I’ve led a peaceful existence these dating app-free last 13 months or so. There have been no random messages at midnight asking if I’m still awake, no more dick pics, no more little September boys.
Or so I thought. Like some weird 2021 Reboot, two ghosts
crawled out of their stinking holes in the ground to return in my life as
zombies. Two. In as many weeks. One of them I’d never even gone on a date with,
he’d just stopped replying in the middle of messaging, like he’d raptured or
something. I didn’t even know who he was when he’d messaged. His number had
been long deleted, and I didn’t recognise the WhatsApp profile photo. He didn’t
bother asking what I’d been up to the last three years, apologise for vanishing,
just asked if I was down to hook up.
The second zombie was
someone I’d been semi-seeing. As I said before if you count ‘watching’ a movie
as ‘seeing someone’ (I don’t). He disappeared around Easter 2019, unliking my
Instagram posts and blocking me. He messaged on a Friday just before midnight.
I had gone to bed early, in readiness for the Horror-on-Sea film festival and didn’t
get the message until the next morning. It took me a while to figure out who he
was, too. ‘Hey, long time,’ his message said. ‘how have you been?’
I did a quick social media stalk and in the last 3 years, he’d
met someone and had a baby. I guess either that had gone South, or he was bored,
or needed an ego boost, or wanted to get his dick wet. Probably all of those
things.
The lion, the witch and the audacity of this bitch.
Did they think I have been waiting for them to message me? That
while their lives carried on, mine had stopped because I no longer had their
scanty attention? Am I supposed to be flattered that I was probably one of a
few women they tried to hit up that night? Oh Jeebus, grant me the confidence
of an average white man and watch me rule the world. I didn’t reply to zombie
number 2, just left his message hanging in the air like the fart in a car it
was. I doubt he’s even noticed I haven’t replied as he's probably too busy
smashing his head against the closed door of a shopping centre to get the shiny
things inside.
I did actually go on three dates at the end of 2021, and I
did write about them. I didn’t post the blog for a few reasons. I’m trying to
write more in 2023, and I know some people miss my adventures in the dating
hellscape. So here you go, a previously unpublished post from the end of 2021.
A couple of weeks ago, I went out with friends Edie and Fleur. We ended up in what should be referred to as The Pub at The End of The World, or as it has been known a previous incarnation, ‘the Last Resort’. The kind of dead-end dive with a sticky carpet and £2.50 shots, Curry Thursdays and Fizz Fridays. The toilets have the odour of spunk and bleach.
This was the first time since Jimmy the Flip that I had met
a man in real life. OK, so he was young, and OK, so he was super keen,
and OK, so he licked my face as we said farewell at the taxi rank, and said
breathily, ‘There’s more where that came from!’
He texted me mere minutes later, saying he was sorry he was
so keen but I ‘caught his eye,’. We messaged the next morning, and then he
stopped replying, mid-conversation, as if he’d just dropped dead. Left me on
the two grey ticks and everything.
Despite this time last year swearing I was off the apps for
good, I signed up again. I knew full well the same old faces, the unchanged
profile photos from 2017, the ‘No Drama’ and ‘good vibes only!’ dudes would
still be there. And they were, along with the sex pests and the ghosts and the
zombies and the liars. Here were the men obviously hitting 60 claiming they
were ’45 but feel 35,’ the embittered and embattled and I was re-joining their
ranks. At least I had a few new photos (sparse opportunities for photos in
2021).
If my match rate was down when I was 42, 43 seems to have
sent me down to the bargain basement and into a basket labelled, ‘last chance
to buy’. As a Reddit user cheerfully
commented, ‘no-one wants old women!’
Anyway, I had a few dates and here’s how they went…
42 & 43 – Macavity the Mystery Twat
(Or, ‘I am sorry, TS Elliott’)
Macavity’s a mystery twat, he’s
called the Hidden Fist
For he’s the master dater (tee
hee) with the deadly kiss
He’s the bafflement of women, the
swiper’s despair
For when they reach the day of the
date – Macavity’s not there!
Macavity, Macavity, there’s
hundreds more like Macavity
He’s the basic average white man,
lacking common decency
His powers of evanescence would make
a bath bomb stare
And when you reach the day of the
date -– Macavity’s not there!
You may seek him in the basement –
you may look up in the air
But I tell you once, and once
again, Macavity’s not there!
