Taking the plunge!

Tags

Cut copy and paste, eHarmony, Facebook, Lionel Messi, Message, Online dating service, PlentyofFish, Tinder

Well today it finally started. After a couple of weeks, well a month, of procrastination I finally took the plunge. Feet first, all in, balls deep went for it. I have messaged 13 girls in last couple of hours across both POF and match.com and also sent 1st contact to at least 5 girls on eharmony. I have gone for a cross-section of ages and looks but have gone with basically the dame approach. Tried nothing cheesy, nothing particularly clever or witty. I have simply told them I like the look of their profile, invited them to look at mine and contact me if they would like to get to know each other more. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t sent them all the same message, I have banned myself from copying and pasting, each girl got a newly typed message with its own different shade of dullness. Safe and boring I know but I think any attempts by me to be either witty, clever or smooth will come across as the opposite. I could be wrong but I don’t think my ‘game’ is quite where it needs to be to attempt ant Lionel Messi type moves so I’m gonna play more of a Vinny Sideways role keeping it simple but not losing the ball. Also I think I’m gonna steer clear of any football references as that last one was pretty awful.

What instigated this little flurry of messages. Well a friend of mine, Alan, introduced me to a new app the other week called tinder. It’s kinda like ‘hot or not’, where you just get pictures of girls and decided if there hot or not, with the add-on that any girl who thinks your hot back, you can then chat with and see what happens. I’m gonna do a separate post on tinder soon, Anyway so earlier today I managed to arrange a possible date with a pretty cute girl and have used this little burst of euphoria to put some wind into what were the dying sails of the good ship online dating. I shall add no sailing references to the list of things I shouldn’t use when messaging.

So I’m sure al of you who are reading this are waiting with bated breath, just as I am, to see what happens a) with my tinder dates (yes there are two, details on the other tomorrow) and b) with these messages I’ve sent out today. Who m I kidding, no one is reading, I’m the only one waiting with bated breath. Well in order to put myself out my misery I will post an update on all 13 messages in a couple of days. I will be sure to chase myself up if I see nothing by the end of the week.

The question is now whether I can sleep with all this excitement? Well the fact I’m expecting absolutely no response from the drivel I’ve just inflicted on 13 unsuspecting women means I can sleep absolutely fine. I just need to put down my computer and stop telling myself about it. Night.

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Lying!

Tags

Advice, Cyber Relationships, Dating, Dave, Online dating service, Personals, Pete, Relationship

So, I lied to my best friend about my date the other day. My best friend is Dave, I’ve known him for almost 20 years and we’ve lived together for 5 of them. Dave is awesome. He says it how it is, he’s fucking hilarious and he’s always there when I need him. Well he’s there for a little bit, until his patience runs out. Dave does feelings to a point. After my last breakup, which I will have to go into at some point, Dave let me be miserable for a bit but after a while, we were out for a drink and he said

“Alright, whats up?”

“What? Nothing, what do you mean?”

“Whats wrong with you? You’ve been miserable for ages, whats wrong?”

“I’m still down about Sarah.”

“Dude, it’s been 6 months, that’s enough, it’s getting boring now. Get over it!”

I tried, I didn’t, I still haven’t to be honest, that’s another story, but that’s what Dave’s like. He says it how he see’s it.

So anyway, I lied to him the other day. He asked me what I was doing during the week and I said I had a date on thursday (last night). He started asking how I met her, how it came about etc and I don’t know why but I made up some story about meeting a girl on a train on my way home from work. To be honest I haven’t really told anyone about my online dating experiment. Obviously Alice and Pete know, I’ve also spoken to friend of mine who’s done a lot of online dating, successfully I might add, called Emma as she had told me to do it ages ago and said she’d help me with profiles and stuff if I ever decided to do it. But that’s it! I think I haven’t told people because I don’t want any pressure of expectation. I can just about cope with my Mother asking me every time she see’s me if I’m seeing someone. I just think if everyone know’s I’m online dating then it will become one of those obvious go to questions whenever I see someone, you know like, “How’s work?”, “How’s the family?”, “What show you doing at the mo?” and I just think it’ll be depressing to be asked the question “How’s the dating going?” on a regular basis.

