“It’s not you….it’s them”

When I was 14 I dumped a guy because my best friend ‘apparently’ didn’t like him. Being all grown up I would like to say my friends opinions no longer count – but I’d just be lying.

Not that I want to scare any potential dates or ‘boyfriends’ away – but my exes don’t have a great track record with my friends. My first boyfriend was too quiet, my second was too insecure and the third, well lets just say my friends thought he batted for the other side.

And whenever I mention one guy I dated a while ago it’s as though it brings back horrible memories for my friends. They shake their heads in despair, give a little shudder or sometimes even a loud grunt – they may as well just say to me, ‘Honestly, what were you thinking??’

When you break up with someone it’s never good to hear your friends say, “There was always something not quite right about him” – it’s that kick in the teeth which makes you wonder how long they were ‘pretending’ to like him. So when they go one step further – like breaking open the bubbly, dancing round their office in sheer delight or shouting from the roof tops, “Hallelujah she’s finally come to her senses,” it leaves you a little scared about how they’ll judge the next one.

So when I’m dating it makes it that little bit harder, not only do I have to fancy them and think they’re potential boyfriend material but I also have to weigh out the pros and cons that my friends will no doubt be assessing when it comes to that possible introduction. Will they like his hair? Will they think his dress sense is on the ‘slightly gay’ side? Will they ‘get’ his personality or just brush it off as arrogance? And most importantly, will he have that likeability factor which has been the downfall for so many of my other exes.

Of course I’ve judged friend’s boyfriends in the past, sometimes a little too quickly, and other times with good reason. When a friend was smitten with an ‘I love myself’ model I just had that feeling that he was no good. Turns out I was right – he was an ‘I love myself’ model who liked to sleep with other women, while my poor friend’s heart broke into a million pieces.

And it’s not just me who waits for their friend’s approval on their latest squeeze. I’ve had friends go from not sure to falling head-over-heels with their boyfriend after friends gave him the thumbs up. Similarly there has been many a broken heart when the Mr Maybes just didn’t quite live up to our expectations. And seriously isn’t this one of the reasons facebook was invented? Whenever I so much as mention a date my friends flock to facebook to find out if he’s ‘my type’.

So I’m wondering if I should just introduce any potential ‘boyfriends’ to my friends on say, the second date? It may scare the s**t out of them and make them wonder if they’ve stepped into a scene from How to Lose a guy in 10 days but if they’re a no-no then at least I can get rid of them before anyone gets emotionally attached.

My friends can give me a wink or a nod if he’s a winner or just direct me to the nearest exit if it’s a big thumbs down. Dates may think that it’s the start of something beautiful, but if they so much as attempt a bad joke or an offer of getting a round isn’t mentioned, then a third date may fail to materialise.

You would think that, “Sorry it’s not you…it’s them,” isn’t really a valid reason for getting rid of him, but at least you’re being honest, and who wants to run the risk of upsetting the best friend because their man has wonky eyebrows that gives her the creeps?

So before you trust your own judgement and think, ‘Well he can’t be that bad if I like him’, then think again – remember, it’s not only you who you’re dating for, it’s those lovely friends of yours too.

Play dates....

There’s always that disagreement between friends, which goes a bit like this: “Why would you date an immature idiot who thinks the Playstation and WWE is a form of entertainment?” while the rest of your friends come back with: “Well rather that than being stuck with an old fuddy duddy who doesn’t know his Coldplay from his Lily Allen?”

The same goes with my friends. Some of them associate older boyfriends with maturity, stability and potential husband material. But a few years ago two of my close friends were adamant that young-uns were the way forward: “They’re way more fun,” they would say. And they would gallantly go from one barely post-school date to another, always claiming that they wanted exactly the same from the relationship that their toy boy did. Until the day one of them gave them up for good.

Breaking up with at least three guys, in a row, all of which were at least two years her junior, she became bored of being the ‘teacher’ girlfriend. She would show them how grown up serious relationships work, but then dump them for not understanding, only for them to go on and find the one – living happily ever after.

Me? I’ve always been a fan of the older man. For some reason, unbeknown to me, I’ve always preferred dating older guys. When I was a mere 12 years old the guys in my year just weren’t good enough, if I couldn’t date someone in the year above then it just wasn’t worth dating. And I went on to date my fair share of ‘older boys’ – ones which weren’t as immature as the boys my age and somehow so much hotter.

My peak came when at 22 I dated a 36 year old. To begin with age didn’t matter – he made me laugh and we had fun together. But slowly those little things crept in that made the fun turn to fear – like how he had to google every band I mentioned, how he was the one taking the meeting while I fell asleep in the back, and of course there was that C word. At 22 I was unable to understand the meaning of commitment – never the less actually putting it into practice.

Of course I’ve run off track a few times – dating someone a year junior than me, for him to become the most insecure, jealous boyfriend of all time. But mostly, my dating history reads like a who’s who of Last of the Summer Wine.

So when a mere 21 year old stumbled into my existence and pleaded, with his northern banter, that I could write about dating a toy boy (well if I must!) – somehow, possibly through my drunkenness, I agreed to date him.

And so the date commenced one Friday evening not so long ago, and he very clearly helped me realise why I should stick to dating the ‘older man’.

To make matters worse I thought he was 22, not that it makes much difference – but anything more than a five year age gap, in my book, makes me feel like I’m babysitting rather than dating.

Now let me set the scene - I can take a bit of banter, an odd joke here and there. But too much and slowly I start to get irritated. The joke feels like an insult and I wonder if this person actually likes me at all. But like any young boy he was apparently insulting me ‘because’ he liked me – ‘go figure’.

It started with jokes about my age: “Well you’d be too old to know about that,” he said. Then there was my job that got a battering: “If you had a proper job, like the rest of us, then you’d know what hard work means.” He even went on to criticise my dating habits: “I bet you just serial date to get free drinks and meals out of these poor guys, don’t you?” he said, while I attempted to stifle a laugh.

At this point I could have been whisked back to my yonder years, uncomfortably placed in my school PE kit, while the young boys in my year attempted to make fun of me or hit me as they ran past me on to the playing field. At the time I was of course clueless about boys: “Why are they so mean to me?” I would ask my older sister, as she sniggered, knowing full well that they only did it because they had their eye on me.

And so the real low point of the date came when he not so much insinuated, but actually asked me, out of the blue, if I slept with all the dates I went on. Gob-smacked I tried to brush it off with a laugh and a witty comeback, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. Did all 21 year olds think that dates ended this way? Or did he merely think he was going to insult me in to bed?

I would like to say that the date got better, that his sarcasm faded with his nerves and he made me see that dating a younger man can trump the older one. But it didn’t and he didn’t, and sadly, I’m still yearning for that 'special someone' who knows the difference between playground flirting and something which resembles proper grown up dating.