Scratch-and-Sniff

Some things we know:

Toast will always land butter side down.

Your phone will cease to ring the second you reach it.

Spots are malevolent bastards that lie in wait for hot dates.

Animals and children are highly skilled bringers of shame.

It is therefore perhaps fortunate that my own desire to have children declines in direct correlation with the seemingly endless number of sprogs spawned by my friends. Animal shame on the other hand has dogged me throughout my life. For example, being an over-privileged Pony Club type enabled me to experience the kind of mortification that can only be achieved by mixing teenage girls, skin-tight white jodhpurs and boys. No wonder I didn’t get to kiss a boy ‘til I was 14 and then only because he thought I went to the girl’s school up the road. Yes, at half an hour (most of which was spent getting the bad news from his friends that I was actually in his class) that was officially my shortest ever relationship.

But I digress. Somehow animals have always been intrinsically linked with my love life right from the early days of pony club and Sunday school - when I first fell hopelessly in love with the vicar’s son - through the Jilly Cooper jockey romp years (no, really) to my narrow escape from becoming Mrs Baimbridge: the farmer’s wife. But lo! in the nick of time I cast off my Hunters, eschewed the pearls, turned my collar back down and set off purposefully for the bright lights of London town. And so began 7 animal-free years during which time I embraced my inner urbanite, the freedom to wear boot-cut without being asked what was wrong with ‘normal’ trousers (true story) and revelled in the exceptionally lengthy lie-ins only available to the pet and child-free. Until one day I found myself wondering if the reason I was still in bed at 11.30am was in fact because I had nothing to get up for. And perhaps what I wanted, what I really, really wanted was . . . a puppy.

And so there was Arnie. The Terminator; the Urinator; the Defecator; the turner-upside-downer of my life. He was a one-in-a-million dog. And not long after he met an untimely end so did my relationship, but not before I’d had a chance to fill the void with not one but two ‘replacements’. . .

And in case you weren't aware, the advantages of dating with dogs really are endless. For example, being able to say “I’ll be the one with two irritating, yappy pooches attached to me” really helps aid that awkward first date recognition moment. And they’re great at filling those uncomfortable silences by howling along to live music. Yes, yes they did do that. But perhaps my favourite ever moment - from the creatures that brought you the grisly death of Daffy the Duck – was a few weeks ago when the dogs and I stayed over at the new boyfriend’s place for the very first time. Picture the scene if you will: the lights are low, the mood romantic. It’s a blissful, post-coital moment of peace. But what’s that I smell? “Have you farted?” I ask sweetly. Apparently he had not. Neither had I. Conducive as the stench of dog fart is to romance I felt perhaps this was an opportune moment to take them out to the garden. Hastily clothed therefore and with a dog under each arm I strode purposefully across his dimly lit bedroom. And landed, SPLAT, straight in the most repulsive stinking pile of diarrhoea dog turd I have ever encountered. I have two words for you: cream rug.

I do not have the words, or the stomach, to describe the aftermath and clean-up operation. Be glad this blog doesn’t have a scratch-and-sniff function. And never, ever mix dogs and dating.

Love, Rupert (I know it sounds a bit posh, but I'm actually a down to earth sort, with friends from different walks of life)

Slightly awkward and borderline psychopathic men of the world, rejoice! The Man Ban is over!
Yes, the Man Ban. In the age old tradition of ‘it’s funny cos it rhymes but it’s not quite accurate’, this was the name I gave to my self-imposed withdrawal from the world of internet dating. Frankly, I was exhausted. And jaded. And although I amused myself for an afternoon by thinking up synonyms for ‘shagged’ that rhyme with synonyms for ‘being dumped’ (my favourite was SCREWED and ESCHEWED), my first foray into internet dating didn’t end well.

But that was boring, and so three months later, I have picked myself up, dusted myself off, ritualistically burned a copy of The Game by Neil Strauss whilst mentally castrating its author, and here I am again.

My objectives for my first week back online are two-fold:
Get some poor hapless male to buy me a gift subscription. I am poor. Get myself in the top 20 most popular profiles on Guardian Soulmates.

I know, I’m far too interesting and cool and intelligent to be up there, and my hair is not nearly flicky enough. But Hackney Girl has given me a mission, and it seemed churlish to refuse – and hey, it’s all in the spirit of knocking a few of the ‘cherrylipz’ and ‘hazeleyze’ off there for five minutes.

