All The People Who Travel On Trains.

This is ostensibly a piece of writing about trains. But it has nothing to do with trains.

I been catching a lot of trains recently. Not with my bare hands anymore, knees weak arms are heavy and yet .. how illuminating is it to be on trains? With strangers? I keep taking photos. The pic above is one of my all-time favourites. Wasn't even cranky at the guy at all, it was afternoon peak hour and he was SO exhausted and snoring. His head kept falling onto my shoulder then he'd snap back to reality, go to sleep, fall on my shoulder again, etc. I didn't begrudge him his sleep in fact I admired him for being so tired after going out there in the world.

Every single time I'm on a train I look around and wonder where all the people are going. What are they doing, who are they, what's their name rank file and serial number. We all go about our respective days every day. The hell do people do?

I've learnt a lot from recent train escapades. Especially about personal space, common courtesy, acceptance of loud people on the quiet carriages. In India they have pink train carriages reserved only for women which was a relief. When I was over there on a train I was standing in a crowded vestibule facing the window but in the reflection I could see - a sea, every single man crowded behind me was looking at me in such ways as unnerving. Vile, ugh. Afterwards I always went on a pink carriage with female security guards who would YELL at every man who attempted to get on. I'm no man-hater I swear but standing in that vestibule with those hungry males eyes and thoughts was one of the most disturbing experiences. I may as well have had no clothes on at all.

So recently on a train this guy completely invaded my five-seater. He sat down, cloistered and squeezed all of his luggage encircling the five-seater. The only baggage I had was emotional so physically I wasn't taking up much space - but when he plonked himself down there was no chance for me to escape unless I actually climbed up on top of the train seat. I had my headphones on, listening to Tupac who I really wish wasn't dead but that's not the point. Point is, I was having an "I'm out in public in public spaces with members of the public uggghhhh yuck anxiety-ridden day." And there were other seats for him to choose - entire four-seaters he could have claimed as his own but no. My dark sunnies meant I could watch him look me up and down, back and forth, with that old familiar feeling that women know when they're getting leered at. I wasn't in the goddamn mood. And I knew I wanted to write about this eventually so I snapped some happy snaps of the occasion:

I speak fluent body language and even though this guy sat diagonal, I had to keep moving my legs and scrunched myself up so he wouldn't touch me because he kept "accidentally" touching me. His hand almost fell off his knee onto my knee I JUST WANT TO LISTEN TO DEAD TUPAC. I was actually already aiming my phone at my face for a selfie to illustrate my peeved offness and happened to snap it RIGHT at the moment he asked me a question while I was wearing headphones listening to Tupac, my body as close to the window as I could, trapped in this five-seater unescapable fort.

Getting. Very. Angry.

See how I had my arm across my chest? He kept looking at my breasts. My brain actually thought "Oh I shouldn't have worn this top or he wouldn't be staring." See my eyebrow raise, the tight lips? It's because I ignored his question. I heard his question perfectly, just didn't want to answer it but when I didn't answer .. he threw his hands up in the air like I was the rudest bitch in town. Oh dude .. you have no idea how very much more than the rudest bitch in town I can be. I started filming thought ok, let's go. The video is over on my facebook page if you want to take a look but it goes a little something like this:

Me: (Takes headphones off.) "Sorry were you trying to ask me a question when I had my headphones on?"
Leery: "Yeah yeah I was just sayin' ... are those cowhide boots?
Me: "Yes. Yes - my boots are made from cowhide. Umm, I'm gonna go. I feel really uncomfortable and looked at. (At this point I was CLAMBERING over both seats and his Mt Everest luggage like a blanket fort gone wrong.) "So, you know, have a nice trip."

Then I ranted into my camera phone something along the lines of "This shit happens all the time. Men stare at women and claim space that is not theirs ... I'm 44. Not asking to be looked at, I'm just too old for this shit." He started ranting loudly. "I only bloody asked you about your boots!" So I changed carriages and THEN my phone died which obviously was the real tragedy of the situation.

