Uncategorized

Staring is [sometimes] caring

Posted on by Sinead N

As far back as we can remember, we have been told that it is rude to stare.

We’ve also heard that it is rude to swear, point and eat eggs on public transport but hey, I’d be lying if I said none of us have ever done any of these things. Though I can definitely say that I have (thankfully) never eaten eggs on public transport. Anyone who has ever caught a train with me, you’re welcome.

However, the stigma surrounding the art of staring is more powerful than any other social taboo. It has become apparent to me that there is often a fine line between sweet gazing and level ten creepy, I-will-steal-your-pets staring. Allow me to try and distinguish when staring is and is not a weird thing to take part in.

1.) Novelty purposes

We’ve all experienced the watery eyes and blurry vision that follows a good old-fashioned staring contest. In the world we live in, there are those who thrive in staring contests and those who end up semi-crying after five seconds in. Ever since I was a youngin’, I have been all too aware that I am the latter of the two. If a staring contest was metaphorically a rap lyrics contest, my eyes would be the ‘Drake’ of the competition. Too sensitive to handle. Although, like Drake, my eyes are not always so sensitive. We, who are bad at staring contests, have our daydreaming staring on point, or so I am told. Whenever I am eating something I love, like pizza or green-tea gelato (don’t judge me), I stare into space for significantly longer than I am able to in staring contests. The logic? There is none. Though I don’t think staring is creepy when we are doing it for novelty purposes, like games. Unless the game was over and we continued to stare at that person with a deranged smile for several minutes. Yeah, that might be a little creepy.

2.) Heart-racing purposes

Our hearts tend to beat a little faster when we stare at someone we ‘like’, though sometimes, for a different reason, our hearts also beat faster when we stare at someone we truly dislike. Some of us have the peripheral vision of a hawk and hardly ever get caught at staring at either. However, many of us lack such ninja tendencies. Sometimes we don’t even realise we are staring until the person looks back at us with a puzzled expression. Though staring at someone you really like is not always a negative or creepy thing. It can be a subtle compliment or a sign that you’re interested in what they have to say. Years ago, gazing at one another was one of the only ways that two people would tell one another that they like them. Though this is comically conservative in comparison to modern times, it’s funny to think that staring has become such a creepy thing to do. However, when ‘death-staring’ someone we truly dislike, I’m unsure if there is any context where the person wouldn’t feel a little creeped out or uncomfortable. Perhaps, this is partly the intention of staring at someone in that way.

3.) Staring at strangers

Staring at people we don’t know for prolonged periods of time is almost always going to be interpreted as creepy. In a social setting like a bar or club, it is often considered more acceptable. Though if you are on a public bus and start staring at someone, for either complimentary or judgemental purposes, it is likely that you will be labelled as a ‘creeper’. You will realise this if the person awkwardly avoids eye contact or shuffles in their seat. This person is now possibly running through all of the dramatic hypothetical scenarios as to why you are staring at them. And yes, in one of these scenarios, you are plotting to steal their pets.

Bus trip documentary

Posted on by Sinead N

Sometimes, whilst catching the bus, I feel like I am watching a human documentary.

It was only recently that my phone died at the beginning of my regular, hour-long bus trip (dreadful, I know) that I gained an over-active sense of observation.

*cue sultry documentary narration voice*

The youngest of the pack stare outside the glass windows of the bus with their eyes wide open, marveling at the surroundings that the adults perceive as dull. The elderly of the pack squint at over-sized newspapers and converse with fellow elderly members in hushed, warm tones. Meanwhile, the teenagers and young adults feed on technology. If you look closely enough, you may just witness a startled teenager that has a dead phone battery. Watch them as they proceed to nap, slowly falling onto the stranger beside them, creating an uncomfortable situation for all.

OK, this may be a slight exaggeration of my bus trips.

But, the napping part is completely true. People who would like to partake in naps on the bus (yours truly) should be allocated to sit with a fellow napper. They wouldn’t care if they were being slightly drooled on by the stranger beside them (as they, too, would be asleep and possibly drooling throughout the bus trip).

Anyway, I would like to acknowledge something that is considered weird in any other context: the fact that we sit so close to strangers on the bus.

