Legal Lessons: Mitigating your loss...

Ok so I've decided to make a regular occurrence of my legal lessons. I will teach you a legal principle and then apply it in a relatable way via the fun topic of relationships. This particular topic was running through my mind when I was about to fall asleep and all of a sudden, I started thinking of Onion. I realised that I missed him a teeny weeny bit but then I started to wonder whether I missed HIM or just the comfort/regularity of my communication with him [there is a big difference btw]. I couldn't figure out which it was and that made me angry. Why oh why is this dude still robbing my precious time even though physically, he is no longer about?? Then I turned to the law [which oddly enough has become an unusual source of comfort for me] and I began to wonder if theoretically, I could sue him and so it began...

How would I sue him? In tort? In contract? If so would I make a claim for damages? Promissory estoppel? The possibilities were endless

How could I possibly bring such a claim you say? There is no contract...this is a sham....outrage....horror..well au contraire my little outraged minds. I have long since learnt that the law can be moulded in anyone's favour and I am here to assert that there was indeed a contract, albeit a verbal one. Yes, these are more difficult to prove in court, however, we are officially in the lumberjack courts of justice [LCJ] and I am judge, jury and claimant so my rules really do go. Shall I proceed? Yes you say? how kind....anyhoo, for a successful contractual claim,  the claimant must show that there was a breach of contract, causation, loss and that the claimant had mitigated [attempted to make less severe] their loss. So  with this in mind, my claim is as such:

Onion had contracted to enter into a relationboat with me [he made the offer, I accepted and the consideration was both financial and measurable in time], he breached that contract on 13/02/2011 and as a result of this breach, I suffered a loss of:

1) Theatre tickets

2) A trip to the Hills

3) Lessons on the intricacies of trading

4) My bloody time -both past and future

5) My ability to trust/respect men...thus setting me back on any progress I had so far made.

The only thing that had me stumped, is the point of mitigation. I mean I did try to mitigate my loss by my several attempts to rescind the contract, which he continued to dismiss with bold proclamations of the certainty of his feelings.The way I see it, the only other way to mitigate the potential of loss in a relationboat/ship is to have several back up suitors so that in the occasion of breach, there would be someone in place to prevent such a loss. Now it is my turn to be shocked. Is this really the answer? Is the only way to prevent losing in the relationship battle to not keep all your treasure in one pirate's ship?? Is this the only thing keeping me from being the first woman to sue for the loss suffered in a 'break up' [for want of a better term] - the fact that I didn't mitigate my loss by keeping my options open?

It makes sense right? Once again ladies, the  law has done it. It has proven a lesson that the universe has long since been trying to teach us. Learn to mitigate your loss by keeping a spare man about. It is where I have been epically failing my whole life. My inability to play the field could be the sole cause of me losing my claim against Onion. *Sigh*...I guess I better put away my Claim form and particulars of claim then.....

I may not be suing this time, but I will keep this in mind for the future. I THINK this is a more refined version of the point that Blu Cantrell was trying to make via the song 'hit em up style'...I call it 'mitigate your loss and then hit em up legal style'

Disclaimer: I am student not a teacher/practitioner of the law. Please do not try to sue anyone in reliance upon my blog posts. This is simply how I express myself; with a smooth blend of knowledge and humour. The end

How could you be so heartless??

Ok so for as long as I can remember, people have referred to me as 'cold' or 'mean'. I don't think this is particularly true, in fact, I think it is total and utter balls. I think I have an....interesting way of expressing my affection for people and I think it takes me a while to get there but I certainly do not think that I am devoid of emotion like I have some sort of black hole where my heart is supposed to be. 

I blame my upbringing to be honest. I am not about to show you my genitalia [code for air my family business] but I will say that I was raised to be strong shall we say and being strong in my family meant that any sign of emotion was equivalent to weakness. It wasn't until a lot later on when I was cemented in my ways that they tried to do the whole 'love is a house and you got the key' type stuff and by that time it was simply too late for me. I have no clue how to deal with tears or emotional people...it makes me really uncomfortable...which btw MAY seem cold but it doesn't mean I don't care, it simply means that I don't know the requisite words or actions necessary to handle such a situation.

MY question is..

'why do people expect you to all of a sudden be filled with love whenever they decide to love you'??

