Archive for Internet Dating

When did you become you?

March 5, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Drunken Ramblings, Girlfriends, Internet Dating, Relationships

I became me when I was about 25. I mean that in the sense that my personality, idea of what was morally right and wrong and my sense of humour and wonder about the world around me settled and has stayed largely the same since then. That’s a long time to not see any major changes in a person, so I figure that 25 is about the cut-off age where you become a “seasoned adult”, whatever that means. Which, in a round-about sort of way brings me to internet dating. Needless to say, as someone in their mid-to-late 30s, I feel that looking for a girlfriend with an age of more than a decade below me is probably a Bad Idea(TM).

Still, this hasn’t stopped me chatting to a 24 year old, a 27 year old and a 26 year old. It is often said that I look ten years younger than my actual age, but my mind is clearly ten years older than any of these wonderful young ladies. Would it work? What is the age differential beyond which a long-term relationship becomes impossible? Until now, the biggest age differential I’ve experienced was a brief fling in the late 90s with someone who was 18. It would be unreasonable of me to say that wasn’t fun, because it was; but long-term? Nahhh – we were on completely different planets unless we were in bed, in which case, everything was most splendid, thanks.

For some reason, 28 to 18 seems like a much larger age difference than, say 38 to 26. Which is odd, because it isn’t. Indeed, it’s less. But the emotional and personality changes I went through seemed to magnify that 18 to 25 period of my life where, in hindsight, my moral line of goodness was moving up and down like a yo-yo. So maybe 26, 27 or 28 isn’t too young for me?

Yet again, I worry too much when I should be just seeing what cards fate deals me. I’m looking for a royal flush, but I’ll settle for a good pair (sorry… :-))

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Internet Dating 101: Hints and Tips

March 4, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Internet Dating, Relationships

Right folks, I think I’m finally beginning to get the hang of internet dating after a shaky and confusing start. Therefore, I present today’s lecture: ‘Internet Dating 101: A beginner’s guide to not making a jackass of yourself to people that you’ve never met’:

I provide this ‘service’ (and I use the term ‘service’ in the loosest possible sense, obviously) as a free-of-charge benefit from the few week’s worth of experience that I have had of internet dating. Whilst it’s skewed towards men (because I don’t understand females, as my regular three readers will know by now), I believe that the same rules apply to you girls too. Having spoken to several people, had a bunch of long conversations, dated one and possibly dating another (or two!) next week I feel like I have something to offer (or at the very least, something to say :-)). It has surprised me the dramatic range in responses that are received particularly when it comes to continuity and consistency when talking to the same person (you girls have it worse: from what I’ve heard from those I’ve talked to, you really do get some highly tacky and sometimes alarming chat-up lines from very odd men).

So please be seated and let us begin. Needless to say, there are plenty of chairs. The coffee is free, but you have to serve yourself.

Internet dating 101

Be yourself when describing yourself. Don’t craft some artistic work of genius that required a thesaurus, dictionary and a web site of quotes to make sound right if you barely understand half the words you’ve used, let alone used them in conversation. If you’re seriously expecting a date with this girl, then she’s going to find out sooner or later: make is sooner rather than later, you’ll save a whole pile of time.

Your interests had better be your interests. Never set foot in a garden, but think gardening sounds cool to the chicks? Went abroad once when you were a kid and feel that traveling sounds like a neat interest? She is going to ask you where you’ve been. What are you going to do, pull a whole load of places out of your arse? And when you don’t know what pruning is when you’re stranded in her garden supposedly helping out then you’re going to look like a combination of startled deer and complete noodle.

Don’t lie on your profile. Got children? Make sure you don’t put “zero” under children. Looking for a bit of sex on the side because you’re bored with your wife/girlfriend? Well, you’re not looking for a serious relationship then, are you? Married, but very recently separated? That’s not single. That’s married. At a pinch, just-separated, but involving someone innocent in a hugely over-complicated divorce isn’t exactly fair unless you’ve declared it in advance. Yet again, she’s going to find out; and if you’re hiding things of this magnitude then what else are you hiding? What a great start to a relationship: distrust from the outset. Oh, and that includes your major bad habits. How long DO you think you’ll hide a smoking habit? “Just popping to clean my teeth after walking the dog, babe, you know how that fresh air messes up my mouth.”

