So apparently video dating is a thing

It’s bad enough being single and having to date normally. In a ‘lockdown’ (or near lockdown) dating is not really something that can be done. But some creative, somewhat annoying, people have come up with alternatives.

Options

Yep there are options. No one needs to put down the dating app if they don’t want to. Swipe right and sort out a video date instead. Oooh hurrah. I feel like running to my phone and swiping right just to have to chat to a complete stranger about COVID-19 – what else is there to talk about nowadays. Obviously I am being sarcastic here. It might actually work for some people. Others will just amuse themselves for a while ;-).

People already dating are doing video ‘dates’. I get the rationale for this a bit more. It is tough for people who have been dating and now can’t see each other. Living together is probably not an option at that point in a relationship. No one wants to end something too quickly and living together may just tip people over the edge.

Married – I am sure you guys will have options too. It may be understandable when you get sick of each other to FaceTime from different rooms…just to keep it all normal.

Single?

If you are single and happy with that then fabulous. Because lets face it you are staying single for a while longer. Its a contact thing. People say physical contact isn’t necessary and maybe for some people it isn’t. I think its an important part of anything though. Anything else is just a great connection. So maybe we should just be happy making connections whilst missing the physical contact. Who knows. If ever there was a time to say it was shite being single – nows the time.

As they say though – worse things happen at sea.

Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

Got stood up but my freezer is clean

Not exactly the title to get me SEO brownie points. I don’t really understand SEO so I’m sticking with it. This title also reads like an odd combination but there is an explanation. Basically I did get stood up. However the upside to this situation is that I cleaned my freezer. Confused? I’ll explain.

The Chancer

I have a guy I date occasionally. He messaged on Saturday to ask if he could stay for a night on his way to London. I said “sure”.

My nickname for him (to ensure anonymity) is ‘The Chancer’. If he ever comes across my blog he would definitely know as this is him to a tee. Pretty much because he is a complete chancer.

This is the main reason he is not my partner (we have discussed this). To explain a little more he is: funny, great company, and attractive. But he is also: unreliable, amusingly untrustworthy (some of his stories are outlandish) and a right pain in the proverbial. My summary position – I don’t want to marry him but an evening or two is soooo much fun.

The preparation

To prepare for a visitor your flat should look presentable. Surely? Well I lucked out here because everything was pretty clean. I hate cleaning (see previous post on this topic), but had done enough over the weekend so that my Tuesday visitor would not be negatively judging me. I think this is just good manners.

However one issue that felt outstanding and far too monumental a cleaning task for a Sunday night was the freezer. Large icicles, ice mountains and ice blocks had been forming (maybe over a long time) and the freezer door was not willing to stay shut. The door thing only appeared as an issue on Sunday.

Defrosting

There is no hidden meaning in this heading. I just figured I could not call my flat presentable if the cold was leaking out of the freezer.

As with all cleaning tasks, I am not sure whether any admission to lack of frequency will be frowned upon. I’ll just blurt this out then. I hardly ever defrost my freezer. I have stuff in it most of the time which makes this task seem impossible to do without waste. When I don’t have much in it I honestly can’t be arsed cleaning it. So it rarely (eek…years in between) gets done. That is probably an awful thing to admit.

So with the ice mountains threatening to affect my flat’s temperature I decided (either stupidly or luckily depending on your viewpoint) to clean it in preparation for ‘The Chancer’ appearing.

He never appeared…bonus

A little message popped up on my phone this afternoon. “I can’t make it…trip postponed”. This did not devastate me in the slightest. I had a long day and was running late in work and I needed wind down me time.

So arriving home at 7.30pm to pour a (little) glass of wine whilst dinner is in the oven I can’t help but feeling relieved. Yes it might have been fun. Yes he is funny. But I am tired, happy and hungry. I also have a sparkly freezer. A once in a long time event which deserves a glass of red to celebrate. A definite bonus!

Photo by Dev Benjamin on Unsplash

Mixed messages

There is one rule to have in dating. When you don’t think it would ever work – move on. For me the way to do this is to be clear about your feelings, give a reason why, understand their point of view and not be too upset at upsetting someone if it is the right thing to do. It’s better in the long run. I’m good with this rule (sort of…usually). I am old enough now not to get into a relationship just because it’s sometimes easy to fall into it without really being into it. Clearly over the last 2 weeks I have been rubbish at this rule.

