The Teetotal Geek - The Nail in the Coffin

Last night was the finale of my My Single Friend career – a date with a very nice bloke, who for the purposes of this blog will be known as The Teetotal Geek. His plan for our date was for us to meet in Soho, grab a quick supper then head onto a comedy show that he had booked for us at the Soho Theatre. To the set the scene, The Teetotal Geek was slim, with dark hair and in the height stakes, scraping a generous 5”7 - not the 5”9 that had been advertised. But, whatever, everyone lies in their profile.

                    We met outside the theatre, which led to an awkward “where do we go now?” chat, as we both side-stepped making any form of restaurant decisions in a super-polite way. Lesson for the future, is to always meet in a bar or pub to save this excruciating awkwardness in your first five minutes of meeting.

                      Our desperation to quickly find somewhere, anywhere, to plonk ourselves down and actually get talking to each other, is the only explanation I have for the fact that we ended up in probably the worst, most over-priced Italian restaurant in Soho. If I could remember its name to publically shame, I would. But, instead, I was too busy concentrating on trying to keep conversation flowing with the very sweet, but the rather timid Teetotal Geek sitting across from me.

                     It was about now, as I gleefully grabbed the wine list and began selecting potential wines to ease us through the evening that he dropped in that he didn’t drink. Fair enough, but this date sober was clearly something I wasn’t going to be able to stomach, as I valiantly battled to keep conversation flowing.

                    There’s no way to gloss up this experience. The truth is that this date was at best mediocre, at worst just plain bad, for the following reasons:

1      - Our supper table was on bustling Dean Street. This meant the waif-like Teetotal Geek’s chair kept getting knocked into by the exuberant crowd and sending him flying down the road – cue much embarrassment on his part.

2      - There was so much public participation in our meal, that at one point he got in the middle of an argument between teenage gangs and got heftily spat on by one of the youths. Nice.

3      - A friend I know from school walked past and started chatting to us. As she looked to me to introduce her to my date, I couldn’t provide the introduction as I had completely forgotten his name. Naughty Miss Fi!

4      - During the comedy show, the comedian dropped the “C-Bomb” approximately every 5 minutes, leaving the Teetotal Geek squirming uncomfortably in his seat and giving me side long glances in panic that my feminine sensitivities had been insulted. No chance, he was the only offended one. Oh, so very awkward!

5      - I wished myself, or even better both of us, had been drunk to make all/any of the above more funny.

Although the Teetotal Geek is a really nice guy, it was clear once again that we had zero chemistry and little in common. It would have been rather nice for my last internet experience to have been a great one, but it did leave me with no doubts that it was time to hang up my internet dating hat for good.

The Big City

On a Thursday night in London, there is one place that, if you’re brave enough, as a group of girls, you’re guaranteed to have a good night. The City, with a capital “C” comes alive with suits on Thursday nights, and when you have a Slutty Suppers Club who have started giving up on the world of online, it’s the perfect place to meet for drinks.

            Having been stuck at the office for an extra half hour, The Worker Buddy and I were a bit late meeting up with The Traveller (Miss Fifi), The Northern Lass (Tits McGee) and Sugar M for a couple of cocktails at B@1 in Spitalfields Market before going in search of suits.

            Because we were slightly late meeting the others, we were a few cocktails down on them by the time that we left the bar, but everyone was in pretty good spirits are we headed into town, getting waylaid at a pub called The Bull, nestled down a side street with suits spilling out onto the pavement.

            Wine ordered, we headed outside to get some air.  About two minutes later, The Northern Lass accidentally threw a glass of wine over herself and a boy standing near us, after which we quickly made our way back into the safety of the pub. The Traveller and Sugar M lasted an hour or so before they had to head out to a Burger King to stack up on mid-session carbs, whilst The Worker Buddy made her way over to the bar to make some introductions to encourage flirtations with a boy that had caught The Northern Lass’ eye earlier in the night.