Your picture had better be of you, recent and accurate. A picture that is 10 years old from your good side in mediocre lighting is not a recent and accurate picture. Neither is one that was taken and touched up in photoshop. Neither is one that was taken when you’d spent half an hour making yourself look perfect when normally you just walk out the door after a 2 minute shave. Wear glasses? Make sure the picture shows it. Normally have a beard? Don’t show a clean shaven picture. No-one likes unexpected surprises and a beard cannot be explained away as “I forgot to shave this morning”.

Don’t mail-shot. Guys: Girls talk. They share, they chat, they show your profile to everyone in their office and they have a whole seventh sense that we don’t have (this is one beyond the ‘sixth’ sense). Read their profile carefully. If you’re going to contact them or reply to their first contact, write something relevant and just for them: do not copy and paste it out of your document of standard responses. It’ll take you a few extra minutes, but it’s worth the effort. Your personality and something about you will ‘leak’ into the words that you write – it’ll give her an opportunity to learn stuff about you that you don’t think that you’ve even provided. This is a good thing as it saves anyone wasting their time. Read her stuff carefully too: there’s something to be learnt.

The internet isn’t confidential. You write it, it’s public property. You write something really tacky or really stupid, then it may get shared. Even I’ve shared an edited snippet from one of the people who responded to me because it was so staggeringly incredible (it sparked my grammar police rant: “we’ll fix your apostrophes now, and without charge.)

Keep the first meeting brief. I’d be lying if this advice came from me, but it is very good. If you organise a complete evening including drinks and then dinner, for example, you run the risk of being stranded with someone you hate for a great number of hours with no polite escape route. Try either a) meeting at lunch for coffee or b) meeting later in the evening or straight after work before other plans (real or made-up) for an hour at most. Why? Because first impressions count. You’ll know within minutes if this person is who you thought they would be and if you could spend longer than an hour in their company without going utterly bonkers. It’ll also allow for any surprises (picture looked good, but it wasn’t of her) to be worked out before you both end up being forced to survive an entire evening together.

Listen and talk. Aim for speaking about 50% of the time, but seriously, listen to what she’s saying too. You’re having a conversation, not reading from a pre-prepared script. The best dates are when this just ‘happens’, they are the ones where you click almost immediately: treasure them – they’ll be the ones worth running for. You’re both trying to learn about each other and you’re not going to learn jack shit if you’re too busy trying to impress by talking at 100mph without stopping to breathe. Likewise, if she doesn’t let you get a word in edgeways or talks about her subjects alone without hooking onto anything you say then execute the “Brave, brave Sir Robin” maneuver as soon as possible.

Be a gentleman, not a jerk. Fine, open the door for her. Offer to pay for the meal. But don’t insist. We live in the 21st century here and if she wishes to go halves, go halves. Insisting on paying despite her protest may not score you as many points as you think it might, unless she’s positively drooling over your credit cards, in which case that’s probably a bad thing too…

——

So the bottom line? Be honest if you’re looking for a relationship. I’ve had relationships in the past where I have had to pretend to be someone else either because I felt that I had to hide something or I had to look like I was turning into someone that I was not. Firstly it’s exhausting and secondly it’s impossible over the long-term. If you build a house of cards, every breeze is going to scare the shit out of you. I do want a relationship, hopefully one that’ll turn into something serious; but as I keep being warned, perhaps I need something a little more casual at first. Needless to say, my profile doesn’t say I’m looking to get married any time soon.

Whether this advice is worth the finger-wear used to type it will become clear to me over the coming weeks. I’m sure that you’ll be distressed to hear that I’ll be sure to keep you all posted.

About some of it, anyway :-)

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Games, tests and confusion: A bad mix

March 2, 2007 · Filed under Confusion, Dating, Girl to boy dictionary, Internet Dating, Relationships

You know I said that I wasn’t going to talk to anyone else from the dating site whilst I was “dating”? Well, I lied. Or, to be more accurate, I omitted one tiny detail. One of the two who I particularly wanted to get to know a bit more I have got to know a bit more (flirt and sex free, I might add). There does not appear to be a “spark” (as in “let’s shag”), but we seem to have become quite good conversation-partners over the last week on the phone and via e-mail. I believe that is the way that it is going to continue, but there is an interesting niggling thing which I would like to run by the collective girl-to-boy dictionary crowd in case anyone has any wisdom to offer.

