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!

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. 

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.”

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!

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!

Out with the old

It’s been over two months now, and I have to say GuardianSoulmates has treated me a little bit randomly. I have met some lovely boys and some mental boys, all of whom are super intelligent and have many ‘interesting and varied’ topics to be discussed.

            I’ve had fun, it’s been enjoyable, but the time has come to delete my account, hide my profile from strangers and get myself live on MySingleFriend. The waters look a little clearer over there, and hopefully I won’t be expected to know who the Vice President of the States is, or the name of that really famous composer who wrote that ‘truly inspirational operetta’ that I have no idea about. Bring on the pretty-but-dim boys. It feels like it’s about time.  

In hiding

After three dates, I had no idea how I was supposed to tell The Personality Partner that I’d had enough chances to ‘get to know’ him, and that I probably wouldn’t be requiring a fourth meeting to think about it any more. It sounds simple enough, but for some reason, now seemed like a weird time, considering we had already semi-arranged the next date, to declare a sudden lack of interest and to bow out, so I sat and struggled to work out what to do for a full week.

            Fortunately, when he emailed me this Thursday I was still in the midst of a lost-diary-storm, and had no idea what day it was, let alone what I was supposed to be doing at the weekend, so I was able to rely on a little white lie of needing to check plans, and then I have just quietly sat out Saturday (the day we were potentially supposed to be meeting up on).

            I feel a bit like a child, hiding away (baking brownies and drinking a lot of coffee) rather than just telling him that I’m not really that interested, but seeing as he didn’t follow up a second time to see what my plans were, I can’t help but think that he’s probably not too distraught to have found himself with a little extra free time to play with this weekend. Looks like everyone’s a winner. 

Wine, wine and a bit more wine

Having first met up last Wednesday, leaving the second date until a full week later seemed like the best approach to take with The Crazy Swimmer. He was again going to be a bit late getting into town as he was working at a clinic somewhere near Wimbledon (I think) and didn’t finish until sevenish, so to fill the time between work and meeting, The Co-Dependent very kindly took pity on me and saved me from a late night in the office in favour of a trip to Notes, where she tried out their fabulous coffee for the first time and I stocked up on pre-date wine whilst we had a quick catch up.
         Then, whilst she headed home I made my way up to Cambridge Circus, where we were planning to meet ahead of paying a visit to one of my favourite little wine bars – the incredibly French La Beaujolais on Litchfield Street. This quiet, dark corner of the world, where everyone speaks French (almost exclusively) always feels like a bit of a treat, and when I was given free rein to make whatever selection from the wine list that I liked, I knew it was going to be a good night.
         What I had anticipated would be a fairly brief night out (based on the fact that I had woken up at five that morning to walk and swim before work, and had another 8 mile walk planned in for the following morning) actually stretched out to cover a bottle of wine at the first bar, a detour to a jazz bar that sounded so offensive I refused to go in, before returning to the safety of the known and loved Bedford & Strand for another bottle. This bottle was his choice this time, and I have to admit it was much better than my initial random selection, as he assured me it would be. Turns out that buying the best bottle of red is going to become something of competition here, which is why I know there’ll be a third date. The gauntlet has been thrown down, how can I possibly walk away?!

Dim sum and 'banter'

The Personality Partner is one of those boys that uses words like “Banter” and “Lad” to punctuate his sentences. This worries me. Sure, it’s fairly entertaining and I am the last person to hide behind a fake persona and not embrace the fact that I swear (yes, and drink) like sailor, but still, anyone who actively encourages the part of my brain that yells “For the win!” every time I achieve anything can’t honestly be the very best company for me.

            Still, we’re three dates in and I don’t actively hate him yet. I would have to say that, despite the fact that he really is the sort of boy that my mum would call ‘an arse’ I rather like him. I think.

            I’m still confused about when you’re supposed to know if a boy ‘off of online’ is for keeps, or whether the fact that you still find them funny after three meetings is just a sign that they’re not mental, but by no means worthy of keeping.

            Regardless – I got to have gin on Monday and Dim Sum to boot, it’s just a bit of a shame that I had woken up at 5am and was utterly shattered by 9pm. At least it was a Monday and the requirement of an excuse to need an early night was fairly unnecessary. 

