And everything and whatnot and whatever

On Thursday I finally got round to having my date with upmarket guy, so called because he hails from the nicer area of my neighbourhood

I arrived to the date early so settled myself in the corner of the chosen pub and waited for my date.

Dan, 26, IT consultant

Dan seemed like a sweet guy, not exactly my type in the looks department but I am not one for judging a book by its cover. Now I had wondered what leads so many younger men to seek a partner online and I am fast leaning towards the theory that these men have no idea what is required in order to get a second date.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I talk ten to the dozen and am very very chatty, Dan however took the piss! This guy didn't stop from the moment he got on the date until my buss arrived and even then it was a close call as to whether he was actually going to get on the bloody thing with me just to carry on.

The problem overall was the content of his conversation, for example when asked what my mother did for a living I replied "she works for the NHS" which I feel is about as much as you can say about someone else's job, even your own.

Dan told me the ins and outs of his job and all in entailed, and he works in IT. Yawn!

One gem from his trip to America was when he described Palm Springs as a "little gem of a place" as if he had discovered it himself, thanks Columbus!

Aside from the conversation not being exactly riveting Dan had a habit of saying "and everything and whatnot and whatever" at the end of every sentence so much so that I felt a fit of giggles coming on, which was awful as I've never been great at holding my laughter in!

The main reason I won't be seeing Dan again is actually quiet sad, after telling me his father was in the army and talking about what his dad does day to day and various facts about his life, and let me just clarify he was speaking about his father in the present tense, I made a harmless comment about his father looking forward to retirement with such a demanding job. It's then Dan tells me that his father had passed away only a few months ago.

It was incredibly sad to hear someone so unused to their fathers passing that they speak about them as if they were still here, I wondered if I hadn't made that comment would his fathers death have been mentioned?

What followed was a detailed description of his fathers cause of death and autopsy which I'm not going to go into detail about, after all I had already decided before this point that I wasn't going to see Dan again but I did realise that this guy was in no way ready to date.

Having gone through something so traumatic and having spilled his guts to me on a first date Dan left me with the impression that he just needs someone to talk to and perhaps dating is a distraction from what he is going though, all in all not a great date for me but I sincerely hope he finds someone lovely when he is ready for such a thing.