‘Don’t worry…you’ll be single forever’

Sometimes my girlfriends are just too nice when it comes to my dating habits. ‘He definitely likes you, maybe he’s just busy.’ ‘He doesn’t deserve you anyway, you’re far too good for him,’ ‘don’t worry you’ll find someone great one day - and it will be worth the wait’.

And of course that’s what you need to hear – most of the time.

But it comes as some sort of light relief when my male friends just tell me how it is. “Your ex was gay wasn’t he? Well he definitely cheated on you – why do you think he broke up with you?”

One male friend even laughed when I told him about my latest break-up. But hang on a minute I was really heartbroken. Cue more laughter from male mate showing he really didn’t care – and after a while I was laughing along with him too.

It’s no secret that a man came up with the concept for the book 'He’s just not that into you' – and staring honesty in the face can sometimes be a good thing.

Thanks to these self help dating books some of us girls have managed to claw on to a bit of common sense when it comes to dating. But even the cleverest among us will still fall for a wrong-un now and again and some of our girlfriends will encourage us to give them the benefit of the doubt. So our male mates become the Simon Cowells of reasoning – "YOU’RE A LOSER – he would have phoned you if he was interested" or "Come on - do you really think you’re girlfriend material? Wake up - he was using you!"

Men don’t care about hurting your feelings, after all they don’t go around being careful not to tread on their boy mates toes, they merely say – “Don’t worry mate she’s probably shagging some other guy by now, let’s have a beer.” Then they all get wasted in an attempt to make him forget.

Don’t get me wrong I love putting the world to rights with my girlie friends, over a cocktail or two. Every sip makes you feel more empowered and with that encouragement from your friends by the end of the night you’re thinking ‘Yes, I’m so much better off without him’.

But I just can’t get enough of that boy mate banter too. And if my male friends are anything to go by then I’m sure I’ll get my fix quite regularly. Because being one of the only singles among my group of friends they seem to think it’s their duty to remind me of this every ten seconds.

“Don’t worry Sarah we’ve got you your very own special single chair,” one of my friend’s boyfriends joked, as I planned to spend the night with my coupled up friends.

“Marriage – what? You’ll never find a man – you’ll be the old lady with the cats,” another male friend ever so nicely told me.

And they thought all their Christmases had come at once a few weeks ago when an ex date turned up at the same bar as us – with another girl in tow. Their little faces lit up as they realised the predicament I faced - “Why don’t you go and talk to him?” they egged me on as I squirmed my way into a hole never wanting to resurface again.

Obviously there comes a point when the boys can go overboard (they are men after all) but most of the time their harmless banter (or harsh advice!) is just a way of bringing me down to earth with a ‘big’ bump. Serial dating my way through single life, I suppose, gives me hope that one day I may find the man of my dreams – until of course they remind me that I’ll be single forever and probably still ‘attempting’ to date when I’m old and grey – yeah thanks for that guys.

Just courting....?

Talking to someone about your dating history and hopes for your future love life is like talking to a shrink and Cilla Black all rolled into one. But that’s what I found myself doing one evening. After getting bored and becoming quite exhausted by today’s conventional ways of trying to find dates I decided to put my quest for the ‘one’ into the hands of professionals – a dating agency.

Now I’ve never actually been on a blind date, unless being blind folded, escorted into a room and made to flirt with two guys in front of a camera crew counts. Before you start to wonder I hadn’t made the wrong turn on a night out and ended up in some adult movie - I had, of my own free will, decided to participate in an audition for a TV dating show. But that’s another blog……

So rocking up to a date that Just courting had set up for me was a new experience. It was technically a blind date because after speaking to the lovely Kate (my matchmaker) about what I was looking for in a guy, it was down to her to pick me a winner, which I imagine must be a hard job when there are millions of singletons out there looking for totally different things. All I knew was his name and what he did – but apart from that I had no clue and was hoping that she had been listening when I said my preference was more Jude Law than Mr Bore.

So my obvious main worries were that he wouldn’t be my type, would have no sense of humour and the night would be as much fun as spending a night with your coupled up friends. But she had done me proud – he was cute and the conversation flowed just like the wine did.

Handy that, as we were wine tasting that night, which was quite refreshing and great to be doing something different instead of just chatting over a couple of drinks. Because sometimes you need something more on a first date - a conversation starter or something to talk about when the conversation dries up - so I jumped at the chance of doing something else.