So anyway, I lied to Dave, the thing is Dave knows me and as I’m making shit up he’s asking me more questions. Now as mush as Dave knows me, I know Dave. He knows I’m lying and he just making me look stupid. I know this cause I’m a rubbish liar but now I know that he knows the stubbornness in me kicks in and he is not going o win. Stupid I know. So then I have a few days of Dave bringing it up every now and then trying to trip me up in my now web of lies. He even brings it up in front of Stacey, our other housemate, so now I’m lying to 2 people and the lie is growing. So it is actually with some relief that my date cancels on the Wednesday night. This can now be something I own up to in a few years time and we can laugh about it.

But why won’t I tell Dave about the only dating. I’m actually embarrassed. Dave and I go out for drinks a lot and he’s really good with going up and talking to girls and that kind of stuff and he always laughs at how rubbish I am. Well, we don’t know if I’m rubbish because I just don’t do it. Ever. So admitting to him that I’m going online would be like admitting I can’t meet a girl the normal way, when I say normal, I mean the way that everyone else I know (except Emma) has managed to do. I’m wondering if I can’t tell my best friends maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. However, if I don’t do this how am I ever going to meet someone?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some weirdo virgin who’s never had a girlfriend or date at the age of 35. I’ve always met girls through my hobby, amateur dramatics (don’t laugh). When I do a show I get to know a girl over a 3 or 4 month rehearsal period and slowly stuff happens, friendship leads to romance. Also when rehearsing for a show I’m usually a main part or I’m Directing or Choreographing so there’s something about me and I’m more confident. Outside of that I’m not cause I don’t feel like I have anything to offer someone. Perhaps that why all my relationships have failed, once the shows over I feel like I don’t deserve the person I’m with.

Wow, that was deep and depressing. Anyway, the date cancelled the night before saying she wasn’t feeling well. I think 24 hours before is a little early for the ‘I’m ill’ routine, I think she just had second thoughts. So I’ve left the ball in her court but am not at all hopeful. Also, messaged about 5 girls during the week, me contacting them first and none have replied. So that’s simultaneously a huge step forward and a huge step back. Is my messaging style the problem? Is my profile the problem? Is my plan of aiming for the really hot girls the problem? We can look at that tomorrow.

The King of Procrastination

Tags

Anna Watkins, Dominic Cooper, eHarmony, PlentyofFish, Pramface, Scarlett Alice Johnson, Scarlett Johansson, Wondergirls

So, I have been a member of match.com for almost 2 weeks now. Since then I’ve also joined plentyoffish.com and eHarmony.com as I thought in for penny in for a pound. I haven’t paid for eHarmony, need money to afford the actual dates, so that one will be interesting as I’ll be blind dating. Will try to put my shallowness aside for that, not convinced but you never know. plentyoffish of is free, so loads of people are on there, but when girls put on their profile ‘PLEASE don’t send me photo’s of your penis’ it means I’m not holding out too much hope of finding someone serious.

So anyway, how have I been doing. Well as the title suggests, it’s been slow. Still yet to approach anyone, even with a message. Excuses I’ve been making to myself include; ‘I have no time next week if they did want to meet up’, ‘I can’t afford a date til next month when I’m paid’, ‘football season starts in 2 weeks’ and my current favourite ‘I can’t get too far ahead until I catch up with my blog’. Yes, I know they are all perfectly legitimate excuses but I need to get over it and push on. I have had a good search through POF and Match and ‘favourited’ a large number of girls, so I know where to go when I do decide to push on, and as I said in my last blog am surprised at how many hot girls there seem to be on these sites. So I’m going with that thing people say about hot girls never getting approached in clubs and stuff cause people assume they have no chance and I’m thinking ‘fuck it, give the hotties a go’. Not holding out much hope, but you never know.

Looking through a lot of these girls bio’s it makes me think about mine. Is it too safe? One of the difficult things Alice, Pete and I found when putting mine together was just how truthful are you and just how much do you share. I decided I wanted to be truthful about the big things, looking to date with a hope it might lead to something more substantial, want to have kids, have a real dislike of Dominic Cooper. But what about the small things, do I admit I prefer Grease 2 to Grease, that I have a weird obsession with the Korean girl band The Wondergirls, that the only books I’ve read in the last 10 years have been the Harry Potter series, that I’m a bit of a Whovian, that I have some normal crushes like Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson but I also have some really strange ones like Laura Watson (british tennis player), Lim (from the aforementioned wondergirls), Scarlett Alice Johnson (from the tv show Pramface, in fact you can add the fact I love the TV Show Pramface) and Anna Watkins (Olympic Rower, that one surprises even me), that I spend far too much money on Blu-Ray’s, the list is endless. Would these things make me seem quirky and interesting or weird, freaky and a potential serial killer. What do you guys think?