Now, obviously I fancy her a little. Well, quite a bit actually, but I’m more than happy to just remain friends: it gives me another valuable female perspective on things which I’m clearly not qualified to decide all by myself: indeed, she’s actively encouraged me to get out there and date people.

Waiting for the but?

Wait no longer. Here it is…

Something strange happened this evening and I’ve no idea what it was or why it happened. Here’s the story: we’ve talked a lot. She tells me (as everyone else has) that I’m not ready for something complex and that she wouldn’t date me anyway because she’s so convinced that my non-readiness means I need something a little more casual (ok, so I’m taking everyone’s advice except from my own, but I’m going somewhere with this, I promise…)

Despite this fact (platonic, platonic, platonic!) I appear to have been tested in some way. She did a pretty good hatchet job on herself, physical attractiveness wise (utterly unjustified, I might add, having seen a picture of her), and e-mailed me a picture of her friend with a “we might be coming up to your neck of the woods near to easter, do you want to come and meet with us if that happens?”

Well, of course, my answer was yes! It would be a pleasure to meet her having spent so much time chit-chatting. Her friend (and don’t get me wrong here, her friend is attractive) was meeting her on-and-off boyfriend, thus it seemed like a good foursome with perhaps dinner, nice company, nice conversation and some good wine.

Now, for some reason, she expected me to fancy her friend. Apparently, I was meant to pick up on the “on-and-off” bit and spy an opportunity to sneak on in there and get on with her friend more than her. I don’t know her friend, but I am beginning to know her (I think, but sometimes I’m not sure how much I know anyone, really). I saw this as an opportunity to meet her and failed to notice right up until she became almost blunt about it: she’d expected me to say something completely different.

So I asked her, “I don’t understand. I want to meet you, she’s taken – why are you so adamant that I like her?”

It turns out it was some kind of test. A test to see if I was shallow – if I could see beyond someone’s cute body and attractive face to see what was underneath, indeed, if I even cared what was underneath. It was a set-up. And I didn’t bite. So I passed.

My question to my three readers that ever respond (and anyone else who feels that they can offer some thoughts on this subject) would be:

Why?

Why the test if we’ve already established that we’re going to be just friends and that I should date someone as a matter of urgency?

Surely someone’s shallowness is obvious in other ways during conversation, thus I fail to see the requirement to be tested.

I suspect that I was subjected to one of these tests last year, but was blissfully unaware that it was taking place until it was too late. Maybe I’m a little more observant this time around, or maybe the examiner wasn’t quite so subtle as my ex-girlfriend.

If there is one thing that really sinks my battleship it is games in relationships. In fact, my entire skeleton shakes when people play unnecessary games in any aspect of their lives. Why bother? Isn’t everything complicated enough without the cloak and daggers approach to learning about someone?

What test are you taking today that you’re not aware of?

Either that, or I ask too many questions. Hmmmm…

Life, eh?

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‘Tis the mating season

March 1, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Girlfriends, Internet Dating, Life, Relationships

Well, we certainly slowed our relationship down – to a grinding halt, in fact. So my first foray into internet dating cannot exactly be classed a roaring success after all. However, I did have a very good couple of weeks and greatly enjoyed spending some time in female company – especially her’s: it was a pleasure, albeit brief.

So it’s back to the drawing board. I have put my profile back up on the dating site and have started chatting to new people again. The great quest for Miss Right continues, possibly interspersed with several Miss Not-Quite-Rights and Miss Wrongs along the way.

Rights, wrongs, I blame the spring. It’s the mating season, right?

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A friend in time saves nine (mistakes)

February 26, 2007 · Filed under Confusion, Dating, Friends, Girl to boy dictionary, Girlfriends, Internet Dating, Relationships

A couple of days ago I was on the phone having a long chat with a female friend of mine who I’ve not had the pleasure of speaking to for a good couple of months. I caught her up on developments in my life (that took a while as you can imagine, thank goodness she rang me) right up to my new relationship and all of the details about how that was going. So she kindly decided to hit me with this bombshell:

“You’re not ready for that yet. For a complicated relationship, I mean. You need something a bit… simpler.”