Often, we have never met this person before and we will never see them again. Though for an hour of our day, we sit with one another on the bus. Our legs and feet awkwardly bumping at some point without acknowledgement, as we mind our own business and think our own thoughts. Sometimes the person will be scoffing down some snacks that they didn’t get to eat before boarding the bus, trying to avoid the attention of the bus driver (this is me, ninety percent of the time). At other times, the stranger beside you will be sitting on an item of your clothing, and you will spend a solid few minutes over-thinking about how you will break free without appearing rude.

How often do we really take out our headphones and engage with each other- from one stranger to another? Not often at all, or at least not on the buses that I catch. Rather, when another seat becomes vacant on the bus, we swiftly move to that seat in order to sit alone.

Some people even place their bags on the seat beside them (on a full bus) so that strangers can’t sit near them.

I would like to flick those people in the face.

Night Owl lifestyle

Posted on by Sinead N

We are quite easy to identify amongst a crowd of morning people.

If forced to be awake before 9am, we are often seen with bags under our eyes, a resting bitch-face and a questionably large cup of takeaway coffee. We, to whom I am referring to, are the night owls of the world. According to urban dictionary, a night owl is “someone who tends to stay up late into the night”. However, there is much more to us than that.

We, night owls, do not function in the world of morning birds. At least not at our best. Sure, we manage to get work done with the assistance of caffeine or the unnerving reminder that we need money to live. It’s when we get home and the moon slowly comes out, however, that we really function at our best. I, for one, make overly ambitious lists of things to do at night time. The later in the night that I make the list, the more unrealistic and lazy I feel about it the next morning. I also tend to do things that I would have zero ambition to do during the day, such as thoroughly clean my room and look up ukulele tutorials on YouTube. Many night owls binge watch television shows or YouTube clips at night time, whilst others stay up late into the night listening to music that doesn’t sound quite as good during the day. Others merely stay up reading books that make them pause, smile and write down quotes they like for future reference.

I wonder what the world would be like if we were all night owls. Yes, there are night clubs and nightlife on the weekends. Although, what if we simply lived as we do during the day, but in the middle of the night? People could shamelessly wear pyjamas whilst doing 1am grocery shopping, and go to dessert places at 2am to talk to friends about all their peculiar, midnight thoughts that make less sense in the morning. Would midnight snacks lose their title, and merely become normal snacks?

Speaking of snacks, night owls are often accompanied with a laptop and various packaged foods at sleep-overs, whilst their morning-bird friend falls asleep early in the night. In some cases, however, the morning-bird friend stays awake to prove their potential as a certified night owl. I know this only too well. However, once every now and then, something quite strange can happen. A morning-bird can become a night owl. Not always on purpose, but just by spending time with other night owls or losing sight of time on a more regular basis can lead to this adaptation.

However, even though I am a night owl, I still love the day time. I love checking errands off the unrealistic list I made the night before and reading dense articles that would make no sense to me at 2am. Not to forget the warm presence of the sun that never fails to remind me that I am too pale to go outside without sunscreen. I guess that makes me a self-admitted night owl who enjoys the daytime, even if I am half asleep through some of it.

Baby-faces unite

Posted on by Sinead N

Very few things remain the same as we grow older. For this very reason, I truly appreciate the features that do.

The way that we naturally laugh, for example, is imbedded in us from the time that we are born. Though our type of laughter and what we find humorous changes with age, or at least I’d hope so, new-born babies laugh just like we do as adults.
Accordingly, if we are often found laughing like a frenzied donkey, we’re probably stuck with that laugh for the rest of our lives. *cue tragic violins*.
I’m afraid it is quite true. There is essentially no escape from our peculiar, natural way of laughing. However, that is the very reason that a person’s laugh is one of the utmost best things about them. There is something very real about the way a person laughs –it unveils their sense of humour for all to see. Like how dogs wag their tails and cats glare at us, the ability to genuinely laugh is forever imbedded in who we are- displaying that we are sincerely happy in a world where authenticity is rarer than I’d like to think. It is particularly rewarding to witness shy people muffling their laughter about something sadistic and anything but expected from them.
Other than our endorphin-releasing ability to laugh, some of our childish facial features never quite disappear. Also, might I add, that I genuinely believed that endorphins were called en-dolphins for a solid twelve years of my life? Dolphins do tend to make people pretty happy though, so in a weird way it works. However, as mentioned earlier, I have personal experience as a baby-faced adult. After being asked to show my photo ID three times in a nightclub last year, I am led to believe that there are factors that have crowned me with the title of ‘baby-face’. These include my one dimple (I don’t know what happened to the other one) and my self-admitted gullibility. All mature-looking adults are laughing now, but when I’m being asked for my photo ID in a bar in my late twenties- I’ll be thanking my pubescent-looking forefathers for their occasionally convenient genetics. Hopefully.
Finally, one factor that has never changed about myself and many others, is our sweet sense of taste. Ever since I was an infant, a muffled scream of joy rings in my head when a dessert or sweet product enters my sight. This is not an exaggeration, I assure you.

