100 Dates - The Season of New Boots

 The D Word -  32, 34  (August 2020)

He said, ‘you look better than your photos,’ which in hindsight, I think is sort of a neg.

He also said that he knew he wasn’t a ‘bad-looking guy’ and had no need to steal other men’s girlfriends because he could easily get his own. He told me that he only had one plate, one cup, and one set of cutlery which he would give a daily rinse and then wash properly at the weekend. Is this disgusting or taking the Kondo Method to dizzying new heights? What does he do when someone comes over for dinner? It is like that episode of Alan Partridge where his superfan stalker makes him a cup of tea and serves it in one of those plastic doohickeys hospitals give men to piss in when they are bed bound?

We got properly drunk on the date, and I slipped over, spilling most of my drink. To defend myself here, the floor was VERY wet and I was wearing notoriously slippy-soled Vans.

We have met once more, when we attempted to have dinner on a Eat Out to Help Out night. We didn’t book anywhere, and every place in town was packed. He refused to wait in a line for food, so we ended up in a depressingly empty Walkabout where it cost £6.00 for two burgers with chips and a drink.

I ate my burned veggie bean burger and sipped my flat coke, and wondered, Carrie Bradshaw style, would this be a funny story we’d tell at our wedding?

Of course it fucking wouldn’t be. As the evening progressed, a I heard a lot about D’s life – his pole-dancing ‘ex’-girlfriend, his work ethic and how easily bored he gets; his lack of culinary skills (2 dishes on a rotation, cous-cous with butter and pasta with butter) and how a business rival forced him to close down; his statuesque sister and his embarrassing mother; that we was going to sell the house he owns in his home country and how he doesn’t like how small English roads are.

I also leaned that D by name, D by nature. He told me a story of a Tinder date, where every right-thinking man’s nightmare came true….his date was fat. Not just fat, but double the size of D. Which isn’t hard, being as D is the same height as me (5’4) and weighs about half what I do (9 stone, give or take a big shit here and there) He said that he almost turned around and walked out when he saw her sitting at the bar, her well-covered arse spilling over the bar stool. His mates were there (by accident, not design) and apparently took photos of the ill-matched pair, pissing themselves laughing, and sending them to all their mates on the group chat.

D leaned that I do not like vegan cheese, and that I have been working at the same company for 15 years.

That was over a week ago. I have heard nothing from D, and I don’t care. In some situations, it’s fine to not bother again. This is one of them.

33 -  Handsome is as Handsome Does (August 2020)

The train journey there and back took longer than the date. I am pretty sure he was immediately disappointed when we met, and the lack of interest showed in the stilted, awkward conversation. He told me that he lived with his ‘elderly’ landlady, and when I asked how old she was, he responded with, ’55,’

I texted him when I got home, and he replied said that he felt ‘no connection’. I responded saying it would be hard to gauge that after an hour, but essentially agreed with him. Shame, he was VERY handsome, but maybe so much so he didn’t feel the need to put in much effort.

Either way, I was pleased to be home before dark and in time for Derren Brown’s equally disappointing 20-year anniversary show.

35, 36, 37 – Babyface (again)

BF was dog-sitting the world’s most disobedient hound, who, we shall call Fenton. On our Saturday morning walk, Fenton, like his viral namesake, broke for the border with BF running after him shouting his name and getting ignored. Fenton then plonked himself under a shady tree where he refused to move for a good ten minutes, until I gave him all of my water.

I have seen BF twice since then. He has a terrible sense of direction, doesn’t know who Stephen King is, is addicted to Nando’s peri-peri sauce (so much so that I think it’s got mentioned each time we’ve met) and is terrible at responding to messages.

This definitely isn't going to develop into the kind of thing I'm looking for, and it's fun, buuuut I'm trying to change old habits. With that in mind…

An Announcement

I have been back OLD solidly since early March. Lockdown obviously made it much harder than usual, but as I approach my 42^nd birthday, it seems like a good time to take a bit of a break and reset.

When you’re having little luck at this, it’s very tempting to feel like there is something wrong with you, or that you hate men, or that you’re destined to be alone forever. When you find yourself slipping into old patterns of behaviour that don’t serve you in the long run, and you feel shitty about that, it’s time to take a step back and reassess things. Your approach to finding a partner, and the relationship with yourself.

I realise this all sounds terribly wanky, but it feels like the right thing for me to do at the moment. I’ll still be posting stuff about dating, but I won’t be using the apps for around a month.

September always feels sort of like a new start for me; it’s back to school time of year, the season is beginning to change, it’s my birthday (did I mention that yet?) Writer Marian Keyes called autumn ‘the season of new boots’. I don’t know how that fits in here - Nancy Sinatra? Made for walking? I dunno, but I like that idea. I’ll be back soon with some new boots!

