This Blog was Not My Boyfriend because my boyfriend became My Boyfriend.

(Also, it turns out, PAY TV is Not My Boyfriend.)

What kind of sista chooses a boyfriend over a blog? The worst feminist since this character, that’s who, rhetorical question. Sigh. Hopefully it all balances out and they won't revoke my femmo membership because at least I downright refused to see ‘Sex and the City 2’ even though a friend offered me a free ticket (JUST BECAUSE I AM A GIRL DOES NOT MAKE ME SHOE-OBSESSED, MAINSTREAM MEDIA! Plus, having a size ten foot makes that hard).

It’s been one year since I wrote about my last non-boyfriend. And it's not for want of fitting candidates roaming the globe. In short, I quit my impressive (by this man’s standards) full time job in the middle of a GFC to work freelance and tend to all of the projects I’d let fall by the wayside, but instead, two things happened:

1. After seven years of being single, I rekindled the flame with my first ever boyfriend (not counting Jason Priestley, my first FANTASY boyfriend), which is a little bit of a shame because I was kind of getting geared up to live life as Miss Havisham, but this is turning out to be a much nicer alternative.

2. I celebrated EOFYS and got a Pay TV subscription.

I’ve spent over ten blissful months on the couch eating food with someone who shares my love of 'Degrassi: The Next Generation'. And come on, who can blame me? Things got really, REALLY tense around Season Six. (And don’t even so much as google the word ‘degrassi’ because SPOILER EFFING ALERT.) And, I didn’t think I could write credibly on NMB when I’d landed me a B. So I just didn’t. (By the by, Brandon wasn't really supposed to come down that far but I couldn't shrink him any further!)


Yesterday, I fell into a five-hour Foxtel detox nap, woke up realising I was still alive even though I’d missed both ‘Clean House’ AND 'Clean House Comes Clean', and remembered that The Internet makes all things possible. Example:

Even way BEFORE the Internet in 1917, two plucky little British girls pioneered the way to world deception by taking photos of cardboard cut-outs and convincing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle they were fairies. (I just saluted those lasses by going to the Cottingley Fairies Facebook group and clicking "like".)

If they can achieve that feat with scissors, coloured pencils, and no drink-spiking, then I need to step away from the Foxtel and the evil day-destroyer that is THE IQ PLANNER and write 500 measly words to put myself back on that god forsaken Information Superhighway!

The last year has not been totally fruitless, though. I’ve had some good times with my Foxtel friends. Like that time I got hooked on 'Bones', spent a week trying to figure out if I had the bigger crush on Booth or Brennan and then went out and bought all four seasons on DVD and polished them off in a fortnight. That’s the kind of focus I went to private school to get, Mum.

There’s the worship I cultivated for the perpetually pregnant property professional Sarah Beeny and her 'Property Ladder'. (Why oh why do they always refrain from accepting her advice? A loft conversion is a good idea, but you MUST make sure you get the planning permission first! Ay carumba.)

And speaking of baby bonanza, there’s also the reconnaissance I had with the original Dr Phil family. (Alex, I get you, you’re a good egg, your folks are a bit nutso, but please, please stop having so many babies with different baby-daddies, it just LOOKS bad is all.)

I will always have those precious memories with my couch, my NMB (new man boyfriend!), Thai takeaway and the TV people, but the time has come, not to give them all up for good (what am I, Amish?) but to recall the wise advice of my father. No, not ‘don't eat fast food because they cook the burgers in the microwave’, but 'Πaν μέτρον Άριστον'.

Everything in moderation.

The 3rd A.D. is Not My Boyfriend

I crush easily.

No, Natasha Bedingfield is not about to talk over the top of a perfectly fine Chicane number, I mean I develop crushes the way some people break out, or hiccup, or blink their eyes. I do it lots.

Usually, all it takes is a couple of baby blues, an in-joke, and a cutesy nickname thrown my way, and I am PUTTY.

A few weeks ago, it happened to me on the set of a cop show. Sometimes, I am an extra. Let’s be clear, I’m not one of those I-hope-the-director-notices-my-awesome-mime-talking-and-gives-me-a-Logie extras. I’m more your garden-variety please-don’t-talk-to-me-I’m-cool-to-hang-here-by-the-tea-trolley-and-eat-Anzacs type of extra. I enjoy turning my phone off for a random eight hours every now and then, tuning out my life, earning some pocket money, and watching the people in the parkas make the TV.

Occasionally, it’s mind-blowingly awesome, a-la being in an end-of-the-world looting scene in a Hollywood disaster movie (a story for another time. We’ll call that post “Nicolas Cage’s stunt double is N.M.B.”) but more often than not, it's dull.

I turned up expecting to develop an instant crush on one of the main cop-actors, but I stood next to them all in the breakfast queue while I got porridge, and the porridge bowl didn’t land upside down on the ground, so I knew I was safely crush-free at that point.

I made my way out to the shooting location, (a dodgy suburban street - how deliciously Aussie cop-show!) with the last instalment of the teenage vampire fiction and planned for a day of bloody teen angst, broken up by bits of standing, and some staring at pretend crime.

“Hi, I’m Simon Baker Denny. I’m the Third A.D.”
Said a giant pair of blue eyes.

Oh no.

Half an hour in to a 10-hour shift before a crush hit. Personal best!

Now, this guy’s name ISN’T actually “Simon Baker Denny”, but he sure did look like him.
I know, I know, Sime’s dropped the “Denny” now, but he’s kidding himself if he thinks we’ve forgotten about it. TV Hits told me that was his triple-barrel name in 1992, and I’m going to have to stand by my mag on that one.

I DON’T actually have a thing for the Mentalist; this fair, blue-eyed, film-set guy resembled him a bit, but he was way hotter. And I'm disguising his name because I don’t want to embarrass myself in case he, I dunno, somehow finds this obscure, anonymous blog.

As the third assistant director, Simon Baker Denny’s job was to make sure all the actors and people-props like me were ready on the set. And the crush hadn’t fully set in until the moment he tapped me gently on the knee to get my attention, and pointed out a folding chair for me to sit on so I wouldn’t have to kneel in the gutter.

CHIVALRY IS NOT DEAD!

(I proceeded to sit in the chair only to topple backwards out of it. Retarded crush manoeuvre= check!)

Signs it was a mutual crush:
We had humorous banter involving polystyrene cups at the tea trolley. I can’t remember what it was, but at the time, love.

Twice, he referred to me as “My Dear”.
Swoon.

At the lunch queue, he tried to find me with his eyes to make sure I was getting something to eat.
Sigh.

All day I was brainstorming possible parting lines. I wanted to leave it on the most amazing conversational note so that Simon Baker Denny would be compelled to scan the call sheet after my departure, find my number and call me to profess things.

This was what I came up with:
“Simon Baker Denny, it’s been a pleasure”.

“See ya!”

The 3rd A.D. is Not My Boyfriend.

In the old days, you could sit with a crush for days, months, years on end - and brew a real heart-rending saga with the thing. Not anymore.

A couple of clicks through to a friend-of-a-friend‘s Facebook and three words put a quick stop to that.

“In a relationship.”

I miss the past.

Other People's Boyfriends Are Not My Boyfriend.

Sigh.
That's all.

Can't hurt to have a reminder up somewhere.