'He was abducted by aliens' and other reasons why he didn’t call

I know I shouldn’t admit it, but when I’m waiting for a guy to text me about how well that first date, encounter or snog was for him – it’s a pretty painful experience. It’s like waiting for home time on a Friday or Santa to turn up when you're a kid – it’s either going to be a painfully slow process, or, however much you wait, it just isn’t going to happen!

And the annoying part of it all is that my Mum seems to have some sort of psychic ability, and knows when I’m waiting for a guy to text me. Just at that pivotal point where I’ve lost all hope and I’m on the verge of smashing my phone into a million little pieces, my phone beeps like a proud owner of a new boyfriend. Only to disappoint me with my Mum’s gabble about something unimportant like new shoes. Gah!

I’m not stupid, I know how it works, if a guy doesn’t call, or even just text you back, blah, blah, blah – then he’s probably just not that into me. I’ve made the excuses, I’ve trawled through the elaborate ideas in my head. But I really did think this situation was different, i.e – I was in control. He was young, eager and literally tripping over himself to see me.

So when my new toyboy stood me up last week, with no god damn awful excuse text as to why, I couldn’t be bothered with analysing it – yes his friends may have spooked him with stories of older women wanting commitment, or maybe he met up with his ex and they reconciled their differences, and I could even stretch to the explanation that he lost his phone, dropped it in the toilet or a dog ate it! But I may as well just rely on the good old excuse that he’s been abducted by aliens – because let’s be honest it’s probably as viable as any other explanation.

Or if I was to listen to a certain, sympathetic, male friend I could look at the harsh reality of the situation, that he just didn’t like me.

But that’s just plain old, mean rejection rearing his ugly head – and who wants to admit to that? I would rather think that the impossible has happened – some green dudes from a planet far, far away scooped him up (just before he was about to text me, obviously!) and are doing weird tests on him at this very moment, instead of the reality that he decided he didn’t fancy me anymore! Who wouldn’t?

But before you sigh and say, oh don’t worry Mr Right is out there for you somewhere, I would like to beg to differ! He’s not – he’s with his hot new girlfriend, married with kids or has a boyfriend. And it’s not like I’m not looking. But my dating history this year seems to have gone from one unsuitable encounter to the next. Apart from the unsuccessful toy boy encounter I just seem to be treading in already taken territory.

I got excited the other day when a friend of mine turned up to meet me and told me she’d found my perfect man on the coach down to London. Apparently he was gorgeous, tall, had a lovely personality and he seemed interested in me. The only problem was convincing his 'boyfriend' that dating me would be a good idea!

Then there was the time when I got the guts up to approach a table full of eight men – surely one of them must be single, I thought, as I pushed any doubts to the back of my head and used a cheeky one liner to ask them if I could join them. Flabbergasted they quickly shuffled up and banter commenced. It was all going swimmingly until I asked where they knew each other from, I nearly choked on my wine when one of them piped up with “From antenatal class,” I realised they weren’t kidding when they pulled out pictures of their kids and flashed wedding rings at me. I definitely hadn’t seen that one coming.

I think my problem is that I give guys too much credit – ‘oh you didn’t phone me for five days because you died, then miraculously came back to life, yeh okay I’ll go out with you this Friday then.’ And ‘why are you snogging me round the corner from all your friends? Oh you’re just shy, nothing to do with the fact that you have a girlfriend then? No, oh okay then that’s cool!’

Maybe I should be a little harsher on men in the future, and look out for those tell-tale signs that I have no hope - like wedding rings, baby prams and boyfriends lurking at the sidelines. But of course if it all goes horribly wrong again and he fails to even acknowledge my existence with a polite ‘rejection’ text, at least I have two things to look forward to: my Mum, ever so lovingly filling up my inbox with texts about reality shows and family get togethers and of course the ultimate one - knowing that my dating disasters are all gathered in the same place – with little green men on Mars!