To which my reply was “what do you mean by complicated?”

She said “Well… you’re just lonely. What you need is some sex, cuddles and someone to veg out on the sofa with twice a week. Oh, I don’t mean one-night-stands, you need a hassle-free relationship for a month or two. That’d sort you right out. Then you’d be ready.”

“Ready for what, precisely?” I replied trying to figure out where she was going with this whilst having an eerie feeling I knew exactly where she was going.

“Oh, you know, for the whole love, moving in, having babies thing. You’re rebounding, you feel lonely and normal enough to want a girl’s company but you are not ready to make a true commitment: particularly a complicated one. You’ve only been able to hold yourself together for the last month or so, let alone make decisions of that magnitude. You’re doing too much too quickly, you need to slow down. You’re not ready.”

“I’m not ready?” I replied with perhaps a touch too much sarcasm, “I feel ready.”

“Trust me. I’m your girlie with no vested interest: you’d be making a serious mistake going for a complex serious relationship at this time. You’ll hurt someone and that someone is probably going to be you. You sure you got enough in reserve yet to deal with that?”

Compromise time. I needed to think this all over, so I rashly promised “I’ll ring my Mum, run it by her and see what she says.”

“If you present it exactly like you did to me, I’ll bet you 50 euros payable next time you’re over that she’ll agree with me completely. 50 euros…” She paused briefly before continuing “… I’ve known you for a long time, so I’ll bet a further 50 euros that you’ll take the bet and lose.”

Of course, I took both the bets (don’t I ever learn?)

I was sitting on the sofa, thinking about what she’d said and the more I thought about it, the more sense it seemed to make. It was time to ring Mum. The phone rang. It was Mum. How do mothers just know when you need to speak to them? Oh, I understand what a coincidence is, but still – it did appear to be perfect timing: almost to the second.

I kept my promise to my female friend: I presented the facts (as I understood them) to my Mum in exactly the same way as I had to her. And Mum’s answer?

Her answer means I’m 100 euros down next time I’m on the continent. Either that, or I can spend the next five years avoiding Germany until she’s forgotten, but she didn’t forget the other bet with her that I lost either (despite the currency change: she helpfully converted Deutsche Marks to Euros for me in a handy e-mail reminder), so I’m probably screwed unless the Euro collapses. You’ve probably guessed that I’d be lost without female friends, they’re as close as I’ll ever get to having a girl-to-boy dictionary of my own.

The second opinion put my brain into ‘Spock mode’ where it calmly analyses the situation in a reasonably detached fashion. I even made a list of pros and cons to help visualise what was happening. Nope, they’re right, I’m wrong. I’ve missed being able to step back and view the big picture: it is a skill that I believe is all part of that great thing that we call “wisdom”. I lost this skill for several months, and even now it needed two separate opinions from outsiders before my mind was capable of putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 4 rather rather than 69.

Sometimes when you’re in a situation it is hard to step back. If you’re emotionally weaker than you normally are, it’s even harder. By speaking to someone I’d not spoken to for a long while and feeling good enough to be able to talk sensibly I received a gift that I would potentially have missed for weeks: a valid fresh perspective.

To be honest, all the evidence was already there given I’ve written this, this, this and this in the past weeks, I just failed to put it all together coherently.

——

I’m me again; that’s the scary bit on the road-to-recovery over with. I can afford to walk rather than run and besides which, you see a lot more when you’re walking because you have time to look around you. Time to stop and smell the roses.

Wood. Trees. Can’t see one for the other sometimes. Perhaps I need glasses.

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Saying goodbye to people you didn’t even know

February 22, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Girl to boy dictionary, Internet Dating, Life, Love, Relationships

So as I said the other day, I’ve set my profile to invisible on the internet dating site since I’m no longer sure that I am single any more.

This has made the last two days mighty odd: I have had to say goodbye to people I didn’t even get to know properly – and I’ve found myself regretting not getting to know some of them a touch more. By some, I don’t mean a huge number – I mean two. Apparently, over 50 people added me to their favourites list and I had conversations with waaaay less than half of those, some of which lasted one message, some of which lasted several. One of which ended in a phone number – and I’m dating her (I think! Early days, but so far, so good :-)). I said goodbye and thank-you to everyone I was talking to because for better or worse, I believe it is polite and the “right thing” to do. Some of them got a few lines, some of them got a vast letter. It was the two who received a vast letter that have been hard to let go of.