So while learning the basics of how to taste wine (apparently gurgling is best - but not so attractive on a first date) I found out that he’d been wine tasting before but been so drunk he couldn’t remember it, that he’d had a terrible blind date once (I was hoping this wasn’t a hint!) and gradually found out that my love of wine drinking was mutual.

But as the night went on I knew he was more mate material than second date material. Which was a shame as after the wine tasting (was I possibly a bit tipsy now?) I decided he was a cross between Steve Jones and Jonathan Rhys Myers, and I fancy those two guys so why couldn’t I fancy him?

Obviously it comes down to that inevitable ‘spark’ - which this date had failed to ignite. Whether it’s that special gaze, a shared interest in music or something far cheesier, there has to be that moment when you both realise that you could possibly have something special. Either that or they need to be an amazing kisser.

But on a serious note, I enjoyed my first blind date. It was slightly unnerving not knowing who I’d be spending my Friday evening with – it’s not every day you tell your friends you’re spending the evening with a complete stranger. So as blind dates go I think it was a success, well apart from the fact that I won’t be seeing him again of course. But it’s renewed my faith in blind dates and dating agencies, especially after all the horror stories my friends ever so kindly shared with me….. before my date!

The men you 'try' to avoid

There’s the guy that totally wouldn’t then there’s the guy, at a drop of a hat, in a beat of a second, would. And the guy that cheats is the guy you’ll never be able to settle down with, however hard you try.

And as one of these ‘drop of a hat, in a beat of a second’ guys turned up last weekend I ended up being the ‘other woman’. Not that I knew this of course, he had cleverly removed all evidence, the first being lack of a girlfriend present and the second how he refrained to mention any knowledge of her existence in our three hour conversation, and eventual kiss. It was only when I mentioned seeing him with a girlfriend that he admitted to still being with her.

So is it the effects of alcohol, plain greediness or just his downstairs department talking when a guy cheats? My man’s excuse was that he liked me before he met his girlfriend, so of course it didn’t count. Thankfully I’m not foolish enough to fall for that – but it had in fact been true. About nine months previously when I had just started dating my ex he had chased me out of a bar asking if he could take me out for a drink, without I’m sure, even knowing my name. Embarrassingly for him, I turned him down – in front of one of his mates. So when I bumped into him last week it was inevitable that something was going to happen.

But whenever I mentioned him to friends it was obvious that his playboy reputation had preceded him, the reaction I got even before anything had happened between us was – ‘he’s so not boyfriend material’ or ‘he’s a bit of a player – don’t expect to get anything serious from him.’ So with guys like this, it always make me wonder how they get a girlfriend in the first place? Maybe they like the idea of having a girlfriend, but they can never be a one woman man. And the girlfriend must either know this and be doing exactly the same to them or think that she can somehow tame his wicked ways.

When you’re in a relationship you wonder why girls attempt to date players, arrogant types or just total w**kers. When you’re single you still wonder, but you sort of understand too. They start off as a bit of fun, someone to make you forget about a messy last relationship or the previous idiot you dated, then all of a sudden you’re hooked by the attention, or sometimes lack of, that they’re giving you.

So are us single girls just too distracted by looks, charm, arrogance and maybe a bit of bubbly when it comes to these type of guys?

In my case it was probably all of these ingredients. My ex was so prim and proper compared to Mr ‘I have a girlfriend, but forgot to mention it’ that I suppose I just welcomed the change. Owning the bar that we were drinking in probably helped as well, along with the obvious arrogance and bubbly that came with it.

So alcohol and these type of guys never really mix, especially bubbly, as it just blurs our vision, and possible sense, turning us from the – ‘talk to the hand player’ sensible gal we normally are, into the party girl who is falling for every trick in the book.

And I’m not going to lie…looks help, I’ll admit that I have readily fallen for guys just because they’re drop dead gorgeous – I think my last relationship was actually based 90% around looks, (shallow – moi?) so no wonder it was doomed from the outset.

It would be nice to think we don’t fall for charm in a guy, but most of us do. Unless you have a rare ability to spot one from a mile off then you’re probably going to come across at least one in your lifetime. Whether you succeed in making them more than just a blip on your dating radar is probably another thing, as once the chase is officially lost then they’re quickly onto their next victim.

But it doesn’t matter if they’re a player, arrogant or just drop dead gorgeous it never excuses a guy from cheating on their girlfriend. Or us in fact, for letting it happen. Hopefully I get a free pass because I was oblivious to the truth. But then again – with his reputation maybe I should have known the outcome.

