is chivalry dead?

We know that we are the children of the divorce generation. Working at GE has taught me that at least 50% of Australians are happily divorced or separated. It still surprises me when customers tell me that they're divorced and loving it. Somehow, we've been taught that it's too risky to put that much faith and trust in another person. Many of us don't bother to work things out because time is too valuable. Our time could be better spent leaving, starting over, and meeting other people. Fresh, sparkly, and new is always better, isn't it? People trade in marriages like cars. Relationships, even those bound by marriage, have become as disposable as contact lenses. Time for a new choice of eye colour - who will look good on me this year?

The dating world has gone mad, completely and utterly insane. We've got relationships that fall apart for valid reasons (like infidelity), but we've also got relationships that break up because they are "too perfect" (what the hell?). Maybe I've been out of the game for too long because I don't know how it works anymore. The days of chivalry, romance, and courting are resting in peace. I blame this almost entirely on the fact that every television show or movie promotes the idea that sleeping together on the first date is normal. If you meet someone for the first time and end up in bed with them that night, where's the novelty in that? There is no pleasure in the unwrapping of the package. There is hardly sufficient time to build up healthy anticipation. Sex on its own has become anticlimactic.

Perhaps I'm just being one-sided; everyone's got their own choice of lifestyle, and who am I to judge? Meh, whatever tickles your pickle!

love to hate those silly love songs

Do you think your taste in music reflects your current chapter in life? For example, if you had just broken up with your partner, you'd be addicted to those sappy love songs. I share a love/hate relationship with love songs. I love them because so many of us relate to them that they could become our national anthems. But I hate them because I'm attracted to them when my relationships fall short, and they fail to cheer me up. They trigger the tears, and make me feel worse off than how I was before I clicked play on my Winamp. But I continue to sing along to them, drawn to their depressing lyrics. It's my choice to hum to these songs for their therapeutic results.

I have a playlist with random songs, but there will be one song that will stand out - one song that will remind me of someone, either a guy in the relationship that has just crumbled or a new crush. What makes this all the more silly is that I can now associate certain relationships with certain songs. Sometimes there's more than one, but there's always and definitely one. Songs do remind us of certain people and times.

Nobody is safe from being my idol at the time of a breakup. Jennifer Lopez got the nod when my three-year relationship went down the drain. Her song "Promise Me You'll Try" tugged at my heartstrings, even though her voice usually gets on my nerves. I stumbled across it while going through my old MP3 collection and I couldn't get it out of my head.

The one song that was overplayed on Winamp was "Missing You" by Imajin. I listened to it on repeat, overanalysed the lyrics, and sent it to everyone on my ICQ list, forcing them to appreciate this "amazing" song. But who on earth permits these people to release songs like this? Funny enough, another person who had been in a war-torn relationship recommended this song to me. It was my all-time favorite during that period. I listened to it all the time, sometimes on a loop when I slept. It allowed me to be mournful while I sang along to the melody, claiming each and every word as mine.

These songs are similar to musical journals. I don't have to jot down notes and I don't have to necessarily explain what I'm feeling because the songs are doing a good job at that. For a while, I thought I was the girl in S Club 7 when I listened to "Never Had A Dream Come True." She was definitely talking about me. She must have been. Even if she had no idea of my existence, she must have composed this tune just for me. That, too, was another song recommended by my buddy. Perhaps he assumed that she wrote it for him, but I'll dispute that issue with him in person.

So what could possibly possess me to drown myself in these heartbreaking songs? Maybe it's easier to listen to someone else whinge about how they suffered, even if it is for the sake of making a record and raking in the dosh. I'm sure my parents probably know when I go through a breakup; they should be able to recognise the gloomy tunes blasting from my room by now. Not to say that I've been through many breakups, but whenever I do, these love songs play a good role in my journey to recovery.