Seasonal allergies aren’t exactly a high-profile disease; there’s no colourful ribbon campaign for hay fever and no celebrity spokesperson to offer tips on overcoming itching, watering eyes. Telling someone you have allergies usually garners the same amount of sympathy as mentioning you have a nasty paper cut.

And yet, for a few weeks of the year allergies are so much more than a minor annoyance — they are a totally life-ruining experience.

Thirty per cent of Canadians test positive to one or more allergens, which means there are plenty of us loading up on a potent cocktail of antihistamines, eye drops and triple-shot lattes just to make it out the door in the morning. Record-breaking precipitation throughout the winter and high levels of carbon dioxide in the air are nurturing pollen-producing trees and plants across the country. Increased moisture and delayed springtime temperatures have caused airborne pollen counts to skyrocket, which is making this allergy season (like every one before) feel like the Worst. Year. Ever.

My annual springtime ritual involves bookmarking the Weather Network’s online pollen forecast, barricading my apartment windows and waiting desperately for the heat of summer to arrive. I occasionally leave my cocoon of isolation to trek to the drugstore, where I spend obscene amounts of money on antihistamines in the hopes that maybe this year someone has developed a new formula that actually works. Over-the-counter medications are costly and usually ineffective but I won’t deny that I enjoy the sedating and mildly addictive feelings of drowsiness that come with a heavy dose of nighttime medication.

But could there be a silver lining to these weeks of allergy-related anguish?

Some scientists purport that allergic reactions have evolved over the years as a way for our bodies to expel germs, carcinogens and other harmful toxins. The symptoms of typical pollen allergies — repetitious sneezing, runny noses and the unrelenting sensation of wanting to claw your eyes out — might actually be the body’s way of protecting itself against potentially mutation-causing environmental contaminants. Numerous studies have linked allergy sufferers to reduced rates of various types of cancer — including ovarian, lung, skin, throat and intestinal cancers.

A sensitive body that’s constantly on the defensive might not be such a bad thing. Despite our weak exteriors, those of us made miserable by seasonal allergies are actually stronger in some ways than the average person — even if a bunch of brightly coloured flowers can reduce us to a teary, snivelling mess.

Follow Jessica Napier on Twitter @MetroSheSays

If you are of a certain age, chances are your Facebook feed is littered with party invites to events designed to help raise money for a newly engaged couple’s upcoming wedding. These pre-wedding fundraisers are a time-honoured tradition in certain parts of the country — particularly in Manitoba, where hosting a “social” before the big day is the norm.

Friends and acquaintances are invited to a local hall or community centre and are expected to cough up cash for entrance fees, drink tickets, raffle prizes and money-making games like dollar dances. Profits go to the bride and groom to help pay for wedding expenses or their honeymoon.

Fundraising for your nuptials might be customary in some communities, but these sorts of events have mixed reviews among attendees. Some might say there’s no harm in getting together for some good old-fashioned fun to help out friends, especially if the party isn’t that much more expensive than an average night out at a bar. Others argue that crowd-funding your wedding reception is tacky.

While wedding etiquette is always up for debate, something about this blatant money grab leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’m all in favour of for-profit partying for a good cause, but if you have to fleece your friends and family for cash to pay for your wedding photographer, then perhaps you need to re-evaluate the budget for your big day.

Couples ask their wedding guests to open up their wallets plenty of times leading up to the I-dos — for bridal showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties, wedding gifts, travel expenses and more. But asking these same guests (and worse, people who aren’t even invited to your wedding) to help generate the cash to fund your elaborate centrepieces just seems tasteless.

A wedding can be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be; in the end it’s all about priorities. Financial support might come from the bank or maybe your parents, but ultimately it is the couple themselves who should take care of their own expenses. Adults shouldn’t decide to have a wedding — or a certain type of wedding at least — unless they’re prepared to take on the financial responsibility.

If you don’t have enough money for that particular Swarovski-crystal encrusted gown or that extra layer of cake, then you make compromises or wait until you’re more financially stable.

You don’t turn to friends and family and ask them to bankroll your big day.