So here’s my strategy – I’m favouriting as many men as possible, so that they favourite me back, and I’ve specified in my profile that I am impressed by men who can fart on demand. Trust me, it’s genius. Also, if they email me, I will tell them they are ‘like a ninja’. This never fails.

Mass favouriting is a tiring task, made more manageable by some sub-categorisation. So far I am ‘a fan’ of all the ginger men within a 40 mile radius of my house, as well as all the ones that speak Welsh, all the Geminis and all the doctors/dentists/vets. Also all the vegetarians, and all the freakishly tall ones that I missed the first time I went on there. Next I am finding all the Norwegians and anyone who ‘really likes tea’.

So wish me luck, fans of dating disasters. I’ll let you know how it goes . . .

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME. OR, THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS

Ok folks apparently I may have been a wee bit melodramatic recently. It’s just possible that I may have let this whole dating thing get a smidge out of perspective. Maybe. So - drum roll - I am turning over a new leaf. Actually make that an entire tree. Henceforth I shall be the embodiment of calm. An unflappable, unsinkable, zen-like force of pure serenity. Stop sniggering. I will, honest.

So, in the spirit of acceptance and the realisation that I chose to put myself on the dating conveyor belt, an intrinsic part of which will always be rejection and indeed rejecting, I come to the sticky subject of brush-off techniques…

Is it better to be honest? Or do you favour the old disappearing trick? How do you read between the lines of that vague text? Are they trying to be cool or are they sending you the old don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you? If you’re on the receiving end of any of these at least it is fairly clear cut...

There’s the classic: It’s not you, it’s me…Which is true of course – it’s not you, it’s me…I don’t like you.

Or the whole My ex is back on the scene and now I’m really confused approach. Surely the perfect get-out-of-jail-free card. I may even recycle this one myself.

If you like your brush-offs slightly more creative, and frankly unbelievably pompous you may enjoy this recent gem: I'd hope you could use this experience to narrow and further define future choices, as I will.

But the prize for most creative effort has to go to the man who came up with…I’m moving to Damascus to be a war correspondent. There’s no way I’m that bad a kisser.

And what if you want to leave the door open in case your first choice drops out? How long is too long between dates? Or indeed texts. Well if the man I recently second dated is anything to go by apparently it’s fine to not contact you AT ALL after said second date for 2 whole weeks and then reappear with a chirpy invitation to third date without even so much as a nod to the vanishing act. Maybe he’s been in a coma?

That’s the thing with internet dating – you’re juggling so many balls that occasionally you’re bound to drop one. Or get them mixed up. As was the case for one man who contacted my friend after their date to say, "it was lovely to meet you but I just didn’t feel that elusive spark". Have a nice life yadda yadda. Never a nice message to receive but we were impressed by his honesty and resolved to try and emulate him in future. The effect was slightly undermined however when he texted her weeks later saying, “Hey! What happened to you?” I imagine he was slightly mortified when she pointed out his mistake.

So, it’s pretty clear. No matter how you spin it. And no matter how much you want him to love you. If you’re on the receiving end of a mix-up, a vanishing act or just a vague text there’s no getting around it: HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU.

THE AGONY AND, WELL, THE AGONY

Warning: this post may make you feel sad. Or it may make you want to punch me in the head for being a self-indulgent twat. Either way probably best you read some Charlie Brooker or something instead.

I am heartbroken. A saggy, baggy, listless, staring-eyed blubbering blob of rejection. And all because of a man I met ONCE.

When I first embarked on this chapter in my life the main difficulty was getting the dates in the first place – see previous post for details of how to fix this problem. Then I had a run of men falling in love with me while I callously toyed with their hearts. Ok, slight exaggeration but I certainly felt pretty bullet-proof.

And then. And then.

And then a great big, shiny, super-clichéd lightning bolt struck last week when I met a man who felt like the one I’d been waiting for my whole life. My missing jigsaw piece. A man who, after just a few hours in my company, looked deep into my soul and told me things about myself that it’s taken me 30 years – and great vats of wine - to figure out. Even before I met him it was apparent that he was different. Just writing to him made me jettison 4 of the 6 dates I had set up for the forthcoming weeks. I couldn’t imagine the point of meeting with anyone else now I knew there was someone this wonderful in the world. And naturally he was going to think I was wonderful too, right?

WRONG.

Not that he hated me. Or thought I was a dick. Apparently he “totally liked" me but he just “didn’t feel it”. The lightning bolt that knocked me off my feet didn’t even ruffle him. Bless him, he tried desperately to make me feel better about the whole thing but you can’t make yourself fancy someone. I know; I’ve tried. And at least he had the decency to be honest. Still, whenever I catch sight of his profile, or see he's online, I feel sick to my stomach. I am trying hard not to reread his texts. More than once a day anyway.

