At The Crack of Dawn

The other night I watched Dawn Porter’s “How to Find Love Online” with avid interest. As an online dater (I’m still back and forth with it) I was curious to see what conclusions the show would report.

You can catch the show online here: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4od/catchup

Now firstly, I adore Dawn Porter’s reporting style, every program she makes I find interesting and engaging and I just damn-well-girl-crush love-her!

Enough of that and onto the parts of the program which, for me, stood out the most (some of this is ground I have covered before so apologies if you have read the similar blog posts)  

Shop till you drop.

Relationship physiologist Susan Quilliam who features in the program touched upon the subject of the “shopping list mentality” of finding the perfect partner. This is something I mentioned in an earlier blog post.

Some people think that finding love is about finding the person who embodies the fictional mate they have in their heads, who encompasses all the attributes they have decided they would like in a partner. Blue eyes, tall, handsome, good with children, plays tennis, loves Bovril but hates marmite.

People with this mentality can be very inflexible and therefore are whittling down the people they will go on a date with to a select few, if any.

As I said in my earlier blogs I don’t tend to filter the men online by eye/hair colour or any of the other options made available to you on places like Match.com because I wonder if any of that stuff does really matter.

It’s important to have deal breakers and those should be sensible, like if you really couldn’t date someone with children for example, but how many times have you heard a married person describe their spouse as “not my usual type” - because I have, more than once.

How to you know true love won’t come in the shape of a short, balding lawyer as with Charlotte in SATC? You don’t, so don’t discount the less than perfect matches.

At least meet the guy first, he might do something trivial which puts you off but don't simply go on the info in a profile to discount someone. Go on dates and have a bit of fun, even if he does bath with his cat like the loopy lawyer date I had :-(

Is honesty even a policy anymore?

1/3 of the people who set up their profiles in aid of Dawn’s show were not entirely honest about themselves in their profile. Shocker!

I was surprised that this was so low to be honest as I have yet to attend a date where I didn’t find something that the man had been dishonest about. 

The things people lied about most were - their jobs, weight, and age. Height didn’t feature in that list which surprised me as it is the thing I have almost always men online tend to exaggerate.

Lying about physical attributes is pointless because you’ll be sussed out straight away, unless you wear heels gents, and very long trousers to cover them.

(Please don’t try that and take me to court when you fall over, and you will fall over)

Lying about your job might take longer for your date to discover but by then, if you’re getting on well and things progress, she is likely to be unimpressed if you have lied.

I am ready for my close-up

Half the people in Dawn’s show used a photo over a year old, 1/10 men used a photo 5 to 10 years old. One memorable girl admitted in her video diary that her photo was 3 years old and a few stone ago.

It’s not that I don’t understand why people do this, you look at a photo of yourself and you think “hey, looking good” but if you were looking good in 1996 it’s probably not one to use.

When updating my profile (and I do this regularly if I have a haircut or some kind of major doughnut binge) I tend to go through my most recent photos on Facebook and select some from this year that I like, from the last 3 months is best.

Dawn also went to a photo-shoot (and she look hawt!) revealing that it has become increasingly popular for people to use professional photographers for their online profiles. Frankly I wouldn’t know anything about this, who has the money for that? Well some people obviously but not this girl. I spend my money on pink wine.

Look, but don’t leap

¼ of the daters in the program didn’t make the first move when online dating; they browsed and waited for someone to make contact with them. The mathematician featured in the show worked out that you would have to send over 700 messages to have a (I forget the exact figure) 0.00something % chance of meeting someone and having a relationship.

Depressing isn’t it? But if you don’t send any messages at all then obviously you are reducing that to nothing. Similarly if you stayed in your house for six months and didn’t go out the chance of you meeting someone is nothing, it’s simple really. You get out what you put in. You won’t get responses to every email, or even half, but realistically if you dating in this medium you have to make the effort, especially ladies.

