Holidays without tears

Whatever you do, don't look at the last date that I posted. I said DON'T look! If you are thinking that I have been hiding from my blog out of the shame and embarrassment of starting a blog on dating and then failing to do any, what's the word... dating, you'd be right. 

And I have also been to Cornwall on holiday. With my mum.

Now you may think that's sad but I had a conversation with a friend just after discussing holidays with a friend or Mum, versus holidays with boyfriends. Guess which ones came out on top? 

Uh Oh - 40

I spent the day with a friend yesterday who was celebrating her 40th birthday. Delightful though the day was, the elephant in the room was her singleness. Well, it was until we started to talk about it and it wasn't so bad in the end. But she has decided to put her skates on and give it all another try. 

So how possible is this? Because the more I talk to the single middle agers out there, the more it doesn't seem to be all that likely. Is it? Have you found differently? 

Love Is a Many Squandered Thing

I'm not great fan of Cheryl Cole - by which I mean that her contribution to the world of entertainment hardly registers in my world rather than an active dislike of her - but she certainly seems to be going through a hard time. Married for 4 years and cheated on for what seems like a minimum of 5 times. For someone considered so beautiful and is an official 'nation's sweatheart' marital bliss has eluded her.

I'm always surprised by infidelity. I can quite understand the odd mistake, drunken flings or moments of weakness when a relationship hits bad times. But calculated cheating is unfathomable to me as I can't understand how someone could possibly cope with the guilt. Lying is difficult when you have to do it. Why you'd consider it as a lifestyle choice is beyond me.

But I also consider it from a new perspective these days, being single. I've seen many a person lose someone they later claim they loved due to their cheating and I can't help but despair at how little they seemed to value what they had. They know afterwards of course, when it's gone, but that's too bad.

For those who would love to have someone special in their life, there is a recognition that love is not a right or a guarantee in this life. That people who have it and squander it is kind of sad.

Dating News!

Ok, I've been on a date! Not a successful one but hey, at least I did it. Now all I need to do is keep it up! It was actually a very pleasant evening and I had a lot of fun. Only trouble is - I didn't fancy the guy. I'm not even sure why seeing as he ticked quite a few of the right boxes (just a figure of speech, I do NOT have a check list in reality). He was interesting, funny, clever and totally absorbing when he talked about something he was passionate about. But ultimately, he'd make a great friend and I just can't envisage things going any further.

Oh well, at least it's given me my faith back - there are still nice, single guys left out there!

Valentine’s Day - I Know How To Show a Girl a Good Time

I’m beginning to think this blogging is bad for my dating drive. I’ve hardly had a date since I started! So I was very disappointed at myself this Valentine’s Day to find I had not secured so much as even a sniff of a date. But immediately after decided that this would not hold me back from enjoying a little champagne and watching some chick flicks. Actually, it wasn’t so much a flick as a TV series, Lost in Austen - which is this if you haven’t heard of it. True indulgence!

There’s a great line near the beginning where Amanda (the main character) says to her mum that what she loves about Pride and Prejudice is the manners, that it’s become part of who she is - that she has standards. Her mum replies that she hopes her standards helps her on with her coat when she’s 70. Note to self - stop becoming a character in a drama based on a character in a book!

40% of Adults Are Single? Really??

I have no idea if this is true, seeing as I couldn’t be bothered to research it further, but apparently the percentage of single Americans in 2008 was above 40% - I read this somewhere. On the basis that I don’t even know if this is true, I also cannot be expected to know what the criteria is either. Is this just talking about people who are not married or co-habiting? Or does it also include those who could class themselves in a long term relationship?

If includes the latter, then I’m definitely living in the wrong country. It really doesn’t seem as if there are that many single people around, I certainly don’t meet too many. That said, most of my friends are also single but it just doesn’t add up that most of the 40% are women! So come on guys, where are you hiding??

Actually, what I’d quite like to hear about is the reasons. Are they people who have been hurt and can never face love again? Is it because they are chronically shy? Because they think you can never have too much of a good thing and never stick around long enough for a relationship? I’m always interested in the reasons why someone is single, I kind of hope they’ll come up with one that I can steal. I suspect most of them however, like me, would fail to come up with an answer.

Snow Dating

Apparently, sign ups to mysinglefriend.com have surged with all the snow we’ve been having. Stuck in and hindered in their attempts to nip off to the pub, I guess the single people of Britain have had too much time to ponder the state of their love lives. That said, I thought that this site’s ‘USP’ was to get a friend to recommend you and to big you up in that special way that only a friend can (call me a cynic but you’d have to choose your friend wisely).

So turns out, these sign ups may well have been stuck indoors thinking too much about their single friend’s love lives! This would not surprise me in the least seeing as I am almost permanently enraged by the fact that friends/family/everyone else likes to get so involved in single people’s love lives. Getting them to go on dates against their will would be the next logical conclusion.

But I doubt that’s how it works, I’m guessing you have to be involved in some way. I hope that these people have thought it through though. God knows when the snow is going to bugger off and I’m sick of dicing with a smashed coccyx every time I pop to the shop - I doubt I‘d risk it for a date. That’s a price I won’t pay for love!