            Having felt the pain of a stolen bag all too recently, I took charge of luggage management – effectively finding myself standing alone by a table covering a pile of bags, drinking wine and trying to work out when we would be able to leave.

            The Worker Buddy, in fabulous American style, spotted me keeping my own company, and in about ten minutes she had forced a boy with a pretty face and an utterly ridiculous tie to come over and talk to me whilst she went off in search of a new victim.  It turns out, she did really rather well for me! The Charming Suit was really rather lovely and utterly ‘eligible’ – although he was wearing a comedy seal tie. This really rather worried me until I had a little Bridget Moment. If Mark Darcy can wear a reindeer jumper, The Charming Suit can most certainly wear a designer comedy tie if he wants to.

I left having given him my number but with a low expectation of hearing from him again. I’d had a text before I got home, and a string of others followed. I’m not sure if I’ll see him again, but I do love a suit, so fingers are well and truly crossed for this one!

Bad times for Tits

Tits McGee found herself a nice (but apparently rather dim) young chap at the pub the other day.

Filled with hope that a strapping young lad with strong arms and a good face would be a dating potential, she was fairly excited when he sent her an initial follow up text. Oh, the disappointment that lay ahead:

Tim Nice-But-Dim: Hey how are you?

Tits: Fine thanks. Am having a very exciting night in, cleaning the oven.

Tim: Do you want to come for a drink if you can drag yourself away from the oven?

Tits: (bearing in mind that it is currently 8:45 pm) Er well I have oven cleaner in my hair and shite from the oven all over my arms, so not feeling too fresh. Why, where are you like? (Please be aware , Tits McGee is northern…)

Tim: What do you mean?

Tits:  Like, where are you? Are you out?

Tim: In Vauxhall chilling out, watching Magnum Force.

Tits: Oh a classic! I forgot to ask, is that where you live?

Tim: Yes.

Riiiiiiiiight. Might be time to delete that number methinks McGee!

Let's call the whole thing off

It’s official, I am offline, and I am staying that way.

            A lot of people I know have said how much they’ve enjoyed online dating, how it’s a great way to meet new people and see if they fit. In essence, I’ve found it to be a great way to waste time, money and energy. I don’t need to pay a computer to make the sort of introductions that come across much more fluidly in person.  I don’t want to tick boxes about whether I like Chinese food and then actually think that the selections make any sort of a difference to the people I’m being matched up with. If I want to find a guy who lives in my area and enjoys Chinese food then I will go and sit in our local take out restaurant and scope out the suitability of whoever comes through the door.

            It’s been an experience, and one that’s had it’s highs and a lot more lows, but it’s off my list now, and it’s staying that way. Slutty Suppers will live on, as there are many more regions for us to investigate – Safari Suppers, Singles Nights, Speed Dating and the dreaded Blind Date through friend recommendations. I’m no nearer having won at the dating game, and I am most certainly no closer to having found ‘The One’ than when I started, but my profile is now well and truly suspended. Good bye online. Good riddance. 

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. 

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! 

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.”

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.

Mummy would be proud

It’s a bit of a random one, but I am currently in the process of setting up a date with a guy that is officially crazy. Not in the axe-murdering sense of the word (I bloody hope not, anyway), more in the swims-outdoors-in-ice-frozen-lakes-as-a-hobby kind of way.

            In fact, he competes in, and has won, the annual Christmas Serpentine race, which my mum was talking about this very Christmas as my brother and I threw ourselves into the freezing cold sea, setting a very dubious new tradition in swing.  I will have to remember to gather as much entertaining material from this one as possible.

Undercover flirting

This weekend, whilst catching up on work in Starbucks (I’ll be honest, it was 50% work, 10% news sites and 40% social networking, but whatever) I got into a Guardian Soulmates conversation with a rather random boy that has the most American style photo imaginable (think big hair, cheesy pose, maybe taken from a work profile of some sort) but the most apparently British background.