“Life’s too short to not enjoy the sweet things”, I chuckle, as I engulf every chocolate-flavoured dish I see.
^ This only sounds witty and borderline poetic when you don’t say it as often as I do.
Nonetheless, I am beyond glad that some things change as we grow older. For example, my sturdy, year-eight side fringe and the questionable fashion choices that took place in my tween years.

Trust me, humans are weird

Posted on by Sinead N

Despite my confusion surrounding the relevance of man-nipples, I do not intend to commence a wildfire discussion about how strange the human body looks.

Rather, I wish to address our bizarre habits as a race, like how we make a mental note to not bop our heads when a good song plays in public; or the way that we express our comfort with others by showing them peculiar things that only we can do. I, for one, often show friends how I can make the unhealthy sound of a steaming teapot with my voice.

However, unlike my ability to screech like a tea pot, most of us – at some point –have engaged in the act of speaking to animals of other species. As a race, we do not merely pat cute animals or send sweet smiles of acknowledgement their way. No, no, no. We, humans, are taught at a young age to either go big or go home in our everyday actions. Accordingly, when expressing our affection for a tail-wagging, fuzzy pet (I am referring to a dog, so please do not envision a giant furry rat wagging its tail), we often lose all sense of being civilised. We embody a piercingly-high baby voice and greet the dog with broken fragments of English. The act of baby-talking to pets often involves giving the creature a voice, which we have constructed, intended for acting out a dialogue between us and the animal. A cat may be thinking “your presence displeases me. Scat, you peasant” but we somehow manage to interpret its glare as wanting a glass of milk and side of hugs. Even though I fall victim to this weird method of showing love for animals every day, it’s funny to think about how little the pet probably understands us, or in the case of cats, give a fuck about what we are saying to them.

Although, humans are not only weird in the way that we speak to animals. Many of us also have a bizarre love for being right and in doing so, proving others wrong. Some people certainly get more satisfaction out of this than others. For example, my father. He is a sassy, glasses-wearing Irishman who has a sincere dislike for the weather man and his ‘wrong weather forecasts’. His fondness for being correct brightly shone through just a week ago, upon entering a debate with my mother about who sang the song, ‘Chantilly Lace’. As an amused viewer, I had zero clue who this guy was and hence, brought nothing to the metaphorical table but a bag of popcorn to enjoy the show. My mother was adamant that the singer was an African American singer from the 1960s, whereas my father was equally certain that he was a Caucasian singer. Though the winner of this game was of literally no importance in the grand scheme of things, my parents urged me to research the name of the song. Upon discovering that he was, in fact, a renowned Caucasian singer (The Big Bopper) my father soon became the epitome of ‘I told you so’ and continued to sing the lyrics of the song around the house for the remainder of the night.

Our somewhat intrinsic love of being right is similarly peculiar to the way that we, humans, greet one another on a casual basis. When meeting a fellow person, it is considered polite to either say “hello”, wrap our arms around them (hug) or give them a peckish kiss on the side of their face. It is so instinctive that we do not even question why or how we greet one another. However, as a certified lean-in-to-hug type of person, I often find myself in awkward situations with the lean-in-to-kiss people of the world. Upon realising that a kiss is being planted on my cheek, I often respond too late. Consequently, I end up pecking the neck of the person, which I assume is both an uncomfortable and hilariously strange process.

The (not) perks of being a sleep talker

Posted on by Sinead N

I have recently become very aware that there are two types of people in this world.