Crushes of the week:

I’ve been a bit of a nostalgia trip recently and started re-watching ER (all episodes are steaming on All4 at the moment). Even though it started in 1994 (!!) it doesn’t seem to have aged at all. Thus my crush for this week is the cast of the first season. Noah Wyle is so young and cute he makes my heart hurt a bit.

 

 

 

100 Dates The Power of Voodoo Hoodoo

There’s a man in the supermarket who looks appealing to me. As we are in the same aisles at the same time, I can see what he’s putting in the trolley and put my highly scientific ‘How to Tell if a Man is Single from his Shopping’ theory to test. Unhelpfully, his basket contains things that could either mean, ‘movie night in with girlfriend’ or, ‘having friends over for snacks and drinks’, or ‘getting shitfaced alone’ What it does not say is, ‘man doing weekly family shop’.

In the basket are:

·         A few packets of bacon

·         Some pate

·         Fancy cheeses

·         Posh crisps

·         Wine (a lot of wine)

·         Beer (a lot of beer)

I had thought my days of following semi-attractive men round supermarkets (a real low point in my single life) were over, but it seems not. We go through the checkout at the same time, and then he’s gone.

Before lockdown, I used to go to the gym after work, and then to get my shopping. The supermarket is next to the train station. As I would walk down to the shops, I’d see a lot of attractive men walking home. WHERE ARE THEY THE REST OF THE TIME? I’d think. They certainly aren’t in the pubs, or in my gym, or even in the supermarket. ‘Where are you going?’ I wanted to shout. But it’s that kind of thing that’s probably the reason why I’m still single. That and obsessively smelling my own breath when I’ve got my mandatory facemask on. Man, coffee breath really does stink.

Sloop John B – 26, 27, 28, 29 & 30

He said 3 dates, I said 5 because I count the two virtual ones we had before our meetings in the real world. I also said 5 because it means I can get to 100 faster, stop this nonsense, and open a guinea pig rescue sanctuary.

SJB is wonderful company. He’s funny, he can hold a conversation, he’s easy-going, I feel very comfortable around him. Therein lies a slight problem. Dates with SJB are like hanging around with a really good mate. We vibe in that way for sure (at least, I think we do) and I really, really want it to be more than that. It’s not though.

Last night I made that awkward phone call, because binning someone off by text after 5 dates is kind of cowardly. Him being a lovely chap who seems keen to actually meet someone and not fuck around being a flaky, fickle douchebag, made it even more awkward. I mean that it’s easier to pie off dickheads, not that SJB made it awkward, he didn’t.

He took it with the grace I had expected and he agreed to stay friends. I really hope we do, because I think he’s great.

Babyface - 31

I definitely need to stop swiping on men 13 years younger than me. It might stop such moments as possibly being mistaken for their mother, and being the only one able to go to the bar because they forgot their ID. Also it’s likely they’ll have a nicer car than you, which is kind of embarrassing as by the age of 41, you should be driving something better than a tin can on wheels which is held together with rust and hope.

Rogue’s Gallery (aka, Dishonourable Mentions)

1.       The Goblin King (2017)

In a photo reminiscent of the 1980 fantasy film Labyrinth, he held aloft a babe in a striped onsie. Every single message from him from ideal holiday destinations to favourite foods would eventually degenerate into something sexual. He also introduced me to an art project called ‘Hysterical Readings’ which is basically women reading aloud while being wanked off by an unseen vibrator.

We never met up or even talked about it. I asked him if we could talk about something other than sex, that lasted about another 3 messages at which point (no pun intended) I gave up.

2.       The Lorax (2019)

‘Sure we’ll meet up’ ‘we’ll meet up soon’ ‘Let’s meet up when we’re both free!’

We never met up.

He popped up on the app again recently. All together now, waving your jazz hands, ‘with the saaame phottttoooooooos!’

3.       Budget Christian Grey (2018)

Highlights included, ‘I really want to stick my arm up your tight p****’ and ‘I want you to ride my face until I can’t breathe’

He was very handsome, but not so handsome that I’d let him piss on my face.

4.       Say Anything (2020)

Look, guy. I’m almost 42. Ya think I never heard this bullshit before?

‘I’m afraid of Covid’ reasoning to try and come round my house instead of going out for a drink)

 ‘I want intimacy…cuddles and eye contact’ (minutes earlier you were asking if you could rub your dick against me)

‘Women think I’m a fuckboy, I’m not’ (proceeds to behave just like a fuckboy)

5.       Guest appearance from….(2020)

Someone I’m pretty sure is married and is using photos from around 2003.