A common complaint among self-conscious talkers is that the voice inside your head sounds a lot less nasally and annoying than the one other people are hearing in “real life.”

You may never really know if your sensual breathy voice actually sounds like a raspy smoker’s growl, but that doesn’t mean it’s not relevant. Like it or not, other people have a habit of making assumptions about attractiveness, intelligence, competency and a variety of other factors based on the sound of your voice.

Researchers at University College London recently conducted a study on human vocal attractiveness in which participants were asked to assess the physical appearance of an unseen speaker based on their speech patterns.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study proved to uphold some primitive assumptions about heterosexual gender norms. Male participants found high-pitched female voices indicating a smaller body type to be more desirable; the women preferred deep low-pitched male voices signalling a larger and more physically dominant body type.

But while men might instinctively favour female partners with high-pitched voices, many young women have been dipping down the vocal register in recent years and adopting a quirky linguistic trend called vocal fry.

Almost a counterpoint to the rising intonation of Valley Girl up talk, vocal fry is caused by slowly fluttering the vocal cords together to create a low gravelly sound.

This so called “creaky voice” has been popularized by young female celebrities such as Zooey Deschanel and Britney Spears and can be heard among gaggles of teenage girls in Forever 21 fitting rooms across the country.

The Kardashian sisters are especially well known for employing vocal fry to croak out long drawn-out words at the end of their sentences.

Some find this vocal trend grating to the ear, but others argue that women can benefit professionally by purposefully lowering their voices to equalize themselves among male colleagues. New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson is renowned for her distinct guttural vibrato and perhaps it is her low-pitched rattling voice that has helped her become the first female to head the paper in its 160-year history.

When it comes to professional success, the sound of your voice actually matters a lot more than you’d like to think. While studying speeches given by more than 100 business executives, researchers found that the speakers’ voice quality accounted for 23 per cent of listeners’ evaluations while the actual content of the speech only accounted for 11 per cent.

So next time you open your mouth, remember that it’s not necessarily what you say that matters most but how you say it.

Follow Jessica Napier on Twitter @MetroSheSays

From B.C. Pacific salmon to Alberta beef to Québécoise tourtière to P.E.I. potatoes, Canada’s culinary identity is all over the map. Literally. There’s so much more to us than maple syrup, but our regional gastronomical specialties are as disparate as our geography, and this makes it challenging to define a quintessentially “Canadian” food.

Does Canada’s favourite sandwich feature peameal bacon or stacks of Montreal smoked meat? Do we prefer to satisfy our sweet tooth with Nanaimo bars, tarte au sucre or Beaver Tails? I bet we couldn’t even agree on a national alcoholic beverage: Perhaps it’s a three-way tie between Molson Canadian, Newfoundland screech and the hangover-curing Caesar.

We’re a country of such varying tastes and regional delicacies that it’s not too surprising to learn that foreigners have trouble identifying a national dish of the Great White North.
Sometimes the best way to figure out what it is you love about your home and native land is to leave.

In London, England, where the Canadian immigrant population is significant and ravenous, tastes of home are sold at a premium. Boxes of Kraft Dinner and Tim Hortons coffee canisters line the shelves at the aptly named Canada Shop in Covent Garden where homesick Canucks will happily join a month-long waiting list for a bag of ketchup chips.

Across the city, Canadian expats Amy Baker and Anya Nikoulina recently set up a patriotic poutine cart in Broadway Market and are doing their part to promote the artery-clogging late-night meal across the pond.

“Everyone that approaches the stall has some kind of story about the dish,” says Baker. “They’re either a Canadian living abroad, married to a Canadian or had lived in Canada at some point in their life and tried it … even the apprehensive British customers have gotten on board with the savoury snack.”

Poutine might be making a name for itself beyond our borders, but there’s no way one dish could define the entire Canadian culinary scene. In a country as vast and diverse as Canada, local agricultural differences and cultural traditions have made our cuisine confusing, but also distinctly unique.

It’s these regional differences that make our food interesting and delicious.