There are those who speak in their sleep and those who do not. Though the naked eye is not capable of distinguishing these two types of people, the sleep-talkers of the world are notably thirty percent eerier and more hilarious to sleep beside. With this post, I am responding to the great need for a sleep-talkers anonymous support group. But first, I have a confession to make.

“Hi, I’m Sinead…”

*”Hi sinead”, collective voices respond *

“…And I’m an admitted sleep-talker”

They say that the first step towards recovery is admitting that you have a problem. However, in this instance, openly admitting that I talk in my sleep hardly stops my invasive mumbling of phrases like “not in these shorts” at sleepovers. Rather, coming to terms with the random nature of my sleeping endeavours triggers my curiosity, and even opens my eyes to the awfully specific disadvantages of being an admitted sleep-talker. Allow me to expand.

Exhibit A.) Voice Recorders and their unforgiving honesty

I recently went on a celebratory trip away with friends, during which, I shared a room with two light sleepers. As the only person to sleep-talk every night, a joint mission was formed: to decipher what I subconsciously discuss when asleep. I excitedly downloaded an app that records my sleep-talk and in doing so, I soon developed a deep love and even deeper hatred for voice recorders. I cannot help but detest the forehead-crinkling, disgusted feeling that hits me, like a brick to the face, when I hear my voice on tape. Further, the voice recorder bares the fundamental ability to accurately capture every cringe-worthy mumble that comes out of my mouth. Such mumbles make zero sense in the context of reality, including statements like “oh yuck, no, not that one” and “aaaw cute” in a painfully girly voice that sincerely makes me re-evaluate how I speak when awake.

Though, I cannot help but oddly admire how the voice recorder has allowed me to listen to the not-so-wise words of my subconscious, alternate ego, whom I otherwise may have never discovered: a stereotypical teenage girl who finds, quite possibly, everything both surprising and hysterical.

Exhibit B.) Witnesses see everything

There is a quote by Robert Bloch that never ceases to make me smile, as it is unnervingly true.

“Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings.”

Similar to pee stains, friend’s memories of what you say in your sleep are difficult to remove. Like all good witnesses, close friends and those who have slumbered by your side remember all of your subconscious ramblings and in my case, borderline-psychotic laughter. Once a friend has witnessed how vocally-active you are when sleeping, it can rapidly become a legend of sorts. Who needs to watch ‘The Legend of Korra’ when they can see ‘The Legend of Sinead’s possessed sleep-laughter’?

I’m just kidding.

Although, like all good legends, the tales of your “almost maniacal” and “super creepy” sleep-talk could soon become an ice-breaking conversational topic at parties, group gatherings and of course, sleepovers.

Exhibit C.) Sleep-talkers don’t lie

This example is the biggest struggle of being a sleep-talker. Though I have not personally experienced it, I have a friend who blatantly confessed his love for a girl whilst at a sleep-over. During the confession, he was accompanied with a group of friends who have sturdy memories and an ever-present sense of humour. This combination of qualities is not beneficial for the sleep-talker, who awoke in a state of awe that he had mumbled “pokemon, pokemon…I love *insert crushes name*”. The random, fragmented nature of sleep dialogue is one of my absolute favourite things. Can you imagine what conversations would be like if we spoke in such riddles during the day? I often laugh in my sleep, so I imagine a conversation would resemble this:

Friend: “oh hey, how are you?”

Me: *laughs for five minutes*

Friend: That’s good.

Thus, the struggles of sleep-talkers everywhere are strongly present today. However, let us never forget the non-sleep-talkers of society, who have been awakened by their sleep-talking friends many a’ time throughout history. It is also only these quiet sleepers who can distinguish the loud sleepers from the rest of the world. We, sleep-talkers, look and act just like everybody else. For this very reason, people must proceed to sleep over at a friend’s place with great tact and caution. Sleep-talkers hold the ability to startle you in the middle of the night, with our spontaneous comments and creepy laughter. Though, at least those who are awake can record it all as it happens.

The return of the smile

Posted on by Sinead N

I’ve never been one to live by concrete sayings like ‘there is a time and a place for everything’.

