Dear Diary,
On Sunday Anton and I went out on his father’s yacht. I’d never been on a yacht before. I thought it would be fab and I’d laze round on the deck getting a tan but it kept nearly tipping over. The yacht was called Kiama. They said when it lurched sideways it was called heeling and it wouldn’t tip over because it was forty feet long with five tons of lead in the keel. Anton drank beer and spewed all over my new sandshoes. Let me tell you, diary, Anton is gross but Anton-spew is super GROSS! Sigh, sigh, sigh. I don’t think I can keep going steady with Anton Bowler even if he’s going to become the richest man on earth and I can live in a house with a tennis court in Toorak.
You see, Anton didn’t make any sexy moves so I was safe there. We’d only got to kissing lightly on the lips. But it was like kissing a cake of soap. Not a heartbeat, not a squiggle low down in my tummy. Nothing!
What should I do? I could dump him, but then I’d feel bad because he’d given me a marquisette lover’s knot brooch, a string of pearls, some Paris Mist perfume in a huge bottle, a mirrored compact, and three orchids that were in the fridge.
Dear Diary,
When I told Ally I wanted to dump Anton she said I should give all the presents back when I dump him, like you do if an engagement breaks off. But I’ve used most of the perfume and I liked the jewellery and compact. And I still haven’t got to Bandstand.
But then, as my granny always said, ‘Things have a way of working out’.
Dear Diary,
I don’t think I’m going steady with Anton Bowler any more. Ally said she saw him in the library with Roma Virgona and they had their heads together giggling at naked pygmies in National Geographic magazines. How juvenile. We did that in Year Seven for God’s sake. Roma’s actually shorter than Anton, but then the pygmies are shorter than both of THEM which probably makes them feel BIG. Roma’s also reasonably rich because her parents own a fruit shop. They make a good pear. (Joke: diary, fruit shop, pear.) Because I don’t want Anton myself but I don’t want him to go out with other girls, either.
Have you ever felt like that? You don’t want your ex back, but you get really pissed off when he starts going out with someone else and he looks happy! Grrrrr. This is an extract from Chloe’s letter . She’s fifteen:
I keep thinking of things to make my ex sit up and take notice. Like, he dumped me and I think I was getting sick of him anyway, so I don’t want him back, but I want him to think I’m so cool that he shouldn’t have broken up with me. Is this making sense? I sound like a moron. Like, I want him to think when he sees me looking fantastic that I’m just the same as I’ve always been, you know, but I want to be better so he’ll sort of think ‘look what I missed out on. Like, I’m fairly happy with myself. I’m 175 cm and weigh 52.4 kgs. Is that fat? Maybe he dumped me because I’m fat! I need to be less sarcastic and train myself that food is not a cure for boredom and get a bigger gap between my thighs, like a Gap Factor of 7 would be cool. Okay so why am I writing all of the above? Ugh. I dunno about myself sometimes …
As my granny always said, ‘The grass looks greener on the other side of the fence.’ You go with someone, you become the dumper or the dumpee, you go out with someone else, then perversely you wish you had the ex back again only deep down you know it won’t work out. The grass is always going to look greener on the other side of the fence unless you are really in love. Otherwise you’ll always be peering over the boy’s shoulder with your eyes wide open and your antennae quivering, looking for the right guy, Mr Perfect, on the other side of that mythical fence.
But that’s okay. It’s fun looking. And as I said, the more experiences you have the better you become at judging a boy’s true character. Like, imagine if I’d actually married Anton Bowler! He would have been having affairs behind my back! Disaster!
Dear Diary,
Now I can go to Flora’s party because I’m definitely NOT going with Anton Bowler. Roma Virgona told everyone he was two-timing me and I was an idiot and he’s been going steady with her for ages. First I knew about it. Personally I think she’s got shit on the liver, as granny says, because he really likes me better than her. Well, he can stuff BANDSTAND up his jumper. I wouldn’t go out again with him if he PAID ME!
Have you ever got into trouble because of boys doing dumb things?
