Grown ups lie. ALL THE TIME.

Me: Hi, Mum, is Dad there?
Mum: No, he's taking Granddad home, why?
Me: Can I ask you a question? And will you be honest with me?
Mum: ...
Mum: Yes...
Me: What really happened to Benji?
Mum: The dog?
Me: Yeah. Benji the dog. What happened to him?
Mum: Your dad said he ran away.
Me: And is that true?

Adults lie. All the time. They lie about nice things, like Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. And they lie about big things too.

What really happened to Benji?

Earlier, I phoned my dad to wish him a happy Fathers' Day. We had a chat and then he put one of my nieces on the phone. When she asked who it was, I told her it was the Tooth Fairy. We had a brief, but highly amusing chat about the state of Granddad's teeth and that was it.

But then I started thinking...

I'd just lied to a child. A tiny child, who trusts adults to protect her and guide her through the evil soup that is childhood. What kind of monster am I? As if she doesn't have enough to be getting on with, playground politics, who's going to whose party, who's her best friend this week, etc., without me adding to it by outright lying to her.

Being a kid is HARD. 

Nobody takes you seriously. No-one listens to you. Everything is a predator, other kids, older kids, strangers, the bunyip, spontaneous combustion, dinosaurs. Life is a constant battle just to stay alive. Adults seem to be under the impression that to be a child is to be carefree and joyful. Once they cross the threshold into adulthood the dark side of childhood evaporates, leaving room for the really important stuff like interior decorating and being outraged at things they've heard on the radio. Things like how important it is to keep all your limbs inside the bed at night because if you don't then you will absolutely, definitely be eaten to death are forgotten. 

So given that, do they really need people like me messing with them? No. No they do not. The very last thing a child needs is me or my ilk toying with them like a cat with a mouse. They deserve my honesty. I will not be the adult who says "If you tell the truth, you won't be in any trouble."

LIES! 

Of course I'll be in trouble, are you kidding me? This is a trick, a dirty, sneaky trick designed to make me confess to a crime you're not even sure I've committed. That's why you're trying to bribe me with the false promise of absolution if I 'fess up. We both know you don't know for a fact that I did it, or you wouldn't be trying to bargain with me. If you knew 100% I was the perpetrator, I'd already be in solitary with no sweets for a month. I'm saying nothing, denying everything and you're just going to have to go to your grave wondering if I really was innocent. We've been here before, remember?

"If you tell the truth, you won't be in any trouble." 
"You're right! It was I! I did use your chapstick to write invisible letters to my best friend. And I'd do it again I tell you! I'd do it again!"
"YOU ARE GROUNDED, MADAM. BE GONE TO YOUR ROOM. NO SWEETS FOR YOU. YOU LITTLE DEVIANT."
"What? You said I wouldn't be in any trouble if I told the truth. I just told the truth. Now I'm in trouble. What kind of manipulative sicko are you?"

Lesson learned. Lie to adults. They will lie to you. Because if they know you've done it, they toy with you in a different way.

"And where have you been?"
"Oh, just up the field"
"Not in the woods then? You've not been to the pond?"
"Nope. Just up the field."
"I SAW YOU BY THE POND IN THE WOODS. I SAW IT. WHY DID YOU LIE?"
"I don't know, why did you ask me where I was when you already knew? Does that not strike you as a mentalist thing to do? What was the point in that? Do you feel clever now you didn't get caught in the conniving web of lies I'm spinning around you, Mother? Do you feel like Poirot now? Jesus."

Lesson learned. Adults only ask you seemingly innocuous questions when they already know the answer. Don't rise to the bait. Stay silent, stay strong. 

Honesty is the best policy, is it? Right. So, explain to me then, oh mature one, why it is when I'm honest, it's 'being cheeky'.