Speak to my agent

A very savvy business woman featured in the show runs an agency which can be hired to date online for you and respond to messages as if they were you, with your input. It’s expensive and to my mind unnecessary. However there is a market for everything so good luck to the woman who runs this, she’ll probably make millions and could buy a boyfriend if she wanted. My only concern would be where this stops?

Would you be happy if you discovered the person you had been dating let their secretary do all the running for him, and all sweeping gestures had actually been organised by, well, erm... Mavis? 

Relationships are not a job to be outsourced surely? If you’re too busy to get chatting and arrange your dates how the hell are you ever going to go on the date itself?

Scam, Scam he’s our man

The show also featured a woman who has been the victim of a scam. An online con artist left her £80,000 out of pocket. Did he rob her of all her jewellery under the ruse of a date? Did he hack her PC and get her bank details? No, this poor lady handed cash over to him willingly. I felt so sorry for this woman, even though giving money to someone you have never met is insane, she clearly fell for the charm of a man she thought she knew, well haven’t we all done that whether offline or on?  

The show itself is a good insight, taking you step by step through the world of internet dating; I can’t wait for part two.  

Dawn – I loves ya!

In dating news: I have been texting a guy who I met online and we have provisionally booked a date, however I have a sneaking suspicion he falls into the scammer/married bastard category, but its ok, sister_single and I have a plan…blog to follow.  

Love

SG

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When He Was Good He Was Very Very Good…When He Was Bad He Was Saatchi

It won’t have gone unnoticed to those of you who live in the UK that the relationship spotlight has well and truly settled on Nigella Lawson this week.

For those of you who don’t know you can familiarise yourself with the story here…

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nigella-lawson-photos-see-shocking-1955564

The emotive subject of domestic violence always splits the camps and raises questions that some people don’t want to admit asking, even to themselves.

The reason this story interests me is because it reminds me of a time in my life when I had to evaluate and make a choice. This isn’t going to be the funny blog post I usually try to write, for that I apologise but some things just need to be said.

Before I go into the shocking divide in opinions that has occurred since “tiff-gate” I guess I better tell you why I am writing this.

My ex, the one who- if you have read my blog, pretty much broke my heart, was 21 years my senior and betrayed me with his ex-girlfriend. I won’t go into all the details as some of you will remember the story, if not feel free to read back.

Needless to say our relationship went sour after about 12 months of dating. We were having vile arguments regularly about his ex girlfriend and her constant presence in his life in some form or another. I issued ultimatums and then backed down, we’d row again and I’d vow to myself that I was leaving, that I deserved better. The problem with this internal pep talk was that at the time I didn’t believe it.  

The emotional effects of his behaviour, not respecting the boundaries I was trying to set, sometimes with a blatant disregard for my feelings (“it’s none of your business” is one such memorable quote) meant that I was not feeling emotionally strong at this time.

(Feel free to judge me as to why I didn’t leave then but you weren’t there)

The result of this was that when times were good and he treated me like a princess I would try to cling on to that mood for as long as possible, avoiding raising issues that were still bothering me. Even a beaten dog will stay loyal to its owner.

One night during a heated row, both of us shouting at each other, he pushed me. He pushed me pretty hard in fairness as I stumbled backward across the room and hit my back against the wall, knocked my head and landed on a storage box by the window.

That ended the argument dead and I sat, shocked, whilst he left the room. When he returned I had already got into bed, switched off the light and was quietly crying.

You may be wondering why I still didn’t get up and go- I was over seventy miles from home, it was 11pm and I don’t drive. But moreover, I didn’t actually feel the need to leave. I didn’t believe he would assault me.  

The insult to minor injury, which cut me more deeply than the shove he’d given me, was that after a few moments of laying in the dark, me still crying very quietly, he leaned over and in my ear he whispered

“Why don’t you just shut up?”

Part of me wanted to get up, turn on the light and tell him how much at that very moment I hated and despised him, that he was a bullying two faced cunt and that I never wanted to see him again, I could physically feel the anger inside me, I was furious.

