Well What Do You Know...

You go and sign up to a dating site and then you meet someone the natural way. But before you imagine that I’ve got my love life all sorted, there’s a catch. I’m already not seeing him any more. But I did think it was a great case of sod’s law all the same.

I was actually just popping out to get a few bits from the shop for a quiet Sunday when I bumped into a friend and her brother having a quiet drink. I joined them, it all got a lot less quiet and then for reasons that I can’t quite remember, she turned round to a couple of Italian guys behind us and we all got chatting. Before you know it, I was having a full on night out complete with booze, pulling and swapping phone numbers.

Anyways, I saw him a couple of times after that night and had a great time but for some reason I just didn’t feel we clicked. And I’ve kind been left wondering why? I’ve often wondered at what it is that makes the difference between someone that you like and someone that drives you crazy! Am I now just being too picky I wonder. I have to say that I don’t think that I am - I’m waiting to meet someone that floats my boat and nothing else will do. Is that so wrong??

I've Done It!

I’ve signed up and got started. I’m officially dating. What was good was that I didn’t even have to leave the house to do it. What was bad was writing that wretched, embarrassing, demeaning profile bit. How would I know what I’m like? Anything I do know about myself should not be revealed to strangers, so it’s all a bunch of lies (well some of it anyway). It’s pointless and yet completely necessary at the same time.

So what am I expecting? I’m really having to force myself not to expect the same as last time I did this, I have to say. Last time was ruined (within weeks) by an absolute nutter, and quite a scary one too. I like to think that this time I would recognise the warning signs. Warning signs such as:

1) Conversation that pretty much stuck to how much women got their own way all the time thanks to their feminine wiles.
2) Describing his divorce in minute and bitter detail.
3) Sending emails demanding to know why I haven’t agreed to see him again.
4) Followed by emails that claim I ensnare men for my psychological experiments.

As a disclaimer I would like to state that I have never, ever conducted experiments on men. Not for psychological reasons or for pleasure.

I hope you can see why I would like to avoid this type like the plague this time round. I will update when I have some news!

Other People's Relationship Disasters - And Me

Another day, another excuse as to why I haven’t done any online dating yet. I’ve got a sort of an excuse though, albeit a lame one. This last week, I have been far too closely involved in two people’s relationship problems. Friend number 1 is going through a break up with someone who has suddenly developed the emotional age of a 3 year old. Don’t get me wrong, he was hardly my favourite bloke in the world before hand but even I’m amazed at the shocking decline. Watching the heartbreak is painful in itself.

Second friend has given me deeper cause for concern, principally because the incident became so personal to me. I went round her and her partner’s house for the evening, only for her to get totally bladdered and accuse her boyfriend and myself of there being something going on! Nothing could be further from the truth and he is the last guy IN THE WORLD that I would even consider it with. Trouble is, how do you defend yourself with something like that? It’s going to cause further offence and then you’re in deeper than you were before.

So, both other people’s problems. But they’ve really made me value the lack of - relationship induced - complications in my life at the moment! Not really what I needed in terms of online dating motivation. I’m hoping that this week will provide something, anything(!) to get me started.

Any suggestions???

Forget Online Dating - Let's Talk Bowing and Breeches

Just before Christmas I posted a blog (although I’ve switched everything over to blogspot so the dates will look all wrong) about the trials of being single at that time of year. One of the pluses, I mused at the end, was drinking wine and watching chick flicks to my heart’s content. Well, never let it be said that I’m not a woman of my word.

I watched costume drama after costume drama - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Emma. I positively gorged on it. Before long all real men, who committed no other crime than to simply walk past me on the street, took on a strange, ‘not from this world’ type feel and you don’t need to tell me that that’s not a positive thing. I had willingly altered my own perspective and ruled out all men of under 300 years old. Kind of weird when you think about it (please don‘t).

So, what is it about women and costume dramas? Why is it we go so doolally about men in breeches?? I know that this is hardly an original concept but it’s no less true for it. And there seems to be a resurgence in interest at the moment. Just before Christmas, I had a conversation with a very good friend of mine about Rupert Penry-Jones in Persuasion. Nothing odd there, you might say, he looks great. But this particular friend of mine is just about the most modern woman I know. She gets away with the most cutting edge fashion, always knows the latest celebrity gossip and the music she listens too always seems to me to be beamed straight in from iTunes. Ok, I might not be painting the most appealing picture of her (for the record, she’s absolutely lovely) but you surely get the picture. She oozes modernity. Everything about her is effortlessly ’of the minute’.

So why was she sighing and wistfully talking about swanning around in an empire line dress!? Let’s have a guess:

Justification number 1. These classic stories always tell the tale of young men desperately in love. This leads us to believe that ALL young men of days of old were desperately in love, and that had you been there, you’d have been tripping over them every time you left the house. Dosed up on Austen as I am, even I’m not daft enough to believe that.

Justification number 2. It all comes down to manners. If only men realised the irresistible charm of a man with manners. Bowing and breeches do go particularly well together, but all the same, a millennium man could learn a thing or 2 from these guys. Even Mr Darcy, who was considered to be a bit of a pompous arse had a shed load of manners!

Justification (lame though it is) number 3. We love the dresses. Maybe if we’re all (I’m) completely honest it’s probably a bit narcissistic really. Frankly, looking that lovely and floaty all the time must be a dream. How could you be anything BUT a man magnet?! I can’t imagine why we ever changed.