For some odd reason that I’m pretty sure a therapist would have a field day over, this has troubled me. I didn’t have to say goodbye to any of them, technically. I mean, they didn’t know I was dating someone again and it’s not as if I’ve passed the “threshold of no return” (sex, if you want a translation), so surely I could have flirted with them all a bit more and seen what happens? Isn’t that the point of internet dating? But no. I’ve got this conscience thing (goddammit) that tells me that they ought to know the truth – regardless of whether it’s going to work out for me or not; but therein lies the complexity. I’d love to get to know the other two more, but it would be for all of the wrong reasons of which the two most obvious are:

  1. I’d be comparing. Did I choose wisely with the date I made, or should I have chosen differently?
  2. Surely I could just be friends? I could say “let’s just chat as friends” until I’m blue in the face, but the above negates any plausibility in that – hell, even I don’t believe I could do it. I’ve had (and still have) friendship-only relationships with females (yes, it can be possible, gents), but it strikes me that a dating site is the wrong place to start such a friendship, after all, it’s a dating site, not a meet-some-friends site.

So where is my Miss Right? Am I dating her now? Did I walk by her today without knowing? Is she thousands of miles away from me right now? Have I just let her slip through my fingertips on the dating site? Life is full of questions and the funny thing is, the simpler the question is to phrase and the fewer words it uses, the harder it appears to answer.

So come on ladies – what would you have expected a man to do in this situation? Think of this as helping me with my girl-to-boy dictionary.

One of these days, I’ll write a book all about love – if only to illustrate just how little I understand about it. It’d be a cracker – 75,000 words just to say “nope, I don’t get it, do you?”. Anyone got a suggestion for the title?

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Internet Dating: Oh my, oh my

February 17, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Internet Dating, Life, Relationships

Well, I just don’t know where to start. It all seems a little strange and odd and I’m going to have a darn good pop at explaining why (for the benefit of my reader or three :-)). Firstly, the girls get a lot of attention and not all of it is very nice. I can’t help but think that a large chunk of the blokes are just “fishing” for sex rather than a relationship. This means that as a “sincere customer” (if I can be allowed to describe myself that way) people seem to pay attention and think “Hmmm, is this guy for real?”. At least I can string a sentence together, and didn’t lie one little bit in my profile, so needless to say I’m getting some attention: and quite a lot of it trying to work out if there is something sneaky about me that I’ve not accidentally revealed yet (no, girls, there isn’t).

Anyway, it’s at this point in the story where I get all confused.

Call me old fashioned, but I’m used to flirting with and chatting up one woman at a time. If I went to a bar and simultaneously tried to start a relationship with ten girls at once, how long would it be until one of them slapped me? 1 second? 10 seconds? Would I be beaten senseless? I’m used to directing my attention towards one person at a time and here I find myself dealing with lots of people at once and feeling guilty about it. Now that I’ve found someone to have a date with, I feel like the right thing to do is to put everyone else in a “holding pattern” until I know where this one is going. Oh, and I don’t mean ignoring people, I just mean talking with them rather than turning the flirt-o-meter right up to its 11 setting.

I realise, however, that if I do this one-at-a-time then I’m going to be Internet Dating for an awful long time. Maybe this is why speed dating doesn’t appeal to me, it’s the parallelism that seems weird – flirting with lots of people at once and none of them knowing who else you’re flirting with or what you’re saying. It feels like a multi-affair without the sex. So, yet again, I find myself wishing I could just lighten up and work with it rather than against it.

Still, time is one thing that I do have along with at least some dignity (for the time being, anyway…)

Anyway, date-night tonight. I’d better attempt to make myself resemble a human being: and perhaps just one small whisky before I go out to calm the nerves *shakes nervously*

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Signs a boy fancies you

February 14, 2007 · Filed under Chat, Dating, Drunken Ramblings, Girlfriends, Internet Dating, Relationships

The title is an actual search term someone used that found my blog. Don’t know if it was any help, given my complete inability to figure out when a girl fancies me. I’m therefore not sure if I can be any help at all – but I’ll give it a shot from my perspective. I recognise that this is bolting the door after the horse has buggered off with regards to the person who searched, but still, it makes an interesting discussion point given how much wine I’ve drunk.