Instead I shut up and went to sleep, it was one of the last nights I would ever spent there and one of the key events that lead to our breakup.

The next day the argument continued via text message and I wrote to him, quite pointedly, that after his behaviour the previous night if I were him I would be being a little more gracious. He never did acknowledge what he had done or apologise.

A few days later whilst I was getting dressed he enquired as to where I got the bruise on my back and thighs. Again anger boiled inside of me and a voice inside my head said “It was, you fucking prick, you know it was so why are you asking?”

Denial seemed to be his choice in dealing with what had happened.

My reason for writing this blog post is that since the Nigella story broke the divide in opinions has been huge. The British press and public majority have been in uproar of course, bringing the subject of domestic abuse to the forefront again and creating an opportunity for the questions no one dares to ask to be thrust into the spotlight - which can never be a bad thing.

It’s the other side of the fence that interests me more than the people who say that he is an abuser and she should leave (it’s so simple for those people to say). Some of the opinions I have heard, and indeed the quotes which have been attributed to Nigella’s husband, lift the veil on the viewpoints that if we are really honest, might have crossed our minds at some point.

1.    What were they arguing about? – I saw a comment from someone who pondered what the argument was about, had she, for example, just told him she was having an affair, would this then justify the outburst?

2.    Is it really abuse? Another comment online was in reaction to some of the negative comments about Saatchi. The author write “It’s not like he punched/kicked her”

3.    Was she physically hurt? She didn’t leave the restaurant with any physical marks that could be seen, the quote from her husband after this incident was that she was crying because they had argued, not because she was hurt.

4.    Does it look worse that it is? Her husband was also quoted to have said that the pictures are “Vile” but have been made to look worse.

Shockingly a couple of these opinions were how I viewed my ex’s actions. His actions were wrong, make no mistake, but I had never considered the word abuse.

Abuse these days is recognised in many forms, not just physical but emotional, financial etc. So why is it that some of us (and I am including myself here as someone who once had this thought process) are able to discount incidents that others might see as abusive.

Definition is the key here, for example if someone asked me if my ex hurt me, I would probably say no. In the grand scheme of things I wasn’t bleeding, I didn’t suffer concussion. I was perfectly well the next day, I just had a couple of bruises.

Does anyone see what’s wrong with that sentence?

But similarly if you were in public, and were in an argument with someone, they thumped your arm and the next day you wake up with a bruise. Ask yourself very honestly if you would report this at your local police station?

Most of you wouldn’t, the difference between this scenario and the abusive relationship is that it is unlikely you will ever see this person again. If the person bruising you is the person you live with there is much more scope for repeat behaviour.

If a friend came to you and said they had left their partner because their partner had grabbed their arm during an argument and left a mark, would there be a tiny part of you that felt they may have jumped the gun, that it wasn’t really that serious? Be honest.

And this, to my mind, is where abuse starts. Abuse starts slowly, it grows. Given the opportunity it will continue and like all other forms of crime, if you get away with something once, what’s to stop you doing it again? Statistically it is proven that once an incident like this has taken place it is more likely to happen again.

 I do wonder if, had I stayed, the situation would have escalated and I would now be dealing with someone who would be abusive and yet safe in the knowledge that I wouldn’t leave. As it turns out I will never know because I did leave and I didn’t give it the opportunity to become a habit.

People in established abusive relationships find it incredibly difficult to leave. It may mystify many people as to why this is but the issue is extremely complex and should not be handled with such insensitivity that if they don’t leave then it is their own problem or that non-acceptance of help is acceptance of the situation. I wouldn’t insult their intelligence by pretending I have any insight into their situation.

But if anyone reads this and is in the situation I was in, having experienced one incident which “didn’t really count” I would tell them that this is their crossroads, one of the roads bends sharply, and you don’t know what lies around the corner. Unless you walk that road you will never find out, but what is there could be dangerous.

The other road is long and straight, bright and clear, you may have to walk a few miles on your own at first, there may be times when you’re lonely and wondering what the darker road held, but keep walking and you’ll reach where you are supposed to be.