In case you hadn’t guessed I’ve done bugger all in the way of online dating this week and, in fact this year so far. What’s my excuse? Is it my pride?? Prejudice??? Nope, just too damn lazy.
Final verdict for this week - must try harder.

Christmas Dating - or lack of it

Ok, I said no more excuses but I can’t really be expected to get dating so close to Christmas can I?? There’s simply too much to do. Shopping, food planning, visiting, swapping presents, eating mince pies. That last one seems to have taken more of my time than the others to be honest, but hey, Christmas comes but once a year.

If you happen to be single, what’s it like being with your family at this time of year? I must admit, mine aren’t too bad. Or at least they don’t make it any worse than it has to be.

Personally, I’ve never really minded attending family gatherings on my own, maybe because my last partner was so rarely around I think most people didn’t believe he actually existed. So it’s no big deal for me to go somewhere on my own. I’m used to it.

However, there are most definitely some little but consistent indignities to bear. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t shoved off the end of a sofa and relegated to the floor. Why does this always have to happen to the single people in the room?? Why is it so unimportant that their arses are pampered and comfy? Sitting on a pouf when you’re 37 is NOT appropriate. Or maybe it’s just me.

Indignity number 2: being asked about your love life. I know, it’s a cliché but I’m sorry to say, Bridget Jones was right about this one. It’s a personal question for crying out loud! Asking somebody about the state of their marriage would be considered an impertinence, and rightly so. However I respond, it always manages to create an awkward atmosphere. There’s only 1 correct answer to this, and it’s ‘actually, it’s going great, I’ve met someone called Joe, he works in accounts…blah, blah’ etc. If you can’t provide that answer, you’re buggered.

Third indignity has to be buying other people’s children presents. I know that single and childless don’t necessarily go hand in hand, but in my case they do and I cannot put into words the stress and blind panic such a chore invokes. The final slap in the face comes from the blank, unimpressed expressions on their faces when they open them.

But hey-ho (or ho ho), Christmas is coming whether or not we choose to get on and enjoy it and I have to sneakily admit that I do. I cannot get enough of the lights, the jingle bells and the promises of TV delights!

So, the pluses of the single Christmas? I get to sit indoors drinking wine and watching chick flicks to my heart’s content with my Mum!! See, it isn’t all bad, this single life :)

Well, it's a start...

Double click dating. Not particularly romantic sounding is it? But then neither is online or internet dating and they’ve both done alright as terms that rapidly entered into common usage. How that happened I’ll never know, but my guess would be that everything else to do with being on the web is so impersonal, solitary and unsexy that adding dating for sad loners no longer seems out of place. Just a thought.

It could well be just me, because I can still remember a time when ‘personal ads’ and ‘lonely hearts’ were an excruciating embarrassment. And I grant you that online dating does sound positively cuddly in comparison.

But anyway, frisson free and hollow sounding though it is, online dating as a phrase is here to stay whether I like it or not. So, that’s what my oh so clever title is meant to represent - online dating. Haha, bet your sides are splitting.

You may have dabbled yourself, or have recently become single and decided that it’s time to start ‘getting out there’ again. I’ll tell you something else about yourself if any of those are true. You’re probably at least 30, spend most of your time at work with people who hardly set your pulse racing and have had at the very least one serious long term relationship (and consequently feel it‘s something you should be doing again even though you‘re slightly terrified).

Yep, that may be you but you have correctly guessed that it sums me up too. So, we’re in it together!

Seeing as it’s my first blog, I suppose it’s time for the awkward intros (for that read ‘dating profile‘ now we‘ve gone techno) so here goes:
Hi, my name is Angela, I’m 37, and I live in East Anglia. I never know what to say in these things lol! I like going to the theatre and walking. I have a great sense of humour and am looking for a kind and sensitive man I can talk to.

Scrap that. Here’s how that should read:
My name is Angela, I live in East Anglia (you’ll never track me down in the midst of all that fenland!) and I’m 37. I have been single for about 2 years, and after a few dalliances, run ins and arguments I decided that it was time to start getting off my arse and become an acceptable member of society again, ie. One half of a couple. Don’t ask me any more questions ok?? I’m just not good in these situations. Bugger off.

Actually, even that’s not strictly true. I find many couples far from socially acceptable. Also, I have actually tried the dating thing before. Last summer in fact I gave the old match.com thing a try but it must be said my heart really wasn’t in it. Even more so 5 or 6 dates down the line, after discovering that I appeal to dull, fat, balding nut jobs, and ONLY dull, fat, balding nut jobs, at which point I simply ceased to care.

But, hope springs eternal, and here I am again. My reason for starting a blog? Firstly, I thought that it might stop me from making too many excuses this time round and force me to actually get out there - so you can be my virtual conscience if you will. And if last time is anything to go by, it’ll give me a sounding board to go off one on when someone pisses me off.

Now, if I’ve come across a little jaded and cynical, maybe that’s because I am. But I’m not all bad. I actually love being in love, and the unparalleled thrill of getting to know someone who genuinely intrigues you. I’m never happier than when hidden away in a corner of a pub somewhere, getting thoroughly engrossed in a deep/ridiculous conversation. I love being with a man who’s good to talk to (grossly under-rated that one). I mean, Moulin Rouge is one of my favourite films for Christ’s sake, I must be romantic at heart!

Succeed I must and persevere I will (try). In with meeting new people, out with misanthropy. Same goes for making an effort versus slippers. And exercise and chocolate for that matter. No more excuses, the journey begins here. Feel free to point at me and laugh along the way.