So anyway to bring you up to date with how I’m doing date wise. Despite my inability to send a message, I have managed to respond to received messages. I have received a couple of messages from ladies I have no interest in, as you would expect to. Had to make he decision to ignore or respond and if I respond to be  a) brutally honest b) be nice and try not to give them the wrong idea or  c) be really harsh and use them for flirting practice. I’m ashamed to admit I have gone for the last option. I won’t do it long, I promise, but a lady who’s not that attractive, who messages men 8-10 years younger than them and leads with “Yummmeee” is probably used to it.

But then a miracle happened, a lady who I’d favourited messaged me. We’ve sent a few messages back and forth and to cut a long story short, I have a date next week. She’s very cute, very my type, so I’m just waiting to find out whats wrong with her as surely it can’t be this easy and it would lead to the shortest blog ever but we’ll see.

However, now I have a date in the bag it has given me more confidence and I may attempt sending a message to a couple of the girls on my favourites list. I should add, all the messages so far have come from POF, so at the moment the free site is proving the most lucrative so to speak. However if this happens to be my last blog and you hear reports of a man murdered on a 1st date in london after meeting a stranger on POF you can submit this as evidence and they will hopefully catch the bitch.

So, what’s this all about?

Tags

Alice, Bristol, Cyber Relationships, Dating, Facebook, Online dating service, Pete, Relationship

Well, just over a week ago I finally succumbed to online dating. There are many reasons I was contemplating taking the plunge, which I will aim to cover over the next week or so, but two main reasons it happened last week were Alice and Pete.

Alice and Pete are two of my best friends. I unfortunately don’t see that much of them, as the selfish bastards moved to Bristol, but I try to get down as often as I can, I’ve made it about 5 times in 7 years. I miss them terribly, especially Alice as I’ve known her since I was 3 and is closest thing I have to a sister. Pete has achieved brother status by marrying her, I think this is probably the only thing he regrets about marrying her.

Anyway, I digress, so I’ve spent a gorgeous weekend relaxing with them, spending lots of quality time with their beautiful 4 year old girl, apparently “Uncle Mark is very good at games”, and getting broody and jealous of their family unit. So when Lucy (their daughter) has gone to bed and we’re deciding what movie to watch, I float an idea I’ve been mulling over for a while.

“Do you think I should try online dating?”

“YES!”

Next think I know the laptop is plugged into the tv, we’re on match.com and Pete is creating my profile with much hilarity. Alice particularly loves my response to ‘how would you describe your taste in music?’

“Is there an option ‘Gay’?”

Anyway, luckily for me, Pete is much better at writing about me than I am and after much laughter and finishing a bottle of wine I have a complete profile. Also, luckily for me, Alice has taken some nice photo’s of me over the weekend (a quick flick through my Facebook corroborated the uberfact that something like 80% of all photo’s on Facebook are of when you’re drunk) so I have a nice profile pic. Then I pay my subscription after we’ve all said the obligatory “HOW MUCH?” and I’m good to go.

Despite them begging, I didn’t start then and there as I knew I’d have a 4 year old waking me in up 4 hours, I’m the King of Procrastination and I really wanted to have my first proper delve in private. Not as perverted as I just made that sound, just despite my gratitude for them kicking me up the arse and sending me on my way, I’m pretty sure their lists of ‘musts’ for my girlfriend/partner/wife(gulp) are very different to mine. I’m pretty sure ‘highly skilled at oral’ or ‘breasts that defy gravity’ would not feature on any list Alice would make for me.

However, when I went to bed I couldn’t resist having a quick flick through a search and was surprised to find a number of girls who actually looked normal and, more surprisingly, hot. I know that sounds vain but I don’t hide the fact I’m very shallow and for the time being at least I will be looking at photo’s first and reading profiles second. Lets see how that goes for me.

“We accept the …

“We accept the love we think we deserve” – Stephen Chbosky, ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Thats a bit better.

“You know you’r…

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams” – Dr. Seuss

What a load of bollocks!

(well I guess he did also write about green eggs and ham)