Sometimes I wonder about boys and brains. They seem to think first and act later even though they are supposed to be naturally more rational and logical than girls. I think that when their hormones kick in, logic goes out the window. As my granny always said, ‘A man’s brains are in his thing.’ (She wouldn’t say words like cock or dick and we never even knew it was called a penis back then.)
Dear Diary,
Ally and I were baby-sitting for the Bryants after dinner. They live across the road from her house. Ally had told these two really cute guys that we were baby-sitting, just casually in conversation, and they came round. At first we weren’t going to let them in. But then we did. And we started pashing on the couch. Ally had Damien and I had Patrick. They go to St Joey’s and they’re Catholics. Our fathers would KILL us if they knew we were kissing Catholic boys. We are Protestants and strict Scots Presbyterians and we’re not allowed to go out with Catholics. Catholic boys aren’t supposed to go with us, either.
Horrors. Mrs Bryant came home early and we got sprung bad. She phoned our parents and now we’re both grounded for a week and Dad said if I ever kiss a Catholic boy again he will disown me!
I remember feeling mad at the boys and blaming them for being dumb enough to turn up when we were supposed to be babysitting. Mind you, we could have shut the door in their faces, couldn’t we? It was as much our fault and we were acting just as dumb. Parents can be very strict about who you go out with. I think it was much stricter when I was a teenager.
I wasn’t allowed to go out with boys from different religions, different cultural backgrounds, different ethnic groups, older men, and Mum and Dad had to meet them first before I was allowed out. How embarrassing!
If I went out with boys from the ‘poor’ side of town I was slumming and if I went out with rich boys from the other side of town who owned MG cars, I was ‘getting above my station in life’.
I don’t know if you girls have some of these problems. I know I went out behind my parents’ backs with ‘undesirables’ as they called them, with my girlfriends sworn to secrecy.
Out of defiance for the grounding Ally and I started going with Patrick and Damien, behind our parents’ backs. (Don’t tell my mum, she’s eighty now and the shock could kill her.)
I’d say I was going to Ally’s to sleep over and she’d say she was going to my place to sleep over. Luckily for us, our parents trusted us and didn’t check up.
Dear Diary,
I’ve started going steady with Damien O’Brien. I swapped Patrick with Ally because Damien has teeth braces and Ally has teeth braces and they kept getting stuck together. And Patrick likes Ally better and Damien likes me better. He’s a Catholic but he’s really nice. He’s got these gorgeous brown eyes, dark curly hair with sideburns, and really tanned face and he smells nice, of Old Spice I think. He said he shaves every day! I have to tell Mum I’m at Ally’s all the time. At least I’m ungrounded for Flora McDonald’s party because Mum had bought the present. Flora gave everybody her Dad’s Scotch whisky in some coke and everyone got smashed. She took all her clothes off and did the splits.
It was disgusting. We thought she was so posh. Lucky Damien and Pat weren’t there or they’d think Ally and I are cheap. Catholics couldn’t set foot in Flora McDonald’s or they’d be SHOT on SIGHT. And if Mum and Dad find out I’m going steady with Damien they’ll KILL me and I’ll be grounded for LIFE.
The other day when I was reading Ally some of this stuff out of my diary, she said, ‘Do you remember the time I went to the midnight drive-in with Nev? I told Mum I was going to your place and I stood out the front of my place in the dark. Then Nev picked me up, we went to the drive-in, then at 4am I
crept down the side of your house, climbed in your bedroom window, and slept top to toe in your bed.’
I’d forgotten this secret till she reminded me. We often slept top to toe, with her feet up my end and my feet in her face. It was what girls did in the olden days if there was only one bed.
Well, Damien lasted six weeks which was big time. Then I broke it off with him because:
Dear Diary,
Damien gave me a friendship ring. Out of the blue, just like that. It’s gold with a little red ruby. So I’m really going super steady with Damien! I showed my parents the ring at dinner. I did this because Menzel is always saying I’m ugly and I’d never get a boyfriend. So I wanted to stick it up his nose. I didn’t say Damien was a Catholic, in fact I sort of changed his name to Dan because everyone knows that boys called Damien are Catholics. And now I love Damien I thought I’d break Dad in gently and get him used to the idea that I’m going to marry Dan, I mean Damien, when I’m eighteen.
