Tom's dating advice

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Hi, I'm Tom and I'm Elise Elliott.

Now you may know me from the radio, but you don't know him like I do. Welcome to the Elliot Exchange, our podcast where we talk about the quirks of marriage, parenting, and putting.

Up with someone who insists Hawaiian shirts are actually fashionable. Welcome back to the Elliot Exchange.

Hi there, Tom, Hello Elise.

You've got an addition to your wardrobe today. It's very smart. It looks like stolen work merch.

Well it's not stolen. It's been given to me. But Melbourne is often described as the land of the black puffer vest. And you know, once the temperature turns down as it has done today, it's freezing cold here Cerdenly everybody gets at their puffer.

Vest because it's a transseasonal Well it's before you get into the north face full puffer jacket.

Well, we don't wear north face anymore for reasons while I'll explain in a moment. But anyway, so, whether it's a vest or a jacket, in Melbourne, there's only one color black, you know, there's name ron or pink or yellow, you know, just you only wear a black one and everybody wears them and you can go, you know, outdoors, you might be doing something, walking the dog, whatever. Every single person will have one. It's a bit boring when

How did you score well?

These vests are for people who are at the ground, you know, they're doing a report from the boundary line.

Or interviewing players, interviewing in.

The rooms after the match. And he said, you can't have one. And finally someone has taken pity on me and said, here's a couple we have spear that no one else wants. Would you like one? And so I'm I'm just going to experiment with wearing a black puff vest.

Yeah, I like it. It sort of suits you. Not sure it goes with a pink Hawaiian shirt, but you know it would keep you a little torso toasty.

It will it will. See. Now here's another thing about wearing a vest to keep warm. And the old days, you know, you wear like a woolen jumper with no sleeves, probably hand knitted by your mother or grandmother. In the cold, it's not your core that gets cold, it's your extremities. So gloves, socks, hat are the way to stay warm, not vest.

Right, So it's a fashion thing started by Mark from Mork and Mindy.

I am Mark from.

Mark your mother having your greetings from the Cosmic Congress the Stellar Confederation. And Mindy is that a heavenly body. She must have something because I'd be willing to walk ten miles let's know what to stand in our garbage?

Yes, he will. Well, I think Mindy as well. In fact, I remember in that era, about nineteen eighty, I had a ski jacket and you could you could zip off the sleeves. The problem was once I did zip them off, it was impossible to zip them back on again. I so it went from being a jacket which was quite useful, to a vest which I almost never wore.

Yeah, I don't mind. I don't mind a waistcoat on a man.

Yeah, the old three piece suit can work. And there are some elements of formal dress, particularly in the UK, like if you go to a day wedding where you wear a morning suit. So you have striped trousers. Usually you're black or more like a dark gray overcoat with tails. But you differentiate yourself from the other gentleman present. Why you can wear a different colored waistcoat and tie and that's how you express your individuality.

Do you know what I'd like to see under that tom Perhaps a little cashmere turtleneck jumper.

Used to go to various men's wear shops and you'd send me photos of Chino pants and cashmere Hope.

It's called Hope.

Oh this looks nice. What size are you? I just asked them to put it aside. You can go and try them on tomorrow.

And I never did I know I accept it, except that this is your uniform for the rest of your life. However, I'm excited by the addition.

Of a puffer vest. Just came back to is it north Face? Well, we don't wear the north Face brand because in the two years of lockdowns.

Triggering, so triggering, and.

Melbourne was the most lockdown city on Earth. Every day we had a government press conference. Right to go, everybody, right to go, guys, all right to go. And it was usually headed by our former deer leader and Premier Daniel Andrews and Daniel Andrews at about half of these press conferences started wearing a north Face vest, and those of us like me who did not like being locked up in our homes for twenty three hours a day, said, we will never buy a north Face thing again.

It was disastrous for marketing for the brand.

It wasn't their fault. He just bought it and he wore it, but that's the effect it had.

Now, we love your emails here on the Elliott Exchange, and don't forget to send them in Elliott Exchange at nine dot com dot A you we've got a ripper this week. Tom.