So the lesson I’ve learnt from Mr ‘I have a girlfriend, but forgot to mention it’ – is never assume anything. He may look unattached, he may act unattached, but under all that charm, arrogance and the booze he’s throwing down your neck, the truth is there somewhere. ‘Do you have a girlfriend’ is five words which I think I will be using more often.

Dating...for dating's sake....

As I wait for yet another online date to show up I’m faced with the same thought that always crosses my mind at this point ‘what the hell am I doing?’ I’m doubting my ability to remember what he looks like, if he was even my type in the first place, what we had in common and wondering how long I should wait before I can officially leg it home and pretend he was a no show.

This is, of course, a common case of first night nerves. And it’s not a rarity – as I wait for my knight in shining armour to come and sweep me off my feet and into a world where single isn’t my middle name, I regularly feel as though I’ve dipped my feet into a freezer.

It’s not the actual date I’m scared of. After all I’ve been on enough of them to know the protocol, but it’s what I’m anticipating. What if Mr ‘knight in shining armour’ is a stone heavier than he admitted, a foot shorter, or worse – older than my dad? So you have to sympathise with me when I mentally freak out if men, who don’t quite fit my date’s description, come within 10 metres of me. My thoughts usually constitute of the following – “What? No, no - is that him? It can’t be…but…no, oh, phew…of course I didn’t think that was him,” usually repeated at least ten times before my date makes an appearance.

And depending on what kind of day I’ve had I’m either hoping beyond hope that this is him, the one I’ve been waiting for - the man of my dreams, or that he’s just Mr. Flash in the Pan, so I can make a quick escape and get home in time for Grey’s Anatomy to start.

In the fickle world of online dating sometimes I’ve made my mind up about the date before I have even set eyes on him. And if it’s a no go, which quite regularly it is, it poses the question – why am I meeting up with him in the first place? Maybe I am just setting myself up for the possible or inevitable rejection that will follow? Or am I just dating for dating’s sake?

When you’re single you feel that if you’re not dating, then you’re just not trying. It’s the whole ‘you’ve got to be in it to win it’ thing – what if one of my potential no-go’s turns out to be the man I’m destined to live a long and happy life with? How can you ever tell from a dodgy photo, a few emails and some similar hobbies whether a) you’ll fancy them, b) there’ll be any sort of chemistry between you, or c) whether they’re as boring as your first primary school teacher was? So missing out on a date is not advisable – unless you’re happy being in a loveless, boring relationship??

But it probably doesn’t help that I’m picky. When I met up with a guy called Sam recently I knew that I could never date someone so tall that even my sky scraper heels didn’t make a difference. Then there was Richard, who looked great in his photos, but reminded me far too much of one of my gay friends. Homosexuality and boyfriend material just don’t go together very well. Chris was too honest, Ed lived with his parents??! And Mr 'I have a girlfriend, but forgot to mention it' – well that’s a whole other blog.

Then there are the ones that you thought went so well that you’re convinced there'll definitely be dates two and three. But your daydreams come to a grinding halt before you’ve even planned the bridesmaids’ dresses, because…wait for it….he’s just not that into you! When you like them your phone suddenly becomes the most important thing in your life and you’re willing it, to just, please, please send you any form of communication from them. So when it doesn’t come after the first hour, day or week – you could say rejection, disappointment and failure all spring to mind.

But that’s the thing with online dating, if at first you don’t succeed, you can try, try again. As long as you can stump up the cash to keep your online dating profile running then you could be dating a handful of men every week.

As for the first night nerves and rejection, I suppose it all gets easier the more dates you go on. Some say that dating can be soul destroying – but it’s just like life, it has its ups and its downs, and usually the ups are worth waiting for when they finally come around.

So I’m all up for dating, for dating’s sake – I may not find a knight in shining armour to take me to a land where couples roam and lonely chairs are forbidden, but at least I’m out there looking for someone who may just fit the bill.

My ‘Bridget Jones’ existence

After a particularly bad speed dating incident with a friend of mine, I left feeling fairly deflated and through the (obviously one too many!) wine I wailed at the top of my voice ‘Oh my god I’ll never find the one’. My friend reminded me that I had only in fact been single for two months and if anything it was her turn next to find a possible Mr Right. So maybe I was over reacting, but why, when we get to a certain age, do we feel like the clock is ticking to find the one?