However just a few days on a train (lots of trains I'm telling you #trains) .. something entirely hopefully unexpectedly happened! Two young women talking, I pull my headphones to one side because curious busybody - to find them animatedly talking about one of the best philosophy conversations ever. I got lost in their words, even turned my music off. It was magical. They talked of Homers Odyssey, Jung. How Frankenstein was representative of something I had no idea about. The entire story of Archilles Heel .. so, so much more. And they were talking LOUDLY. Are chicks even allowed to talk loudly on trains?

Look!!! Both sets of hands, waving wildly to illustrate all of their glorious points on Greek Gods and existentialism and all this stuff I'd never heard of. I really wish I'd thanked them for their conversation before I alighted but I didn't. I'm actually quite shy and was headed to a big day in Parramatta, defeated already.

THEN THAT SAME DAY ON THE TRAIN BACK UP THE MOUNTAINS THIS GUY WAS CRANING HIS NECK BACKWARDS TO KEEP LOOKING AT ME. I was wearing a red puffer jacket? Last time I checked red puffer jackets are not on the list of top ten sexy things to wear. WHY keep looking? I didn't have my headphones, just this face. So he soon stopped looking.

Anyway, this entire piece of words coming out of my brain to my fingers to your eyes isn't about just the surface stuff of people on trains. It's about their Souls and their Spirits and what they've been through in their lives, why do they look so defeated. Why are they so jovial. What are their names? Do they stay up until 2am questioning the Universe too? Have they just welcomed a new baby into their lives? Have they had their hearts smashed to smithereens against rocks like all those shipwrecks under the sea my boys and I saw from that lighthouse at the beginning of 2013? Are the people on the trains on medication? Which ones? Ever gone crazy? Ever came good? How do they cope how do they live?

Do the people on the trains wonder about the Federal Reserve? The UTTERLY CORRUPT Dakota Pipeline and how the authorities are itching to infiltrate peaceful gatherings of people and turn it all into a civilian war protest and get them the hell out of there? I wonder if the people on trains know about the damage the Rothschild family have done to the world for generations, funding all sides of wars since Napoleon days? Do the people on the trains and the platforms and the stations spilling out into the cities beyond the trains .. are they nurses or students, office workers, nothing people, undercover detectives, bored shop assistants, busy builders, writers dreamers hopers thinkers artists midnight creatures? WHO ARE ALL OF THE PEOPLE AND WHAT DO THEY DREAM ABOUT? You can feel so lonely on the busiest platforms. Especially when you look around and people have such purpose in their steps. But we don't know what the other has been through, the deaths, the hard, financial woes, heartbreaks and joys, grief and betrayal.

Anyway this entire post has gone off the rails and I've lost my train of thought. I've been on the wrong side of the tracks for some time, it's painful to be a trainwreck, lose your schedule and get scheduled. But right now I'm in the library, or as I used to call it when I was a kid "the liberry."  Thinking about all the meanings, definitions, and symbolism of trains. Paulo Coelho says life is the train, not the destination. Marianne Williamson says if a train doesn't stop at your destination, then it's not your train.

The best bit about travelling somewhere on any form of transportation is the freedom one feels about being suspended between two places but you're still travelling somewhere. With purpose, even. That's a good feeling, don't you think?

Now when I'm on a train - and ONLY if there are a veritable plethora of vacant seats - I purposely don't let anybody sit next to me. I'm being quite a wanker about it really. Just making a small personal statement that I'm allowed to take up space. Spread out a bit.

My 8-year old son and I recently watched the entire movie series of Star Wars and we were both fascinated. He for the first time, but me because I finally GOT it. The storyline, the Force, why Jedi is considered its own religion. I love being on trains with my son. I love being anywhere with him, he has this whole different slant on things I wouldn't ordinarily realise. We were talking about Darth Vader and the reasons he turned "bad" after being one of the best boss Jedi Knights of all time. (That I completely understood why Anakin turned to the Dark Side of the Force scared the utter shit out of me.) We both love Yoda the most. Rocco stood in front of me looking into my eyes and waving his hands all Jedi-mind trick at 10pm.

"You WILL let me have an ice block before bed, mum."
"An ice block shall you have, son."

Coincidentally for ages now I've been seeing this exact quote pop up everywhere, long before we watched Star Wars, way longer than I started catching trains so often.

That's the end of this blog post except to say I lost everything I feared to lose but I hadn't trained myself to lose everything. Therefore I've got some training to do.