Follow Jessica Napier on Twitter @MetroSheSays

First of all, you can’t be insecure. You’ll want to let go of any feelings of awkwardness or jealousy that will prevent everyone from having a pleasant time. Secondly, you should never agree to a one-on-two date with a brand new couple — there may be nothing more insufferable than being trapped at a dinner table with a pair of smitten kittens who can’t keep their paws to themselves.

But if you’re selective about who you play “plus one” with and resist the urge to throw a pity party for yourself, you’ll realize that tagging along as the proverbial third wheel can actually mean a whole variety of unexpected benefits.

You’ll be the centre of attention

If you’re convinced that a dating duo would only extend an invite to a solo friend out of pity, think again. Even the happiest couples get tired of each other — especially those who live under the same roof — and welcome the opportunity to hang out with someone new. So instead of thinking of yourself as an intrusive third wheel, realize that you’re actually an exciting guest star. Spending the evening with a couple who are desperate for new material means you’ll have an attentive audience to laugh at your jokes, give you advice on your own relationship problems, and listen vicariously as you relay stories of your crazy single life.

It’s a cheap night out

In my experience, couples are usually so appreciative to have someone else join them for a night out that they’ll offer to pay your way. Third-wheelers can enjoy complimentary cocktails, free meals, movie tickets and many other benefits of having a significant other for the night without having to deal with any of the annoying aspects of being in a relationship.

You don’t have to bother looking good

Even though you’re hanging out on date night, you’re not actually the one on a date. Relieved of the pressure to impress, you can leave the Spanx at home and enjoy a nice night out with minimal effort.

You might learn something

Whether or not you’re in a relationship of your own, there can be many educational moments that arise when you’re spending time with another couple in an intimate setting. Think of it as relationship reconnaissance: Observing other people’s dating habits from close up can help you glean some insights into what you do (or don’t) want in your current or future partner.

Alternatively, watching two friends bicker passive-aggressively over appetizers can give you a newfound appreciation for single life.

Follow Jessica Napier on Twitter @MetroSheSays

If you’re not in high school, there’s about an 80 per cent chance you’ve never even heard of Snapchat, so allow me to fill you in. The decidedly simple app allows users to transmit photos and videos that expire after a prescribed amount of time: between one and 10 seconds. Once a message has been viewed, it disappears from the user’s phone and Snapchat’s own company servers.

The free app is a relatively inane form of time-wasting, but it’s also strangely addictive.

Creators Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy originally designed the app as part of a class project at Stanford University.  When presenting their idea, a venture capitalist sitting in on the class told Spiegel that the app could be interesting if he made the photos permanent. The tech-loving wunderkind and his partner ignored this advice and launched the self-destructing messaging service to the public in September 2011.

Available on iPhone and Android devices, the free app currently has more active users than Instagram, but isn’t without its critics. Many have dismissed it as a way for bored teenagers to exchange risqué messages without getting caught by their parents. But while it’s likely that many are using the service to transmit content of the not-so-clothed variety, it’s important to note that the app is gaining traction and developing a substantial user base beyond the horny coed demographic. More than 100 million images and videos are sent through Snapchat every day and the app is generating a lot of buzz — although no actual revenue as of yet.

As we become increasingly obsessed with documenting and cataloguing our lives on social media, I can see the appeal behind a communication tool that operates on impermanence.

While most social-networking platforms are highly self-conscious — requiring users to create their own carefully curated persona to package and present to their friends and fans — Snapchat facilitates a more spontaneous and candid form of communication.

Its growing popularity is a reactionary response to the highly processed and everlasting content on other social media platforms. Not everything we say and do should stick around forever and it’s this desire for impermanent forms of expression that Spiegel and Murphy were able to tap into. Despite the opposition, the young developers — who have since received nearly $14 million in venture funding — knew that the disappearing nature of the messaging service would be its ultimate appeal. So even though it might be known for facilitating evidence-free sexting, the app also offers a new way for all of us to avoid being haunted by a “digital trail” and communicate in a more uninhibited manner.

