Yet another classic

How’s this for an opening line:

“Sweetheart you and I should totally make babies together!! They would be so hot ha!! Have you found the love of your life on here yet? If not, I’m up for the job!!”

Applicant DENIED.

Tits McGee Update 2

Having had a bit of a chat with one of the less-crazy-than-most boys I’ve met online, it turns out that we girls are not the only ones that get sent really crazy messages on these scary sites.

            Here’s a classic that might go some way to explain why this particular young lady was still single and having to look online:

“You have taken my heart,

Give it back!

But you can’t just give it back,

It belongs to you!

So the only way for me to get my ear back,

Is for you to belong to me!

Be mine, be mine,

Cause my heart is yours.”

Wowza, I hope he went and checked on the status of his pet bunny after he received that one!

Essay Grade B-

The Personality Twin is maybe not going to be the ideal match for me after all. Having had a little bit of back and forth with him via email, this Saturday morning I received a reply that was literally the length of two A4 pages of normal type. I opened the email as I was trying to run out the door, and it quickly became apparent that it was going to take a fair while to wade through the whole thing.

            From the opening line, I think you will understand what I mean:

“Thank goodness it’s the weekend! I hope your disaster of a week turns into a storm in a teacup or a damp squib…“

I can only say it was a good thing that I had a hour long train journey ahead of me, and I’d forgotten my book. Who needs Wuthering Heights for company when you’ve got dating emails to keep you entertained?

            It was most definitely the lengthiest email I have ever received from a boy (and I was seeing a guy that lived on the other side of the world for a while). It was actually more of an essay, one that if I had to grade I would probably give a B-. It was witty and fairly interesting, but he loses points for that fact that I had to concentrate so much on reading it.

            I think that, once I have built up the energy to pen and reply, I’m still going to stick with this one and see how it goes. It turns out that his choir has a concert at St Martin in the Fields in a few weeks, and he mentioned that if I was in the area, I ought to stop by.

Is it wrong that I really, really want to go, even if I don’t necessarily want to meet him? I can’t help but think that this would be the perfect opportunity to get a glimpse of him in real life without having to be in an awful face-to-face date environment. This way, if he’s nothing like the pictures, I can walk away and not even have had to spend the cost of a drink and a night of forced politeness, plus I get a pleasant night of classical music for my troubles. 

Tits McGee Update 1

Some girls have all the luck. Tell me, how can you not go weak at the knees from a classy introduction like this:

“Hi baby, what’s up? You look good. Am in jail. Send me your number. Xx”

Yeah, I’m definitely getting the pick of the litter here. 

Miss Fifi Update 2

Time to update on what has happened since I took the plunge and targeted all the reasonably normal sounding men on POF  (N=2, by the way, should you be curious!) and asked them out for drinks.

I write this wearily on the train to work after Date Number 1. We shall call him The Cute Geek - a good-looking, nice, shy lad who works in software engineering. Overall, I would term the whole date 'pleasant' - although I know as well as anybody, that really that adjective's only acceptable usage is when describing an afternoon spent with relatives.

            I faithfully followed my dating expert friend 'the Guru's' advice: I must stick to sipping gin and tonics as a way of combating my tendency of getting too tipsy (AKA smashed!) on first dates. Firstly, we had the typical chat about all the get-to-know you stuff. It was pretty clear to me from early on, that although he was a lovely guy and obviously somewhat shy and/or nervous (cue panic that I literally terrify men!), we had about as much chemistry together as the leads in a very poorly made rom-com.

So, what did we talk about? One word, SMARTPHONES (despite the fact I had confessed early on I was a complete technophobe). Who knew there was so much to discuss?  I began to wish I'd followed my usual routine of downing a bottle of shiraz...

Again though, I will reiterate, that despite the predominance of technological chat, it was a pleasant evening. Although there was a distinct lack of sparks, it definitely hasn't put me off the whole internet dating thing as he was very nice. As we were leaving and making our way awkwardly to the station (eeek, how's it going to end?!? We're both silently asking and fearing!), I sneaked a text to Miss P telling her I'd debrief her about the date in the morning.

When the cute geek and I arrived at the station, my auto-pilot response kicked in and I began desperately scanning the timetable screens for the next train home. Unfortunately, there was a train in three minutes, which I blame for the awkward "kiss and run" which followed. I literally pecked him on the cheek and without thinking, legged it to the opposite end of the concourse with a cursory "Byeeee, see you soon!" called after me.

As I slumped onto the train just in the nick of time, I received a text from Miss P in response to my promise I'd debrief her on the whole date debacle in the morning. It read: "I assume this means there was no "de-briefing" action tonight then? Ha!"

This led me to reflect on 3 things:


1. Worryingly, Miss P's text was the wittiest thing I'd heard all evening.


2.  Given my recent antics with other Oxbridge alumni, this comment was justified. Oh the shame!


3. I realised that I was actually quite out of breath from my sprint across the station. Poor guy, I literally had run away from him! 



Oh even more shame!

Breaking down targets

Right, I’ve done it – I’ve emailed my target of six boys for the month. It was a bit scary, but not as scary as the mountain of work that I was expected to do last night when I got home, so I thought I would embrace procrastination for a while and try to feel like I was being at least slightly constructive at the same time.

            Having spent a while working through the endless list of potential boys (pretty much ignoring all the site suggestions or who I might like and who would be a perfect match), I selected my six victims, and I have to admit, they all look pretty much exactly the same. Well, apart from the potentially gay Personality Twin, but I actually had things I wanted to ask him, so that’s different.

            I can tell you now, a fair few hours since my email flurry, four of the six messages have been read and two of the four have responded, one of them complaining about technology and asking me out for a drink. Interesting developments in the world of fairly hesitant online dating. It looks like I might have just caught my first proper fish. 

NEWS FLASH

Having actually branched out and finally paid to join Guardian Soulmates whilst also signing up to freebie OkCupid - just on the off chance that there might be more / better people lurking over there, I have realised that people can actually see how well liked you are and how you use your online account.

This takes stalking and responding to people to a whole new level because you are therefore forced to wear your popularity and politeness on your sleeve – as if it wasn’t bad enough that you have a photo dominated profile with ridiculous questions that are supposed to help the site match you to a suitable partner.

            On Guardian Soulmates you can see who’s looked at or liked your profile, and if you then choose to send them a message, a decision that will no doubt be influenced by the “match” score you receive on account of the types of food you like and whether you want to spend your retirement writing a novel or sailing the seven seas (this is one of their non-compulsory-but-strongly-advised multiple choice questions that they use to match you with other ‘potential soulmates’) then you can even see if the recipient has read the message. I can tell you, when that little pink envelope turns grey and there is no reply the next day, the temptation to send a follow up email to ask where abouts you went wrong in profile presentation and message construction is almost too much to rein in.

            As for OkCupid, that’s even worse – the calibre of question that they think you need to answer to be successfully matched astounded me – Do you agree or disagree that in the right light, nuclear war might be kind of exciting? Really? Nothing is quite so shaming as the little tabs that appear under your name when people are running generic profile searches. Each profile has a little box that either says: “Replies regularly”, “Replies selectively” or “No one has contacted them this week”. People can see when you’ve had absolutely no interest all week! Good God, this thing is horrific!