A little boost

I received the following link from T-Bag this afternoon and thought it as probably worth sharing with the group. Have a read and see what you think.

            Keep an eye out for my favourite line: “Any man who is a person wants to be with a woman who is a person. Attraction isn’t intellectual, it’s involuntary – and if men really only wanted to squirt their penis inside of silent supermodels, then regular people would be extinct. But look to your left. Look to your right. Regular people in the house!”)

Then have a read of the comments too. It’s a bit sad, but quite an interesting article. 

Double-dating-disaster - Miss Fifi's version

On Friday evening Miss P and I, quaking in our boots, arrived at Farringdon station to await the two chaps who were to be our double dates for the evening... a first (and probably a last for reasons that will come apparent) in Slutty Suppers history!

The evening got off to a bad start because they were late. Very late. Amusingly, as my tardiness is infamous amongst my nearest and dearest, I was the one tapping my toes and suggesting we take the opportunity to sack the whole thing off. Meanwhile Miss P who's ordinarily a stickler for punctuality, insisted we wait it out - she then glanced at her phone, to discover numerous missed calls from the men in question.           

When she rang them back, they told her that they were waiting for us AT HOME, which immediately sent alarm bells ringing. Despite this warning that something was amiss, we trundled up the road and we soon saw two men waving down at us from an apartment balcony.

"Oh dear god, he's massive!!!" I loudly screeched to my shame - not registering that Miss P was actually on the phone to The Shameless Self-Promoter himself at that very moment! In hindsight what would have been ideal, is that he had heard my horribly bitchy comment and then called the whole thing off. No such luck. After keeping us waiting another 10 minutes or so, we then headed off to their choice of the local Italian restaurant up the road. We were diving straight into dinner and there was no escape!

So, after all this hanging around for them on the streets of Farringdon, were they worth the wait? Well, in a word, no.  It was immediately apparent that we weren't going to fancy them (and we definitely were not, despite their protestations, ending the night in their Jacuzzi!). But, what was infinitely the worst aspect of this car crash of an evening, was that we soon clocked that The Shameless Self-Promoter (Miss Ps 'one') was undeniably coked up to the eyeballs. Classic signs - fidgety, compulsively high-fiving, chattering away about complete sh*te and despite being a big lad, eating two mouthfuls of food the whole evening. The Mute (my "one") was inoffensive enough, but definitely in the nice-but-not-for-me category (the jury's still out as to whether he too, had dallied that evening in Columbia's finest export).

The Shameless Self-Promoter had enough conversation for us all, which allowed ample opportunity for Miss P and I to plot our escape. I have never been so relieved for her presence in my entire life - it turned what could have been a rather horrifying experience, into something quite hilarious!

How do they find me?

I’ve just been added to the ‘Favourites’ list of a boy on MSF who states that he’s looking for someone with ‘an enquiring mind’.

He and The ‘I-appreciate-a-calm-and-balanced-personality’ Word Smith should maybe get together – I think that could potentially pan out to be a match made in heaven! 

Double-dating-disaster - Miss P's version

Last night, Miss Fifi and I met up with The Shameless Self-Promoter and his friend on what turned out to be one of the worst dates I have ever been on. Ever - and I’ve had to sit and eat pizza with an autistic boy before!

The only thing that actually kept me on the date was the fact that I had Miss Fifi with me to hold my hand, help pour as much wine for me as possible, and team up with to lie our way out of having to go to a bar after the fateful dinner we were forced to live.

            Maybe this would be best if I just summarised the key failures of the night out:

** Having told us to meet then at the station at half past, I got a call at quarter two (just two minutes before Miss Fifi’s cut off point, after which we would have happily taken ourselves off for pub grub and girly chats), telling us where we had to go to get to another meeting point – a boy who’s too lazy to honour the meeting plan that he made; not off to the best start then. He directed us to a Yo! Sushi, where I assumed we would be meeting.  On route, Miss Fifi asked what we would do if they were leading us to a flat rather than public place. I assured her that no one would be that mental. WRONG. Crossing the street on the phone, we were instructed to “Look up”. Two boys (ok men – the wrong side of 30, but a long shot) on a balcony, beers in hand, beer guts hanging out, instructing us to wait while they ‘finished up and came down”. Brilliant, we were going into the flat, but we did have to go and collect them from their home. Not impressed.