I keep trying to reassure myself that now is the time to concentrate on me, my career and anything else I have severely neglected over the past 10 years because men have got in the way, but somewhere in that stupid head of mine I seem to think that I need a man to make me happy.

And I know I’m not alone in my thinking - but why? Is it to prove to exes that we’ve moved on – like they have? And even if we do find someone else it’s not as though we’re going to appear at their front door with a speakerphone saying ‘ner, ner, ner ner, ner I’ve got a new boyfriend’, he’s cuter, smarter and nicer than you – so there!’ Then stamp on their foot and run away, because that would of course just be plain childish.

Or is it purely just to fit in with the status quo? When you’re nearing thirty you’ve surpassed those ‘lets have fun’ years and most of your friends are contemplating marriage and babies. Being the single one is like a zebra attempting to fit in with a herd of goats – the likelihood of standing out is quite probable.

Of course your now attached friends have all been there, worn the t-shirt and have felt like a spare part once in a while, but when I was newly single ALL my friends seemed to be happily, smoochly and deliriously in love. They dragged me out and promised that it wouldn’t be coupley, but of course I found myself speaking to a bunch of star crossed lovers by the end of the night - in fact I think I even heard the lonely chair next to me make a whimper or two.

And it’s not just my friends that I have to keep up with - as I stalk old university friends, school friends and work colleagues it dawns on me that half of them are now married, engaged or having sleepless nights because the little one has arrived. I even bumped into an old school friend the other day who said: ‘So have you had any kids or got married since I last saw you?’ – as I muttered under my breath that I was newly single she reeled off how she ‘can’t believe how quickly her young uns are growing up’. Her kids will probably be Mum’s before mine are even a twinkle in their daddy’s eye – that’s if I ever find him!

So did I miss the boat somewhere which was heading to grown up land? Or did I just fall off and wash up on single island? And if it’s as hard to escape from as the one on Lost I think I’m a bit screwed!

It’s not like I want any of that stuff yet. Having to look after a child scares the living daylights out of me, and how, when I feel like a teenager still can I possibly even fathom the thought of getting married? But when everyone else is doing it you sort of feel left out, it’s like being the only one who doesn’t go on that school trip – frankly it’s just not fair and you hate your parents for being so mean.

And yes now I mention them, parents don’t help keep the worrying at bay either. My Mum is quite frequently heard moaning, ‘When am I going to be a grandma god damn it?’ and conversations like how I should start considering freezing my eggs and which fascinator she’ll wear at my wedding aren’t a rarity.

I suppose it’s the whole ‘Bridget Jones generation’ – soon I’ll be singing at the top of my voice “all by myself, don’t wanna be all by myself anymore…” and accidentally making blue soup – but being single after a certain age is still frowned upon. It’s as though people think that to be whole you should be part of a pair and it’s probably drummed into us round about the same time we learn how to make a pineapple upside down cake and the ins and outs of algebra.

Maybe I’ll stop the clock for a while and just enjoy the view. After all I’ve got plenty of time to spend with the ‘one’ when I’m old and grey – maybe its just time to have some fun…… right?

Bumping into the past

When you date someone, and it all goes a bit haywire, you kind of hope that they’ll get sucked into a vortex, never to be seen again. Or you just wish them bad dating luck and hope their next girlfriend cheats on them!

So when a former date of mine walked into the same bar as me the other week, with another girl, three days after our date, my reaction was of course ‘What the hell???!’ – well that and a sprinkling of embarrassment mixed in for good measure. It’s not that I liked him, in fact there was no chemistry between us – but bumping into anyone who has sort of rejected you is slightly uncomfortable.

Unfortunately for me my ex works at my gym so bumping into him mid-sweat session, when I’m ultimately looking my worst, has become a bit of a habit. I should have known this would be inevitable when I met him there in the first place. But when love comes a knocking we stupidly think it’s a good idea to date a work colleague, your best friends brother or any other sort of inappropriate dating material. Of course sometimes it works out, but most of the time it’s just a road traffic accident waiting to happen.

When you see an ex you want to be looking your very best. You spend hours coming up with scenarios where you’ll just happen to bump into them. You want it to be when you’re wearing that new figure hugging dress or you’ve just come back from your holiday – all tanned and looking radiant, and of course they’ll wonder why the hell they dumped you in the first place. But very rarely does it happen. The reality is you’ll bump into them when you’re having a bad hair day, you’ve just been caught in a downpour or when you’ve drunk one too many tequilas and just projectile vomited over your mates shoes.