"Did you like the cake Auntie Mary made you?"
"No, to be honest, I think it was a bit heavy. Maybe try using less eggs next time. Or buying one, because I'm not going to lie, Auntie Mary, honesty is the best policy and in all honesty, your cakes are rubbish."
"GO TO YOUR ROOM, AUNTIE MARY AND I WON'T PUT UP WITH YOUR CHEEK"
"I wasn't being cheeky, I was being honest..."
"DON'T BACK ANSWER ME, GIRL. ROOM. NOW"

Or my favourite;

"It won't hurt, it'll just feel like a little scratch"
"Oh really? You're about to stick a needle in my arm. IN MY ARM. It's not going to feel like a scratch, it's going to feel like you're sticking a thin piece of metal into my flesh. THAT'S NOT WHAT SCRATCHING IS".

I won't have it. No longer will I kowtow to the cult of being an adult. I won't lie to children and tell them that honesty is the best policy. I'm going to be straight down the line with them. They'll thank me for it, when they're adults.

Oh right, yeah. The dog. Well, the story always was that he 'ran away'. My mum normally took him out for his walk but she was ill, so my dad did it. He came back, sans beloved family pet (he wasn't that beloved, he once ate the only blue crayon we had and then did blue poos everywhere, so all the poo was blue but the sky was forever white). Naturally, we were suspicious. Everyone (who's seen Lassie, and possibly Skippy) knows that lost animals find their way home after having a great adventure, foiling crimes, and saving lives. Benji never did and I've always secretly harboured the suspicion my dad is a murderer.

Mum said he went and looked for the dog and asked all around, but we did live in a small village surrounded by a lot of fields and woods and ponds, and he was still a very young dog, and it's possible he got into some trouble and died. 

We never saw him again. 

So today, after many years wondering whether the story that Benji "ran away" was just another of those horrible lies adults tell to children, I decided to find out the truth. I phoned them back, determined to solve this last, great mystery from my childhood. Did my parents lie to me about my dog? Did they, in fact, arrange for his death and try to hide it from us by saying he ran away?

No. He did just run away. I know my mum, she was too busy being relieved that I wasn't phoning from prison or announcing a pregnancy to be able to lie convincingly. The relief was palpable, there was just the right amount of confusion and concern. My mum's no actress, even over the phone. He ran away. I feel a bit how that lady must feel in Cold Case when she's put the big box of files back in the room with a big fat SOLVED sticker on it. I'd put money on it that tomorrow I'll see a dog, in the distance. A dog that bears remarkable resemblance to Benji. I'll smile at him fondly and the Smashing Pumpkins version of Landslide will start to play on my iPod.

And then the mystery dog will do a bright blue poo and I'll know my beloved pet is sleeping easy somewhere, his disappearance solved.
 
Case closed. 

Shipping - what's all that about?

I've been thinking a lot about 'Shipping' lately. For those of you who don't know, I'm talking 'Shipping', OTPs, Slash and all of the other mysterious terms the cool kids use on the Internet to talk about people they believe would make a good love/lust connection.

In one entry on the ever-reliable Urban Dictionary, user Heligoland describes 'Shipping' as:

(Fandom) uses this word as a verb to denote their interest in the possible (and perhaps more often impossible) romantic relationship between two characters in a piece of fiction belonging to any medium. It's really never used in a platonic way, but if it ever is, people tend to separately emphasize that they are using it platonically.

And that's where all my thoughts have sprung from. 'Never really used in a platonic way'. But that's not a big deal, is it? I mean, Buffy and Angel aren't platonic. And neither are Willow and Tara, or Jack and Ianto. They are people who are meant to be together. 

But what happens when people start to ship couples whose relationships are inherently platonic? What does that mean?

My first question was 'Why?' Why do you want these two people, who get on brilliantly, who complement each other in every way, to also be sleeping together? Why does that make the relationship better, or stronger? 

From this, I wondered whether, in the eyes of fans, Relationships > Friendships? And, if so, what the Baggins?

Which, in a roundabout way, takes me into the concept of 'Friendzoning'.