It probably seems a bit crazy feeling this strongly about someone you barely know. And there is an argument that internet dating is not real life. But I don’t agree. I think it’s real life on hyper drive. The whole rollercoaster experience condensed and repeated ad infinitum. And it's exhausting.

Hurry! Hurry! No time to waste. Hear that sound? Yes it's the hollow sound of my rapidly emptying ovaries weeping.

And you know what? I don't think I even heard them before I jumped on this crazy cyber conveyor belt. But now the pace is frantic. I'm being shunted around Yo Sushi being peered at and occasionally picked up before being rapidly put down again. And from time to time someone will try me and think, yeah, nice, but I'm sure there's something better on here. And I'm doing the same thing. Only what I really want right now is a big plate of comfort food. Nothing fancy; no chopsticks. Something I can eat with a spoon. On the sofa. In front of X Factor.

I'm not sure how many more times I can wonder what it was about me that wasn't apparent from my photos or write up that just didn't appeal. Have I made the brochure too glossy?

AN IDIOT'S GUIDE

Not that I’m suggesting you are idiots you understand.

I’m the idiot. Me.

I must be, after all in the past 5 months I have thrown my love life open to the scrutiny of friends, colleagues, boyfriends of friends and colleagues and even one or two random readers along the way. You’ve been with me through highs (mojitos in the park and country jaunts in a Ferarri) and lows (dead ducks and empassioned betrayal emails). You’ve learnt to respect the power of the passion kiss - as have I – and you’ve even helped me wave goodbye to my twenties and embrace my inner cougar (as well as a hot 25 year old Norwegian model-a-like. Yeah, that should have been a lot more exciting than it was. I felt like his mum).

And I have done it all in the name of the blog. Goddammit I even went to the opera with a man I met in a dodgy bar at 2am. And what I learnt from this is that when you ask your friend and erstwhile wingwoman (yes Rachel – you’re fired) whether that man who asked you to the opera last night was cute and they reassure you he was, DO NOT BELIEVE THEM. Cue excruciating three hour opera with two, yes TWO, intervals, lots of fake yawning and a hastily employed exit strategy to get out of dinner afterwards.

But I digress. Four dating sites and innumerable profile revamps later I feel I have earned my dating stripes and being a renowned public spirited individual, ahem, I am now going to share my tips with you. And for those of you smug marrieds insulated by the knowledge that you will never need to pimp yourself out online, listen up - it can happen to us all. One day you may clutch this guide to your bosom as a drowning man reaches for a piece of flotsam . . .

IN THE BEGINNING
In the beginning God made man and God made woman. But woman couldn’t meet man because woman worked in publishing/teaching/Outer Mongolia, and so God made the Internet to bring together man and woman and so Internet Dating was born.

CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON
But not all dating sites are born equal. Some are the equivalent of a squalid 5am fumble in the Dalston Jazzy (Lovestruck.com), others are a repository for the “broken biscuits, the Raggy Dolls”* if you will, of the dating world (eharmony.co.uk). Mysinglefriend.com is a light-hearted canter through a fairly representative cross-section of society and Guardian Soulmates is an opportunity to flex your writing muscles and dazzle London’s wannabe intellectuals with your sparkling wit and repartee. Or alternatively to read other people’s genuinely original and clever profiles and weep green tears of jealousy at your own pale offering.

*genuine quote describing ‘us’ ie him and me, from a man on Soulmates. Pah!

LOOK AT MOY PLOYSE
Ok, so you’ve picked your weapon of choice. Let’s assume you forwent the fumble and eschewed the Raggy Dolls but whichever you chose it’s time to perfect that pout because the MOST important thing for internet dating is a set of killer photos. But take note:
1) under no circumstances should you include a picture of your pet(s).
2) if your habitual photo face gives World Gurning Champion Tommy Mattinson the willies you might want to get practising in the privacy of your own home.
3) Try to avoid taking the very best photos of yourself ever then realising there’s a toilet just behind your right ear. In every single photo.

THE MIGHTY PEN
Boys only look at the pictures, right? Wrong! It turns out that some of them can read too. So, here are some possible approaches:

The numbers game: paint yourself as sport-mad (man alive boys love sport) with a passport to rival Michael Palin’s; name check a few lowest common denominator bands, tv shows and comedians, and pilfer some funny lines from other people’s profiles and Bob’s-your-uncle your inbox will be heaving with mail. Can’t vouch for its quality though.