Men do it all the frigging time. If they suddenly decide that they want to be love mc'needison then ALL of a bloody sudden, you're a cold, unfeeling bitch because you don't respond in an adequate fashion. May I point out the inherent double standardedness of this all...I mean if a woman starts saying stuff like 'why do you love your computer games/football/trading/ [insert relevant boyfriend addiction here] more than me', then we are labelled as needy and insecure, but if they do it, then they just want to be loved??

Men are filled with insecurities which they are either in complete denial about or are just unwilling to admit the existance of said insecurites. I resent being referred to as 'cold' every time I behave in a fashion that undermines a man's masculinity. I may be a tad sarcastic at times but believe it or not fellas, I am NOT trying to make you feel stupid or hack off your metaphorical balls with my intellect...I just think it is FUNNY! It is how I express myself and I think it is a damned sight better than me running off in tears every time someone says something that hurts my feelings. I have long since learnt that a quick mind and a sharp tongue can combat any insult. This is not 'coldness' it is just wit. And I personally believe that you can only be made to feel stupid if you yourself feel you are stupid...I mean, if I call you a thief, it will not affect you in anyway IF you haven't stolen...but apparently you shouldn't say this to someone after you have just finished 'making them feel stupid'..*heavy sigh*...I was only trying to make them feel better to be honest...

ANYHOO...Sally made a comment today that really sums up the whole topic. Namely, 'you cannot make a withdrawal on my heart if the bank account is empty. There is no overdraft.'

Essentially all this is saying is that it is a slow process. Learning to love and express such a feeling is a job for me [and others like me]. I work on it and the love is deposited in my hearts' bank account. If you try to withdraw too early then not only will you get naught out of me but the account will shut down. However, with a little patience, you will receive a handsome payment if you enter in the right pin no. 

So no, I am not the tin [wo]man. I do not need to visit the wizard of Oz. I have a heart. It is intact and fully functioning. IF you cannot be patient then you will forever get the so called cold version of me. 

The End.

Legal Lessons: The Overriding Objective

Ok so I have been submerged in litigation law for the past week or so and I've just come back from my exam [which I think went ok]. Soooo being the intellectual and yet fabby person that I am, I thought I would give a little legal lesson with a twist. All civil proceedings are governed by the Civil Procedure Rules [the CPR] and the main rule that everything else branches from is called the Overriding Objective. In a nutshell the aim of the OO is to ensure that all proceedings are cost effective, expedient and fair so in effect ALL the statutory provisions of the CPR are subject to the dictates of the OO.

Get it? Got it? Good!! Now on to the fun stuff.

I have since realised that you can make metaphors out of pretty much anything and as a student of the law, I love doing this particularly with legal terminology and members of the opposite sex. Take Onion for example...

He has been avoiding our unfinished conversation like the plague and so I finally decide that enough is enough and erase him from my memory bank [not easy btw and I MAY have had a few teeny tiny vent-y type rants/explosions in the process of erm healing]. Anyhoo, I digress, the point is that the other day,  yesterday in fact, he called me and was super ready to just chit and chat as if we were slap bang in the middle of Shakespeare's 'All's well that ends well'- and what's more cheeky is that he was expecting me to comfort him because he'd had a bad day...nuh  uh..heck no. I made a hasty getaway and continued with my life when all of a sudden, Sally tells me that she...feels...sorry..for...HIM!!

SHOCK! HORROR! WTF??

It appears his voice had somehow pierced her heartstrings and for reasons inexplicable she just could not help but pity him. There was just 'something' that made her feel like he wasn't ENTIRELY trying to take me for a lumberjack...an element of sincerity?? I am not going to lie. I too have at times felt that same sincerity BUT then I glanced down at my book and remembered the Overriding Objective. Sure, sometimes I look at the statutory provisions of our relationboat and section 8[12] may say that he cared, and this may be backed up by several cases...HOWEVER the Overriding Objective says....'HE TOOK YOU FOR A LUMBERJACK' and then I look at the case of Re Valentines 2011 [and we all know the facts of this most recent commmon law] and decided that it takes precedent to all prior cases. So with that in mind, I am sticking firmly to my decision.

So you see what happened there folks?? It appears my father was right when he said to just face my books. They seem to have the answers to everything; my future career, subsequent riches and evidently my relationboat woes. How's that for lateral thinking??....

Captain Save a Hoe....

Whilst I was watching the Bad Girls Club [which btw is a freaking awesome and full of crazy american girls], I came across a phrase that reminded me of every man that pisses me off. The phrase in question evidently is, 'captain save a hoe'. I will explain to you with reference to a guy who has managed to make me lose every ounce of respect I ever could have possibly had for him: I call him 'The Rock'. 