            The interesting thing about this one is not the incredibly cheesy photo, but rather than his whole profile is written as though he’s a spy (ie – a rip off of a selection of James Bond movies), and all conversations since initial contact was made has been based around secret service based banter.

It’s all very bizarre, and in fact, it’s the sort of behaviour that I would normally run a mile from (I’ve met crazy once recently, I don’t need to meet him again any time soon) but I am fairly intrigued to see where this one goes – maybe a date in Dans le Noir, a quirky restaurant were you sit in pitch black and can’t see either your date or your food…that could be fun – and definitely worth a blog post or two!

Puppy loving uniform…sign me up!

One of the worst things about Guardian Soulmates is that you can ’like’ people’s profiles without actually having to make any sort of an effort regarding comments or messages; you effectively let people know that you’ve been checking them out, then you sit and wait to see if they bite and send you a note.

            The facelessness of the whole thing makes this the worst function on the site, or so I thought, until just recently. This Sunday, whilst trying to play using only my crappy phone thanks to the internet being down at our house, I was informed that I had been ‘liked’ by someone whose picture, for the first time, wasn’t totally vile. This required some further investigation, and oh, the things I discovered.

            A summary of the guy who may in fact be the most impressive person that I’ve found on the site are as follows: he’s an officer in the Navy, he has a working cocker spaniel (puppy swoon), he’s a country boy at heart with a love for the city, he’s pretty, he’s a bit posh, and he’s really rather hot. What more could I need?

            There’s been a bit of to and fro with messages since the ‘liking’, and another hottie has just gone and ‘liked’ me too. There’s no mention of a puppy in his profile, but I feel that this might be worthy of a little follow up investigation too. Things are starting to look up in the world of online…

Attention to detail

When it comes to online dating, I am starting to realise that seeing as the only information you have about the people you’re picking from is what’s been deemed suitable to go on their profile (probably following some hefty editing by friends), a bit of hard work and concentration is required when you’re carrying out your initial research.

            “I like kids” - I already have one with someone else, “I enjoy word play and Scrabble” – I’m an arse with no social skills (even my mummy said so!), “My life is pretty busy, so it’s probably best to start things up online before meeting” – I’m in prison and am probably going to ask you to smuggle drugs in for me if at all possible and/or I’m a 60 year old freak.

            Yep, there are some real catches out there for the taking; you just have to be the lucky girl that’s stupid enough to get sucked in by the lure of the love of a stranger.

            Unfortunately, I seem to have been spending so much time focusing on what’s not been said, that I’ve totally overlooked what is written down in black and white.

            I’ve got a date booked in for after work on Monday, and when I informed The Co-Dependent of this she quite reasonably requested more info.  Fine, well, off the top of my head I could tell her that he’s quite cute, he sails in his spare time, he does a good job and lives in a nice part of London. However, I felt this wasn’t quite enough info (and seeing as I had been messaging couple of people at the same time, I wanted to double check that I was giving her all the right info and email her a copy of his profile pic too, obviously).

So, off I went to his profile for more info. The moment the page opened, there was only one thing that I saw:

Height: 5’7”

…5’7”. I’m 5’10” – and that is probably an underestimation. There is only one thing in my “What I’m looking for” section on my profile, and that’s for someone who’s a good height for me. 5’7” is not a good height for me – not even a little bit. I have no idea now how I am going to get out of a date without hurting a boy that really does seem rather lovely.

But 5’7”?! I just can’t bring myself to do it!

You can always rely on your family

It’s true what they say you know, you can always rely on your family to pick you up when you’re down, and to help you see the silver lining in the endless stream of disasters that you come up against (and believe me, I have a fair few a week at the moment), and following last weekends disastrous date, my sister in-law has done me proud in this respect.

            Having read through my blog post, and received a bit of additional background from me too, she sent me the following, beautifully succinct and fabulously to the point email:

“I have been reading your blog, and my opinion on your latest date is that you should definitely not date people who think they are smarter than you (no one likes a smug twat).”

