication. Most of my friends around my age would prefer to have Scarlett Johanssen as a role model, if you have to pick a celibritay. Or Angelina Jolie at a stretch, even though she’s kinda scary, but at least she gives a damn.
My young female role-models are all knitters, so there you go.
Amanda, help? You’re a young woman too! Back me up here?
And as for the man drought… Mark, you’re not just a person anymore, you’re a commodity!
Scarlett Johanssen is wonderful.
The article bases most of its evidence on BB! But it’s typical - I should get out of the business of writing learned sociology papers and theses and write pop sociology beatup bestsellers, and then I’d really commoditise myself, Kate!
Yeah, Kate. I skimmed the article and then didn’t bother.
(sorry for brevity of response, the bob carr thing means I have alot of work to do. Damn you, Bob.)
I met Mr Mindy at a *ahem* medieval feast. He was wearing a really cute hat.
Mark Mark Mark! how politicians LOVE people like you who forget so quick:
“The weirdest student pollie relationships were always those between Young Labor types and Liberals. I can‚Äôt think of any that lasted.” OF COURSE YOU CAN - Bob Ellis book was pulped because he discussed Abbott & Costello being Labor at Uni and being ‘turned’ by the winsome piano legs of Miss Liberal with the Big Liberal Daddy. she married one or both of them and was recently foolishly photographed wearing capri pants on the Australian Weekend Magazine cover. glad I can’t remember her name. Mrs Abbott n Costello though.
Good point Brownie. Here’s the actual line that triggered the hoo-ha.
“‘Abbott and Costello’, said Rodney Cavalier, pacing up and down his baronial mansion after serving me for dinner as was his custom bread and water, ‘they’re both in the Right Wing of the Labor Party till the one woman fucked both of them and married one of them and inducted them into the Young Liberals.”
And from what I’ve seen of politics behind the scenes and afterhours, there are many more stories like that. Never mind the pillowtalk, can you imagine the fucktalk?
“Make me scream like a wet backbencher, you sexy factional bastard”
“15% GST. Slash R&D tax concessions”
“Oh, you dirty dry as dust piece of shit, you. Yes, yes, deep inside my caucus.”
At this point, boggled minds may wish to step outside for a smoke.
Brownie, just as I have difficulty in thinking of Latho as a sexual being, so do I with Costello. That would account for my forgetfulness! Abbott, on the other hand, was obviously a lad.
I’m also surprised no-one has mentioned two other opportunities for hooking up:
1. The flatmate bonk. But is this a myth? Only in Cleo/Cosmo/FHM/Ralph and tv shows?
2. The hottie that returns your glance repeatedly at the bus stop/on the bus/on the train. That happened to me this arvo, actually. But how do you take things further?
Mindy, there must have been more to it than that. Having gone to the Medieval Fayre last year in Vegas, everyone has a cute hat!
“But how do you take things further?”
“Excuse me, one of us dropped this hankerchief.”
Really Mark - you’ll be asking us about mummy bees and daddy birds next.
Exactly right Nabs. Even saying “do you know what time the next bus is?” is taking it further than running away like a big girl. So much for the larvatus lethario.
“Mindy, there must have been more to it than that. Having gone to the Medieval Fayre last year in Vegas, everyone has a cute hat!”
As I recall the story, Mr Mindy also had really nice calves.
And Mindy was wearing her the second-worst pair of undies known to womankind, right?
Over the following months Mr Mindy graduated from wearing a cute hat to wearing vomit every so often.
And now, 10 years later, they have a Mini Mr Mindy.
Flutey and Nabs, youse are legends. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.
Context: I was waiting for the bus yesterday. Hottie walks down past bus-stop. Eyes lock. Hottie goes down a few metres further to sandwich/juice stop, goes inside. Then comes out with juice and rather than waiting for takeaway sandwich at the counter, sits on the front step of the said shop sipping her juice, where she continues to look at me, and vice versa. Goes inside to get sandwich, walks back to work with backward glances.
Now - how should I have acted, agony uncles of the sphere?
Mark, I suspect you should have consulted Hayek.
Perhaps if I’d been reading my well-thumbed Hayek tome, that would have been a conversation starter?
Or she could have realised what it was and beaten you over the head with it.
Yes, it would be a double-edged sword with that sort of reading matter, dj!
Just say any old bollocks Mark. Just walk up and open your mouth and let some words fall out. Break the ice. Get the right care factor. Too much and you’ll look like a jerk, not enough and you’ll look a wanker. The only way to learn is to get a few brush offs. Get put down by a few and you’ll have the confidence to succeed. The praxis of pulling.
One of my daughter’s books is about a shy rabbit who learns that to make friends you just have to be a little bit brave.
I second that emotion, flute.
It’s like walking home drunk - you just have to get up once oftener than you fall down.
“how should I have acted, agony uncles of the sphere?”
“Pardon me but we’ve met before haven’t we? Monte Carlo in the season last year I believe. At that wonderful fancy dress party on Prince Omar’s yacht? You were dressed as an angel I recall and I came as Baron Otto von Bismarck.”
or
“Hey sweetcheeks, I bet you’re the kinda girl who’s into a little Popper. Wanna get Hayek?”
Or you could take the subtle approach. Suddenly do something to make her gasp or laugh as she’s swallowing her food. Then when she starts choking you swiftly move in and administer the Heimlich maneuver. And even if she’s not grateful for having her life saved, you will still at least have copped a good feel.
No, no need to thank me. The sight of young love blossoming is reward enough for this old heart.