A friend of mine dated, then got dumped, by a guy who worked at one of our favourite bars. For ages she would beg us not to go there as bumping into him was probably as much of a highlight of the night as being asked for ID ever is. When we finally badgered her into it, it would have been nice to be discreet about his obvious appearance, but in my drunken haze of course I mentally scarred her by shouting out his name, attempting to call him over for a chat and generally being the worst ever friend I could be.

I suppose that’s one good thing about long distance relationships, if you want to, you can get away with never having to lay eyes on your ex again. Okay so maybe you don’t actually see them when you’re together, but at least you’ll never have that fear of a quick trip to the shops ending in an embarrassing reconciliation when you, or worse they, have their new love interest in tow.

Of course there are situations where couples still have to see each other after a break-up, whether they like it or not. Owning any of the following together, a house, a child, a pet or mutual friends – pretty much means you’ll have to see their face, albeit one you want to smash in, for the foreseeable future. Cue the awkward, irrational or needy ex who just can’t be professional about such matters – honestly!

I suppose the solution for the above is simple – we merely just have to uproot our lives, move across the world, find new friends and most importantly find a new bloody gym. Then again, you’ll probably still manage to find them on facebook.

How quick is too quick? Moving in and moving on…

A friend of mine recently told me how her and her boyfriend were moving in together after dating for barely more than a few months….I thought she was joking. But she was dead serious.

Had I missed something - was it a life or death situation? Or had I side-stepped that trend where couples decided to share bathrooms before they had even had their first kiss?

So how quick is too quick? ‘You just know when it’s right,’ my sister said, who has just happily started to co-habit with her boyfriend of a year and a half. ‘Whether it’s a right after a year or just a month after you first started dating, it’s different for everyone.’

But personally I don’t see what the rush is, unless you’re about to become homeless or you have your eyes on marriage in the foreseeable months then why the hell would you want to put up with a man in your space?

Maybe that’s a typical single girls reaction, but will a man ever let you fall asleep watching Sex and the City, appreciate your shoe/magazine/bag (delete as appropriate) collection or understand why you eat cold pizza, a handful of haribo or a mars bar for breakfast?

I suppose for a girl who was lucky to even get a share of her exes bed I may be slightly sceptical, but usually in my experience anything that is going too fast usually comes to a grinding halt before it reaches its destination.

And it’s not like I haven’t been there. When I was a naive 22-year-old I couldn’t wait to move in with my boyfriend – I was imagining sex on tap, romantic evening meals and cosying up in front of the telly. Instead I got ‘wait a minute, I’m just going to finish this level on the playstation’, arguments about the washing up and my two pet hates – cold tea bags in the sink (why couldn’t he put them in the bin??) and WET towels on the bed!

I quickly tired of his behaviour, which was frankly nothing like I had seen in the movies and moved out sharpish, and it left me with a bitter feeling that moving in with a boyfriend would mean goodbye to the happy, spontaneous relationship you once had and hello to being their mother, cook and cleaner all rolled into one.

And is moving on as easy to do as moving in with someone? My ex seems to think so. Two weeks after our break up he had declared his single status on facebook and deleted all existence of me, after a month he was happily flirting with members of the opposite sex, and two months later he was claiming, ever so loudly (are you sure New York heard you?) via his facebook status that he was in a new relationship.

Yes I know, it means I’m facebook stalking him (doesn’t everyone do it?) and I’m probably a hypocrite – after breaking up with my ex before my ex I was happily flirting with men just weeks after we broke up and my online dating profile wasn’t far behind that – but of course it’s different when its you.

So for how long should we be holding on to the past? I suppose if we’re still dreaming up scenarios of them begging for us back – 6 months, or even a year after they dumped us it’s maybe going to be a problem, and our friends will probably commit us to some sort of insane asylum if we keep dropping their name into ‘every’ conversation months after he’s said goodbye.

But when they’ve got rid of you it’s always harder, it’s that personal rejection. And when you see them happily skipping along with someone else the seething fangs, bulging eyes and feelings of jealousy, which you thought were safely hidden away, find their way back to the surface again – and there we are right back to square one.

I’m getting there. The ‘him wanting me back’ daydreams are closing in on less than one a week. His number has nearly vanished from my memory. And the facebook stalking…yeh that’s probably not going to stop - isn’t that what is was invented for?! But date number four is underway – he’s cute, not too tall and seems to have a good sense of humour and so…I can’t still be that hung up on Mr Perfect.