Recyclable dating

I’m not going to lie, adjusting back to the London way of life has been pretty hard. And I’m not just talking about the weather.

As I touched down on Heathrow’s tarmac and shivered my way home I made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t date until the summer! Sorry, but who dates in the winter? I couldn’t possibly go from dates by the beach and overlooking Sydney Harbour (yes...I know I’m boasting) to dates without the tan I achingly spent a good 50 days perfecting and dates where my hair was so windswept that I looked like a hedgehog on steroids.

But who was I kidding? No dating for a dating enthusiast is bordering on just plain stupidness. So before I knew it I was logging on to a dating site - ‘What’s the harm in just having a quick surf?' (less Bondi, more laptop!).

Now, when someone says to me ‘Oh you’re doing THAT Internet dating thing are you?’ I give a little chuckle.

Because I’m not JUST doing that Internet dating thing, I’m actually a veteran of Internet dating. FACT. If someone could hold a world record for the amount of dating websites they’d signed up to I would probably be the clear winner. I know about winks, nudges, email rejections and the 60 year old men who think it’s acceptable to email 29 year olds and ask for a date. Stop it. I will never say yes.

And because I’ve been Internet dating since I was 12 (well it seems like it!) I think I’m actually now, shamefully, recycling the men on them.

I sent a cheeky email to a guy on a dating website the other day, only to be horrified when he emailed me back saying ‘Didn’t we date before?’ Of course not, you’re thinking. Out of the possible thousands of men on Internet dating sites, how could it humanly be possible for me to stumble across the same guy twice? Believe me it’s actually possible....so possible that I’m sure it will happen again!

And I nearly even dated a friends ‘now’ boyfriend. He recognised me from her facebook pictures recently as the girl that never emailed him back on a dating website. I’m just glad that we never actually dated – now that would be an awkward type of date recycling.

So have I got to the point, where I’ve been single for so long that I’ll just have to start recycling old dates? Should I ring up old boyfriends and tell them it’s their turn to date me again? ‘What, you have a girlfriend? Well as long as she doesn’t mind I suppose!’

And because of my veteran status, does this terrifyingly also mean my judgement about whether a potential date is ‘dateable’ or not is slightly misconstrued now?

I should have really known from his user name (it referred to food) but I was pretty annoyed when I turned up to a date recently and he didn’t quite match his profile photos. Call it what you like - false advertising, lying or just plain skillful with the old photoshop tool, but it doesn’t do you much good when you realise you have to spend the best part of the evening with a ‘different to the Internet’ version of your date.

I tried, I really did try to like him, but as his words came out all I could here was my head saying, ‘Excuse me Mr but I think you may have lied a little bit on your profile.’ And when I did hear him speak most of it was food orientated. Like the time he returned from New York and saved room in his case for a kilos worth of Peanut butter chocolate. And I can’t even describe the expression on his face when I told him that Antony Worrall Thompson cooked me lunch once. I could have fit a whole cheesecake in his open mouth (his favourite food apparently!), that was after he stopped dribbling mind.

I hate people who tell fibs, and fibbing in date land is, well, punishable by no second date I suppose! He was so far off a second date that even if cheesecake was involved I would have said no. Honestly.

And so my London dating resumes.....I suppose it wouldn’t have been a ‘Sarah’ date if it had actually gone well, but please can I stop running into former dates?! Or at this rate there will be no options left and date recycling will be the only way forward.

New years 'dating' resolutions

After meeting all manner of unsuitable men last year, my New Year’s resolution was simple – to embark on a man-detox!

But just like my amazing attempt at a New Year’s resolution in 2010 (to give up wine… I lasted three days) my plan ran into a little problem when a super hot guy grabbed me just after midnight and started kissing me! Well, honestly, if you’d seen him (and if he’d grabbed you) you would have understood…

So after a marathon kissing session with said super hot guy and getting over the hangover from hell (hey, it’s not every day a London girl gets to welcome a new decade in Sydney) I decided to forget about the detox and instead try my luck at speed dating.