Let’s assume that we’re in a bar. Obviously, the process for me involves several steps. The first of which involves the visual appearance. I’ve given some of my impressions as to what attracts me at “first glance” but that’s the initial ticket (cute smile, friendly face, cute bottom = good). Usually, I’d then try for an “extended glance” — try and catch your eye contact and hold it for longer than would be normal for just “looking around”. Several discrete looks later I’m trying to establish if you’re looking at me in the same way: holding the glances for longer than is strictly necessary. This is my first give-up point, if there is such a phrase – so if you’re playing hard to get by ignoring me, I’m waaaay to simple to understand that game, I’ll just think I’m annoying you and take nine steps back.

Depending on how much I’ve drunk, one of two things is now going to happen: the shy option or the bold option. If I’m still sober, then I’ll attempt the “synchronised toilet trip/drinks refill” classic – you go to the bar, I go to the bar. Or, I try and bump into you either on the way to or from the facilities. Either way, I get to verify whether our extended stares can turn into a conversation. The bold option is to go right up to you and introduce myself at flirt-factor 5, Mr Sulu (and step on it). For some odd reason I’ve never adequately come up for an explanation for, this is easier abroad than in my own country.

The conversation is stage 2: intellectual match. Now, my ability to do this effectively clearly depends on the amount I’ve had to drunk, but regardless, I can tell the difference between “idle chit-chat that’s going no-where” and “an intellectual connection”. If we go for the latter, then I will start making a super-special effort; especially if eye contact is good. I’ve learnt from lessons over a decade ago that I’m pretty poor at spotting when the fairer sex fancies me, but I at least did learn something from that experience: so I know a few things I can look for (it’s still usually a complete surprise when it happens).

So we’re talking. This now gives me an excuse to slide over to your table to say hello, perhaps include you in the next round, and generally see how things go. Either way, it’s a case of exploring in random directions and seeing what happens: it has been a long, long time since I’ve done all this and it looks increasingly likely that it’ll all be coming back to me real soon. If we end up swapping phone numbers or e-mail addresses (and yours turns out to be real rather than fake :-), then, well, who knows?

So girls: it is extended eye contact combined with the sneaky top-to-bottom body-scan that will clue you in to the first signs that he thinks you’re kinda cute, but honestly, you are much more in control of these situations than the male is :-)

Perhaps things would indeed be simpler if we could just go back to the old times as karalina kidded the other day: Me Tarzan, you Jane, let’s fuck. (or, better still, let’s see it the other way around girls :-))

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I feel good

February 14, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Drunken Ramblings, Girlfriends, Internet Dating, Love, Relationships

What a strange evening. After going through Christmas and New Year feeling sad and lonely, the only other day I feared was today – Valentine’s Day. And yet I’m fine. Absolutely fine. I decided early on that I’d crack open a nice bottle of wine, chit-chat to people on the phone and MSN and generally relax. And you know what? That’s exactly what I’m doing and I’m smiling and feeling exceptionally up-beat. I’ve no idea why – I feared this ‘milestone’ greatly; a valentine’s day alone, how sad is that?

How strange. I guess it means that I have indeed fallen out of love with my ex, which I’m quite surprised about, frankly. After so many years together, I expected it to take so much longer. Fortunately, I took my friend’s and family’s advice and went to Italy. I still can’t describe the difference that trip made to my life — I quite literally came back a different man. From crying my way from England to Italy, to grinning my way back to London all in the space of a week. Incredible. Sometimes, your brain just needs a royal kick in the arse in order to make it start operating normally again.

Still: being able to fall out of love with someone so quickly was alarming and did make me think. What situation was present in her mind all that time ago that allowed that to happen for her? I refuse to dwell on it beyond making the observation, but it does add evidence to the ‘relationships are a work in progress’ pile: you gotta keep working at it, gotta communicate effectively and gotta know how to deal with the inevitable ups and downs (or conflicts, as Tim put it yesterday).

I’ve got much to do tonight. The Internet Dating is going surprisingly well, at this rate, I’ll actually have a date within the next week. How weird is that? I have to admit, I am both nervous, excited and kinda quivering about the whole thing — new experiences, and all that.

