{"id":290,"date":"2016-04-01T17:41:21","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T17:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=290"},"modified":"2016-04-01T17:41:21","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T17:41:21","slug":"ed-hardy-other-absolute-nos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=290","title":{"rendered":"Ed Hardy & Other Absolute Nos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S<\/span>o. You\u2019re a young woman out on yet another first date. You\u2019re jaded, you\u2019re faded, but you must do this because you promised your anxious parents you\u2019d keep an open mind. So you order your teas and settle in to listen.\n\nInformation is pouring forth like cheap wine. Sun signs, family trees, first dates, last relationships, best TV shows, worst movies, and other banalities are rattled off on autopilot until your ForeverMoist lip gloss finally gives up and gets dry. But you find you haven\u2019t yet come to the critical conclusion \u2013 is this guy worth a second date? He sounds smart, throws some clever quotes around, follows the Euros, has clean fingernails, and knows that Merlot is a wine (unlike your last date who, when asked if he liked Merlot, famously said, \u201cWho is she?\u201d)\n\nIt\u2019s going to be <\/p>11 pm<\/span><\/span> and your curfew is running out. You need to make a decision. You need a sign but the cosmos is sleeping and couldn\u2019t be bothered to send down lightning your way and even the Waldorf isn\u2019t close at hand to carry out serendipitous ideas like taking different elevators hoping to arrive at the same floor. You\u2019re wondering how to play this and then he helpfully says, \u201cAnd we have a dog named Tuffy.\u201d\n\nYou take a deep breath. You want to laugh and cry at the same time: Laugh, because you now know, with manic certainty, that there can never be anything resembling another date with a guy who has a dog named Tuffy, and cry because you wouldn\u2019t have missed Game of Thrones<\/em>, if he\u2019d simply opened with, \u201cHi, I\u2019m Aakash, and I have a dog called Tuffy.\u201d\n\nThe world is full of idiots, but thanks to social media, nobody is sounding like one. They\u2019re all saying the right things, updating themselves with information, keeping track of the cool movies, mouthing clever reviews. Which means, you can look forward to many, many hours drinking many, many cups of tea and sifting patiently through the bullshit to arrive at the dregs, where the truth usually resides. And even if you do have the time to get there, you\u2019ll find that it tastes like shit and leaves such a bad taste in your mouth that you wonder why you had the damn tea in the first place.\n

If you or your family owns, or has owned, a pet by the name of Tuffy, I know, hand on my heart, that I cannot have much in common with you so there is no point wasting our time.<\/blockquote>\nThe internet is to be thanked for many things (shout-out to the miracle of online ticketing and online stalking here) but it is also the thing that has given birth to a generation of giant bullshitters, who present carefully curated public profiles so our real selves lie submerged like ice floes, with only our visible social selves projecting cool and white. So you can look forward to hours of talk time, which, if you\u2019re an unsociable person like me, is an idea that makes you want to repeatedly jab yourself in the eye with a very small screwdriver.\n\nWhen it comes to choosing prospective boyfriends, friends, or even colleagues-worth-getting-wasted with, I\u2019ve realised that it\u2019s always useful to push conversations in directions that drive to quicker conclusions and help you ruthlessly slash the world into two well-defined camps: My Kinda People and Are You Kidding Me? I call these the Absolutes. In a world that is increasingly grey, it\u2019s nice to have Absolutes who present a rare opportunity to be fantastically black or white.\n\nTuffy is definitely one of my Absolutes. If you or your family owns, or has owned, a pet by the name of Tuffy, I know, hand on my heart, that I cannot have much in common with you so there is no point wasting our time. Modi Kaka, that saintly man sitting cross-legged in Pahlaj Nilahlani\u2019s video, is another Absolute. So is Marmite, that yeast extract that tastes like an unholy mixture of salt and battery acid.\n\nAll of them make for wonderful Absolutes. You either have poms called Tuffy or you don\u2019t. You either dig Modi Kaka or you don\u2019t. You either love Marmite or hate it. The lukewarm \u201clike\u201d cannot be associated with them. In a world of \u201ceverything is relative\u201d, they are refreshingly Absolute. And like the vodka, they are a dull dinner-party must-have.\n\nSo I now plan to put into my iPhone this little note that lists out my Absolutes. The next time when first date and I sit down and order some good wine, I will discreetly look into my phone and drive the conversation in the direction that elicits hints to some, or all, of these questions.\n\n* Does he own any article of clothing with Ed Hardy emblazoned on the front through which the faint outlines of his nipples can be seen?\n* Does he send texts of the \u2018how r u\u2019 variety?\n* Does he have black (or any other colour) hair sprouting from his shoulders?\n* Does he have Prince written on the rear window of his white SUV?\n* Does he have \u201cNothing\u2019s Gonna Change My Love For You\u201d on his playlist?\n* Does he say he likes to read and then proceeds to quote from The Fountainhead?\n* Does he usually ask women \u201cAre you modern?\u201d in an attempt to find out if they drink or smoke or will sleep with him on the first date?\n* And most importantly, does he know that Merlot is not a hot Catholic chick wearing a short skirt?\n\nTwo things may happen here: I might very well have the excellent wine thrown in my face, or I might actually walk out of that date having welcomed a new inmate into my asylum.\n\nBoth, I assure you, are more fun than going through the dregs of those endless fucking cups of tea.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a world of too many greys, it is comforting to have some black-or-white absolutes. Like knowing you couldn\u2019t date a guy with a dog named Tuffy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[503,504,62,63,64,65,66,67,505,506,71,72],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-love-and-sex","tag-absolute-nos","tag-absolutes","tag-arre","tag-arre-digital-platform","tag-arre-originals","tag-arre-reads","tag-arre-text-articles","tag-arre-website","tag-dating","tag-ed-hardy","tag-web-series","tag-web-shows"],"yoast_head":"\nEd Hardy & Other Absolute Nos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a world of too many greys, it is comforting to have some black-or-white absolutes. 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