I'm catching a train early in the morning AGAIN because I don't like driving to Sydney. I prefer my trains. Especially all the people on them.



 Oh this song. (Did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?)

(Comments to this website are still not enabled .. I'm still in training.)

The Myriad Of Ways In Which I Am Not Fucked Up.

Myriad - THERE'S a word.

A lot of us are our own worst enemies so I thought I'd share a few examples where I'm not fucked up. You're probably not as fucked up as you think either so maybe you can count up your myriadness too if you like. Probably do us the world of good.

1)

Slowly learning at the end of a hard day that I'm still here, I still rose like the sun, and I did my best. Even if my best was shit - I still did SOMETHING.

2)

                                            Parramasala Slam 2014, owned it, won it.

I slam poetry down quicker than those guys in the 80's VB ads slammed down their cans. The word "poetry" has negative connotations but slam poems are political firestorms of machine-gun words in quick succession. It's hip-hop music without the music, just lyrics. I've been asked to headline a poetry slam next month and I've already built a bigger boat for the words in my head.

3)

The art of not giving a fuck and actually giving a fuck is an art I'm practicing. We must give a fuck about the RIGHT things, and not give a fuck about the WRONG things. A give-a-fuck tightrope walk, if you will.

4)

I'm an extraordinary, loving mother to my kids. Put my hand up when I haven't coped. I've parented so well and so hard for 16 years, starting from the year 2000 when my (step)son came to live with us at age 8. I did courses on how to be a better mother. I slogged my heart and guts and soul out to make sure they are ok and felt loved and secure and stand up for themselves and not be bullies or arseholes or meek. I have failed as a mother, I have shone as a mother, and everything in between. Currently watching the last season of Nurse Jackie. In the first episode she puts makeup on and walks into the bar her husband owns which they used to own together but everything is his now she's cool with that. He was serving drinks to customers and she politely spoke to him about seeing her two daughters and he said she couldn't see her two daughters because he didn't think she could be trusted because of previous transgressions of which she is fixing, fixing. He says flat-out no and goes to give another beer to a customer sitting at the bar.

Nurse Jackie didn't give a fuck who was in the bar, who heard, who thought what about her causing any kind of scene. She shouted at her ex in front of everybody that she WILL see her girls, do NOT start this shit Kevin, or he won't know what hit him. She was fury. Said her piece, walked out. And eventually saw her girls in the next episode and hugged them so tight, cooked the wrong thing for dinner, the youngest asked what Jackie's two days in jail were like did she have to poop in front of other people? Her eldest was wary, resigned, but very clearly had missed her flawed mother. Called her mother unreliable, called her on her bullshit, told her to face exactly what she thought. Nurse Jackie, after everything, was still afforded the time and respect from her girls.

5)

I'm feeling you Daryl but your brother isn't coming back. Time moves on and we live with the empty gaping unfillable hole. Ironic that it's called "loss" when loss never goes away, it's here to stay. (It's personally taken me three years and one month to reach a level of acceptance I never ever thought was possible but it IS which means all things from here on in are possible. All. Things.)

6)

Did I hit Melbourne airport last Monday afternoon in terror thinking oh my god I have made a huge error of judgement whose dumb idea was this how will I stay at Nathalie's house for three days I DON'T STAY AT PEOPLES HOUSES. But she zooms in and picks me up from the airport and it was only weird for a few hours until I settled in to join a quite extraordinary family Indian meal where everybody talked and laughed over the dinner table and everybody listened to what everybody else had to say. Laughter and love and wow. I should have done that been that worked on that for fifteen years MISTAKES WERE MADE.

7)

Finally met Berry, the editor of Dumbo Feather Magazine. She spoke, the CEO of Greenpeace Australia also spoke, then I spoke/laughed/cried/swore/apologised told everyone how I gave a copy of the issue to my sons to read, way too dark but this is who their mother is. Berry is *insert incredible adjective here* Afterwards Nathalie and I found a boutique eatery whose food exists ENTIRELY OF CHEESE. Omg. First time in my life I've eaten non-Kraft mac'n'cheese fancy like Iggy hell yes.

8)

This is who I am. Who I am is ok. Who I am is ok. Who you are is ok. Keep saying it until we believe it. Who we are is ok. It's ok. And when it's not we work until it's ok again.