Oh, and as a completely irrelevant aside, a friend of mine is a commercial airline pilot and he keeps saying “given what makes you laugh, you really ought to get the CD of David Gunson’s What goes up must come down. Anyway, as part of my “enhance thine CD collection to avoid embarrassment” program, I ordered it at the same time as a pile of music (all of which did indeed turn up today – thank-you Amazon!). Anyway, it’s quite old, but it is definitely worth a listen if you have a few quid to spare and have a British sense of humour, (whatever that is) in that there are a lot of “in jokes” for those of us who happen to be English :-) Anyway, I must thank my friend – and ask for a free flight at the same time (it has never worked before, but hell, you don’t get if you don’t ask, eh?)

Have a fine Valentine’s Day, wherever you are.

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Valentine’s day: In case you hadn’t noticed…

February 13, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Girl to boy dictionary, Internet Dating, Relationships

… is tomorrow. Unless a miracle of incomprehensible proportions magically materialises out of thin-air on my doorstep in the next 24 hours, I’m going to be by myself. So just as a reminder for all you blokes out there, doing cute and lovely things isn’t just a one-day-affair :-)

I’ve decided to do the boring thing and spend the evening in with a bottle of fizzy wine (no, not champagne, that would be wasted on one!) and cheer myself up with the internet armed with MSN (you know where to find me :-)) and some of the music I ordered (which according to the nice chaps at Amazon, should turn up tomorrow: It had better, or I’m going to be real short of material).

Still, I have interesting news on the internet dating front. It appears to actually work!. So far, I’ve been contacted by a couple of people and even had one brief message-to-message exchange with one. I’ll be sure to keep you all posted, but it’s kinda exciting to be talking to new people… and… oh my word… the possibility of dating again after all these years!

Goodness… I’m all tingly with anticipation… and I’ve not finished writing my girl to boy dictionary yet!

Either way, it has been a good day. Perhaps I won’t be needing one of these after all.

Life is good. Cheers!

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Have I made a mistake?

February 11, 2007 · Filed under Dating, Internet Dating, Love, Mistakes, Relationships

I’ve a confession to make. At the end of last week, I signed up to an internet dating site despite the fact I’ve blogged almost continuously about how I would probably not. One of my friends talked me into it. I would have blogged about it before, but I’ve been going through phases of “now, that was as stupid idea” and “well, what do I have to lose?” continually. Indeed, I figured that by now, I would have cancelled the whole thing and it can wait until another day. I’ve weighed it all up and decided I’ll run it for a week and see what happens. I may or may not keep you posted depending on whether it turns out to be complete disaster or not.

I’m suffering from a little sunday melancholy again today. What is it about sundays? Every other day of the week seems to be just fine now and today I find myself going through a wide range of emotions ranging from outright lust through sadness to light melancholy – which is how I am right now. Yet again, the housework and other bits took no time at all and I didn’t even buy a sunday paper (I didn’t read the thing last week, so thought I’d save myself the bother today).

The problem is that one moment I feel that I am ready for a serious relationship, and the next moment, I believe I am not. The very fact that my opinion changes so often tells me the latter is probably the reality of the situation. So, by risking some dating again, am I doing it for purely selfish reasons, or not? Or am I just over-analysing the whole thing and should just let life play itself out and have some fun.

One thing I really miss today is love. Love is like an amazing scaffolding that holds you togther during the ups and downs of life, calming the bad and enhancing the good. Now I’ve broken my addiction (by which I mean fallen out of love with the ex), I’m finding I’m noticing these ups and downs a lot more acutely. I miss my scaffolding. I miss love.

Perhaps I just shouldn’t blog on sundays.

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They expire in 2008! The clock is running!

February 7, 2007 · Filed under Girlfriends, Internet Dating, Relationships, Sex

One of the most interesting and addictive things about starting a blog is looking at the blog statistics page. Seeing what it is that brings people here and which articles they read. Needless to say, Friends with extras was the most read post – probably because I tagged it with the magic word “sex”. I hate to think how many people I disappointed when they realised that the actual sex content by volume was… slim, and that’s me with my generous hat on. In order, sex, love and girlfriends are the tags that have tempted people to come and visit my box of mystery (although my ‘torture’ tag on the media torture entry yesterday also gained a click-in, I wonder what that person was expecting?). This entry will clock all three, and probably a couple of other ones, so there is a vague possibility it’ll be my most visited post yet. I wonder how many people got here, realised it’s all relationship-stuff and left straight away? Now that would be an interesting statistic.