The Camden Hipster showed up on Bumble (we had matched on Tinder) he had better photos and a worse written profile. That hair though, it bothered me so much.

100 Dates - Anatomy of a Profile

Bryce Dallas Howard Nosedives in Black Mirror

There is remarkably little variation in men’s profiles and after a while, each becomes indistinguishable from the last. Many of the photos are low quality, as if taken on a c.2002 camera phone, and are often at odd, unflattering angles. These will include such beauties as ‘up the nose’ shot, ‘chin rolls’ and cutting off half their heads. Distance shots are common, as are photos obviously taken some ten-plus years ago when the abs were tighter and the jawline was stronger.

Bed selfies feature heavily, faded and bobbled bed-linen in shot. They lie on an old-fashioned patterned pillowcase, one naked arm tucked behind their head, a wistful expression on their face. Sometimes there’s a dog there, too, because we all know that dog-owners are good people.

The bedroom mirror selfie will have the unmade bed in the background, and mismatched shoes strewn across the floor. There will be a can of Lynx trying to product place itself. In the backgrounds of bathroom selfies I have seen:

·         A toddler naked except for a nappy

·         A perturbed looking dog

And in the foreground:

·         100 empty bottles of shower gel

·         Rusty looking razors

·         A dried up cake of soap balanced on the side of the sink

Then there’s the public toilet selfie. I think that these are a go-to location because of the big mirrors and the good lighting, but it just looks kind of lazy, with the hand driers and urinals in the background, or the overflowing paper towel bin. All I can see is the smell of piss and cheap hand-soap.

Occasionally one is treated to the sight of an erection taken from an artsy angle (I report these right away, because I am sure no-one wants to see your dick) or a rotund hairy belly rising up from 70’s patterned bedsheets like the hump of a whale emerging from the sea.

Lying about age is common. The young ones will (usually) own up to it – ‘I’m actually 27, I really like older women’

The older (deluded) ones seem to genuinely think that they can pass for 35 or 40 when they are clearly hitting their mid-50’s or sometimes even older. Sometimes you get the bullshit disclaimer, ’55 not 48, it won’t let me change it’ (yes, it will, you delete your account and start again putting in the correct age).

Most common profile photos

·         In some kind of organised running or cycling event

·         Holding a big fish

·         Snow sports

·         Stroking a drugged tiger

·         Riding an elephant

·         A photo of their car

·         A photo of them as a kid (why?!)

·         A photo of them with kids, usually with the disclaimer, ‘my nephew/ niece/ Godchild’

·         The holiday selfie (in pool, by pool, on balcony. Holding a beer)

·         At Machu Picchu / Angkor Watt / The Lennon mural

·         Squinting against the smoke that is coming from the fag hanging outside their mouth

Decoding a Profile

‘No drama!’ = I love drama

‘Only swipe right if you can hold a decent conversation’  = I have no conversational skills myself

‘If you don’t look like your photos, you’re buying me drinks until you do’ = I don’t look anything like my photos

‘Only match if you’re going to chat’ = I will never reply to your message

‘Not looking for pen pals’ = we will never meet up. Like, ever.

‘Ideal dinner guest…you?’ = let’s cast this net super wide and see what catches

‘No gold-diggers or users’ = I want you to think I have money. I don’t. Also I am still bitter about a woman that left me in 1998 after I paid for an all-inclusive to Malaga

‘6 foot in heels’ = this is the first time any man has thought of this. I’m so funny!

‘No crazy exes’ = I have driven at least two women insane with my flimsy moral code and gas-lighting

‘No baggage’ = I don’t want you to have had kids, any exes or a life before me. I come with as much baggage than Rose DeWitt-Bukater boarding the Titanic.

 

These are real profiles

'47 year old white English guy looking for some fun very clean and discrete’

‘Single wanting no strings playmates, Happy to assist childless couples making families’

‘Hello I have decided to give this whole Tinder thing a proper go. Oh and any Davina McCall your first in line she’s hot and a huge turn 9n to me love to date someone as fit as she is that’s my idea of the perfect woman. I love fit older women and would marry Her or could you be her equal and be mine. Oh high sex drive is a must as well not up for debate’

‘im getting really bored of this dating app shit honestly.i aint no sad fuck boy or dopey dick picks sender.i want a lady that I can treat like a princess.yeah you probably think im talking aload of bollocks but im a gentleman that respects women.but cheeky. give me a chance please.ffs lolxxx’

Bonus Round – Just…why?

