Seppo Down Under

The Fleetwood Express:

So I find life is much easier living by analogies. For anyone who knows me, they are aware that I tend to use them a lot. In fact, I expend massive amounts of grey matter processing power formulating new ways to reduce complicated situations into matter of fact representations. That's why this lecture series will be based almost entirely on one true-standing analogy. For those of you who are fascinated by literary or grammatical terms, I will be writing with a mix of metaphors and similes. If you get confused, use a bit of imagination (you know that stuff that you use to convince yourself that you are a shining example of composure after 12 beers, but you are actually a belligerent pissed-up mess).

Now some of you may become distressed with my writing style. I am a highly educated technical writer, but I choose to express my ideas as if I were holding a one-sided conversation. So, you will see quite a few parentheses, quotation marks, ....., etc. If this bothers you, get stuffed because I will be writing a 400 page dissertation in the not too distant future and I will be technically written out my arse. Also to note, I tend to use a lot of Aussie-isms and proper British-English spelling, since I have lived in Oz for the better part of 3 years. You will, on occasion, also notice hints of redneckish and hillbillyish. These, too, reflect my upbringing and my various locations of residence in my 28 years or so in the US. If, once again, this bothers you, refer to the above point. I've decided to contribute to this blog to educate, enlighten, and entertain you. If you are none of the above after reading this, I apologise and well whatever. So now onto my tale...

I promised you I would sum up the major theme of this blog with an analogy....

Relationships are like riding trains

If you can at any point dispute this claim, I invite your comments. I could have easily used airplanes or other modes of transportation, but it's kind of hard to board or jump off of an airplane mid-ride, and I like the idea of a bandit robbing a train rather than a hijacker taking over an airplane.

How I see it, relationships are defined by several very definite periods. Sometimes these periods transition seamlessly, and even by surprise, and sometimes it is a hassle and a great source of frustration. The structure of this blog will be quite random, but I will try to piece the whole story together in a series of posts, providing examples of each relationship period as I go so that I can build a half decent case to support my views. I am a bit of a debater, so I like building well-rounded arguments based on substantial evidence from my own observations and experiences. I am also an objective observer of human behaviour. Now I haven't had any formal training like sociology or psychology classes, but I think I have a spot-on bullshit detector.

I'll take a minute to mention the 4 parts of a relationship as I see them, and link them to the 4 definite periods of riding a train. I promise you will come out of this blog with some understanding of where I'm taking you on this ride (if you choose to stay on, but we'll talk about that at a later date).

The 4 Stages of a train ride (and thus a relationship) are:

1. Ticketing (meeting or the "get to know you" stage)

2. Boarding the train (the transition from "dating" or "hanging out" to an active relationship)

3. The ride (the actual active period of the relationship)

4. Getting off (the inevitable parting of ways)

This is the first point where I will invite criticism or comment. Just think about your past or current relationships and you will be able to define points in time that correlate with these parts of a train ride. I guarantee you will be able to (at least once I expound a bit further). If you cannot identify these points, I will tell you why in a later blog. It has to do with the boarding process and how each person in the relationship defines the point of boarding.

Over the course of my story, I will start new blogs with headers to indicate which part of the ride each story will fall. Things will get incredibly disorganised, but that's pretty much how my mind works. Happy reading kiddies.... and Bro, I hope I do you proud!