Ok?

::

(COMMENTS STILL OFF I'M SO SORRY BUT THERE'S TOO MUCH BILE BEING WRITTEN IN THERE LATELY SO NO, YUCKY PEOPLE. You don't get a say. If you want a yucky say email me edenriley@gmail.com with subject line "HATE" and I'll file it in emails marked "never to be read." Thanks.)

Times Like These

Check out the clock I took a picture of today at Central Station ... NO HANDS. 

On the weekend my son went and chose a DVD from the booth while I was buying hot cinnamon donuts. After he chose, we sat down at a table and told me he helped a lady choose her DVD because it's confusing when you're not used to it and don't have an email address. Not everybody has an email address .. so refreshing. The lady ended up sitting next to us for a little rest and looked and said "You're the boy who just helped me!" And he said yes and she commented on what a confident guy he was. Asked his name. Asked my name. Her name was Jessica. I asked her what movie she chose.

"Well, I had to choose a sad one."

I literally lifted my head back and laughed SO HARD. She asked why I was laughing and I told her that I loved that she was choosing a sad one. She told me she had to because her therapist told her that after a lifetime of suppressing her feelings, she needed to cry and feel more. Told her oh my goodness I would swap in a second, that I feel too much, and cry TOO much. Rocco piped up,

"Yeah mum cries a lot."

Jessica was all about purple. She moved to our table unannounced and I had to pause my donut-eating to listen to her telling me about astrology and what's my star sign and what's Rocco's star sign. She's a Gemini - or Libra. I don't know much about those two signs. Rocco's a taurus.

"Oh that's why you're so sure of yourself and determined, young man."

She loves Pisces, same. I LOVE being a Pisces. We're the only water sign that doesn't have a protective hard shell. Told her I'd recently been in hell but was coming up for air. Told her there was a supermoon coming up, she said the moon was always super. She told me this time in my life would pass and it won't always be so busy. I talked over her at one point and she said wait, let me finish.

At that, Rocco choked a bit on his donut and laughed. She looked at him so I said "Bless you sweetheart!"  .. as if he sneezed but he knew I was trying to cover for him which made him laugh more.

More conversation ensued but then the donut shop lady started packing up the chairs so we had to go. I told Jessica some recent stuff about me.

"Really? So what makes you so interesting?"

Told her everybody was interesting but she was too sharp to be blown off so when she pressed further I confessed my online sins. She pulls out an little lined old-school writing pad and demanded I wrote down what this website was called. I wrote it down. She asked if it was uppercase or lowercase. I told her it didn't matter. Don't think she believed me. Next time she has her iPad she's going to look me up so I warned her about the swearing.

It was really time to go so we bid goodbye and as we walked off, Rocco told me that she'd really helped me. Doesn't miss a trick.

Got back to my flat, was spending the entire day going through all of my clothes. Rocco kept jumping in the middle of them and asking if he could sleep in there it was so comfortable.

THE DEAR LITTLE FAAAACE. (Remember that scene from E.T. when he was hiding in all of Gerties toys?)

We had strawberries and hot chips for dinner while watching THE MOST inappropriate film for an 8-year old.

"Dude .. do you think I would have said yes if you'd asked me if you could hire this movie?"

"No. So I didn't ask."

We both complained about too much chicken salt on the chips but kept eating them anyway - annoying. The guy didn't even ask if we wanted chicken salt he just threw it all on willy-nilly. If I'd wanted chicken salt I would have put the salt on myself.

Anyway today is a good calm strong day ... Mondyay! I dropped Rocco off to a friends house this morning at the crack after packing his schoolbag last night with a hand-scrawled note in his lunchbox as a surprise. Two Darth Vader vanilla yoghurts. An individual little pot of pasta salad because he hates sandwiches. Apple. Strawberries. Drink. His homework and a book for free-time reading. All of the things.

Caught a train and soon a plane where people just line up and walk onto a tin can which then FLIES UP INTO THE SKY. Craziness.

So it's Times Like These, the song de fucken jour. I'm rocking my head and tapping my boots and don't really care who sees I'll never see any of these airport people again .. unless they're all extras in my life who just take on different roles but don't think that, brain. Chill. Get on the tin can and fly away.