Follow Jessica Napier on Twitter @MetroSheSays

While peer-pressure-related alcohol consumption might seem like an issue relegated to the teenage house party and university campus, the social expectations surrounding drinking are still very much present in our post-collegiate years and beyond. There seems to be a slew of social events that require us to indulge in a few drinks in the name of friendship. From weddings and birthday parties to bachelorette weekends, it’s difficult to avoid the social lubricant of choice without drawing attention to yourself.

But if you keep track of those casual drinks throughout the week — a glass of wine with dinner, cocktails with friends after work, a couple of mimosas with brunch — they start to add up. The recommendation for women is no more than seven alcoholic beverages a week —for guys it’s double that — but how many of us are going over that, more often than not?

Anytime I’ve tried to commit to a defined period of sobriety, I’ve failed. Not because I have a “problem,” but because I tend to give in to friends who insist I join them in a glass of something or other to celebrate, commiserate or simply unwind after a long week.

It’s not that it’s so hard to say no. It’s just a lot easier to say yes. Drinking is such a ritualized part of social behaviour that abstaining usually results in being subjected to an inquisition.

But it’s not just friends who lay on the pressure when it comes to alcohol. Joining your colleagues in knocking back a few drinks is a common expectation in many professional settings. In some instances, the choice to remain sober can leave you at a professional disadvantage. Mention that you’d prefer to avoid the bar during a work function or networking event and it immediately sends up a red flag that you’re not being a team player.

Raising a glass might help to elevate your social capital among friends and colleagues, but there are countless benefits to saying no. You’ll save money, improve your health and realize that Sunday mornings are full of potential when you don’t have to worry about hangovers and the “Who did I drunk-text last night?” demons.

Drinkers love company, of course, but it’s important to remember that all the skinny-girl margaritas in the world aren’t going to make you a better friend.

Twitter first introduced the hashtag concept in 2007 to group conversations and streamline the search function within the micro-blogging site. Today, about one in eight tweets feature words or phrases that are prefixed with a hashtag symbol, which has since been adopted across numerous social media platforms. Google+, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest all support the hyperlinking pound sign and soon, rumour has it, Facebook will finally incorporate hashtags into its interface.

The functional marker has evolved into something much more than its developers could have predicted. The symbol has been embraced by inside jokers and revolutionaries alike, and the humble hashtag helps rally individuals together online and in person and has entirely changed the way we watch award shows. We all know the #Oscars Twitter commentary is much more entertaining than the actual Oscars.

Even more interesting is the way in which this digital code has transcended the realm of social media and is creeping into other forms of communication. I’ve started noticing hashtagged phrases written out in emails, I spotted a women’s athletic shirt with #RUN emblazoned on the front, I’ve even seen friends use hand gestures to mimic the symbol during in-person conversations. Forget to brush your hair and put on mascara in the morning? Your au naturel look means you’re having a #nofilter kind of day.

Hashtags serve no practical function in these forms but there’s evidence of a growing trend; social media language is migrating away from its intended platform and starting to infiltrate our speech patterns in interesting (albeit sometimes annoying) ways.

We employ these digital hieroglyphs to add new levels of meaning to our conversations, to offer a clever aside, qualify what we’re really trying to say, or underscore our sentences with an additional layer of emotion.

Some of the best hashtag phrases add a sardonic undertone of mocking, because we all know people who deserve to have #whitegirlproblem or #humblebrag shouted at them from time to time.

Away from the keyboard and stripped of its digital functionality, the ubiquitous symbol is becoming increasingly prevalent in face-to-face communication. Who can forget Jack Layton’s best dad-joke moment when he referred to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s crime policies as “a hashtag fail.”

Some lament the lazy nature of the hashtag, arguing that this idle form of expression is destroying our ability to communicate properly along with other digital shorthand devices such as text-message abbreviations, LOL-speak and emoticons. But anyone who has ever picked up a Shakespeare play knows that dialects evolve over time. We’ve created a modern
hybrid language in blending our spoken and typed words and symbols and, like it or not, the hashtag seems like it’s #heretostay.