Now TR is the most complicated being you will ever hear of. Think of an enigma, wrapped in a puzzle served with a riddle and there you have it - TR. I met TR through a mutual friend and my first instincts were that he was a douche buuuuut I gave him a chance to be a normal human being and after spending some time with him, I thought I had cracked the code and that he was just a huge softy on the inside . I was wrong and it turned out the answer was far more complicated than that because he has a saviour complex that is somewhat worrying, let me explain...

TR is the kind of guy that will do nice things for you like buy you food if you're hungry or drive you to church because he NEEDS to feel like he is the alpha male coming to the rescue of damsels everywhere [daddy issues methinks]...so wait you ask..is that not the perfect man? Why do I dislike him so? The answer is this. The SECOND he has to opportunity to ditch you in the bid to chase a girl that tickles his fancy - he will. You could be en route to the hospital to have an emergency operation when he will get a message from a chick  that he likes and then start asking you if you have an oyster card...

OKOK

sliiiiight hyberbole

but the truth is not too far off:

Scenario 1: Martha and I are comfortably en route to see my cousin when he offers us a lift...then drives to a different location...THEN tries to tells us to get the bus...clearly I refused because no-one asked you to play captain save a hoe when we could have taken a direct bus to our location

Scenario 2: One day, my friend Sally and I were with TR at church and we were all ready to go home when TR decides he wants to go and socialise, so as capable women, we decided to go home on the train. Clearly this was too much for TR and instead of voicing his...I dunno...sadness? He sends me a message asking me if I liked the Jamaican food he had bought for me the prior week. HUH? WHAT? yes, those are the same bloody questions that went through my mind. Long story short, this was his convoluted way of saying that my punishment for daring to travel without assisance from his trusty steed was the missed opportunity of him providing me with carribean flavoured sustenance....

Scenario 3: On a separate day, Sally and I are in the car with him, when without so much as a word to us, he calls Onion and says 'Hey Onion, I really wanted to go and see [insert hoe name here] so can you just take these girls home for me'.

I personally wasn't aware that I was a piece of cargo that you can just transfer to another ship when you decide that you want to go and have a booty call...

Scenario 4: Possibly the MOST offensive. It is Sally's mum's 50th birthday party and since I have lived with Sally for about 5 years, I went and so did Martha. We invited TR as well because we are pleasant like that and because she has known him for a LONG time, so he came. At 10pm. And left at 10.02pm. His reason?? He had a REALLY important appointment to adhere to. The great thing about lies is that they will never remain hidden. Another biblical principal for you all.

His super important appointment was that a girl he likes had told him she needed picking up - a girl who btw, I KNOW sooo if he had nothing to hide/thought he was in the right, he would have just said 'yeah, I told Mia I am coming to pick her up' but no, he made it sound like a business/hospital appointment and left. Leaving us to make a night bus journey home from west to south london. THEN he wrote on Martha's facebook wall [the person he knows the least] to apologise for not staying?? no way...I don't respect him.

Now he is trying to worm his way back into the good books and this is  the most annoying thing about Captain Save a Hoe. They will ALWAYS ditch you when you need them if it means pleasing a ho, BUT they will ALWAYS need to please you also to satisfy their strange saviour complexes/need to be needed by all women. In the midst of this all, they will try to act as your personal psychiatrist, dropping some real 'insightful'  ish about how they've been observing your character and you are just far too 'cold' or 'rigid'. But to TR and all CSAH's everywhere, I have only ONE thing to say....

"POP OFF SON"

yeah it's another bad girls club reference. WHAT?? it's an awesome show!!

Another thing about CSAH. They think they are really slick with their lies but no matter what he wears, you can still see through it to what lies beneath...

Maybe He's Two People...

Ok so today, I was feeling very female empowerment-y. I was heading to law school, ready to get my distinction, make my riches and then CLEARLY aim for world domination when BOOM, the tell tale sound of my blackberry text alert sounded and it was none other than Onion. 

The conversation went summat like:

Onion- How are you? I've just finished my to do list

Me - I'm fine apart from the fact that you still haven't called me back but i'm glad you've accomplished your goals on schedule

Onion - Yeah it was the best [elaborates about day]

Me -Selective reader much?

Onion - Dunno what I did wrong...