Until next time

Love

SG

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Speed dating - The Aftermath

When booking the speed dating event I was informed that I would have one month’s free membership to their online dating site. Its basic online dating with the added extras of seeing who is an “event attendee” and what events are coming up. So if you were really worried about how many fertile years you have left and are desperate to meet someone you could go to as many of these events as you care to pay for.

I have deleted my profiles from Match.com and POF because to be honest it got to boring to read the kind of messages I was receiving and the dates were not much better, always older, shorter, not as advertised.

So I had thought speed dating would be a better way of trying before you buy in terms of physical attraction to someone, and it was to be fair. It even worked the opposite way. Someone who, on the night, I felt could be someone I could get to know better would never have caught my eye online. Whether they want to see me remains to be seen but the point is I would have overlooked his profile online, but at speed dating I liked his character.

This kind of dating is so much more me, I never liked the anonymity of online dating if I am honest, at times it had its plus side, but not often.

Because I have been given a free trial to the speed dater site I thought I might as well see what kind of men this site had in my area. If they go to actual dating events it flags this up to which I thought may be a better way of sorting the wheat from the chaff. After all no one is going to send you a sexually charged “sit on my face” email if they may have to meet you in public are they? Well yes frankly they are…

The search of my postcode for any potentially eligible bachelors drew a bit of a blank. I sent a couple of winks to cute guys but for the most part the people on there were a lot older than me and the filtering buttons that a lot of other websites have are not as detailed.

The men online are still the same and I still get the odd one that makes me laugh…

Seeking “Discreet clean fun locally” – ewwwwww you shouldn’t have to specify that its “clean” that makes my skin crawl. This kind of guy is, if nothing else, honest. He wants to get laid and there is no shame in that but it does make me laugh that he would create a profile and go to the effort of setting it up online, thinking that the offers would just come rolling in. I wonder if they do, doubtful since he wasn’t Brad Pitt. What does he do when he goes to a speed dating event?  I don’t think women would be falling over themselves to spend time with him if they are looking to date.

“Very bad photo, I don’t look this bad honest” – Bless, this guy’s photo did literally look like a prison photo. But who in their right minds uses a photo that needs this explanation. My friend, that is just your face and you will have to live with it, walk around with it on the front of your scull for the rest of your life. There is no point in saying that it’s a bad picture, no one will believe you and to be honest it’s so easy to get a new photo these days there I no excuse really.

In terms of the speed dating event I was selected by a few men on the evening but none of them were the ones I liked so no dates seem to be fourth coming from this event. I can’t say I am shocked to be honest, now I know what to expect I should think the next event would go a lot smoother.

Sister_single thinks that I should go to some of the other themed speed dating events in order for the blog to be balanced, so this time I am definitely dragging her along to all the other ones I am going to go to, for the sake of writing the blog you understand. Having someone else there should help in terms of nerves and therefore prevent the kind of shit faced behaviour as previously displayed.

Daddy_single thinks I should forget the whole speed dating / online dating thing. It’s his theory that when you stop looking for someone they fall right into your lap. I do subscribe to this myself to a certain extent but I also believe that dating is like a sport and if you don’t play often enough you get rusty. Also I would have nothing to write about (He said I should just make it up but that would be cheating)

Until next time

Love

SG

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Scream if you wanna go faster…the speed dating edition

I decided to go speed dating and in the absence of many single friends and my sister generally letting me down I decided to go taking only my wine monster with me...

One word…Terrified.

I pretend to be a confident person but really I am very shy, despite being quite loud.

7pm Mustard Bar, St Pauls

I arrived at 7pm when registration for the event opened and sat opposite the stairs to see how many people went down to where the event was being held. I didn’t want to be the first one there.

The event was due to start at 7.30 so I eventually (after a large glass of wine which was half price due to happy hour) wandered down stairs.