‘4.5 Uber rating’ = I have no idea why this is important, this isn’t that episode of Black Mirror where Bryce Dallas Howard goes batshit at her frenemy’s wedding, is it?

‘He’s a nice boy, 5 stars – my mum’ = third person reviews make me cringe so hard my bum hole relocates to my throat and I throw it up

‘Englishman’  - As if this is a benchmark of excellence.

Profile of the week

Toothless Roddy looked like Iggy Pop’s older, more drug-addled brother. He posed topless in leather trousers, his scrawny but fat chest festooned with silver chains and what looked like an emergency pullcord fob. ‘Why was I stupid enough to live beyond 30?’ he lamented, before going on to essay about sin, the Bible and music in one terrifying, unpunctuated paragraph.

Crush of the week who is definitely not on Tinder…

Cody Fern, (The Assassination of Gianni Versace, American Horror Story) who carries off both make-up and pretty clothes better than I do and is smoking hot. Not sure I could date a man that is more proficient at eye-liner application than me, though. Nah, I totally can.

 

 

100 Dates: I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost ( Ghouls, Zombies and Perverts)

I’ve had 4 more dates since I last wrote, with the same fellow. It’s unlikely he reads this, but thanks to WhatsApp / Instagram syncing contacts stalking potential, it is possible. Thus I am holding off on updates until I know if a 5^th date is going to happen.

In the meantime, here’s just a small selection of the interactions that didn’t go anywhere.

 

1.   Captain Haddock (winter 2016)

 

I met Captain Haddock not long after I’d come out of an eight -year long relationship. I wasn’t ready for any kind of romantic entanglement, but he was so handsome with his hipster beard and sharp blue eyes. He was always with a friend who was the spit of a young Matt Damon and walked like a reverse Mr Soft, with his torso dipped into the wind.

We exchanged numbers, and texted back and forth, I used to bump into him in the pub and we’d exchange a cursory hello but nothing more. The one night we did talk, he spent most of the time chatting my friend up.

He wouldn’t make firm plans to meet up and I called him out on it in the manner of a teacher admonishing an unruly pupil. I never heard from him again after that.

It was because of Captain Haddock that I learned the phrase, ‘rejection is protection,’ but I never fully absorbed the whole ethos of that until very recently.

2.   Shrek (Summer 2017)

We had been texting for a few weeks when we agreed a date to meet up one evening in the week. He went to a wedding the weekend before, and his last message to me was ‘good morning, beautiful wish you were at this wedding with me,’

I texted him the day before the date asking if we were still on. I got left on unread (those two grey ticks are such an insult) I should have known that not hearing from him for 3 days meant he’d moved on, but I was an OLD newbie then, and still took things at face value.

He popped up in my stack again recently with exactly the same photos, which made me wonder how old they actually were.

 

3.   ASB Phil (Winter 2017 / Spring 2018)

For almost a year I chatted to ASB Phil. He earned his nickname because he used to send me topless photos of himself asking what I thought, and a friend misheard ‘Abs’ Phil and thought I said ‘ASB’. The name stuck, but ASB didn’t. Weeks would go by without me hearing from him, he’d hint at meeting up and then never set anything up, and ignore my suggestions to.

Our final text exchange came when he messaged me after about 3 months of total silence to ask how I was.

‘Do you only text me when you’re bored?’ I asked him.

No, he said, he wanted to make it up to me and go for a drink. Too little, too late my friend. I said as much, and he never replied.

He actually popped back up in my ‘stack’ a few days ago, using the same pictures, and this time I swiped left.

 

4.   Dave Horror (2018)

He told me that he worked for the police, which was only kind of truthful. He was actually employed by a private security firm to work in police custody suites. We had a lot in common and set up a date to watch a film in Oxford. I came into working with all my stuff so I could get ready there and go straight to meet him. For someone that would text several times a day, he went oddly quiet and I texted him at 3 to ask if we were still on because I’d be leaving work soon.

He replied telling me his aunt had hurt herself so he couldn’t make it.

I accepted this blatantly weak excuse and indulged him by saying I hope his aunt felt better. I never heard from him again.

 

5.   Car Sex Cosplay (2018)

As you get more experienced at OLD, you get better at sniffing out bullshit. CSC told me that he lived ‘with a housemate’, but when he sent me photos of his place, you could tell that a woman lived there and was responsible for the décor. I said to him, ‘is your housemate female?’ Yes, he said. ‘Is she your girlfriend?’ I asked. No. My ex wife. We’re separated.

He was very snooty about housing association tenants, which, if you know me, you’ll know is not an attitude I agree with.

He told me that he used to be very overweight and in the early days of his separation used to meet Tinder matches for sex in his car and that on one occasion had been ‘going at it’ so enthusiastically he not only thought he had a heart attack, but he destroyed the car’s suspension.

