Huxtaburger has been the name on every Melburnian foodie’s lips lately. Devotees of the new burger joint are effusive – Instagram-washed arty pictures of burgers are plastered all over my Facebook stream (and I've added a few here for your own viewing pleasure). I myself had but a tiny taste on my way into the adjacent Bill’s Bar on opening night, ducking back out to the fluorescent-lit grill for a teeny-tiny Rudy burger
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When the Eiffel Tower is Just Too Small
My friend M was dating a perplexing girl for awhile. They’d go to dinner, and as soon as they were seated at their table, she’d disappear. The vanishing act would continue all night – right after entrée, again after main and then once dessert had finished. She’d be gone for fifteen minutes at a time, [...]
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Fifty Shades of What Women Want
Take a careful look at that woman on the train engrossed in her e-reader. Is there a small, satisfied smile on her face? Is she shifting uncomfortably in her seat… looking a little hot under the collar, perhaps? If she is, it’s entirely possible that she’s up to something that she doesn’t want you to know [...]
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Are the Days of First Dates Over?
For all the pressure put on the occasion, first dates are never a good indicator of the raging success of a relationship. There are so many rules surrounding this most daunting of dating customs. We’re told we must stand out from the crowd – choose a unique venue, say the right things, wear the right [...]
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Missing You
Den and I have been together long time. A long, long time. Longer than any of our previous relationships. In dog years, we’re middle aged. In Kardashian years, we should have been dead and buried ten times over already. A month ago, he went away overseas. He’s not coming back for another whole month. He’s [...]
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Who Has Your Ex Been Poking on Facebook?
It’s always been the Murphy’s Law of the dating universe – that the one time you’re doing the milk run with greasy hair, trackies and Ugg boots is the exact moment you’re going to bump into your ex. If the love gods are feeling particularly cruel, the ex will have a new squeeze on their [...]
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How You’re Probably Killing Your Libido
Lost, one libido. Answers to the name of Larry. Careful, may be bitey. The daily commute. Long working hours. Low energy. High interest rates… I don’t mean to depress you, but I’m worried. The worrying is also worrying, because it’s only further adding to the problem. What problem, you ask? That would be the missing mojos. [...]
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Relationship Advice? Never. Do. This.
If there’s one piece of relationship advice I could universally give everyone in the world – it would be to never end up being this girl. This brilliant piece of film is the visual adaption of This is What Crazy Looks Like, via Text Messaging – two NZ radio hosts do a brilliant job of [...]
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What to do When You Hate Valentine’s Day
I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m a cheap date. You have to be when you own a business called $30 Date Night. When Den takes me out on the town, it barely ever sets us back more than $40 – and that’s when we’re splurging. Ditto when I take him [...]
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Those Three Words
I love you. Three tiny, little words capable of big things. They carry much weight, those three words. It’s somewhat of a currency early in a relationship – saying ‘I love you’ is a major milestone, an indicator that you are no longer just fooling around, that you have something real together. Hearing it back [...]
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Has True Love Officially Carked It?
Forgive me while I fixate for a bit longer on keeping relationships alive. I was ready to let it go after last week’s column, but then Seal and Heidi dropped their bombshell on us all, leaving us with the fallout – true love has been obliterated to smithereens all around us. Everywhere you look, people [...]
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Giveaway: The Vow
Oh dear. I can tell there will be tears when it comes to this movie. I’ve long been obsessed with memories. I’m fascinated by how subjective and slippery they are – how we never really know what actually happened, we just have to trust in our brains to feed us the right information. Even [...]
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If Your Days Really Were Numbered…
Forget the apocalypse, if we keep modelling our relationships on celebrity marriages and chasing sky-high Hollywood rom-com expectations, we're all doomed.
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How to: Support your partner when they’re stressed
It’s moving week. I told you all about it a few weeks ago – how I was expecting to be tired, at my wit’s end and neck deep in boxes by now. Well, I’m all that. And to add to the fun, all the expected relationship stress has peaked this week as well. So now [...]
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Weddings & Princesses
Weddings and princesses. Diehard fans of both these things know they have something in common. Both give us hope. Hope that there’s something magical going on out there. That fairytales really do exist. And that true love is real. Let’s start with princesses. So rare, kids can be forgiven for thinking they’re make-believe. When I [...]