There you have one from Wendy. Wendy says dear Tom, Elise. I'm a woman of a certain age. I shouldn't say what that is. I am recently divorced from my husband and now I have to get back into the dating game. However, my initial forays into this world suggests that it is very, very different to what it used to be. Do you have any suggestions.

Oh, Wendy, goodness me. So dating online is a nightmare. According to a few friends of mine.

Who are doing it, and they're just on this You do date yourself when you go wow dating online, you know that means it's been at least twenty years since you last went on a date.

All right, right, correct, Well, fortunately it has been. But so a few issues in particular with men folk. They tend to overpromise under delivery in many many aspects.

Of their life.

Can just say, in particular height and age. So they openly lie about their age, but talking by shaving off a few little years here and there, which would be okay, we're talking jumping generations, like saying a fifty year old saying I'm forty one. That's a different generation. That's not great using old photos.

Yes, just having said that, I'm guilty that I had looked at my Uh I looked at my LinkedIn profile the other day and I'm pretty sure the photos from two thousand and seven.

Yeah, time to revamp.

And I justify it by saying I don't actually know how to change it. I'll just leave it.

Can't you pull the luddyite clause that it works every time? So under promise, over under promise, and over del correct always. So Another thing is the photos, the profile photos men tend to put up, the one where they're obviously cut out their wife, so a bit of their face is missing and it's just cropped a bit tight, and maybe the kids are out down here and the wife's out here here, so a bit of that holding a fish? Why why why not holding a fish over you in nether regions? No?

No, what about you know a metaphor for well, it's not it's just saying it's a big fish and I'm going to hold it down here, And it says I'm active, I'm outdoorsy, I have my own hobbies. I might have just kissed the fish and then set it free. There is the thing I saw online once some woman said she contrasted photos of her husband with her and he's sort of got this smile, just this not very emotional. But when he's with a fish his face, he loves it.

But I prefer to see a car than the guy.

So when the thing about the modern dating rules to the extent there are only rules people on multiple platforms, but it's not very monogamous the way it used to be. It's the opposite, and people go with the sort of quantity over quality.

But also there's this whole lack of respect that words like bread crumbing Have you heard this.

Found their way throughout the form.

It just sort of give you a little sprinkles of just when you're losing interest or faith in the relationship, they'll they'll give you a little booty text in the middle of the night and make you feel a bit excited. And then you don't hear from them. So there's that, and then the shocker of all ghosting.

Have you heard about this? You just cut off? Someone cut them off, You totally go.

And usually this is after you've got a bit launchy with them, which is incredibly deflating. So these are it's a whole new world to navigate. And aren't you glad we're not there?

No? I am, but but let's just say that I was. You know, you might boot me out in some.

Stage hypothetically if you're dating.

Okay, in real life, some lovely young ladies who work here and they bemoan the lack of men folk in their lives. It's because they work too hard, is the real answer.

That sounds very reductive, relight.

No, they don't have enough time. One of them works six days a week, and were's the time for a social life is you're getting up at five in the morning. You can't go a bit too late anyway, Hello Jesse, if you're listening. And so I've agreed, I'm going to take both of them to the football.

I think this is the answer for Wendy. I think online you're on a hiding tonight. So I think, as the young folks say, I are real in real life.

In real life, you've got.

To meet someone in real life, and I think through friends.

So one of the young ladies she's she wants to live in Tuac one day. It says for people into state are overseas very probably the most expensive suburb in Melbourne. Yeah, she wants a husband who's tall and it's a very good private school, like that.

Meme where the girl wants I'm looking for a man and fine out trust nothing for a man in finance, trust fund six five blue eyes, you know, nice and specific.

Well, one of the young ladies in question pretty much has these criteria and I said, right, well, let's you know, he's not just going to sort of turn up at your front door or magically appear at work, So why don't we go to the football. So I've picked Carlton versus Melbourne because Melbourne is a club of blue bloods. You know, like when when Melbourne people go to the football, they have a tartan rug cheese platter, a cheese platter

Man it comes with a cheese platter over And.