Dad dropped the ring on his bread and butter plate and said it sounded tinny. Then Menzel came to my house that afternoon grinning like an idiot with an IDENTICAL RING he’d bought attached to a peppermint stick he’d bought at the milkbar for a shilling.
So I laughed and pretended that I’d known the ring was a fake and was just having them on, but deep down I was really really HURT. And when I asked Damien he just laughed and said it was a joke.
I was hoping he’d say it was in lieu of a real ring, like a token until he could buy me a proper ruby ring. Now I HATE Damien. What on earth did I see in him? And anyway Jan said he’s been seen out with Sandra Weymouth. I wish that stupid dog would LEAVE TOWN. Ally reckons she’s letting boys feel her up and that’s the only way she can get them.
Boys are tricky. I suspect if you’ve got some brothers you know how their minds work. But then maybe you don’t. Like, I was working in a primary school doing an author talk and there was this crowd of ten-year-old boys in a corner of the yard so I strolled over out of curiosity. As I got near I saw a boy in the middle of the group quickly stuffing a pair of red lacy knickers in his pocket.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Nuthin’.’
‘You can tell her, she’s not a teacher, she’s an awfur,’ goes this other kid.
It turned out he’d brought his older sister’s lacy satin G-string to school. It was thirty cents for a feel and fifty cents for a sniff! Disgusting, but that’s the way lots of little boys (and BIG BOYS) think, whether you like it or not. Personally, I couldn’t think of anything worse than sniffing someone’s undies, male or female, let alone paying to do it! Imagine being THIS boy’s sister! When she strolls down the street in her 501s and a heap of smutty little boys snigger at her, she won’t have a clue why. Boys have secrets too!
Boys like showing off in front of girls. Girls are supposed to admire them. That’s why boys dive off tall towers into swimming pools and nearly break their necks in front of you, do bombs practically on top of you, skid their bikes all over you, roar round in cars with their mates doing wheelies and donuts, tell filthy jokes in order to impress you, and generally act like idiots. Here’s an email from Jane, age eleven
>From: Jane
>To: Margaret
>Date:
hi, I’m Jane Penman and I’m eleven. I like all your books. I think your a grate athor. I’ve read two books, Wired Warren and Tina Tuff. You seem to no about boys. This boy at school is torchuring me. He keeps puttng grass down my neck, skwirting me with a water pistel, trying to india-restle with me, and triping me up. He is making my life a misry. Can you tell me why he’s suddnly being so mean to me please? Sinsearly,
Jane
>From: Margaret
>To: Jane
>Date:
Dear Jane,
I think he is in love with you. This is often how eleven year old boys show that they are in love with girls because they don’t know what else to do when it happens. He will probably fall out of love in two weeks when footy starts.
Bye from Margaret
As I said, boys are rather odd. They usually say they hate girls when they are around ten years old, then suddenly at about fourteen they lock themselves in the bathroom for hours doing their hair and spend a fortune on pimple cream. That is how mothers can tell when their sons have fallen in love.
Now comes the bit where the boy might ask the girl out, or the girl might ask the boy out. In the olden days it was policy to wait for the boy to do the asking. Like I said, girls sat glued to phones all over Australia waiting with thumping heart for the guys to ring.
But this is the age of gender equity and equality so it’s okay to phone up boys or ask them out. This is always awkward at first. Like, what if the boy says no? Like, how will you cope?
If a boy says no, then another boy says no, don’t give up and take yourself off to a nunnery. Keep trying. But make the offer sound casual, not like you’re looking for a husband or it’s desperation city or something. Boys hate that.