He last message to me was a photo of him feeding his unimpressed cat a Wotsit.  

 

6.   PhD (Christmas 2018)

He cancelled on me TWICE IN THE SAME WEEKEND, saying that he needed to be working on his PhD. I was irritated with myself, because he didn’t even really cancel the first time, I waited until late afternoon to ask him what was going on and he responded, ‘sorry, I’ve been in a PhD hole, please please can we do it tomorrow?’ Only to do EXACTLY the same thing the next day. When he contacted me again, I basically told him to fuck off and stop wasting my Goddamn time.

 

7.   Pete (Early 2019)

Agreed a date to meet, I text him the day before asking if we were still on and he never responded. He also popped again in my stack recently, with the exact same photos. What is it with these guys not even bothering to update their photos?

 

8.   Teacher Tom (spring / summer 2019)

I wasted 3 months messaging this guy. THREE MONTHS. He got squirmy at the merest hint of meeting u, but kept kind of putting the idea out there (this folks, is known as ‘bread-crumbing’)  I finally suggested a day, a time and a place. I got a semi anxious response from him asking what the place involved (it was a bar where you go and drink booze and play board games, I thought it was a great idea for a first date) aaaaannndddd…..silence. Nothing. Nada. The man up and vanished like a fart in the wind.

Except when he popped up again in my stack quite recently. This one actually changed his photos!

 

9.   Catio (summer 2019)

On the day we were due to meet, he fell off a ladder building a catio (it’s a patio for cats) and sprained his ankle. He texted me while he was waiting in A & E. I think this may be my favourite pie ever, for its pure inventiveness.  We still texted after that here and there, and when after about a month of text ping-pong I asked him how his ankle was (and not mentioning trying to rearrange the date) he responded with, ‘oh it’s is still pretty bad, I don’t think I’ll be going on any dates soon’

Guess what? Yeah, yeah, you know. Stack, same photos blah blah blah.

 

10.                ‘Let’s meet up this weekend’ Summer 2020

Or, let’s arrange a date then delete my account. I’ll just start another one on another date app and no-one will ever know, mwaaaahhhh haaaaa haaaaaa!

 

11.                 ‘Let’s also meet up this weekend after making a big ole fuss about really, really wanting to meet’ Summer 2020

 

Or, let’s just ignore that message about firming up plans.

 

‘Nice Guy’ of the week award goes to….

The match that called me a slag because I haven’t spent the last four something years of singledom staying in every night, wearing a potato sack and praying for a man like him to come along.

Just three messages earlier he had told me he was ‘a gentleman'

Some changes

Photo: Ashkan Forouzani

Some of you may remember my posts about the death of Elisa Lam. I love writing about cases like hers, but for a long time have been thinking that it’s not a topic that really fits in well with what else I write about. 

So I have decided to start a different blog dedicated to true crime cases and strange stories. The blog is called ‘Here There Be Tygers’ and I’ll be sharing them on Facebook and Instagram in the usual way.

The first post will up shortly, where I cover the still unsolved 2012 murder of university student Faith Hedgepeth.

All my other stuff about dating, books, writing and films will stay on the Golden Backbone post.

Hope to see you on the new blog soon!

100 dates 12 - 24

Image source

It was only when I started writing this up that I realised how many dates I have actually been on so far. Over time, my enthusiasm for them has dwindled.  With each passing date, I get less excited. I don't believe the date will happen until they are there sitting in front of me (more coming up on that later) I get less invested, and as a result I'm less bothered when they don't want to see me again, or when they cancel at the last minute. No-one owes anyone anything in this game, as Lulu is fond of saying.

I still plan the outfits, and straighten my hair, and put perfume on, but where as I once went along with a sparkle in my eye and a spring in my step, hope in my heart and a spattering of nervous sweat in my armpits, I now approach dates with something that feels a little bit like mild dread. 

Out of 24 dates so far, from only 3 of them have I come home feeling that it wasn't a monumental waste of time. Most of the time I sit sour-faced on the train or in the back of an over-priced cab, wishing that I had stayed home and done a hundred more useful things than get drunk with a stranger, like do some writing or read a book, reorganise the sock drawer or watch my guinea pigs eat newspaper like it's a bag of crisps. 

Nevertheless; I persisted. 

12.  Peanut Head (Summer 2019)

We met for a drink in a pub on Hampstead Heath on a lovely summer’s day. I probably got a bit too drunk and overshared.  We went for pizza and he walked me to station. The next evening I got several essay length texts from him explaining why he didn’t want to see me again. When I said it wasn’t necessary for him to go into quite such detail about why I was all kinds of wrong, he responded with, ‘you did say you’d rather know than just not hear from someone,’ Sure, I’d rather know that they didn’t want to see me again, but I definitely don’t need to know all the reasons why.