Friendzoning is, from what I can gather, when a boy likes a girl a lot, but she doesn't feel the same, and - rather than accept the fact that she just doesn't fancy him - he is subsequently bitches about being 'Friendzoned', never to be allowed the opportunity to allow his man sword near her scabbard of joy. 

Again - what the Baggins!?
When precisely did we decide that everything about a relationship had to involve sex or it was a lesser sort of relationship?
I put this question to the Internet (I posted it on FB and Twitter) and the first response I got was from my friend Liam, saying that it had always been this way, we were just a lot more open about it now.
And I think that's precisely it. It has always been this way and we are a lot more open about it now. Back in the day, everyone wanted Elizabeth and Darcy to be together. Or Mrs Pepys and Pembleton (Samuel was a GIT). But it was never (except with Samuel, dirty GIT) explicitly implied that sex was the Holy Grail. Back then, we were shown esteem, admiration, affection and love. Of course sex was involved, but it was never presented as the centripetal force. More as a pleasant interlude between brooding glances. But today, all we get is sex.

Every magazine you open is littered with features on how to be sexy, how to have the best sex, how to get more sex, how to get the sex you want and so on and so forth. In 2012, everything is about sex. Openly. Sexiest male, sexiest female, bodies, faces, positions, toys. We are saturated with the idea that sex is the most defining quality your life will have. And not just by having it, also by not having it. Choosing whether to have sex, not have sex, to have sex with boys, or girls, or just yourself becomes your most definitive feature. Everything is openly sexualised.

So then why (given that we're human and we always actively seek out the very thing we're not told about) would people already bombarded with more sexual ideas and imagery than even Casanova could devise, seek out EVEN MORE SEX?

Is it, in fact, the unattainability that makes it so alluring?

People are always drawn to what they can't or shouldn't want. It's the Garden of Eden every time. So is the desire to pair two characters who are patently not romantically involved the next natural step? Is shipping unlikely couples society's way of the shunning the media-prescribed versions of sex we're given?

If you believe the media, the most desirable (in terms of expectation and emulation) relationships are between people who are attractive, thin, affluent, successful, charismatic and adventurous. These are the relationships we are told to seek out. Even in books, the last refuge of the individual thinker, the relationships that get the most attention are the Edward and Bella type. Her the delicate, frail beauty who has no idea of her appeal and he the brooding, rich Greek God vampire-man. I'm yet to see the angsty, occasionally ugly, bitter-sweet but real love of a couple like Hazel and Augustus get a four page spread.

But the Internet has given power to the underdog in a way that couldn't be predicted. It's given people the chance to explore life and lifestyles outside of their immediate towns and cities. It's allowed them to find people who have quirks and interests like they do and so whole communities have emerged, dedicated to alternate lifestyles and ways of thinking. And shipping is very much a product of the Internet.

But are people really using ships as a way to redefine romantic ideals on their own terms?

Possibly, although romance still plays second fiddle to sex. I could go on Tumblr right now and find links to some absolutely golden filth about the BBC's Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, or Arthur Pendragon and Merlin. Ships, it seems, are not immune to sex.

But I genuinely think that subverting relationships to make them fulfilling on a personal level, as opposed to the media-led ideal of what a successful relationship should be, has to be the crux of why shippers are so passionate about their OTPs. They are the new fairytale. Way back when, people could seek solace in the fact that a prince might come and rescue them, or a beautiful fairy would take them away to her land and make them her consort. But in a world that's striving for equality and equal rights, we're a lot less keen now on the idea of coming into a partnership as the weaker or more dependant party. We want it to be an even match.

And the best even matches start with friends. Pure, honest-to-God, I'm-not-just-being-nice-to-you-to-get-in-your-knickers friends. And all of the ships I've come across, which are non-canon, seem to begin with friends.

I'd just like it if, for once, friendship was the ultimate prize. I'm old-fashioned like that.