The Super Supportive Dreamer

I don’t want to just spend all my time mocking boys and not actually utilising the my now paid for online dating account, because let’s be honest, I could go to the pub and do that just as easily and for free, but every so often, a classic pops up that is just too tempting to ignore!

This boy, who I am never going to meet or even reply to, but who I think deserves a nickname, so I’d like to call him The Super Supportive Dreamer, apparently put me in his ‘Favourites” list (something that still utterly baffles me), and I have no idea why.

To say that we’re different would be a complete and utter understatement. As you can probably tell from both this blog and HopelessInHeels, touchy-feely isn’t really my thing, so could you imagine the disastrous effects of me dating someone with a profile like this:

“Hi! I’m just a cheeky, warm and affectionate guy who likes the idea of building something magical out of nothing. I belive in true romance, laughing together like children and just feeling as though anything’s possible. Being a bit of a dreamer myself, I always try to support and encourage other people’s dreams too. I must admit, I don’t climb mountains every weekend or lead an action hero lifestyle, but I do have a happy, healthy life filled with its own fun little adventrures – it would be wonderful to share it with someone special. You should know at this point that I really love baking in my free time (yes that’s right it’s not a typo…croissants, triple chocolate fudge cakes, meringues, macaroons, buttercream frosting).”

I would willingly put money on him crying within the first five minutes of us meeting. Plus, he would expect me to share kitchen ownership with him by the looks of it.

            Absolutely not – I would (almost) be more tempted by this guy:

“I have a massively pretentious double-barrelled surname, work in the City and drive aggressively on the road to assert my alpha male status. I also have a tattoo to retain some edginess, despite being a dangerously square corporate lawyer.”

            Hmm, on second thoughts…maybe not!

I'm sorry, what?

I’m all for the new kids in town making friends online, why the hell shouldn’t they? But I have to admit that despite having a hot enough picture to almost win it back, I have absolutely no idea what the lovely Giovanni is trying to tell me. He’s defs one for the message bin I’m afraid:

“hello

how are u

i would like to get in touch with you.

The my fb

Giovanni *** (I’m not giving you his full name, if you want to go on a date with this particular hottie, you’re going to have to do your own leg work!)

I am looking nice friends to date, have fun, i am open to most thing WHEN THERE is genuine interest to make a good contact, good connection, begining from genuine friendship.

Obioysly I am loking for friendship, hope same for you.”

So, yeah. He seems nice enough, although I am fairly confident that he opted to capitalise the wrong words in that sentence, but I still have no idea what he was talking about – although he is obviously looking for friendship. Poor Giovanni. He’s needs a nice dim girl with a face as pretty as his but with a few less brain cells I think. 

Miss Fifi Update 1

Having cast my rod into the "plenty of fish" pool (the potential for POF related puns is apparently limitless!), I've now survived one whole week playing this internet dating game. Despite strictly adhering to The Sausage Hunter's warnings to militantly screen potential messengers, I've had the anticipated mix of the mildly humorous, quite sweet and downright disturbing emails. However, the most horrifying aspect of the whole thing, was undoubtedly creating THE PROFILE.

Hmm, the profile - the million dollar question being what you write without sounding like a massive douche?! From mine you'll discover I live in Clapham, like seeing my friends and have been travelling. How very novel! When at my house for an almost daily pondering of "wtf are we doing?" Sugar M persuaded me to show her my profile and reacted with absolute horror.

"What is that photo about?!" she demanded, pointing at the main picture depicting me standing in a pretty mountain scene (New Zealand, actually!).

"I think it tells people that I'm outdoorsy and not too precious to go outside!" I said a bit huffily, desperately trying to defend my picture choice...and lets be honest, my assertion of myself as outdoorsy.

            With one eyebrow raised at my pathetic justification, she whipped the lap-top out of my hands and switched the offending mountain photo for a super close-up shot where I'm wearing more make up than the entire cast of TOWIE put together.

            "You'll get more messages if you look a bit more slutty!", she explained as she worked her dating magic. As she is officially the most successful of the SSC so far having one date under her belt, who was I to argue?  

Well, it worked. Within a day, I was sitting on my sofa reading about 30 messages (99% total weirdos) - from nice young lads in pink shirts, to scary looking boxers and men bedecked in baseball caps and all things Burberry. Beginning to fear I was treating the whole experience like some sort of correspondence club, where I only email rather than actually date any dapper young men, I panic-bought and asked two of them out for drinks. 