Peanut admitted that some of his photos that were at least ten years old. To be fair to him, he hadn’t aged much in that time. His smooth as a pool-ball scalp and haunted, hollowed-out eyes earned him the name ‘Peanut Head’ from Lulu.

13.  Mr Vain (August Bank Holiday 2019)

I primarily remember this date because it was on the last day of the carnival, and because when I got to my stop (which is the last on the line) I woke up a sleeping, flagged wrapped boy to let him know he needed to get off the train. He asked where he was, and when I told him, he said he should have been in a town I’ve never heard of, which sounded like it was about 100 miles away. He then shrugged, pulled the flag more tightly around him and promptly fell asleep again.

Mr Vain told me that he’d cheated in every relationship he’d been in. He called me once after the date to say he was surprised I’d snogged him despite telling him that (me too, mate, me too) and that was left there.

14. Dick (October 2019)

Dick was a maths tutor I met on a cold, miserable night in late October. He told me lots of maths related jokes, even though I said I wouldn’t be able to understand them. He spent the whole time eating mints like they were peanuts. An hour into the date, he stretched, yawned and said, ‘shall we call it a night, then?’

I sent the polite post date text, he responded saying I should contact him if I ever went on a pub crawl. Did I contact him? No.

15. MHD (November 2019)

 I met MHD on a freezing cold Friday evening in late November. We had a fantastic date, talked non-stop all night and regretfully parted ways at Kings Cross after a very public and full on snog. We texted back and forth for a few days, and then he went dark. When he contacted me again, it was to tell me he’d taken a mental health day and couldn’t face dating.  said that was OK and wished him well.

He contacted me again at Christmas and there began a flurry of intense messaging which tipped into the realm of downright filthy. Then he disappeared again, like he had never come back. He cancelled a date for a ludicrous (and probably made up reason – I am the Master of these and can spot them from a mile off, having created many of them myself) More than sixth months on, and he’s still tuned into Radio Silence.

16 & 17 Tiny Welshman (November 2019)

TW had the faded boyish good looks and slight stature of a 90's boyband star (think: Mark Owen) He didn’t have the Welsh accent, though which was disappointing. He was also prone to asking me questions like, ‘have you heard of Stanley Kubrick?’ and explaining simple things to me in great detail.  On our second date, I was dog-sitting and we took the pooch to the pub. The dog was a great buffer for a chemistry-free date which was full of awkward silences. Sadly, the dog is also a massive tart and focus puller, who commands the attention of everyone in the room, so I also spent a lot of that date explaining what breed the dog is, and letting people stroke him in exchange for treats (for the dog, not me)

I let the Welshman down nicely after that, because I wasn’t feeling any kind of vibe with him.  He responded, (a tad over-dramatically, I thought) ‘I will delete your number from my phone,’

18, 19 & 20 Oliver (Christmas 2019)

Oliver is sweet, gentlemanly, kind and spirited. We like the same kind of books, and he experiments with baking with admiral enthusiasm and mixed results.

He didn’t want to take things beyond the few dates that we had, and he was refreshingly up front about that but still let me down easy.

We’re still in touch and I like to hear about what he has been reading and baking. Hi Oliver! Let me know if you ever change your mind. (Please note I am not just being complimentary about him because he’s the most likely to read this and recognise himself.)

21. Nice Guy (March 2020)

I met Mr Nice for a drink on Friday that the UK went into lockdown. We went for drinks in empty pubs, he groped me and told me liked my donut belly. We had an aggressive snog (why not, could be the end of the world as we know it.) He pestered me to take him home with me. I had plans for the evening, so said no. I also said no, because I had the feeling that I’d never, ever be able to get rid of him again. Also that I would wake up one morning in one of the drawers under the bed, missing all my limbs.

Throughout the following day, he sent me a barrage of messages wheeling, pleading, demanding and insisting that he came to mine that night. I repeatedly said no, and he responded in typical ‘nice guy’ fashion by calling me names and basically telling me I was an idiot for rejecting him.

He’d already unmatched me on the app before the date and after we’d swapped numbers, so I just blocked him from my phone and Instagram.

Shortly after this date, I read The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker and realised that my life-preserving spidey senses had kicked in with this one. I actually had felt apprehensive before the date, and not in a butterflies, excited kind of way. In a, I don’t think I want to do this way. That feeling – that’s there for a reason for that feeling. Pay attention to it. As a side note I am sure you are asking, I am not sure why I snogged him either. Feel free to judge me for snogging a creepy stalker in the midst of a global pandemic.