Sadly, I don’t think that the current Australian that I am talking to is much better, and he’s definitely on the other end of the spectrum. The totally opposite end, in fact:

“ey [I am assuming that he forgot the ‘H’ in ‘Hey’]

well im back in sydnet where im from ., seeing family n friends ..

so nice and sunny now .. my tann is going reall well ..

back 28^th i am .

how was ur v day ?”

Is it just me, or are well over half of those words in the wrong order?

Heeding my own advice

How is it possible that I have learnt nothing from my previous disastrous dating experiences? When did I become that sort of girl that knows something is 100% a bad idea, and yet cracks on with it anyway, just to make sure? I don’t know how or when it happened, but I have certainly taken my ridiculousness levels up a notch or two recently.

For some reason, despite the fact that I have said from the off that The Word Smith is most certainly not the one for me (please see pretty much every blog post with his name on for supporting statements), my Sunday afternoon now has his name pencilled in in my diary. Honestly, what was I thinking?!

A hung-over Saturday spent playing online led to a text exchange with The Word Smith, in which he very quickly asked me out for dinner. Fortunately I had a good excuse lined up for Saturday night, but when he asked about my Sunday plans I drew a complete blank and found myself agreeing to a coffee on the Kings Road.

I was under the assumption that a quick coffee would require an initial meeting of 30 minutes or so, and that I would be able to make my escape having made a swift assessment of whether it was a meeting worth repeating. I’m sure that this would have been the perfect plan, and it’s one that I am hoping to actually stick to the next time I go on a date with a complete stranger, but unfortunately, this time it didn’t pan out perfectly.

I received one particular message that changed the plan for the day. It had one notable sentence that is worth commenting on for two reasons – “I’m currently on my way to Harrods to buy a dvd for this evening.”

Firstly, the only person I have ever heard of using Harrods as an actual shop rather than a complete and utter luxury store is Eddie. I’m talking about Edina Monsoon, of Absolutely Fabulous fame, and whilst I love her dearly for her ridiculousness, I can’t honestly believe that anyone genuinely lives that life. Secondly, there is only one reason I go to Harrods, and that’s for the Food Hall, the ice-cream parlour and the pizzeria with the opera singing chef, which I have never eaten at, but that has been on my list for quite some time.

I suppose you can see where this is going? Coffee is out and pizza is in – that’s taking the half hour coffee session to a 2 hour+ dining experience. All for the love of ticking yet another restaurant off the list. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. 

Miss Fifi Update 4

I can report that I had a lovely time the other evening enjoying fine wine, delicious food and good chat with a boy…disappointingly though, this man wasn’t sourced from militant trawls through POF, but my old friend The Faux Boyfriend.

We have that rarity of male and female friendship that for over 6 years, has not once been marred by as much as an accidental snog or drunken groping. Despite getting on like a house on fire, we have a mutual understanding that however many M&S meals for two we share, or Sunday’s spent with eggs benedict in Clapham’s coffee shops, we will never be anything but good friends. The Faux Boyfriend, like many of my good friends, has been unusually keen to meet up recently – clearly, to mock my internet dating exploits!

So, I filled him in on my less than perfect dates with The Cute Geek and The Weird Fish – stories which left The Faux Boyfriend spluttering out his glass of merlot with laughter. I also confessed to him an incident from last Saturday, when I was kissed (note who’s the perpetrator), by a suave stranger on a snowy Battersea street at 1am. Admittedly, this was not my finest hour, as said stranger later casually mentioned a live-in girlfriend. The Faux boyfriend tutted and shook his head at this escapade, whilst demanding access to my POF messages as punishment for my ridiculous behaviour.

