Planets still not colliding, people still not getting each other

For a momentary space in time, things made sense.

Thirty years before the rise of ChatGPT, and years before the intellectual powerhouse of TikTok became so much a part of our everyday lives as it so deserves to be, we had one simple answer to explain all problems that men and women encounter when they co-exist.

They come from different planets.

The concept defined by the genius John Gray in 1992 was eagerly embraced before countless copies of the masterpiece, “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”, hit second-hand book shops and garage sales everywhere.

The question that remains all these years after is simple—given the gems in the book and the uptake by millions of avid learners born too early for social media, did the planets ever get closer to realigning?

We asked Dr Moodoom, our resident psychiatrist and columnist her thoughts,she was pretty precise, exclaiming “that book rocked!”

She also lamented that the demise of less and less couples resolving literally anything from talking therapy was due to the fact the messages have gone missing for new generations. She reflected fondly on conferences and symposiums that debated the Mars/Venus divide, literally explaining everything. She fondly compared it to the current DSM, the psychiatrists Bible, quoting off the record “that book has done so much damage, why have hundreds of scenarios when you could just have two?”

She wouldn’t hear about protestations that the book was entirely heteronormative and failed to elaborate on revelations that men go to caves when upset and women get all emotional over mess. She couldn’t explain how the book would help heteronormative husbands understand that their wives have gone crazy with perimenopause.

But she did say one thing,

“You know, life was easier when we opened our mouths and said words to each other rather than send memes or upload personal information about our circumstances to the cloud”.

She’s got a point there.

“What I said” vs “What I should have said”

How many times a day do you have an exchange and immediately regret the response you hear yourself say in the moment. How many times do you tell somebody else later when they have time to manufacture the perfect retort with a smug expression that makes you feel even worse.

Well, here at DOOM we get the quandry and we are here to solve it.

Each week we’ll ponder a response a reader has sent in and craft the perfect answer. Hopefully by reading along you’ll widen your repertoire and avoid the dismay these situations can bring.

SCENARIO ONE
As a solo traveller I found myself in a difficult situation on a plane recently. Not because I’m a solo traveller but because travelling solo brings with it a whole pile of discrimination people in relationships don’t care about or even register.

I really need an aisle seat, because it’s how I most comfortably travel. I hate asking a stranger if I can rub up against them as I manoeuvre my way out of a seat to get to the toilet mid-flight.

I choose my seat selection weeks ahead of time because that’s how much it matters, regardless of the time on the plane.

Recently, on a very short-haul domestic flight, I made my way to my selected aisle seat and am immediately beset upon by a flight attendant who wants me to move to accommodate a couple. A couple who obviously didn’t care enough to book their seating preferences ahead of time to ensure they didn’t need to tolerate sitting apart for 75 minutes—not on different planes but in different rows.

What did I say?

Of course.

What should I have said?

Well reader, you bring up a lot of issues here that many of our solo followers will resonate with. The expected accommodation every solo traveler across the globe find themselves compromised because of the existence of people who actually have others to travel with. Whether it’s the shitty seat in the restaurant so the table with the view isn’t wasted, or the requirement to pay the same price for a hotel room as two people who use double the amount of amenities and oxygen as the solo occupant. Afterall, you only rumple up one side of the bed but pay as if you have slept on every pillow, not to mention only use half the glassware, body wash and toilet paper per night stay.

We hear you and we call enough.

We think it’s only fair that you call out the ill-prepared and entitled people who want your seat on the plane. We know people that are already seated are watching and listening—and rest assured some of them are travelling solo too and want to see how someone like you would manage this. They want to do it too. You need to embrace your opportunity to empower here.

Simple answer is to say:

No.

Look we get it. We know this means that you’ll be then seated with half of a couple who will be angry and possibly nasty. We know you may feel a little bit uncomfortable with the glances and the battle for the armrest that will ensue. But hang in there. You don’t know these people and they need to learn to prepare better for trips if they can’t bear to be apart.

You’ll also have your leg room and your ability to go to the toilet as many times as you like without touching another single soul.

And your selfish, ill-prepared and entitled couple will learn a lesson that will only benefit them in the end. In fact, you’ll also achieve some kudos from all the passengers who are to be as steadfast and as self-advocating as you.

And who cares what the flight attendant thinks, she might be impressed as well.

Take home message: You always deserve the best view in the restaurant.

Dating advice for men over 50

An insight

This week we delve into the murky field of dating preferences on online apps. No longer is it simply enough to say, I want to sign up here to get off by meeting somebody.

We have many conversations with women aghast at the rise in over fifty’s potential suitors who state they choose Ethical Non-Monogamy (ENM). The most common comments I hear ask a very similar question, “do you actually understand what that means and do you have time to invest in this lifestyle?”

Most if the women I hear from struggling to find a semblance of a relationship are pretty time poor, and juggling other important aspects of their life. They don’t have the time or bandwidth to juggle more than one partner at a time. They are telling me that they don’t know how men will be able to do this either.

They make a valid point that it is pretty difficult, like finding a bees dick in a haystack levels of difficult to find anybody on the many apps, let alone more than one.

Women have confided that they would find a man much sexier and more desirable if they used their time to develop new hobbies, work on their finances or sort out their relationship status with their ex-partners once and for all.It sickens them when they think about a man over fifty being intimate with more than one woman at a time.

One particular reader made a very valid point, and it is worth sharing because I don’t think they are alone here?