Now, I don’t have a great track record when it comes to speed dating. My first attempt was thwarted by my admittedly sky-high expectations. Under no circumstances should you go speed dating if you’ve recently been dumped, you’re pining for another man or you’re desperate to find The One.

Unfortunately, the first time I went speed dating, I had been suffering from all of the above. There had been a sheer lack of men in my life since I’d been dumped a few months previously and dating 15 men in one night sounded like the sort of challenge which would brighten up my love life.

Imagine my disappointment, then, when I turned up. I’d expected tall, dark and handsome; I got short, bald and boring. And I was left emotionally drained after not even stumbling across Mr Right-Now.

My second encounter wasn’t any better. I’d been dragged there kicking and screaming and before the dating had even commenced, a fellow dater accidentally spilled her entire martini on my dress. It didn’t dawn on me until afterwards that she may have actually been trying to cut out the competition. That’s how intense speed dating can be.

But I was determined to give speed dating another try – with an open mind. Oh it also helped that it was speed dating whilst wine tasting – ‘if in doubt drink wine’ I always say!!

As luck would have it, the first guy I “dated” was a pilot; things were looking good already. So after about 15 mini dates, some quite hot men, some quite geeky men and enough good wine to quell my nerves, I realised I was actually having fun.

And I realised that speed dating – in fact, all types of dating - in Sydney is somewhat different to London. Nobody has expectations. It’s more like going on a ride in Disneyland than a serious game of chess (that is, there are no winners or losers). And most importantly, the men are much hotter. Especially the pilot...with whom I exchanged numbers!

So what have we learnt here? New Year’s resolutions never last. Date detoxing is a great idea if you want to meet a hot man. And speed dating + Sydney equals lots of fun and possibly a date or two.

Happy New Year!

First published on: http://www.cosmopolitan.com.au/my_new_years_dating_resolution.htm

First impressions.....

As I arrived in Sydney I beamed with excitement; I think I half expected Aussie surfer guys to be walking round the airport, with surfboards and washboard stomachs, waiting with a big plaque welcoming me with ‘Hi Sarah’.

You can imagine my dissapointment, then, when the first group of guys I met were English. Damn, I’d come over here to avoid them, not be surrounded by them. Plus, at 18, they were just a little bit too young for me. I’ve been there with toyboys and it didn’t exactly turn out pretty!

And as the first week passed and I bumped into Irish, American and all manner of men who definitely weren’t Australian, I became increasingly disappointed. Surely I could have met these guys down at my local pub in London.

That is until I bumped into Aussie Paul* in a club a couple of Saturdays ago. I’d been told that Australian men were quite shy and wouldn’t approach me, but Paul was either a rare breed or had just had one too many beers, because one minute I was with my girlfriends on the dance floor, the next he’d dragged me off to a quiet spot to chat. By chatting I obviously mean kissing**. But I wasn’t so sure about this guy: he was lovely, but after a few half-hearted texts my first Aussie encounter fell flat on its face.

So when another Aussie guy, Ben*, offered to buy me a drink at my new local I thought I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, I probably should have listened to my flatmate when she told me he was a cocky twat***, but I really saw no reason not to say yes when he asked me out for dinner the following night...

The date didn’t start too well when he asked if he could bring a friend along. Um, really? In England, friends don’t usually tag along on dates! I’m not sure if it was my confused look or the “Err, NO!” which made him realise it was a bad idea.

And after a couple of drinks I wasn’t really getting his Australian sense of humour (or maybe you just weren’t that funny Ben - sorry!) With that and his love of the pokies (yep, while we were on the date) I wondered what I’d got myself into.

The last straw came when I dared to decline his next date invitation, because I really was too busy. He sulked like a 4 year-old! So have I just picked the wrong Aussie men so far, or are they all like this? Let’s hope not!

*All names have been changed
**Or pashing, as you Aussies call it
*** Or complete dickhead, as you Aussies call them

As published on http://www.cosmopolitan.com.au/first_impressionsblogdating.htm