The bloke

Funny, fun, and pretty fit. One of those guys who was great to date but amusingly frustrating at the same time. A chancer in life and in the stories he would tell me. Loads of reasons to like him but also loads of reasons to think ‘hell no’ – not for me in the long term. He said he wanted a relationship. In all honesty I think this is just something he felt he should say. He kind of wanted to move in with me. That was a red flag right there! I told him it was. This level of honesty appeared to just confuse him but hey, he was still a lot of fun.

Can’t we just date?

Hasn’t everyone experienced the situation where you like dating someone but don’t see it progressing? If you haven’t you are probably quite lucky because no matter how honest you are; it leads to mixed messages. It also ends up being a bit of a rubbish situation no matter which side you are on. It is ok that not everyone is for you or you for them. I suppose that’s just the reality of dating.

Can we stop dating?

After realising this with the ‘chancer’ I decided to end things. It was still very early on and I figured it was the best thing to do. I was honest with him and said there was no point in continuing with things which de didn’t take badly at all. Great! I should admit that I did this by messaging him. I’m cringing at even admitting this and it doesn’t help that I said he could phone me to talk about it if he wanted to. How rubbish is that? Yep, pretty rubbish. First oops….but it wasn’t like I had seen him a lot (my attempt at an excuse for my awful behaviour). Nobody is perfect 🙂

The message

Before I started my health kick I had an evening where I had a few glasses of wine. I also had a pretty relaxed, clear of definitive plans, weekend ahead. Such a dangerous situation I know and I fell down the rabbit hole when my phone was unlocked and my fingers started tapping out a message. You will notice that I have disassociated my brain from this situation. Anyway the upshot was that I (in my wine soaked reasoning) thought it would be good to have a fun night out. I am definitely not perfect 🙂

The irony

He declined my offer but we had a laugh about it. Good on him as it was a right bloody cheek of me. In my (re-associated with my actions) brain, clear of any wine, I was glad it had all worked out without too much fallout. The problem is that we messaged back and forth after. So when I got a message from him to ask what I was up to this weekend I did have a slight panic. Tentative message back….no response…realisation struck (albeit a day later)! He drunk messaged me! Serves me right. He is definitely not perfect either :-). Dating is tough sometimes.

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Online dating: what to do when you get bored of the online chatting

The trials and tribulations of online dating is something most single people face. I’m ok with the online thing. In some ways it’s easier to get a feel for whether you will like someone if you have had a bit of chat before meeting up. I’ve met great guys this way and some remain friends. What I’m not ok with is the men (I’m sure also women) who seem to just want to chat and never get to the actual dating.

This chatting is good

As I said, chatting is good. It allows you to figure out if you will have something to talk about. It also lets you sift out the total nutters. Yes there are plenty. The main thing here is the need to sift out people who you just won’t fundamentally click with because you just have different values and beliefs that won’t merge. A good example is the men with a chip on their shoulder about women. I have no interest in men who have chips for shoulders…much preferring a good shoulder line and cheery outlook on life.

This chatting is getting boring

There’s a point in time where you feel like “just get on with it”. I think a couple of weeks is max. At that point if you haven’t decided to meet up, why are you still chatting? What are you even chatting about? The “hi how’s your day going” starts to get boring. When this has happened to me I start to get irritated by requests to tell someone I don’t actually know yet how my day is.

The worst examples are the ones where you set a date but it gets cancelled. This recently happened to me. Once by him and then once by me. I said (by message) this is just not going to happen and by that point I didn’t see the point. But, no surprise for a serial chatter, he kept on chatting and kept on saying that we should really meet up. Which is fine. But it also isn’t fine at the same time. So in the interim, I did start dating. Just not him. Again this is fine. We are now in an age where we (I probably mean UK we) don’t see anything wrong in dating a few people at the same time. This never used to happen when I was young. It would have been frowned on but thankfully that is no longer the case. It’s all about keeping the options open as long as you can deal with closing them down when you want to give just one person a chance.

I’m done with this chatting

I really do wonder at people who use dating sites for online chat. The above example seemed to be annoyed when I told him I had been dating someone that I wanted to give a chance; and so I didn’t want to continue chatting to him. He called me superficial. This made me chuckle for the humour in irony. I don’t think he was chuckling but hey ho. I think the trick for this is to not feel emotionally connected or in some way obligated. In reality how can people feel obligated without a personal connection. You don’t get a personal connection online. I think he maybe did make that mistake though and so was upset when I dropped him. He said that my behaviour made him think he ‘dodged a bullet’. I figured if that made him feel better then keep on thinking it. It saves me having to chat to him :-). So my advice. If you think it just message and say it isn’t going to work and you don’t want to continue chatting. Then repeat this if you need to. Don’t get sucked into feeling bad about someone you don’t know.