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He Loves Me? He Loves Me Not? Why Women are Suckers for Mixed Messages
It’s official: Women have a thing for Mr. Mysterious. To be exact, women like a man more if they’re unsure about whether he’s interested in them or not. They thrive on it, in fact. A recent study, titled “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not…” and using only women as the test subjects, [...]
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50% off Couples Massage Courses
Over the weekend Emma and I presented another of our increasingly popular Couples Massage Courses. 80 people walked through the door – our biggest number to attend a day thus far. I always love watching couples enter the room shy and completely unsure what to expect. My ice breaker usually involves some form of uncomfortable remark [...]
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The Sad Truth About Online PDAs
We got hot ‘n’ heavy last week talking about the etiquette involved in Public Displays of Affection (PDA). Like everything else, the PDA has adapted with our tech-savvy world and what we now also have is the original PDA’s pixellated cousin – the ODA (Online Display of Affection). Listing status updates like “I love my pumpkin pie” [...]
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A Million Years Ago
If you’re anything like me, you love to look in the past – at the good times and the bad. I love going back to what feels like a million years ago to remember who has been involved in my life and who is no longer a part of it. I know they say never [...]
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Giveaway: Friends with Benefits In-season Passes
Friends with benefits. We’ve made no secret of it – that’s how the Den and Emma story started. Great friends, then, for the better part of a whole year, friends who knocked socks occasionally (okay, it was a bit more than occasionally. More like a couple of times a week. You can see how we [...]
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The Dos and Don’ts of PDAs
We’ve all been there. Smack-bang in the middle of a sensational make out session that we’re not actually a part of. Out at a bar recently, my table was treated to some free entertainment courtesy of a young couple pressed against the wall next to us. They weren’t just kissing. They were engaged in a no-holds-barred [...]
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Supporting Your Partner Through Times of Stress
It’s moving week. I told you all about it a few weeks ago – how I was expecting to be tired, at my wit’s end and neck deep in boxes by now. Well, I’m all that. And to add to the fun, all the expected relationship stress has peaked this week as well. So now [...]
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Intimate Moments in the… Kitchen?
New research shows Australians’ passion for food is reigniting relationships across the country with 44% admitting to ‘intimate moments’ in the kitchen and almost one in 10 confessing it happens at least once a week. Kind of makes you want to rethink your next invitation to a dinner party, doesn’t it? In all seriousness, I’ve [...]
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How to Impress the Parents
“How soon is too soon to meet the parents?” someone asked the other day. My friend E would probably argue that you should at least be dating the guy before you have to make that decision. She turned up at a – ahem – friend’s house late one night for what was, by all accounts, [...]
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An Open Letter to Ms. Julia Gillard
Dear Ms Gillard, I need you to do something for me, please. Well, it’s really not just for me, it’s for all of Australia, and indeed the world. We need you to legalise gay marriage in Australia. I’m not a gay woman. But that doesn’t matter. You’re still cheating me out of something that’s very [...]
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Why You Should Try a Wingwoman
It’s happened more than once: Cocktails in hand, girly catch-up session in progress. Enter stage left? An attractive girl on her own. She breaks into the group with some sort of compliment – “Great shoes,” or “Love your hair.” – you welcome her into the fold and continue chatting. Of course, she’s only there for [...]
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The Walk of Shame
I don’t need to list the benefits here of all the fun involved in a one-night stand. Anyone that’s had the pleasure, so to speak, will know the lure of a no-strings-attached, one-show-only romp. But, fun as the night can be, the problem comes with how to delicately extract yourself from the situation the next [...]
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The Movie Trailer Marriage Proposal
You guys know I’m a sucker for a great marriage proposal… this one is awesome! It’s all explained in the video…
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Now This is a Wedding Video!
Joya and Emre didn’t want your average wedding video – instead they turned themselves into rockstars with this MTV Video-style piece that just put a huge smile on my face! Love it!
Asides
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Welcome to $30 date night | Date Ideas, Marriage & Romance Blog
This blog comes to you from Australian-based newlyweds Denis & Emma Merkas, reviewing date ideas taken from their $30 Date Night site, giving you new date ideas and offering a tiny insight into day-to-day dramas of life as a couple.
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