            My victims sounded like down to earth lads with a sense of humour. What more does a girl want?

Lets see what happens next - I think I'm rather getting the swing of this now!

Personality Twin

Is it wrong that I have found a practical mirror image of my personality online? And to make it worse, he’s admitted to all the things that I deliberately trimmed out of my profile for fear of sounding, well, take a look –St Martin’s in the Field is amazing, but it would never have made it onto my ‘Look at me, Look at me” details. Maybe I ought to reconsider…my profile that is, not the boy!

            Here’s a little (fairly heavily edited / abbreviated) flavour of my new life twin (ok, ok, I know I’m taking it too far really!):

“Likes: Music, singing, cricket, history, reading, museums, journeying to new parts of London, St Martin in the Fields, lazy Saturday mornings involving newspapers and hearty breakfasts, wine and cheese, good food, wine, cooking.

Dislikes: slow walkers, indecision, being at work after 7pm, engineering works, spending all holiday on the beach, the gym.

Ambitions: To continue to discover new nooks and crannies of London, to get to the Proms this year, to get Olympic tickets by hook or crook (or hopefully through the company ballot!) to polish off Jamie Oliver’s cook book.”

My family would hate him – that’s normally a sure sign that he’s ‘my type’.

You might be wondering how he came to my attention, and whether my stalking is finally starting to pay off. The answer is no. He ‘liked’ me. Maybe I should take back my constant slagging off of this function. I shall consider myself TOLD!

Biting the bullet

Right, enough is enough. I’ve moped about, hating pretty much everything about the idea of online dating for long enough – it’s time to bite the bullet, pay the subscription fee to open up the final part of my profile and actually get involved in this vile game.

            I had a slight wobble about doing this when I walked past the worlds most attractive solider on my way to work this morning and thought for a split second that maybe I ought to be one of those awful girls that sign up to Uniform Dating despite the fact that I often wear jeans to work, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.          

            So, I’ve paid my fee, finished my profile, and sent out three, yes three (check me out) messages to strangers. Admittedly, they all look pretty much the same (to be honest, they all look a bit like the solider I saw earlier), but regardless, I feel like I’ve jumped in now, and seeing as I’ve paid and everything there is surely only one thing for it – doing it whole heartedly. I hate wasting experiences, so I suppose that I might as well get my hands well and truly dirty and see how I do.

            That said, I do have to admit that I only signed up for one month rather than one of their bargain 3 or 6 month deals. Regardless of what happens, I am pretty sure this is going to last me through February and then I’ll be on my own again for Mad March. I love Mad March!

Boy shopping

I hate shopping nearly all of the time – every so often I will have a burst of enthusiasm that will lead me to spend a months wages in one afternoon, but that’s pretty much the best I can do, so I’m finding the whole online dating this a little weird.

            Aside from the fact that I am now spending my time scrolling through pictures of boys on the internet (something I have a little bit of experience in – thank you Facebook stalking skills), I can now ‘like’ them, which effectively files them away into a nice little shopping basket for me to refer back to and scan occasionally when I think that maybe it’s worth sending out some random generic email to hundreds of people all at one.

            Not loving this game so far chaps, I can’t lie to you!

Online success!

Sugar M was the first of us newbies to bite the bullet and kick start her online profile, and now she’s also taken the chequered flag at getting herself out on a date she found online, and she liked him. It’s a massive success story, well you know, within reason:

“Just thought I would update about my evening with JC. It actually went surprisingly well. He’s good-looking, really funny (lots of un-PC jokes) and we got on well. As most girls should on a first date, I got pretty shit faced, so who knows what I said to him and whether I will ever see / hear from him again – but it’s definitely notput me off internet dating! So much so, I’m going to do some more boy shopping this weekend…

I have to admit through, I have deleted my POF account – too many topless chavs!”

She’s not the first of us to be slightly put off from POF, where is seems the ability to create a free profile and generally be as creepy / stalky as you like makes for a slightly unpleasant date fishing experience. The Traveller is planning to delete her profile on there (just as soon as I find the time to write her My Single Friend intro – I’m on it, I promise!), and I am pretty sure I’m turning my one off too.

POF, you might have got Sugar M her first date, and The Sausage Hunter may swear by you, but you seem to creep the rest of us out quite a bit!