Alcohol – It’s all too easy to drink when you are full of nerves and its half price. Instead of pacing myself I did my best Lindsay Lohan act and drank enough wine to make Italy ashamed. Don’t do this as your judgment is impaired and it’s not the best first impression. Gal Single does not do well on wine.

Why, when I know this, being 10 years over the legal drinking age, did I drink wine? Because I am a moron that’s why. I could have had a vodka and tonic which is my fail safe drink, no says the wine monster. When I drink wine I jabber and this coupled with nerves may not have made the best impression on people.

A man who was also on his own settled down in the seat next to me and we got chatting while we waited for the event to start. He was a little geeky (we know how I love a geek) and he was French with floppy French hair. Mais Oui… Mais Oui…

Once the event began the nerves had been drowned with wine and I found the whole experience rather pleasant. You can tell within about 30 seconds if you are attracted to the person and therefore if you are then great, and if not you know you’re not stuck with them for very long and they might actually be nice people too.

There were a couple of cute guys there and it seemed promising. Not everyone was my cup of tea and I am sure I wasn’t everyone’s either but there were at least two dates when I was genuinely disappointed when the bell rang and they had to move on.

There were a couple of gaps in the dates where men hadn’t turned up, this was a nice opportunity to chat to the lady next to me. She was a seasoned speed dater and had actually met a few of the people at this event before.

This tells me speed dating is a small world and if you really don’t get on with someone it’s likely you’ll meet them again.

Although she did use the phrase “speed dating is a way of life” – for me and the sake of my unfertilized ovum I hope not, someday I hope to actually meet someone J

During the breaks my Frenchman, who I will call Pierre, came to sit with me again which was nice, he was a friendly face amongst the strangers and had enough to say for himself that we didn’t run dry on conversation.

After all the dates had finished there was an opportunity to mingle which I did for a while although by then I was actually far too drunk for mingling having not eaten anything before starting to drink. What a schoolboy error.

I got chatting to a couple of the girls too which was really nice as it is always good to meet new single ladies too.

The evening drew to a close and this was when Pierre made his move. Please read this next bit in your best French accent…

“So now we are going to make love?”

Pierre, my little camembert, we are not. I told him that it probably wasn’t the best thing to say to a lady and that I’d had a lovely time and that I was sure I would see him again and left. God bless his petit heart!

I can’t blame him for trying considering that I was now shit faced and had spent the whole night chatting to him, perhaps he thought it was fair game. But no matter how loose my tongue gets when drinking, my morals never do.

Fast forward to this morning (lets skip the disgusting railway food I ate on the way home and the downing of a pint of water before bed) I had to log on and rate the men I had met as follows

Yes

No

Friends

I gave a few ticks to the guys I thought I might like to see again and then logged off, you log back in in a couple of days to see if any of your choices ticked you. It’s handy because it means you don’t have to give out your number or email.

On the way home I made some notes for my blog, if anyone can tell me what the fuck this says I will give you a prize – testament to the amount of wine consumed.

. There are also several receipts with scribble on. I need to buy a Dictaphone.

All in all speed dating was not the harrowing event I thought it was going to be, it was painful at times with a couple of the more boring men. The last three I saw I could tell straight away were not going to interest me physically but then also personality wise there was not much there for me. I think this lead to me feeling a little deflated at the end of the evening.

On reflection it was a good fun evening, it’s not too difficult to go it alone as you won’t be the only one, you just have to be brave and go for it. And not drink wine, evil evil wine.

I will go speed dating again but I make these vows to you dear reader, for the next time around

1.    I will not drink wine

2.    I will not let wine drinking lead to smoking (yep did that too)

3.    I will not go on a school night when neither of the above is advisable

A couple more tales of the evening to follow in other posts…

In other non dating related news I am going to be a very proud godmother to SouthernComforts daughter, who shall for blog purposes simply be known as My Princess. Upon her asking me I burst into tears (in the middle of a shopping centre) and it is the proudest moment of grown up life thus far.

Until next time

Love

SG

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