Macavity’s a husky cat, he’s very
tall and wide
You would know him if you saw him,
for he’s dead behind the eyes
His beard is big and bushy,
uncombed and streaked with grey
He thinks he’s a hipster but I’d
say he’s more bou-jay
He says he’s a dapper dresser with
innate confidence and style
I would say it’s more a case
arrogance and living in denial
Macavity, Macavity, there’s
thousands like Macavity,
He’s a milky tea in human form, a
prime example of blandidity
You may meet him the High Street,
you may see him Market Square,
But when a date is coming up, Macavity’s
not there!
He’s outwardly respectable (they
say he cheats at Scrabble)
Like all the others, he says he
likes to travel
And when the hair is done and the
eye-liner is applied,
When the perfume is sprayed, it’s
clear that he lied
When you spent an hour choosing
what to wear
Ay, there’s the dismay of the
thing! Macavity’s not there!
And when another hopeful dater
finds her plans have gone astray,
Or the drinks at 7pm are cancelled
by midday
There will be radio silence, a
grey ticked message unread
You would be forgiven for thinking
that Macavity is dead
When you’re thinking that his
number you should block
There he is again, making
innuendos about his cock.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s many
more like Macavity
Let’s throw them off a cliff and
see them reach terminal velocity
He always has an alibi, and one of
two to spare
At whatever time the date was for,
MACAVITY WASN’T THERE!
This is a gentle warning, about
all the matches whose wicked deeds are as yet unknown
(I’ve mentioned them before, I’m
weary to the bone)
That dating apps are nothing more
than agents for twats who are all alone,
They don’t care much about who
they match with as long as they get to bone!
44 – Jerry
Friends will tell you I have a terrible habit of swiping
right on, and matching with, men in their 20s. While this is an obvious ego
boost when a match happens, the reality is most men of this age will only ever
see a woman in her 40s as a tick on the sex bucket list.
So when Jerry, a 64 year old, commented on of my profile
photos (this is Hinge, where you don’t have to match to send an initial
message) I thought, ‘maybe I should give this ago!’.
There’s a distinct absence of men in their 40s on the apps
(I’m not counting in the men in their 50s and 60s that are putting their ages
as 45), men in their 20s are fun but essentially of no use to me, men in their
30s aren’t interested.
Jerry was able to hold a decent conversation, and at no
point tried to bring the topic round to sexting which happens so often. Most of
his photos were ones from a slight distance, apart from one that was a close up
of his tanned, smiley face.
So off I went to meet him for a weekend morning coffee, and
it was…OK. He was much smaller, slighter
and greyer than his photos had suggested. He wore small wire-rimmed glasses and
all his clothes (he cheerfully admitted) where logo’d freebies from his work.
That was kind of cool, because how many people have a Men in Black gilet,
or a Life fleece? He’d met Ryan Reynolds and pronounced him ‘An okay
chap’!
He’d been divorced 20
years after his wife ‘totally changed when she started taking anti
-depressants,’ which made me wonder if this was his version of the crazy ex. In
my experiences, crazy ex wives and girlfriends have simply had normal reactions
to intolerable behaviour but eh, who am I to judge one man on the behaviour of
many others?
He was engaging, interesting and interested…well, moderately
interested. At least he asked me a couple of questions about myself and didn’t
spend the entire time talking about his own hobbies and achievements.
The age difference felt quite pronounced – he wouldn’t be
far off retiring and was busy doing up his house. I tried to imagine him
staying up until dawn caterwauling along to Leave a Light On, or drinking
a pre-loading tinnie on the tube, or meeting my raucous, argumentative family
and I couldn’t.
I thanked him for a lovely time and wished him luck. And
like the gracious, mature man he seemed to be, he responded in kind.
45 – Nick
By the time Nick messaged me, my match rate was so
depressingly low I responded, even though he wasn’t my type. He didn’t use any
punctuation in his messages, (When I told Edie about this, she said, ‘you’re
always going on about how much you hate commas – you once told me they’re
pointless,’ which is entirely untrue. If anything, I use them too much) so it
took me a while to decipher some of his messages.
Nick warned me he’d put on weight. Who hasn’t, over the last
couple of years? I asked if his photos were recent, and he said they were. In
that case, it was OK, I knew what he looked like. I messaged Lulu after a date
had been set, and said, ‘He’ll probably be much heavier than he is and at least
2 inches shorter,’ she told me I was over-thinking it, like I always do.