Here's the other thing. You have. Halftime is twenty minutes, so you have twenty minutes to go to the bar, speed date, have a drink, meet someone, talk to them, agree to meet again. At three quarter time or after the game.

And that's our goal and then swap numbers that night.

I don't know, I'm going to sort of referee things a bit him over here.

When is this round?

Well it's a few weeks away, but I might go up to the young men, But would you like to come and meet these two girls? And I'm just their friendly uncle.

That's creepy. You're a facilitator, a facilitator, you're a matchmaker anyway.

So we'll see how we go and to Wendy good luck or at least so at least. There was a very nasty incident at a shopping center in Melbourne last weekend. Two groups have used teenagers meant to have a fight at this Northland shopping center and some of them came armed with machetes. Now two of them have been arrested and they've been charged, and they're already out on bail

Right? Just back to the machete thing, though, why would you need one anyway unless you're cutting down cane fields.

Well, there's bamboo and sugar cane, neither of which is very common where we are. But as I understand the problem is, if one part of one gang is going to turn up with a machete, then you have to have one too. It's like an arms race.

Look, I used to hate living in the nanny state Victoria, but I've become a bit of a nanny the older I've got, and I'd like to see a few things banned. Tom. I know the use of e cigarettes is regulated in this state, and it's actually prohibited for those under eighteen, But I want vapes band, I reckon they're a pathetic scourge.

Well see here's the thing. It's actually illegal to sell them unless they're a pharmacist, and most pharmacists don't want to sell them. These shops I see every day cheap smokes vapes, you know, flashing lights. And it's not like.

They've just hand drawn the sign vapes. They've actually invested in a flashing light.

So no one's getting in trouble for selling illegal.

So that needs to go. Now, what about nangs, you've just come across this new scourge.

Yeah, now nangs these have been man for a long time. I've only just discovered this. They were really like little little tubes, like a little metal cylinder of nitrous ox side.

You see them flung all over the place.

What do you do. In the old days, they were to make whipped cream. Nowadays that nitrosox side is laughing gas. And now they market these ones with you know, all sorts of from flavors. Clearly no one's making whipped cream with blueberry flavored or that much whipped cream, that much whipped cream.

So explain they're used as a as a.

A drug and the illegal because of the whipped cream angle. So we've got to ban that. And given the obesity right, we might as well ban whipped cream as well.

Well. Then yeah, if you ban one, you may as well ban the other.

Icon ban whipped cream with about clotted cream and custard and ice cream.

Custard needs to go, doesn't it? The one in the carton can't be good.

Growing up, I mean diet was somewhat monotonous growing up in the seventies. In the eighties, I reckon six out of seven nights a week, we would have grilled chops and sausages.

Everyone had that with the boiled it was carrots and mashed potato was it was it broccoli or who knows what it was?

Something green anyway, So something green, something ira tin fruit, tin.

Fruit with ice cream if you were lucky, but usually cream or custard.

Or custard, and the tin fruit was either peaches pears or apricots or peaches and pears.

What about feeling exotic a bit of tin pineapple? Yes, that was must have been more expensive because we never had.

That, perhaps on a holiday in Queensland. So I don't even know why I'm saying that, but probably all those food stufts could be banned.

Yeah maybe tin I don't say that grew all our farmers. That's a bit mad.

Now we need to eat more tin fruit, there's no doubt about it.

Yeah, yeah, but definitely Machete's gone, Vates gone names. See you later, Tom. You and I are firmly of gen X. It's those born between nineteen sixty five and nineteen eighty not dating us now. For a long time we were seen as the cool generation. Millennials were feuding with baby boomers. Millennials were feuding with gen Z. They all hate each other's guts, and you know, gen X was seen as kind of cool in the middle. Here. Now in the Economist,

Loser?

Yeah, So gen Z born between ninety seven and twenty twelve. You know, they went on social media's ruined our life. Millennials born between eighty one and ninety six complaining can't buy a house because the baby boomers brought them all up. The baby boomers born between forty six and sixty four go on and on about the fact they face an uncertain retirement. But they're now saying gen X is the

Which Global financial crisis, Yes, the GFC, that one.