**On the walk to the restaurant (about two minutes away) I learnt that The SSP “owned seven companies (didn’t believe that shite for a minute), was a stand up comic in his free time (when you run three companies, you have no free time, and when you have no chat, you can’t be a stand-up – it just doesn’t work!), that mummy-daddy owned half of Guernsey and that he really had been drinking since lunch. We were two minutes in, and I wanted to get out of it already.

**As The Other One was really quite nice (almost too nice, bordering on dull) we managed to get some fairly level conversations flowing, The SSP kept butting in with random “To my left, if you had to get a dog, what sort would it be?” I suppose that if we had been sat in silence, that would have been fine, but he overrode natural conversation to dominate the table with his nonsense. He also insisted on cheers-ing with every gulp of wine that he took, and let me tell you, he took a lot. Ergh, talk about hard work.

**Finally and most importantly, The Shameless Self-Promoter is undoubtedly, a massive cokehead. I don’t know how much crap he had put up his nose before we arrived, but having pointed out the obvious habit to Miss Fifi, she confirmed my suspicions, and our tolerance to his odd behaviour quickly deteriorated.  When it came time to leave and he insisted on us going on for another drink, I don’t think I have ever had to be more rude to man that’s bought my dinner, but I have to say, there is not a rat in hell’s chance that I would ever see him again, and I know for sure that if I was ever faced with a similar situation again without my Miss Fifi safety net, I would have been out of the door five minutes into the date.

It was bad. It was oh so bad. But I guess it’s one that can be ticked off the list, and on a positive, I’m already seeing the funny side. I suppose that single men of a certain age are only going to be online dating for one key reason – they’re cut through with a high dose of crazy. Proper crazy!

Warm up texts

The dreaded double-date with Miss Fifi is tonight, as if we weren’t worried enough about it, the text exchange from this afternoon as been far from reassuring:

SSP: “I bet you girls didn’t sleep a wink last night…Don’t forget 7:30 at Farringdon Station. We’ve been drinking since midday! Also, bring your bikinis as we may have a late night pool party.”

MASSIVE ALARM BELLS RINGING

Miss P to Miss Fifi: “…he just sent a message saying they’d both been drinking since midday and they're threatening a late night pool plan. Can’t work out if it’s a joke or not. Shit.”

Miss Fifi to Miss P: “FUCK I DON’T WANT TO PLAY ANYMORE!! Maybe we shouldn’t go!”

Miss P to Miss Fifi: “It’s going to be bad….so bad.”

Miss Fifi to Miss P: “I’m so scared…I’ve just poured myself a gin. ”

Miss P to Miss Fifi: “Good girl. I might have wine at my desk for this evening’s conference call.”

Miss Fifi meets The Captain - Take Two

Yesterday was a momentous occasion- my first-second-date with a chap from the web! The bloke in question was The Captain, who I had been texting almost non-stop since we met two weeks ago. This is unusual behaviour for me, as normally I have very limited patience for text tennis, exchanging minute-by-minute accounts of each other's days. My tolerance of this sent alarm bells ringing that I may actually rather like this bloke - a novel feeling in this internet dating game!
            The only snag was the deadline: today he is heading back to his regiment in Germany after his 'olidays. Following a flurry of text messages after I'd tentatively suggested we meet up again, he pitched a plan of  dinner, then heading onto his friend's birthday party. So, not your normal second date then! Trying to look beyond the slightly mad behaviour of inviting a girl he's met once (and by that token, on the internet!) to meet all his friends, I gallantly popped on a lacey frock and some moderately high heels (my Captain not being the tallest of chaps) and sashayed off to meet him in Soho.
            At first it was slightly awkward... probably due to the mutual fear that we might not hit it off again. However, this was an unnecessary worry, as over cocktails (super strong Margaritas) and dinner (Mexican street food) there was barely a pause for breath as we chatted away. I confessed I was a bit nervous about the party, which The Captain found hilarious - apparently not seeing anything odd about me meeting all his friends on our second date! When we arrived at the party, my first realisation was that I was totally over-dressed. But luckily, I was surrounded by alpha- male army types who probably wouldn't have battered an eyelid if I'd wondered in wearing one of Coast's frilliest and frothiest ball gowns. The Captain was the perfect gentleman, introducing me to all his army pals and keeping an eye to ensure I was never stranded with the regimental bore. Cocktail after cocktail was knocked back and I played my part well enough, chatting away to all his friends. At one point, a gorgeous army doctor was bemoaning his inability to meet lovely girls and confessed to me his desire to go on MySingleFriend. Determined to help him in his plight, I did what any good friend would and suggested he cut out the middle man and just take out Miss P instead!  We'll see how well that little snippet of pimping works goes...
           As I write this, The Captain is racing to join his regiment back in Germany. Who knows whether we'll catch up when he's next back, but considering how disastrously date two could have gone, rather a success me thinks!

