Free Is It Just Me? by Chrissie Swan

into sleaziness.
    I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t had too much exposure to the men your friends have warned you about. I just haven’t met them. Or if I have, I haven’t let them into my world. I’m sure they exist … but not in my universe.
    When I worked in advertising I met dozens of creative, hilarious gentlemen. They never wanted to sleep with me, so I was free to love them with complete fervour. I caught up with one fellow eight years after he first gave me my chance at a career in advertising and I thanked him. He told me he never hired anyone he wouldn’t like to sleep with.
    We guffawed over this. And I was flattered. Not horrified. There haven’t been too many men in my life who have hit on me, and frankly I’ll take attention wherever it comes!
    I’ve always appreciated a man’s uncomplicated nature. All the women I know are also as transparent. It’s a trait I like.
    People say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and I probably would have agreed with that statement in my teens. The boys on my tram, smelling of a curious “boy blend” of pencil shavings, hockey sticks, orange rind and cheap deodorant, were the most intimidating people I’d ever seen. I’d stare at their school bags just to see what was inside. I was fact-finding. Like Miss Marple, but with newly shaved legs and navy hair ribbon.
    But as I’ve grown, mainly into myself, I can’t muster one example of a man I do not understand. The one I live with now is a dream. Funny, honest and hard-working – like all the women in my life. And I have two little boys of my own and five nephews (no nieces), so now I’m swimming in boys. They are all I know. My sisters and I are trying to raise these tiny human beings to be empathetic, kind and industrious. Just as we would if they wore tutus instead of tool belts. They are defined by their lack of drama. They are a good influence on us all.
    When I was twenty-nine, I was thrown into the Big Brother house and it was there I learnt the most about men. I remember thinking at the time, “They’re so fun!”
    Men have taught me to not sweat the small stuff. They run at life without considering the drama of it all, the consequences. Life is a trip.
    Last night, in a sea of toys and kids’ stuff, with four baskets of washing to fold and a 4am wake-up looming, I was attempting to get my one-year-old into a romper suit for bed. It was like trying to get an octopus into a plastic bag. Sensing my panic, my partner looked at me with his shiny eyes, scruffy beard and a wry grin and said, “Marriage, kids … the whole catastrophe, eh?”
    How do they do that? With one sentence I was able to let it all go and enjoy the chaos.
    Men. Maybe it’s true, you can’t live without them. And why would you want to?
    Â 
    19th August 2012

We can meet heroes
    Rick Springfield was in Australia. My friend Tim sent me a link to an article that stated the “Jessie’s Girl” singer had done an impromptu show at a suburban restaurant. One surprised diner said, “I was having lunch with a couple of friends, then the band changed and a few older blokes sang three songs. It wasn’t until he was singing ‘Jessie’s Girl’ that we realised one of them was, in fact, Rick Springfield.”
    This is deeply un-Australian. I would have lost my tiny mind. In fact, if I was enjoying a parma at the Cove Steakhouse and Rick goddamn Springfield turned up, someone would probably have had to call triple 0.
    I can’t tell you exactly why I love him so much. It could be his dreaminess, but it’s probably the fact he wrote these genius lyrics: “I wanna tell her that I love her, but the point is probably moot.”
    I don’t live too far from the restaurant in question, so I could’ve staked out the place. But I’ve recently learnt that you have to be careful when you meet your