We're still sort of we're still triggered by that. We are what's called the Sandwich generation. We are looking after young kids and teens plus aging parents. And then that realization this is it. This is as good as my body will be, my face will be, my career will be, my relationship will be.

Is this it? Well, I think that's overstating the bad things. I mean, as far as financial crashes go. I had a job in nineteen eighty seven and I was on the trading floor of the Stock Exchange, just like Gordon of a crash back there, and that taught me a less In fact, a few weeks later I noticed that quite a few of my colleagues were disappearing in the sense of being sacked. And I quite liked my job when I was getting ten dollars an hour, which at

You were thoroughly under the radar.

So you're probably okay.

I wanted to ask you, like in American Psycho, did you have an embossed card?

Oh? Yes, did you tell me? Well nine, I sort of got serious about work.

You were paying more than ten dollars an hour at this point.

Yeah. It was twelve fifty Canadian. I was living in Canada, Toronto, and we sort of all wore tailored suits and its pinstriped, double breasted as it was back then. Gel on the hair, gel on the hair, you know, obviously kill people in the evening. I didn't do that, but everybody got business cards, and there was a sort of thing about look at my business card. I've gone, the embossed font I've gone, you.

Know, the match or the raised.

A ray cell phone number on the back.

Minds textule to cell phone, new card? What do you think that's boom? And the lettering is something called silly and real and.

So some of the things in the American Psycho to me seemed very familiar. Having said that, I didn't have an axe, and I didn't have a sort of sea through raincoat. I used to clean listen.

To hearing Lewis and the news.

Well, we did listen a bit to that. So I think I think our generation, though, has a lot going for it, Like we know how to handle financial tough times, correct eighty seven crash, the recession of the early nineties, the two thousand and seven of two thousand and nine global financial crisis, and quite a few other things. We invented the Internet pretty much, and the mobile phone and all the good music, but we.

Learn how to do without it. So for us it's a bonus. We're not relying on it. Well, we sort of are these caller music call it.

Fashion, Nirvana and Ride and the Jesus and Mary Chain and Primal Screen, get your.

Start a call and then you've got rid of it.

Sure. Well, well this is the thing though, because you still have this distinction between Indian music and conventional music. Back then, movies, POLP fiction, Saving Private Ryan. Someday we might look back on this and just saying that seven Private Ryan was the one decent thing we were able to pull out of this Hall Goss and some other words and also that the lack of fashion.

Yeah, it's funny in the nineties thinking there's no definitive ninety style, but you can never see it when you're in it.

No, that's true, although in the eighties I could see it, and in the seventies now that I think about it, with the flares and the valure jumpers. But that's the thing for another time. So I actually think, notwithstanding that the Economist has branded us the loser generation, that we were a pretty good one.

So we're the winners.

Well we are because at the start, as we became teenagers, technology suddenly started to really make a change to people's lives. You grew up in the seventies, it wasn't that different from the fifties for exam technologically speaking, but by the eighties and nineties something video games, mobile phones, the Internet. I saw my first email in nineteen ninety and I thought this will never catch on.

I got a hot mail account in the nineteen nineties and I still have it to be stay my main nab. But look, I think why we're the winners is we were kids in the sort of around the seventies, which was so bloody fun. How we survived. I will never know, but just honing around ons in the you know, the backstreets.

Come home when it's dark, come home when it's start, will.

Come home for tea tea, which you mentioned earlier that was great. Being a teenager in the eighties was wild, so fabulous, and then kind of being a faux adult, you know, in the nineties was kind of cool. So I, you know what stuff the economos, I think we would, I think we.

And the young people they're no good. They're also angst you know. Yeah, Like going back to what we were talking about before, about day thy want to just have a dinner party, invite people over.

No one has dinner, but I don't do it anymore. Maybe we should bring back the dinner party. Oh Tom, so much to discuss. I could keep talking for ages about how Ace I just dated myself. Jen X truly is follow the Elliot Exchange wherever you.

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