"I'm a one wild light blinding bright ..
Burning off alone."

(Comments off for safety reasons hey I've never in my life listened and watched the safety instructions before a plane takes off. Am screwed if the plane crashes.)

I'm On The Cover Of Dumbo Feather Magazine But It's Not What You Think.

"The time has come," the Walrus said
To talk of many things:
Of shoes - and ships - and sealing-wax - 
Of cabbages - and kings - 
And why the sea is boiling hot - 
And whether pigs have wings."

Hello I'm on the cover of the latest issue of one of the best magazines in existence: Dumbo Feather.

BUT NOT IS ALL AS IT SEEMS. Is it ever?

Without wanting to spoil the interview with spoilers but spoiler alert: I love how they chose this photo as one of the main ones. Because it was an impromptu one that my photographer artist neighbour Jeff Davies snapped as I was looking at Rocco. I guess it was chosen because of the love in my eyes. Kids need to see their parents look at them with love in their eyes. They need that so much.

I didn't want to do the interview. I tried to cancel it with the editor Berry but she wouldn't let me and then my phone rang and UGHHH so nervous. Ten seconds in she told me she was just as nervous. Five minutes in I realised I love this woman. And two hours in? Well, the entire conversation had us all turned around and excited and talking and talking about rich, beautiful, scary, dark light spiritual messy stuff. That conversation with Berry buoyed me for weeks and weeks afterwards. She reminded me of who I am? She didn't judge? She made me LAUGH. I told her that when the magazine came out in three months time I just didn't know where I would be - emotionally, mentally, physically. I felt completely worn down and unworthy of the interview but the longer it went on my spark came back up and soon we talked about bonfires. I kept asking her questions about her because everybody is interesting.

I love this photo ... how confident and self-assured do I look! But a few hours after the shoot I felt something odd in my jeans so I reached down and pulled out underpants from the day before, all scrunched up. Rocco unfortunately saw this.

"Mum, what the hell is that?"
"Undies."
"Oh. Well, why are they there?"
"Um, I just ..."

Then he lost interest anyway so we went back to watching the movie in the living room where we do our living. Eating popcorn. He was unperturbed, so used to my strangeness by now. I'm the mother he was dealt.

He was STOKED to have made it into the magazine. I've no idea what we were looking at on the computer PROBABLY A BOTTLE FLIPPING YOUTUBE VIDEO DON'T GET ME STARTED.

In the interview I talked a lot about my sons and being a mother. Berry asked me the best questions, confessed that she was hesitant to talk about my dark because there's dark, and then there's dark dark.

A dark dark here and a dark dark there but guess what, not everybody is a dark dark.

Do you think we choose our lives before we come to planet earth? Maybe we choose some themes and a brief outline and just wing it as we go along, free will and all that. But don't we just get thrust into some boiling cauldrons along the way of which surely we didn't ask to be thrown into. Sometimes I look around at people going through horrendous things and wonder why other people don't go through such horrendous things? Conundrumosity city.

If I knew this was going to be the cover photo I would have done my hair properly. Also makeup, eyebrows, smiled differently, maybe not cried so much right before the photo was taken by Jeff in a Camellia bush in the Carrington Hotel garden. But then if I'd gone to all that trouble it wouldn't be this photo and this photo is who I am in life right now. Bit worn-out, battle-weary, sad, still here, hopeful. There's no bullshit in this photo. The team at Dumbo Feather say it's one of their favourite covers ever. And one of their favourite interviews ever. And I'm so proud of that. Really grateful. And humble can you be proud and humble at the same time? Whatever moving on ..

I thought Cheryl Strayed was going to be in this issue and on the cover so the night before Berry rang me for the interview I watched the movie Wild starring Reese Witherspoon which was based on Cheryl's book. (Yes Megan I can hear your eye-rolling from here, I will actually read Cheryl's book I promise.)