Third date territory

Seeing as you meet people online for the very first time ever when you go on your first date, I am struggling to work out how many dates it is acceptable to organise, just to see if you’re going to get along?

Obviously, if you go on the first date and it’s vile (may I draw your attention to my experiences with The Word Smith) then that’s one thing, but what if the chap is nice enough, fairly entertaining, not vile looking and maybe a potential…but maybe not? They obviously require further investigation – but how much more?

            This week I’ve got a third attempt lined up with The Personality Twin and a second meeting in the making with The Crazy Swimmer but I can’t work out if these ought to be the last meetings if there aren’t any sparks flying.

            Having spoken to Tits McGee about this last night, it seems that I ought to be able to make a decision about this in 2-3 dates tops…I have to admit though, I’m struggling. I hate to cut things short when you’re not sure what the results might be, but as everyone keeps telling me, these boys aren’t on the site to make friends, so I need to make a firm decision either way, and probably sooner rather than later. Tricky, very tricky.  Maybe dim sum with The Personality Twin this evening will help shed some more light on it.

It's getting serious!

And it’s scaring me.

            It’s not getting serious personally – don’t worry, I haven’t decided that after two rather non-dates I am going to marry The Personality Partner or anything dire. It’s more a realisation that for a number of people participant in online dating (well, pretty much all of them I guess) are looking for something a lot more serious than me.

            I was dreading the date I had got lined up for last night. It transpired (through a string of emails and text exchanges) that the guy was not only nearly ten years older than me, but he also a ‘part owned’ dog, which triggered (maybe slightly over-reactive) warning bells. It doesn’t take too much reading between the lines to see that revelation was code for ‘broken home and custody battles over said pooch’. I don’t want to get myself overly involved with a guy who cried every weekend when he has to part with his dog and send it to live with The Ex. Christ, I have enough trouble looking after myself – I don’t need a crier on my hands too!

            Eventually, unable to come up with a suitable excuse and with a feeling of obligation to at least meet up with The Crazy Swimmer (he thinks that swimming in frozen lakes is a treat…) and see if his eyes are constantly on the brink of tears, I met up with him last night at Skylon – a rather fabulous cocktail bar on Southbank with amazing views and even better gin cocktails.

            We bonded over a mutual love of gin and a general obsession with dogs, and he scared me with talk of his ultra-marathons (he ran 150 miles across a desert in 7 days once. I have no idea why, but the mere thought of it terrifies me!), whilst we drank and ate our way through a fair chunk of the menu. Surprisingly, it was really rather a good date, one that I look likely to rerun shortly, and one that didn't result in tears or mental breakdowns of any sort. Maybe the internet isn't just full of crazy people after all!

A walk in the park

Today I braved a second date with The Personality Twin, and it went surprisingly well! Having met at Victoria Station with the intention of grabbing a quick brunch (yes, we’re talking pre-noon, alcohol-free dating here) so that I could spend the afternoon hunting out last minute essentials for my ski trip, we made our way over to The Serpentine Bar and Grill in Hyde Park.

            Unfortunately, we arrived at a strange mid-point between the breakfast and lunch menus being available, but having chatted for an hour or so over coffee, watching the seagulls and discussing the finer points of what the best breed of dog is (it’s cocker spaniel, for the record) we placed our orders and spent another hilarious hour or so participating in some sort of wit-battle whilst eating fish finger sandwiches. I’m pretty sure that I lost the comedy war, but it might be the first time I enjoyed undeniable defeat – for some reason, there’s something about him that I’m still not 100% sure about, but he’s so funny, I think I can almost overlook it.

            Fairly efficiently, from early on in the meeting he had already mapped out the next date, as well as a trip to see The Proms and a visit to a pub at the top of Hampstead Heath, so whilst I left him at the station with an underlying feeling that maybe he's not my traditional 'type', I’m looking forward to our trip to Dulwich when I get back from France. I might have to brush up on my political and historical knowledge first though. To say he’s a couple of stages more intelligent than me would be a complete and utter understatement.