Constructive use of time

It’s Sunday and I’ve done most of my weekend jobs that have gone abandoned for the past few weeks – room cleaning, baking, healthy food shopping, general life arranging and sorted – it’s all been ticked off the list. So, feeling smug and ever so slightly bored, I figured today was a good time to do something more constructive with my time.

By constructive, I mean stalky, so I’m planning to spend a good few hours working my way through MySingleFriend, picking out the pretty boys and trying to think of something (anything) to say to them by way of introduction. Kind of wish it would be appropriate to have a glass of wine to help me along.

Double-Dinner Fun

The Shameless Self-Promoter saga continues:

Miss P: “So, you want the good news or the bad news? The good news is that Miss Fifi would actually play that game, and it sounds pretty hilarious to me, so I would say it’s a goer. The bad news – she’s a genuine hottie I’m afraid. No mingers for your inattentive friend this time round. Sorry!”

The SSP: “That IS both good and bad news. Ok, we have the green-light. Are you ladies free next Friday evening for double-dinner fun?”

Miss P (having checked and freted about it with Miss Fifi”: “Apparently Miss Fifi has to work the next day, so had kept next Friday night free for sensible behaviour. Fortunately, she caves like a chocolate teapot at the best of times, and the promise of entertainment and drinking was enough to sway her, and I’ve got work drinks that are fairly avoidable, so we’re in. I can’t work out if this is going to be hilarious of an utter disaster. Only one way to find out I guess!”

Good God, what have I done?!

Double dates

Something awful has happened – the very first person that I contacted via MSF has replied to me. Now, this should be a good thing, surely? Unfortunately, I was attempting to use this effort as an icebreaker to ease me into the game, and I was not anticipating a response, especially when you consider the approach I took.

            I was man-window-shopping (selecting hotties to bookmark and refer back to once I was feeling a little braver) and I stumbled across a profile that was hilariously written, but clearly describing an essentially ‘non’ sort of chap. However, at the end of the profile (the section written by the ‘friend’ was the comment: “Also I can promise that I am 200x better than him in every way so if things don’t work out with him why not date me, bet you didn’t see that one coming, eh Dave!”

                  I felt a bit bad for Dave, but at the same time, interested in finding out more about the comic writer, so I clicked through, was more interested with his profile and sent him a message:

Miss P: “I stumbled across your profile after your shameless self-promotion on your friend David's profile. To be honest, it's a pretty solid form of advertising, and one that I have a horrible feeling my friend *Miss Fifi has tried to replicate with my 'description', although slightly less blatantly!
So, you're 200 times better than good-friend-David in every way? Dare I ask how so?”

The Shameless Self Promoter: “Ha, brilliant. 
In fact I went for a drink with him yesterday and he hadn't even read what I had written, what a buffoon!
He got a bit angry but I have managed to placate him by promising that if any girls emailed me on the basis of reading that line I would only go on a first date with them if it was a double date and he is included. Deal? You can bring Miss Fifi (PLEASE tell me she mings...)
s x”

You want to know the best thing about this? Miss Fifi has agreed to play the game. Online-double-dating…what.the.hell!

Next steps?

I thought that a fairly dismissive message and a lack of follow up communication over the past two weeks or so would have been enough for The Personality Twin to get the message and acknowledge that whatever was going on between us before (which was pretty minimal, at best) is no longer in action.

            Apparently not; not only did I get one of those generic “phone book wide” texts yesterday requesting sponsorship in the London marathon (treats!), he followed up this afternoon with a general “How are you, how’s life, share with me” style message. I don’t really have anything that needs sharing with him, and to be honest, I can’t really be bother with polite background chat either. Silence seems a little too harsh, but having to wade through a few days of polite text exchanges before having to crack on once again with the thanks-but-no-thanks conversations just seem like way too much effort though. Ergh – boys.

Swords and Sandhurst

Miss Fifi has turned into a walking solider seller – if you’re thinking about going on a date, the one piece of advice that you can be sure of being offered by her is “make sure he has a hot uniform and a sword to his name”.

            Don’t get me wrong, it’s fairly solid advice, and thanks to a couple of ‘recommendations’ she’s made for me on MSF, I’ve got my eye on a couple of Captain potentials already. However, it looks like I might not be needed her online help after all. Surely one solider is more than enough to be getting along with.