Off I went, on a chilly Sunday evening to meet him. He was
waiting outside the pub, walking around in circles. ‘Hello!’ I shouted, in the manner of a
jodhpur clad duchess striding across a field.
‘I was always told that a gentleman should bring a lady some
flowers on a first date,’ he said, and whipped out a packet of Sainsbury’s
crusty bread mix from his coat pocket. As he did this, a waft of stale body
odour floated out into the chilly air.
Inside the pub and
waiting at the bar, I saw that I had been right about the height, he’d added
about 3 inches. I don’t mind short men – some of the men I’ve been most
attracted to in my life were short. I don’t like them lying about it though, as
if I am not going to notice when you say you’re 5’9 and show up looking more
like 5’6. The weight gain was significant, and he looked much heavier than his
photos. He did talk about his weight loss plan – a friend was helping him with
his diet and fitness – and his goal to be able to wear a size large t-shirt. He had a nice face with friendly eyes and
would be handsome if he lost the weight.
Then he started talking; about not being vaccinated because
his body could handle the virus (I felt like saying, ‘your body doesn’t look
like it can handle stairs,’ but I kept that snide body-shaming opinion for
here). He talked about the 2 major accidents he’d had in the last year because
of his Jackass-ery type behaviour, and his cheating ex. He rattled off
questions like Paxman, and after a while I realised that he was only asking me
questions so he could regale me with his own tales of worst holidays and dates.
I put this down to nerves and an insatiable need to appear entertaining and
high-spirited.
My eyes kept being drawn to his dirty hands, the grime
engraved into the lines of his palms, the black crescent moons of his nails;
borderline fascinated by the way his hands melted into his wrists which melted
into his arms, as plump as a baby’s and as thickly haired as a silverback’s.
The pub closed early, and neither of us suggested finding another
one. When I got home, I did the usual ‘thanks for a good night,’ and left it
there. He did message back saying, ‘you’ll have to let me know if you want to
see me again,’
I thought that the flour was actually sort of funny, and
cute, but did the overthinking thing and imagined a lifetime of packets of
flour as birthday gifts, ‘cause it’s our special joke!’ and the thought made me
want to cry. I didn’t want another partner who was casually cruel or lazy under
the guise of ‘just a joke! Don’t be so sensitive!’
I couldn’t get past
the not getting vaccinated thing, and the smell of body odour made me think he
hadn’t cared enough about the date to have a shower before he came to meet me.
Seeing the apron of his belly as his t-shirt rose up when he put his coat on
cemented my preference for physical fitness in a partner. Not the Hollywood
male standard of desirability, but proof of caring about how their body feels
and looks. Yeah. I’m shallow and too fussy.
I had been realistic this time round, knowing it was
unlikely I’d meet someone this way. Again, I was right. Macavity, Jerry and
Nick were like most of the other dates I’ve been on since 2017. A perfectly
pleasant way to spend a few hours, but in essence a drink with a stranger with
whom you actually have very little in common with.
I had heard that the apps are a wasteland around the festive
period, and then pick up again the New Year. The first Sunday after New Year’s
Day is apparently the busiest day for new sign-ups to dating apps. Did this
mean I have re-installed the apps this week? No. I was tempted, but to go back
a third time in as many months felt futile. Trapped in a cycle of install,
delete, install, delete, install, delete until I die or actually meet someone
whichever comes first. It feels like the Greek myth of Sisyphus who is doomed
to spend eternity rolling a boulder to the top of a hill where it immediately
rolls back down to the bottom again.
Part of me doesn’t want to give up. After all, the idea of
this was to stick it out one hundred dates and then give up. I don’t
think my spirit can take a further 55 just OK dates, or another 3 years of
apps. Each time I reinstall them, the brief flame of excitement that this
might be the time is quickly extinguished.
I feel much more at peace when I am not on the apps. In the words of the
late, great Amy Winehouse, ‘I don’t understand / why do I stress the man /
when there’s so many bigger things at hand?...I cannot play myself again /I
just be my own best friend / Not fuck myself in the head with stupid men,’
Amen, sister. Amen.
This week’s crush
Noel Gallagher has apparently split from his wife, Sara.
While he’s not my favourite Gallagher brother (he seems salty and is apparently
a Tory now), I could put that aside. He has an excellent head of hair for a 56-year-old
man, (it’s as thick as a thatched cottage) he looks pretty trim and he could write
a song about me. Plus 17 year old me would be really happy.
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I'm moody but I'm rich |