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few of our favourites – crimes against punctuation, spelling and common decency are the author’s own:

1. Hi hun, saw your profile and thought I’d send you a message to say hi. So about me, I’m 27 and live in south London too. I like keeping fit as well – in fact, I think my biggest achievement was losing 10 stone over last year. Perhaps we could meet up and get sweaty? LOL x


2. hi there i just looked at your profile and liked what i saw and wondered if you would like to chat sometime if not its cool. Do you like the pic of my baby chantel? Be nice if you could maybe meat her somtime. anyway i wish you all the be on here and hope you find your mr right soon take care hun. xx


3. Hi, so say we lived together and you walked past my room and saw me w***ing what would you say? Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Er..so I hardly need to mention that none of the above received a response. After reading these and the other "interesting" messages I received, The Faux Boyfriend was clearly caught somewhere between absolute horror and crippling laughter.
           "Fi, you REALLY need to get off this site" he said emphatically, as he emptied the wine into our glasses. I think he may have point! 

Ready to call time?

I’m struggling to work out whether it’s really time to call time on my chats with The Word Smith. I know that it is, because let’s face it, his intelligence is so beyond me it’s insane and I have no idea what made me message him in the first place. However, I find it very hard to ignore messages from anyone, added to which he has now included a numbered list, and there is a small part of my brain that forces me to gravitate towards lists like nothing else.

There’s only one thing for it; I’m going to have to reply with 100% honest answers and see whether he feels the need to respond. I can’t help but assume that, when you ask someone if they enjoy the FT weekend edition and they reply with “I like the colour, but other than that, I don’t think I have ever even touched one before” it’s only going to go one way isn’t it? I guess we’ll find out fairly soon. 

Just for fun, below is a selection of other exciting questions that he put to me complete with my, I think, rather well thought through replies:

TWS: Have you seen a 1972 movie called Death Train, which is a semi-horror (I think). and rather interestingly involved the London Underground?

Miss P: No.

TWS: Olive green tights and brogues down the Kings Road. Yay or nay?

Miss P: Olive green tights and brogues pretty much anywhere makes me feel a bit sick. That fact that people would be rocking them on the Kings Road is just unnecessarily vile. So, nay.

TWS: Would you object to flying business class on the grounds of suggestions of inequality?

Miss P: If you’re talking about transatlantic travel then I will willingly sign a petition publically celebrating the realities of inequality in all its gory detail if it means that I get a fully reclining seat and a glass of bubbles upon arrival.

TWS: Does wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt make you feel as though you should be painting the roof?

Miss P: I don’t think I’ve ever painted a roof - I have a tendency to fall over / off things, so it would be a little dangerous. I’ve also never worn a plain t-shirt (well not since I was about ten at least). If I had to guess though, I would say yes. That’s something that really shouldn’t happen.

Drowning in proverbial salt

The Word Smith is quickly turning into one of my favourite online correspondence companions. I can’t quite work out if he’s hilarious or so very mental that it’s unreal, but here’s where we’re up to so far in the super exciting Scrabble banter (continuing from our original chat here):

Miss P: You sound like a pro at this game! Are you a wiz at pub quizzes too? Oh, and thank you for advising against the use of the word ‘bum’ as a Scrabble opener. Who knew there could be such a minefield to navigate when you’re just trying to score points against your housemate! It sounds like a much more dangerous game than I initially appreciated.

Him: Well, there is no such thing as subtlety in Scrabble!

Miss P: So it would seem.

Him: Well, I hope you have a good fame this evening (I sound so middle-aged). Meanwhile, I will turn to the Harvard International Review for the next hour, before finishing off some matters for work*.

*Please read this with a pinch of the proverbial salt

**A very impressive Scrabble word

Um, am I supposed to know which bit of this chat I should take with proverbial salt…the work bit or the Harvard International Review bit? Maybe it’s time to go and play on Google.

New Google Search: What the bloody hell is the Harvard International Review, and if I’m so stupid that I don’t know what it is, will I be able to understand it if I were to try and read it? Search.