Rather, the absence of my social filter translates to a lack of a need for the perfect situation to be seen telling a group of strangers an arguably inappropriate story. For example, I am quite certain that I have told at least four separate groups of people about the spirited spider that once moved into my room, many a’ open fly screen ago. Regardless of the time of day, my wide eyed expression remains the same whilst re-enacting how I was initially too frightened to move it outside or gruesomely murder it whilst the other spiders in the room watched. Rather, with much distress, the somewhat easily-solved spider situation ended in a three month love-hate relationship. During which, I named the spider ‘Gary’ and allowed him to live under my bedside table until he wished to leave on his own accord. A solid, thirty percent of me believes that he left without saying goodbye so that he did not feel obliged to motion the whole ‘It’s not me, it’s you’ talk. Perhaps my brief contemplation of squishing him with a chocolate wrapper catalysed his sudden disappearance.

However, unlike the tale of ‘Gary the spider’, I believe there are specific times and places in which one action should and should not not take place. It’s quite a simple gesture, and it is interpreted differently depending on where, how and with whom it takes place. I am emphasising the importance of ‘returning a smile’.

“Maybe they didn’t see you.” Says one friend

“Maybe they are having a bad day.” Says another friend

“Maybe that wasn’t them and you just smiled at a random. You need to stop smiling at strangers, Sinead. It makes the world uncomfortable” Says my therapist.

I’m just kidding, well, at least about that last one.

The definition of smiling is: “to assume a facial expression indicating pleasure, favour, or amusement, but sometimes derision or scorn, characterized by an upturning of the corners of the mouth.”

Allow me to translate. A smile can be a sweet thing, an intrinsically human expression that happens when your best friend falls over whilst ice skating, or you find twenty dollars in an old pair of shorts. Accordingly, it is kind to return smiles to those who give us theirs; whether smiling at a stranger on the street, when meeting an old friend for lunch or even at those who we were accidentally staring at whilst daydreaming. However, there are three instances when a smile does not need to be returned, or at least not in the way that it was delivered.

1.) The villainous grin

As evidenced in every batman film ever made, the ‘villainous’ smile is a very real thing. We have all witnessed at least some sort of villainous smile in our lives and if you haven’t, you, my friend, may be the villainous smiler. E.g. if someone, bleeding with sarcastic vibes, were to beat you in an exam by two marks and consequently, comment that your mark is “good…for you” through a grin of pure ecstasy – you must delve deep into the sass compartment in your brain (It’s a thing, look it up) and give your best “I’ll beat you next time, fucker” smirk, before exiting their presence. In doing so, we are leaving a figurative ‘rude finger’ branded into the forehead of that someone, a silent protest to the cow that they are.

2.) The sexual predator smirk

This type of smile is often accompanied with a near-empty bottle of confidence-boosting vodka and the dim, artificially lit setting of night time. Often found in sticky-floored bars, surrounded by a pack of friends wearing similar expressions, this smile does not always need to be returned. If we find ourselves feeling like a startled sheep under the beady eyes of a vulture, we can either look the other way- ignoring the predatory smiler- or we can take the deepest of breaths, face the stranger and pull the most hideous smile we know how. At this point, the drunken vulture will realise that they were not, in fact, preying on a sheep, but rather, another vulture. Baffled with confusion, they will then proceed to swoon on others in the bar, leaving us alone. However, the creepy-intentioned, predatory smiler must not be mistaken for the ‘friendly drunk’ people out there. These people are commonly seen with eyes as glazed and vacant as freshly-made donuts, and with the mere intention of giving the blurry world a monstrous hug.

3.) The seal-of-approval smile

As all of you music-lovers out there understand, whilst being squished into a barn-like mosh pit full of buzzing people who love the same music as you- it is quite possible to accidentally make eye contact with one of them. Accordingly, it is courteous to politely smile at them, wordlessly saying “Hey. You have great music taste. Let’s jam” before the act comes on stage. However, in the rare instance of driving past a ‘Nickelback’ concert, it is only right to avoid smiling at any cost. We must not fall victim to their love of sand-paper-voiced music and straight legged jeans.

Besides those three exceptions, I do not tend to live by concrete sayings like there being ‘a time and a place for everything’. Although, if I did need to live by some type of slogan, it would be something more along the lines of “smile at the world, even if the world is being a sarcastic bastard”.

The art of avoiding awkward conversation

Posted on by Sinead N

Is your love life peaking at the moment? When was the last time you shaved your arm pits? Have you recently peed in the shower and if so, did you enjoy doing this?