Whilst tidying up the remainder of my ex’s things all that time ago, I found we’d had a surprising number of condoms hanging around. You know the drill – a pill forgotten is a rubber attachment requirement for a while. And each time this happened, we’d forget we had the previous ones and thus the collection grew. More than a few were well past their “shag-by-date” (if you’ll forgive the phrase) but at the very least, I have a pile of the things that are workable out as far as 2008! So at least I have some time in hand, eh?

Having such a large stock reminds me how nice sex is. And I don’t mean one-night-stands, they have virtually no appeal to me and are not something I’ve done since my early 20s. I had the privilege of having a brief few-day relationship-ette when I was in Italy the other week, which was nice because we both knew it was never going to go any further than that time so at least I know that all my equipment still functions correctly (in non-manual mode ;-)).

Oh, say the men, you’re on the Internet. You’re surrounded with an encyclopedic smorgasbord of pornography – just get cracking! To me, that’s the equivalent of sleeping with 500 random women without protection and expecting not to have to visit the doctor. Maybe it’s because I’m old fashioned, maybe it’s because I work in IT, who knows — but if there are three nibbles of knowledge that an IT background has given me it is a) a stack of firewalls 50 feet high can’t save you from some of the traps out there, b) the stuff isn’t that good anyway and c) you never know what horrors you might accidentally find. So apart from the odd nice bottom picture that turns up on generally suitable-for-work sites (although none in my e-mail yet :-)), porn on the net is… well, to use a nice quaint english phrase “not my cup of tea”.

This means I’m stuck with a handful of videos from the loft. They’ve been up there for a decade, and yes, I said videos. I’ve not purchased any naughty material for some years now so I’m not quite up to the DVD level of library yet. Furthermore, I live no-where remotely near to a sex shop (and in England, you really do feel you need to be wearing a disguise to go in). So what this really means, is that stocking up is going to involve a long trip up to London and a visit to Soho. Frankly, I think I’d prefer the real thing. It seems like an awfully long way to go just to pour a chunk of hard earned money down the drain.

I nearly killed myself this morning whilst driving to work – I was clocking a very cute bottom (she was riding a bike, you ladies always look sooooo sexy riding a bike) and narrowly missed ploughing into the back of a parked car due to looking in the completely wrong direction for optimal driving performance. Which tells me I’m ready for the real thing — I didn’t blank her out, I didn’t think of my ex whilst looking at her, in fact, it was a moment of pure lust (and my word, it could so nearly have been my last…) My only concern is that how much of my perceived or actual readiness is down to confused hormones or just a general amorous feeling. I’m still anxious to avoid falling into a rebound relationship and subjecting someone to the hurt I’ve gone through, though, but at some point I’m going to spend less time worrying and more time doing. Sounds like a perfect “fuck buddy” scenario if I ever heard one.

So that brings me to dating. What are my options?

  1. Nightclubs. Well, they’re a non-starter for me, the kind of person I’d meet there would a) be too young and b) like nightclubs, so we can cross that one off the list.
  2. Friends of friends. When you get to your 30s, most your friends are already paired off, married and some have children. It’s all great for social lives, but not a great love-life starter.
  3. Internet dating. Internet Dating… now that’s a tough one. I just don’t quite know if it is for me. I’ve blogged about it a bit before, but somehow, I never quite get around to signing up to any of the sites. I don’t know why. It was because I was too much of a coward to sign up for one of those that I started a blog – for some odd reason, bearing my soul to the entire internet seemed less alarming than signing up for a dating site. Hmmmm…

Oh, there are plenty of other opportunities, after all, the past few girlfriends I’ve had have all just appeared out of nowhere in situations that I could not possibly have planned armed with a map and an expert guide to help me, so maybe I ought to quit worrying and just let life sort itself out — and life is nothing if not surprising and unpredictable.

Anyway, all being well, I’ll get to use those condoms before they expire in 2008.

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