I've known about Cheryl since back when she was Dear Sugar, before she used her real name. I remember vividly when she revealed her true identity back in 2012. So obviously I had to be as un-Cheryl Strayed in my interview as I could to mix things up. Told Berry straight-up I don't know how this interview was going to pan out because I was in a state of tormented flux at the time and I can't wrap my life up in a big pink bow. Of course she didn't even expect me too - but jeez she ended the written interview in the magazine BRILLIANTLY. I won't spoil the ending, but sometimes a pink bow is a pair of cowboy boots. Sometimes when we reveal our true identity to the world - well, it just cuts through a lot of crap and you can almost hear other people sigh in relief and recognition.

The magazine is out now. The owner of a local news agency asked me what was my interview about and it's the same when people ask what this website is about. "Ummm, just life and stuff. Going through things. Recovery death dark light suicide mothering love hate all of the things." And he stopped me and told me that his own sister had taken her own life, years ago. Suicide is an epidemic of which we are inching closer to talking about properly. Had the best talk with that newsagency proprietor. He promised me he'd put up a big poster outside his shop and he DID. And last weekend I was walking past with Rocco who clocked it first and actually made ME stop and pose for a photo instead of the other way around.

"Mum are you famous?" 
"No sweetheart."

I was sad that day too for the love of heavens please make the sad stop. I'm back at the gym and eating really well, it's shifting things.

Here's a snippet where we talked about Spirit and unseen stuff and the annoyance of objects.

So, that's the end of my magazine story. It really is a MAGNIFICENT magazine, so good to hold in your actual hands. Thick and heavy, bursting with substance and stories with different and incredible people. If you've come here for the first time - hello, nice to meet you. I've been writing here for many years. A lot of life happened and hey guess what, there's still a lot of life yet to happen. Feel free to go back and look at some earlier entries I've written. The dark dark ones are full-on can you handle that y/n.

I'm sorry but for now, my comment section on this website is turned off. If you want to say hello or send some kind of smoke signal, please email me at edenriley@gmail.com

I realised I have a LOT in common with Cheryl Strayed after watching Wild oh my goodness the very last scene made me cry such a beautiful cry.

Ever noticed how there's a whole host of different cries? Not all cries are sad. We cry during births, deaths, marriages. Heaps of weeps to be had.

Some cries can even make you realise a whole heap of things you needed to know right in that very moment.

"The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away." they said,
"It WOULD be grand."
"Do you suppose." the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it." said the Carpenter.
And shed a bitter tear.

 - The Walrus and the Carpenter
 by Lewis Carroll

God Is Still A Blogger.

God has been tapping the keys of her Royal Standard No. 5 typewriter since before they even existed. She's cool like that.

She's a blogger. Each day she writes a new post, sitting perched on the Appalachians, admiring her handiwork as the sun breaks into her sky.

Sometimes she lights a Drum, hand-rolled just like she hand-rolled that one snake to put in Eden, back in the beginning.

There's no such thing as coincidence and she has too many secrets. So she hides them in places we'll never find .. our own hearts. She never wonders how it's all going to end because she's already there.

She writes of love, death, and herself. The three true themes. You can see her font in fields and trainlines, waterfalls, the notes of a symphony, the tightness of a newborns fist.

God is a blogger. Her only inspiration is from the people who've given up all hope but keep going anyway.

(Comment section closed.)

My Great Tinder Experiment.

You know what's hard? Being on tinder at 1am on a Saturday, scrolling scrolling CRYING because who are all of these strange weirdos and this is where I ended up in life: scrolling tinder sadly.

I've only been on tinder a few times. At the beginning I put up a lovely pic, nice innocent bio ... then it gradually dawned on me that people were not who they claimed themselves to be. Can you believe it? True story. Tinder is the most brutal match-making app of all time. ALL TIME. Don't like somebodies name? Swipe left. A bit too ugly? Swipe left. Wearing a dodgy hat? Swipe left. Crap haircut? No soup for you. All of these could-be soulmates scattered to the left to the left. Littered. Abandoned .. I'll never know if that guy with the half-odd smile was actually a beautiful man with a great decent heart he just got swiped left because he had a half-odd smile in one photo.

Guy with lots of tattoos and looks a complete player? Swipe right. Guy who is a musician/writer/artist who looks ok and sounds pretty cool? Right.