These are just some of the questions that could be asked by anyone at any point in your day- perhaps during a heated game of ‘truth or dare’, with all eyes stuck on you like a polyester shirt to a sweaty back. Or perhaps, you might just get caught off-guard with an awkward question during lunch with some forward acquaintances from work. Though the brazen asker is often casual in nature, their blind curiosity still holds the power to trigger symptoms of greasy palms, pursed lips and a hardly polite ‘the fuck?’ eyebrow raise.

Ultimately, how you respond to awkward questions exposes the type of person you are. I, evidently, am the type to avoid such over-sharing with irregularly shifty eye contact and an all-encompassing aura of awkward. But never fear, my dear reader, for I have constructed a series of certified, specific steps that you can follow in order to avoid a piercing sense of panic and rather, secure an arguably false-but-comforting sense of personal security.

Firstly, one must act like one is not listening to the asker’s uncomfortable question.

This step is directed to the inner Jennifer Lawrence actress within us all. Someone may ask you a follow-up question with sincere disbelief and fragmented disgust for unknown reasons:

E.g. ‘Wait, so you have never, ever been drunk?’

Rather than immediately answer the accusatory question, you must wait three seconds and maintain eye contact with the floor whilst wearing a painfully accurate Nicholas cage facial expression. You may then slowly raise your eye level to the person asking the question, before widening your gaze and repeatedly apologising for not listening. You must then commence a powerful rant, perhaps from a previously prepared script designed for this situation. Without leaving room for breath, you will tell the acquaintance about how you’ve been so distracted by the ever- rising prices in petrol and bonsai tree pots of recent, that you simply cannot focus on comparably petty small talk. The asker will then leave your presence within the next forty to forty-five seconds (approx. of course) out of possible boredom or the fear that you will, quite literally, never stop talking and they will consequently grow old listening to your discussions of diversion topics such as your reasoning behind thinking ‘YOLO isn’t annoying as a commonly used term’. Forgetting the question they asked in the first place, the asker will have their initial curiosity smothered and ruthlessly replaced by a disinterested frown.

Secondly, however, one could change the topic.

We must treat the change of topic with great delicacy and self-control. For example, if one who hates toddlers is asked for one’s honest opinion about them, one must resist admitting one’s dislike through changing the topic to ‘the perks of brunch’. Rather, when changing the topic in an awkward conversation, we must only slightly change the direction of conversation in a manner that the asker will hardly notice, if at all. To avoid suspicion, avert repeating phrases such as ‘oh my, look over there’ or extravagant compliments towards the asker’s hairstyle.
The third and final step to avoid awkward conversation is the most risky.

This is indeed a hazardous step of the process, though if it is pulled off you will be rewarded with a moderate sense of relief and a sheepish smirk that those passing by might just notice. All you need to do is reply with one efficient and beautifully simple term that humans have been using for centuries for this exact purpose: to avoid their problems, and in this case, avoid answering an acquaintance’s unnerving question.

“I don’t know”

Isn’t it wonderful? It’s so simple, yet I find that it works approximately 99.9% of the time. The asker will then do one of two things, and the direction they take will determine your success in avoiding awkwardness. You must remain calm as they crinkle their forehead and commence a light, slow series of nods, before saying “Ah okay, fair enough.” and continuing with a different topic of conversation. Crisis averted! However, on particularly rare occasions, some peculiar asker’s will simply refuse your answer, resembling my disgusted Rottweiler’s expression when fed a piece of mango it had begged for moments prior. Similarly, they will squint their too-curious-for-their-own-good eyes and rapidly say the next five words that will leave you breathless.

“How do you not know?”

At this point, we must no longer remain calm. A great man once said that desperate times call for desperate measures, and in this instance, we must live by this great man’s words. You must stand up, if you were sitting with the asker, and slowly take four steps backwards, as to not startle the puzzled asker. You may then engage in a sprint towards the opposite direction, preferably in the direction of your home, feeling your worries of answering difficult questions drift away with the calories of that pizza you had for lunch.

And there you have it, the flawless process of avoiding awkward conversation. It’s an art form, really. Like any other art form, it takes great commitment and emotional stamina to perfect. However, after years of practice, you will successfully puzzle the brazen world around you, one avoided question at a time.