22 & 23. The Camden Hipster (April 2020)

This was my first lockdown date. We met for virtual drinks one Thursday night. He wore a suit and tie, I wore my Casper sweatshirt and straightened my hair. I enjoyed the date very much, and also enjoyed the second date and one phone call we had.

CH was seemed to be sartorially stuck in the mid-noughties, with his messy mop of dark hair that looked like it would feel crispy to touch. He was a musician and writer, and I read one of his short stories only to realise midway through he’d blatantly stolen the plot from an episode of Inside No.9.

I shall never find out if his hair feels crispy or not. After weeks of texting, he applied the slow fade, the passage of time in between his texts getting longer and longer. The final nail was hammered into the coffin when (controversial opinion alert) I told him I didn’t rate Dishoom and would rather have a peshwari naan from my local curry house. I haven’t heard from since the beginning of May.

24. DIY (May 2020)

So-called because he was spending his spare lockdown time on a never- ending DIY project, DIY would sent me photos of re-tiling the bathroom.

After a couple of weeks of some extremely flirty texting, we met on the last May Day bank holiday Monday for a walk in the sun (as we couldn’t go to the pub) All of the chemistry had been used up in the sexy texting, and there was no real life spark. This is an error I have made before and I will have to put it on the list of dating ‘do not do’ rules:

Never sext someone before you know what their voice sounds like.

It’s just the wrong way round to do things. DIY was obviously not feeling it either, and the date lasted less than an hour and a half. He spent a fair amount of that time looking at his watch.

We agreed that it wasn’t worth meeting again, and that was that, though he did say he was available to 'special' texting, wink face emoji.

No thank you, sir. No thank you. 

Next week, all the ones that didn't make it to a date...

 

100 dates - 1 -11

   

When I speak to my mum this week, she tells me that she admires me for continuing with on-line dating. She is not the first person to say this to me. Friends say, ‘I couldn’t do it,’ and ‘if I broke up with my husband, I don’t think I’d bother dating again,’ 

Whenever I have felt like giving up, (which has been many, many times) I go back to a promise that I made myself. I would go on one hundred dates, and if after those one hundred dates I still had not met someone I wanted to keep going on dates with, and they felt the same way about me, I would call off the search and admit that there just might not be someone out there for me. 

Every few months since I started OLD back in 2017,  I’d decide to write about my experiences, abut then I’d start to worry that it was unethical, what people would think of me, that my family, boss or   that past dates would read it and recognise themselves, and I’d stop and not write about something else.

People want to hear the details of dates, how was it, what did you do, where did you go, did you like him? The truth is that most first on-line dates are actually pretty mundane, text chemistry rarely translates into something tangible, and really, if you think about it, it’s kind of a weird way to meet someone.

These are the 100 dates rules:

·         An actual date has to happen – it can be in the real life or a virtual date

·         Second and third dates with the same person are included in the account

·         Dates that happen as a result of an in the actual real word meeting count

·         Personal details are changed – this of course includes all names

            What happens on some dates, stays on the date 

Dates may not be in exact the exact time order, because as I am sure any other experienced on-line dater will tell you, it can be difficult keeping track when you are spinning multiple plates at once. Using WhatsApp messages, I have pieced together the following timeline as accurately as I can.

Let’s share this pain. 

1. The Builder

I made plans for later in the evening with two friends in case this didn’t go well. The Builder was actually very good company, so he ended up staying out for dinner with me and my friends. He had a complicated home life, (living with his ex- partner and their children) and worked ridiculously long hours. Trying to set up a second date was a massive headache due his work and kids schedule, and he kept cancelling plans at the last minute. I always had the suspicion in the back of my mind that he was very much still with his ‘ex’ and his long working hours were a good cover for sneaking off on dates.

Eventually I gave up on trying to set up a second date. He asked if we could be friends. I declined.

2.  Lord George Byron (Summer 2017)

He had recently moved recently London to work as a teacher. Much better looking in the flesh than in his photos (which of course you’d never say to someone’s face because it’s insulting), he had beautiful browny-green eyes and very white teeth. He was obsessed with Byron, but spent the whole date showing me screenshots of bad Tinder profiles and messages he had received from terrible women. Byron never responded after I sent him the episode of Drunk Histories which begins with the legendary words, ‘Lord George Byron fucked his sister.’

My other abiding memory of the date is that while I sat in the courtyard of the British Library waiting for Byron to show, there was a man sitting at a table eating a catering sized pot of strawberry yoghurt. When he caught me watching him, he curled his arm protectively around the pot as if I might rush him and steal it. 