Allow me to stop right here - guys, STOP IT WITH THE PHOTOS OF MOTORBIKES AND THE PHOTOS WITH TIGERS IN BALI. Just stop. No. There's even a few old wedding photos with the bride cropped out. And the biggest, biggest tinder sin ANYBODY can commit is to have photos of your children on your tinder profile. That's so wrong in so many ways - I get it, you love your kids. I love my kids! But just no no no. Everybody who had pics of their children with them instantly gets swiped left. And another huge biggie for me is the grammar issues. Some made me wince, some were forgivable and I overlooked. But if you say you're a "Derector" of a large international company, I'm not entirely sure you are actually a derector of anything.

So after a while, after going on and then off and then back on tinder out of sheer loneliness (or sometimes just boredom) I got really annoyed. I kept getting accused of having fake photos. Men kept asking me what my real name was. Um, Eden? Then get told I was a liar. Then get abused. Then get pressured to hook up IMMEDIATELY. There was a running theme of men being frustrated of women having fake profiles, which is probably true but not me.

So I thought, ok then. You want real real from realtown? Let's do this.

Firstly I started with a very real profile pic, indicative of where I'm at in life.

With a real bio to suit.

Well. Talk about setting a cat amongst the pigeons. I had one rule - swipe right to EVERYBODY to see what happens. Like bees to honey (or rather, flies on shit) to my utter astonishment, they came in droves. DROVES. It was fascinating, enlightening. I got into tinder fights. I found myself in incredible conversations with men talking about their own depression and mates who've died. Some called me a "breath of fresh air." Some called me "angry so angry why are you so angry?" 

There was utterly no bullshit from me in any interaction with anyone during this time. I was quite a smartness though, just couldn't help myself. Here's one of the pics from the very first guy I matched with:

Is that a turn on, or what?

In less than an hour I'd run out of "likes" which I'm not even sure what that means but it was utterly hilarious.

So, I proudly present to you - some highlights of my Great Tinder Experiment.

No wonder Danny lost at gambling because it's a numbers game and he wrote "addition" instead of "addiction." 

This guy sent me a polar bear GIF straight off the bat. I was sent lots of GIFs, but this still remains my favourite. Cute.

I noticed very quickly that a lot of men did not care about my profile or conversation they were keen to meet up anyway.

But some were annoyed and gave me tips. Alex told me to stay VERY positive, not just positive. 

"Just got out of jail, need somewhere to stay." At least Bash was honest.

This guy was holding his kill like he was driving a car. Revolting.

Gentlemen, there is such a thing as too many emojis. Just no.

Most guys really did not give two shits about what I was saying to them. It was so much fun.

Heard nothing back from Michael.

This guy said he could totally handle the crazy! But I never heard back :(

I asked James what kind of breed was Lol? He said "what the fuck are you talking about?" I said "Your dog, Lol." Never heard back.

Never heard back from Dennis.

I pointed out to this guy that I could see the words "car dealership" up the top of his photo. Never heard back.

I never replied to Edward. Wasn't just the your/you're. He just irritated me. 

At least things were getting a bit more honest.

This electrician just nailed it. NAILED IT.

Then I opened up my account to include women as well, but that's a whole different story. After all the flurry in a few days, I got bored. I had no intention of meeting any of these men .. to be honest, looking at the date stamp on the time I did this, it was right at my brothers death anniversary so maybe I did it for distraction. You know what happened next? I wrote the truth. I also changed my profile photo to a hot boob pic, but that's not the point. I wrote my absolute truth of why I was on tinder.

I don't believe in soulmates, but I do believe in a really true and madly intense and passionate love. Anybody who really gets to feel and have that in their lifetime, however briefly, needs to surrender to a love like that. I strongly doubt that will ever happen for me. I'm too much for most people hell I'm too much for ME. Luckily we all get our love supplies from different places. Family, children, pets, creativity, passion, friends.

My tinder replies and matches after that were completely different. Writing what I was actually really looking for made me feel stupid and vulnerable. Or maybe for once I just couldn't handle my own truth. It felt so weird .. especially after somebody sent me this.

Pow. 

I didn't want to waste anybodies time anymore so I deleted my account for good - vale ye, tinder. You served me well.

Related: I really need to get myself a dog.

(Comments on my blog are still turned off but if you're on the dreaded Facebook you can comment over there if you like. How the HELL does anybody meet people anymore?)