The fantasy: an entirely fictitious profile gives you free reign to showcase your eloquent prose and highly original sense of humour. Must be done with conviction but can net interesting results. Seems to attract a mix of the very good and the totally nuts. Nothing in between (they’re all emailing the girls who went for the approach above).

The truth: Now, go easy with your use of the truth. And as mentioned above – don’t admit to any crazy woman pet-owning tendencies, but you never know – you might actually be a genuinely cool and interesting person. In which case you don’t need my help. Go away.

And there, dear readers, I shall leave you - polishing your pout and your prose, poised ready to launch yourself onto the unsuspecting dating world - as this post has rambled on far too long already. Part deux shall follow anon.

He looked like a capuchin monkey

Some dating statistics for the past 5 months:

Birthdays: 1 (now aged 30. Gah)
Wrinkles: multiplying. The stress!
Spots: bloody loads of them. The booze!
No. of men dated during this time: 9
Passion kisses (of the 9): 5. Kerrist. That’s quite a hit rate.
Dead pets: 1
Accusations of betrayal: just the 1, thanks.

However, to date I have been lucky enough to avoid any real horrors . . . Unlike today’s guest blogger who sent us the scoop on just a couple of her recent dates.

DATE #1

... within five minutes of meeting up with him he had told me that his wife had left him because of their huge financial problems where he'd lost £200,000, which understandably caused problems between them. How he'd been conducting a mental love affair for the past nine years (not physical) but that she died of bowel cancer last October. And how three days into their only holiday in twenty years his wife decided she'd rather live on her own!! I felt like slashing my wrists!! and wondered why she'd been with him at all. Then, when pressed, he admitted he was still living under the same roof as his wife....NEXT!!!!


DATE #2

This guy was a Jewish architect - but we'd managed to have a good line going on in email exchanges for a week or so, and although in his sixties I thought he looked pretty good - not suspecting of course that the profile photograph of himself was a good 25 years old!

I felt like running when I saw him tip toeing towards me - he looked ancient! I towered above him. He had the physique of a six year old, and I'm not sure whether his hair was real or not but it was very bouffant and bigger than his wizened little face which looked rather like a capuchin monkey . . .

As he has an interest in art I made the mistake of inviting him along to my stained glass teacher's private view of her glass exhibition. I'm not sure what she thought but I saw her looking. Twice!! So embarassing...

DATEAHOLICS ANONYMOUS

Addiction. Obssession. Compulsion. No, not ridiculous names for over-priced perfume, but words that perfectly describe my current state of mind.

It’s high time I checked into rehab.

But the very idea of going cold turkey brings me out in a sweat. And how could I possibly escape? Even if they wrestled my beloved laptop off me and confiscated the iPhone that’s permanently welded to my hand I’d still be able to get on the internet at work. And that’s 9 solid hours of access to my drug of choice. Yes folks, my name is (well, you know what my name is but I’m not writing it down here in case any men I’ve dated google me) and I am a DATEAHOLIC.

You know you’re a dateaholic when:

You check your email between alarm snoozes in case someone ‘favourited’ you while you slept.

Your ugly mug is posted on no less than 3 dating websites at any given time.

You ‘relaunch’ yourself on a dating site and the old familiar faces (of people you have never met) feel like friends.

And it’s at this point you find me, slumped and shivering in a corner (quite literally for those of you who have seen me at my desk on a Friday afternoon) casting around for my next fix. It doesn’t help that I’m kind of in between sites at the moment. I’ve been MSF clean for a month now, Guardian Soulmates isn’t working for me anymore and Eharmony was heavily cut with ugly people. In fact the most enjoyment I had from that site was filling out the survey about why I was cancelling my subscription.

But the drug keeps calling me so while I try to find an untapped vein I’ll take anything to keep the withdrawal at bay. I guess that’s how in the last couple of weeks I’ve dated Pube-Arms, Lady-Fingers man. And Teeny Tiny Shoulders boy or was he Extra Large Head boy? I couldn’t decide. And how last night I came to reply to an email that was sent to me no less than 2 ½ months ago, in a desperate bid to dull the craving. I’m seeing him on Sunday (it’s not a good sign is it? He should have told me to sod off). Which should just about see me through while I hone my new MSF profile in anticipation of a fresh delivery of class A men. And if that doesn’t work? I guess I may have to try real life again. Or there’s always speed dating!