Some couples think it’s best to approach cohabitation in a pragmatic, organized fashion while others assume that the living situation will evolve more organically. Divvying up household responsibilities in a systematic fashion can help reduce the I-took-the-garbage-out-last-week arguments, but I can’t help thinking that keeping an official chore schedule and tallying up grocery store receipts might ultimately suck the romance out of the relationship.

Like many women, I’ve had my fair share of discussions (ahem, blow-out fights) about discrepancies in who does more housework. When my boyfriend and I first moved in together he suggested that he take care of the laundry while I should be the one to clean the toilet because “you’re so much better at it than I am.” He was half-joking (I hope) but also correct in that I was much more proficient at keeping things neat and tidy. However, I swiftly gave him a crash-course in bathroom maintenance and explained that I refused to live with a man-child with no concept of how to clean up after himself.

If anything, the guys should be the ones cleaning the toilet more often because as ladies we have much better aim when it comes to bathroom visits.

While household work might have been a woman’s domain in the past, times have changed and traditional gender roles have given way to confusion as both men and women negotiate their new responsibilities inside and outside of the home. The notion of a clearly defined male breadwinner and his dutiful housewife seems laughably archaic now, but that doesn’t mean we’ve totally figured out how to navigate our way through this uncharted domestic territory. However, there’s no doubt that two partners with full-time jobs and busy social lives should be making a conscious effort to divide household chores equally.

But if we take our desire for equality too literally it’s possible that our pursuit of balance might start breeding resentment. If you’re refusing to wash each other’s underwear or help clean up the kitchen when it’s not your turn, then that well-intentioned organization will turn into animosity. Tracking every single meal cooked and dollar spent in the name of equality might seem like a sensible approach, but it’s kind of like keeping score in a game with no real winners.

That elusive notion of “domestic bliss” probably exists somewhere in the healthy middle ground between a hyper-regulated household and unmanaged chaos. However, if I haven’t found it after four years of cohabitation then I might just have to accept that there will always be arguments. At least he knows how to scrub a toilet bowl now.

The answer might be staring you in the face.

We’re hardwired to seek out people whose features resemble our own thanks to the part of our brain — the fusiform gyrus region to be precise — devoted to facial recognition. We’re put at ease by familiarity and inclined to trust someone with a face that reminds us of our own, so says Christina Bloom, founder of findyourfacemate.com, a dating site that pairs singles based on facial-recognition technology.

There’s a certain kind of vain gratification that comes from looking at yourself in the mirror, so it’s not that hard to believe that we’d want to replicate that pleasure when gazing at the person lying next to us in bed. We’ve all seen those doppelgänger couples whose resemblance is so uncanny they could be mistaken for brother and sister. And while the desire to partner up with someone who looks just like us might seem completely narcissistic, there are actually subconscious biological drives at work.

Bloom says there are a few competing scientific theories that explain why we’re attracted to people who look like us. “Some theories relate to imprinting, some to trust and others to narcissism,” says Bloom. “Scientists don’t agree on exactly why it works, we only know for sure that it does.”

Launched in 2011, Bloom’s dating site is based on studies of positive assortive mating. Researchers took physical measurements of married couples — including cranial and facial features — and found significant correlations in more than half of the numbers.

The site uses a unique algorithm to analyze 67 different facial points and match up would-be couples.

“It is a very nuanced matrix with a primary focus on the outline of the face and the placement of features,” says Bloom. It’s not necessarily the size of your nose or the colour of your eyes that matters but how those facial features are arranged and overall face shape.

So what about those people who have a negative self-image? If someone thinks of themselves as unattractive, would they still be likely to fall for someone with similar facial features? Surprisingly, yes, they would.

“It’s an unconscious phenomenon; it has nothing to do with how we feel about ourselves,” says Bloom. “I have men tell me all the time that their partners are so much more attractive than they are (but) when I see them together, it’s obvious how similar their facial features are.”

At last, dating someone for their looks is no longer considered shallow, it’s science.

We are innately narcissistic beings — wielding a subconscious tape measure to see if the length of a potential suitor’s face measures up to our own.

Follow Jessica Napier on Twitter @MetroSheSays