3. Billy Gorilly (Autumn 2017)

In one of his photos he was wearing a gorilla costume. We met for a coffee. When I got there, he already had an empty cup in front of him. I asked if he wanted something else, and he declined. He had a grease spot from lunch on his blue shirt.  He was super awkward. He couldn’t look me in the eye. He lived with his mum and she did all his cooking and cleaning for him. It was a profoundly depressing, uncomfortable date and I left feeling like I wanted to cry. He mistook my friendliness for interest and asked for a second one then and there. I said yes, feeling terrible, but I didn’t want to crush him in public. I had to Dear John him later and it felt like kicking a puppy down the stairs. I am sorry, Billy. 

4.     X-Factor (Autumn 2017)

He had very weird hair and I couldn’t stop looking at it. He liked going on game and talent shows. The date lasted an excruciatingly long 45 minutes.

He talked about moving out of his mums in the next few years but he was too comfortable at home where she did his cooking and cleaning (what is it with these man children?) when I said that he would need to learn to cook, he looked at me as if I said, ‘you will have to murder your mother with her own kitchen knives and then shit on her corpse,’

On the walk back to the car, he hinted at meeting again the following week. I blurted out, ‘I don’t want to go on a second date with you!’ there followed a few seconds of wounded silence, after which he stuck his hand out and said graciously, ‘it was nice to meet you’

5.  Zoom (Summer 2018)

A real-life meeting! I meet Zoom on a night out in London. He was very sweet and perky, we swapped numbers and texted back and forth for a few weeks. He would text me 3 times a day to ask me what I was having for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

We arranged a date and he was almost 3 hours late. To his credit I got a running commentary on his journey and ETA. We went for a walk, drinks and some food before I dropped him back at the station.

I had realised pretty much straightaway that I wasn’t attracted to him and dodged out of the way of a kiss.

I messaged him later saying I had a lovely time, but I wanted to leave it there and not carry on messaging him because I didn’t want him to think it meant something.

He texted me a year later after finding my number in his phone. He referred to himself in the third person. He last texted me as we went into lockdown, and I am ashamed to say that I have not responded. 

 

6.    Mr Cheese (Summer 2018)

This is the date I plead the Fifth on. Let’s just say I was in my Questionable Decisions stage of dating and leave it there.

7.   BOB (Christmas 2018)

This was an actual, real-life meeting and not an on-line match. I include it here because we went on a date. Kind of. By date I mean there was one night I went and met him and his mates down the pub and two occasions where he came round to my place to ‘watch a film’.

We met at Christmas, and by Easter he had blocked me from all social media accounts, un-liking all previously liked posts. That didn’t stop him texting me late one night in July to ask if I’d called him.

Yes, BOB, I did. In March. I never replied to his last text, and he has never contacted me again.

8.    Frogman (Spring 2019)

My friend Lulu says that I fell in love with Frogman, and I probably did. He looked like Billy Idol with his bleach blonde hair, white t-shirt and skinny black jeans. He was covered in weird tattoos. We talked the whole night and ended the evening with a lovely hug.

There’s a Maya Angelou quote that goes ‘when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,’. Here was my clue: Frogman said to me, ‘it’s easy to be interesting when you just make stuff up,’

We bounced messages back and forth for a few days after the date, then I got the slow fade before he disappeared for good.

That’s the last time I go on a date with living, breathing version of Common People by Pulp.

 9.    Milky Tea (Summer 2019)

‘Milky Tea’ is a semi-affectionate but mostly insulting name Lulu has for bland dates. There’s nothing terribly wrong with them, but there’s nothing all that special either.  Milky Tea was scared of wasps and spent the entire evening flailing his arms around and ducking. I took him for Thai because I’d left my purse at home and he bought all the drinks (I went home to get my bank card).

 After the date, we exchanged a few more texts, and talked about maybe going for ramen sometime. He replied to my last text months later, to wish me a Merry Christmas.

10 & 11   Joe (Summer 2019)

Double-dates, arranged by Lulu.  Joe was funny and friendly, but had a complicated relationship with his ex, who he had been with since…since forever. There was something about his face that reminded me of an ex-boyfriend and I couldn’t shake that off. Lulu had marginally more success and dated Joe’s friend for a couple of months, but it didn’t work out.

Aside from Joe’s unsettling resemblance to my ex, I couldn’t get on board with his habit of deliberately winding people up and we had a few needlessly heated arguments. Yes, on first and second dates. He popped up out of the blue recently with a random text that he later said wasn’t for me, but with another girl with the same name.

Join me next time, for more mildly disappointing dates.