An actual single friend

On my very first My Single Friend stalking session, when a girl is allowed (without any shame, apparently) to scroll through pages and pages of picture of boys faces, ‘bookmarking’ the pretty ones to follow up with later if you can think of fun and exciting things to share, I stumbled across a slightly familiar face.

            It took a full stalk through his photos (combined with some cross-referencing with Facebook) to realise that this pretty face with lots of blond curls was the same boy that The Life Long brought along to brunch one day a couple of years ago.

A single hottie with a motorbike and good hair – aren’t your friends supposed to pick these ones out and shamelessly introduce you to each other in flirting-appropriate situations? Now I either have to message him and pretend not to recognise him, message him and shamelessly recognise him, or sit quietly and instruct The Life Long to try harder.

            Hmm, tricky to know which way to approach this one. Maybe I’ll have a swift glass of wine and a little think. I seem to do all my very best thinking with a wine in hand. Funny that!

Miss Fifi update: Another day, another date!

After my hugely enjoyable time with The Captain on Saturday, yesterday evening I psyched myself up for another first date with a guy from MSF. We arranged to meet at The Cut bar in the Young Vic Theatre by Waterloo. Thanks to the whole of 2012’s expected rainfall occurring in one evening, I arrived in rather more of a bedraggled state than is ideal when you’re meeting someone for the first time.

               So, on with the details about the bloke: He is nice. He is well-educated. He is intelligent. He is good looking. He has a good job. Overall I had a nice time, but there’s no ignoring the fact that this was a pretty mediocre date. We got on fine, but it wasn’t the same level of fun or easy company that I had experienced a couple of days before with The Captain.

               I was also thrown by the fact that in person, he looked uncannily like a boyfriend I’d had many years ago in sixth form.  Sensing a couple of hours in that I was pretty done with the evening, I made an excuse about a heavy schedule the next day at work and we left the pub.

               We got the train home together as it turned out I live at the stop along from him. It was then, on a brightly lit over ground train, that for me the most hilarious point of the whole evening occurred. Bearing in mind that we had shared minimal chemistry throughout the evening and only sipped two drinks, in a very full train carriage he leaned in to full on snog me as he said goodbye. In a fit of panic, I tried to swerve it in an aim a kiss him on the cheek, with minimal success. All in all, an incredibly awkward scene and a spectacle for the sleepy commuters who were our audience. I’ve since made a deal with myself to have at least four drinks on all future first dates, to avoid the self-conscious horror of soberly avoiding the advances of strangers. Argh!

Signing off

I’ve had enough of Guardian Soulmates on every level. The boys are nice enough, but have little-to-no spark, they are slightly tedious and mostly boarder on the autistic spectrum, so the time has come – I’ve pulled the plug.

            Not only did I skip the date with The Personality Twin to bring that one to an end, I’ve also phased out The Crazy Swimmer and I have officially deleted (inalterably) my profile. That’s it GSM – our relationship is now 100% over.

            That said, treating this ‘relationship’ as I apparently treat most of my others, I have now lined up a replacement so I am just waiting for Miss Fifi to complete my profile intro and I will be up and running on MySingleFriend.

She’s promised me greatness with this one (both the intro and the site) so she better not let me down on either count. The pressure's on Fifi!

Miss Fifi udpdate: A dashing Captain…

Yesterday, after a morning spent at work with hyperactive teenagers, I wasn't especially in the mood for my third MSF date. However, I was determined to go as from our texting he sounded like a nice, amusing kind of guy who was far too good to bail on. Another incentive to man-up and go was that the bloke in question serves our Queen and country in the army - meaning not only a gorgeous uniform, but also that he may not always be kicking around London for a second chance!

               We met for lunch at Back to Basics a fish restaurant in Fitzrovia. My suspicions were soon confirmed that I was dealing with a MSF virgin, as I doubt anyone with any prior experience of the bizarre and often disappointing world of internet dating, would generally suggest anything so committing as a meal for a first meeting.  By lucky coincidence, the gamble paid off. The Captain and I had plenty to talk about - the hours felt like minutes and in what felt like no time at all, we had in fact spent the whole day and evening together!

               So far so good, but there is one slight catch – about an hour into our date he casually dropped into conversation that he actually lives in Germany. Fellow soldier daters beware- you might be needing your passport to meet up with these dashing young men again!