Me - Erm pretty much ignored entirely the first have of my text, i mean, I wasn't being subtle?

Onion - Had my first burger king meal today...

Me - .....

So am I entitled to really ask the question WTF???

I relayed this conversation to my dear friend martha and she came up with the only logical explanation, which she summed up nicely in 4 words: 'maybe he's two people'. At the time, I laughed at her, I mean REALLY laughed but then I took my 3 years worth of a law degree and my several months of the LPC experience and decided to apply a little lateral thinking. Funnily enough, the more I thought, the more she seemed to be correct: maybe he IS two people?? I mean statistics show that one in four people suffer from mental illness and IF he is one of those four and I have really been in a relationboat with two men  [and maybe like a tortoise] then that would really shed a whole lot of light on the situation.

I dunno, we laugh and we jest but if that isn't the solution to the above conversation, then  really and truly -what is?? Riddle me that folk....

Guarding my heart with an axe...

I realise that I may sound bitter when I write posts like this but I am not though. I promise. I am merely going back to my original position and being protective of self. It is with good reason though so I honestly do not think anyone should fault me. Psychiatrists would say I have daddy issues. I would say that they MAY be right but all in all, I cannot see anything wrong with guarding your heart...it is biblical.

Proverbs 4:23 - "Above all else, guard your heart. For out of it flows the issues of life"

SO WHAT if I choose to guard mine with an axe?? The bible really didn't specify on the precise means of guarding to opt for. I really AM a very sweet girl, once you get past my general dislike for people, I am full of warm, fuzzy type things on the inside.

Just saying...

The lumberjack explained.

Hi guys!

Last year whilst I was on my gap year, I used to write a column for a website called www.10orless.com which was basically about relationships and men from the viewpoint of a single gal. Long story short, that employment terminated [apparently you shouldn't write semi-abusive emails to your boss]??? BUT I have realised that writing helps me vent and so I am resuming my 'love circle' column under a different name. 

The lumberjack reference may not make sense BUT I coined it whilst seeing a guy whom I shall now refer to as 'Onion'. Let me explain. A lumberjack is practical; a labourer - you don't buy a lumberjack flowers or treat them special because you presume that they are only good for felling trees, so you get them gifts like hammers and axes and they do not complain because they are simply just a lumberjack. In other words a lumberjack is a dickhead. Alas, I try to refrain from swearing and cursing as much as possible [unless of course the situation really calls for it] and so I have traded in the DH for the LJ.

Ok back to the point. I decided to resume a column such as this because in my 23 years of living, I have formed quite a few opinions about the opposite sex and ALTHOUGH I TRY not to be cynical and entirely dismissal of them, every.single.time. I give one a chance, they try to 'take me for a lumberjack'. I will admit, I am often also to blame - I admit that sometimes I have practically donned a checkered shirt and begged for an axe but I really am not a lumberjack and that is why I am sharing my thoughts, musings and rants with you all.

 Let me give you a brief background as to my erm 'relationboat' history. I say 'boat' because I never quite made it to the relationship and so technically I have never had a boyfriend [tragic I know]. I have however, made it into a few relationboats but somewhere along the line, they always decide that they 'can't just commit'.

Sooo Onion. Onion is erm a touchy issue for me because true to what I have since dubbed the Valentine's Day Curse [VDC], he spoke to me on february 13th and told me we should just be friends. I have to laugh because erm laughing is better than crying and I hear it gives you a six pack??

The thing I struggle to understand is WHY OH WHY, when I am just minding my own business, men come and find me, tell me I am far too 'cold' and 'unfeeling'...'mean' if you will....and then the nanosecond, I warm up they try to treat me like a lumberjack. Anyhoo, now you understand the meaning of the blog, follow me as I share with you all my experiences with the opposite sex and my general thoughts on relationships and men.

I cannot promise that you will always agree with me BUT I can promise that you will be entertained.

p.s. feel free to go to 10orless and read my old blogs BUT if you do so, you must also write in and tell them just how awesome I am so I am rehired because whilst I love writing, I also love getting paid to write. Ah- good times.

Anyhoo I will tell you the onion story in bits and bobs, whilst I try my best to be the strong woman that my mother/life taught me to be and get over him. Meanwhile, I am JUST making a teeny weeny declaration that the next time a man hands me a metaphorical axe in an attempt to label me a lumberjack, I will most definitely use said axe to dismember him. 

That will be all.