Here’s an email from Kerryn, age thirteen:
>From: Kerryn
>To: Margaret
>Date:
Dear Margaret Clark,
I really liked your book Hot or What. I’d like to be a model one day and this book helped me to know what it could be like. Is there going to be a sequel to Hot or What? There should be. I really want to know what happens to Lisa. She’s got a great boyfriend. I wonder if you can help me. There’s this really hot guy at tennis. I like him and I think he likes me, except I think he’s too shy to ask me out. How should I ask him. I mean, I don’t want it to be like how my last boyfriend asked me out. His friend Tim rang me and we talked for a while then he said ‘James wanted to ask you something.’ James goes ‘Errrr ….do you wanna go out with me?’ and I go, ‘Yeah. I’d love to,’ and I heard this massive sigh of relief then he passed the phone back to Tim and I spoke to him the rest of the time, totally unromantic.
I want it to be nicer than that. How should I go about it??? Please answer soon before someone else asks him out.
Well, I’m not the absolute expert in boys, romance, sex and stuff. But I guess I’ve listened to enough conversations on beaches, milkbars, video parlours and mall seats, and read enough emails and letters to have a few clues.
If you don’t want to do this Round Robin thing, where you ask your girlfriend to ask the boy you’re keen on’s best mate if he likes you and does he want to go out with you, which can become very complicated, then here are some sure-fire ideas which, as my granny always said, ‘Won’t leave you with egg on your face’.
Sometimes it’s easier to phone than speak directly face-to-face with the boy you’re asking out. It gives him time to think whether to say yes or no. Also, you can’t see his face and so you don’t know whether he’s pulling faces, pretending to spew, or grinning with delight, which makes it less daunting.
Try not to say, ‘Are you doing anything next Saturday arvo?’ If he says ‘no’ he could then be very nervous wondering what he’s let himself in for, like you could be asking him to do a car-washing stint for charity or something. If he says ‘Yes’ then you have to more or less hang up, because you can’t grill him like a detective about what he’s doing and who with.
Try to ask him to something general where there are heaps of other people, like a party or a barbecue, or a group trip to the movies or to see a sporting event.
Don’t ask him to the family barbecue, or any other family event! Your father or grandfather will immediately collar him and ask him personal questions like, ‘Do you have any mental defects in your family, what’s your religion, blood group, what do your parents do, where do you live, what kind of car do your parents drive, what do you want to be when you grow up, are there any hereditary diseases in your family, what political party do they follow, what footy team do you barrack for, have you got private health insurance, any serial killers, drug addicts, murderers in your family?’ Your granny and your mum are more likely to ask such thing
s as, ‘What’s your socks and jocks size?’ in readiness for next year’s Christmas presents.
All of these questions from both the male and female rellies will send a first date running in the opposite direction.
Make the invitation to go on a date with you sound non-threatening.
Like, ‘There’s a party at my friend’s house next Saturday and I was wondering if you’d like to come.’ If he says, ‘Can I bring someone?’ don’t say, ‘Yes, me,’ because he probably means he’s bringing another girl in which case he could be ‘taken’. If he says yes, calmly give him the time, location then ask if he’d like to pick you up from your home or meet you there.
If it’s the movies never say you’ll meet a boy inside because then you have to pay for your own ticket, unless of course you did the asking, in which case you should offer to pay for yourself. The first date, he pays, if he’s asked you, otherwise you should offer to pay for yourself. The second date, he pays, assuming that this time he’s asked you. The third date, if things look like they could be going to develop long term, you can offer to pay for something. I always believe if you’re worth going out with, then you’re worth paying for, at least for the first few dates, even if he’s a poor student with no money!
Sometimes an imaginary boyfriend can be fun. It’s normal to have ‘crushes’ on movie stars, pop idols, rock stars, sports heroes and other public figures.
Dear Diary,
I’m in love with Tab Hunter. He’s just groovy. He’s got this tanned face, blue eyes that seem to look straight at me, and this blond hair that kind of flops over his forehead. When he sings I go weak at the knees. I lie in bed and have this thing where I win a trip to Hollywood and he sees me and falls in love with me. Or he comes to Melbourne and I’m at the zoo and I turn around and there he is right next to the hairy armadillos (my fav animal) and our eyes lock and I go all sort of squiggly down low in my pelvis, and I feel sort of wet between my legs.
Secret Girls' Stuff Page 7