That can be the downside with dating sites (the nutters, the online chatters) but it’s not their intention. The intention is for people to chat and hopefully meet to date, like (or dislike), continue (or not) dating and to get to know people. Actual people, not their online persona.

Dating is sometimes hard! But for single people it is just something we need to learn to navigate. The one I was ‘giving the chance to’ wasn’t the one. But at least we gave it a bit of a go before both realising we were not meant for bigger things. Now I am just wandering how quickly I go back on line and whether the ‘chatter’ will feel the need to tell me I was wrong. Thankfully that is what there are blocking buttons.

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Why I keep certain men in my life: why do I keep these men in my life?

I have been chatting to my next likely internet date. This was fine, on messaging, until he phoned. Phoning makes it very real. It was a pleasant enough call and I think this will be, once we set something up, a good date – but it does make me reflect on my inability to get from the dating to the committing (for me that means some sort of actual relationship).

My reflections aren’t based on being wise or even having a Sunday philosophical mood. Its because I got a message from one of the three men in my life this morning and we have been chatting on WhatsApp throughout the day.

The Growler, The Banker and The Perfect Match

These are my three men. They are also named: complicated, complicated and complicated. It was the growler who got in touch today. They all do though at certain times and they all have something that holds me to them and them to me. Attraction, attraction and attraction.

The Growler

I met him around four years ago. He had chat and plenty of it and whilst he wasn’t my usual type (in the looks department) he had me with his dry humour and gruffness. Anyone who has met him has said he feels dangerous (its a sense they get). He isn’t. But he does have that look that makes him feel a little growly (its not an actual word but it is a good description). We dated for a good four months (good for me!) and then he disappeared but reappeared two years later. We dated again. Since then whether he is in Scotland or elsewhere (working in a pretty good job) we have always kept in touch and always got together when he is around. But it is inconsistent and he is currently living elsewhere so there is distance. But he isn’t a distant type of guy and so we regularly chat. He makes me laugh. It is a good thing.

The Banker

I met him around five years ago. Instant attraction and instant connection. He was definitely my type but also not my type – chiselled good looks and always suited in the best his money would buy. Investment bankers, I have found (am sure they aren’t all like this), are difficult. Almost childish in their egotistical need for everything to go their way. We had an amazing time for a year. To be fair, I say amazing time but I mostly mean in the physical sense. Then he moved back to London. We kept in touch (there is a theme with me) but we monumentally fell out. Probably due to his egotistical view of the world and slightly misogynistic tendencies. The banker was given another name for quite a while. A message this past Christmas saying he missed me and was sorry cancelled out the derogatory thoughts. So about once every month he gets in touch. There is distance and he can also be a bit distant. But he makes me laugh and, again, that is a good thing. He is strangely the safest man I keep in my life as he is the least likely man I would date again. Great! I can classify this one as a friend (who flirts a lot when in touch).

The Perfect Match

I give him this title with a clear bit of irony given we are not together; so in reality are not perfect for each other. But when I met him around three years ago now there was an instant attraction and connection which I have never had before and know is unlikely to happen again. Not at all my type but someone who has set me on a path of fancying a few red haired men (the guy off of Billions is a good example). A man who made my stomach feel butterflies. Egotistical and yet not at the same time. Just wrapped up in his own career which has taken him South. He was open about never having been good at or even interested in relationships. But there is some connection there and we keep in touch. This is the guy that I am most comfortable with although strangely he is more inconsistent and less comfortable than the growler. The growler gives me a sense of safety, the perfect match a sense of missing out. Maybe he is the one that got away. So now there is distance but he isn’t a distant guy. He is the worst for me as he is the one that I compare others to most.

A common theme?

Complicated, complicated and complicated. The safe but unsafe, the friend but not a friend and the perfect but imperfect match. I fall in with one, fall out with the other and fell for the third. All three very successful but to the detriment of their personal lives. Or maybe they are successful because they are not cut out for the commitments of a traditional personal life. That might be why they attract me as I am not they type to be settled and bored. The difficulty in all of this? My consistency of communication with these men make comparisons with new ones inevitable. If I were really to reflect on this I would say that this allows me to stay distant from others. I clearly like the distance offered by them. That amusingly makes me complicated. Life is funny that way.

Should I worry?

No! Not at all. Life is complicated. My love life is probably complicated. But it has been varied and it has been great. I could (if I was any good at that type of thing) write a very amusing book on the good ones, the interesting ones and the bloody drastic failure of ones. So call it ongoing research. If I find someone else who is great then that is a bonus (even if it is unlikely to be a final chapter). I’ll try and look forward to this next date in the name of research :-).