Isn’t a bit of an affront if men can get an abundance of Viagra to maintain the non-monogamy bit, when many of us women have suffered through a never ending global shortage of HRT?

She’s got a point!

Our women readers have as many concerns with ENM as they do with the other preference going around, that it “still figuring it out”.

They need to know when exactly you’ll figure it out if you are already over fifty and haven’t. After all, beyond fifty many of us don’t know how long we have, and there might not be enough time to figure “it” out before leaving the dating pool forever, and not in the way you hoped.

I’ll defer their protestations about “short term fun” and “kink” – it’s going to need a whole column for that one … unless you do actually know you are on borrowed time and short term fun is all you will have time for. 

The voices you've been waiting to hear

Welcome to the underground railroad of honest commentary, where anonymity breeds authenticity and shadows speak louder than spotlights.

In a world drowning in sanitised opinions and performative vulnerability, Days Of Our Minds [DOOM] has assembled a clandestine collective of writers who've traded their public personas for the freedom to tell the truth. These aren't your typical lifestyle gurus or wellness warriors peddling digestible content for mass consumption. These are the voices that whisper what everyone else is thinking but too afraid to say.

Our columnists don't seek your validation—they seek your recognition. They write not from pedestals but from the trenches of real life, armed with insights earned through experience, expertise, and the kind of brutal self-awareness that only comes from living authentically in an inauthentic world.

Each week, these anonymous architects of uncomfortable truths will dissect the social facades we've grown too comfortable accepting. They'll examine the unspoken dynamics that govern our relationships, decode the subconscious messages that plague our sleep, and perform surgical strikes on the cultural delusions we've collectively agreed to ignore.

This isn't therapy disguised as journalism, nor journalism masquerading as entertainment. This is something far more dangerous: it's the truth, unfiltered and unapologetic, delivered by people who've earned the right to speak it.

So buckle up, dear readers. You're about to meet the voices that society tried to silence, speaking from the shadows where honesty thrives and pretense dies.

Let’s introduce you to the voices

THE MISTRESS [Affairs of the Heart and Mind]

Maligned and shamed since the dawn of time, yet persistently present and serving purposes we're too self-righteous to acknowledge. Like them, hate them, or secretly be them—we all want to hear from the woman who chooses to engage in someone else's infidelity.

Our resident expert has navigated the treacherous waters of clandestine romance for over a decade, collecting battle scars from multiple philanderers and confrontations she'd rather forget but graciously shares for our enlightenment. She writes for anyone contemplating intimacy through deception, or for those who rage against mistresses to fuel their own judgmental fires rather than examining their own imperfections.

The risks are high, the rewards fleeting and variable. But the insights? Absolutely priceless.

THE DREAM ANALYSER [Subconscious Revelations]

Meet Dr Doomood, our founder and experienced psychiatrist who's tired of watching you frantically Google your dreams at 6am like some sort of subconscious detective with commitment issues.

As an expert mind reader who's helped thousands of patients over the years, she's decided to cut out the middleman entirely. Rather than wait for your amateur dream journals, she'll analyse her own nocturnal adventures and leave the revelations for you to interpret—just like Google, but with human intelligence and zero targeted ads cluttering your consciousness afterwards.

And yes, it might be slightly unethical, but those thousands of former patients pop up in her dreams regularly. Consider it professional development with a side of voyeuristic psychology. "That time I saw that patient..." just became your new favourite column.

THE SOLO CONFESSOR [Living on This Planet as One of Those Single People]

Our resident expert lives solo and—plot twist—does not revel in it. Unlike the army of self-celebration warriors flooding your feeds with empowering dinner-for-one photos, she speaks the uncomfortable truth about how bloody hard life can be when there's nobody around to share it with.

She pays double to exist, gets pushed aside by coupled society, and eats leftovers because even the cat has standards. She's heard all your well-meaning platitudes about how "partners are crap anyway" and "friends mean more than romantic relationships," but she's not buying what you're selling.

This isn't bitter single woman syndrome—this is honest single woman commentary. There's a difference, and she's here to explain it.

THE POLITICALLY INCORRECTOR [What She Says Rather Than What She Should Have Said]

Sick of smug people who materialise after confrontations with their perfect comebacks and flawless hindsight? Our resident expert provides the ammunition you wish you'd had in the moment, because frankly, rude people are predictable and their insults follow patterns.

She's stockpiled the perfect responses for society's most common arseholes, because preparation meets opportunity, and next time you won't be standing there speechless while some entitled wanker walks away thinking they've won.

Consider this your advanced course in strategic verbal warfare. Class is always in session.

THE SOCIAL SURGEON [Dissecting Modern Behaviours with Precision]

This isn't about woke versus anti-woke—this is about applying surgical precision to the bollocks people peddle on social media. Our Social Surgeon wields razor-sharp observation skills and a complete set of extremely sharp rhetorical knives to slice through the entitled mistruths of influencers who waste oxygen and Wi-Fi manipulating you for validation.

She's particularly skilled at dissecting those who throw around terms like "gaslighting" with reckless abandon while claiming ownership of trending phrases like "grey rocking" as if they invented human behaviour itself.

One influencer at a time, she'll perform the cultural surgery we desperately need. No anaesthetic required—the truth works better when it stings a little.

These voices don't represent DOOM's official position—they represent something far more valuable: authentic human perspective in an era of manufactured authenticity. Read, react, and remember: sometimes the most important conversations happen in the shadows >>> join the revolution.