Men I really wish I hadn’t snogged....

I must just love embarrassing myself, because when it comes to men I’m always getting myself into sticky situations. Yep I’m the girl who would attempt to snog her male friend while drunk, who can’t visit some of her local pubs because, well, ‘he’ works there and goes bright red every time her friend mentions 'that' work colleague. I do stuff without thinking and have to deal with the consequences later – usually ending with awkward moments, silences and wishing I really hadn’t gone there.

Honestly, if there was a prize for the ‘biggest date fuck ups’ I’d probably be the esteemed winner. I just can’t seem to help myself. If I actually worked in an office I would probably be ‘that’ girl who everyone talked about. The girl that made a tit out of herself at the Christmas party - snogged the geeky virgin and made photocopies of things she shouldn’t have.

Maybe I feel like I’m missing out somehow, so to almost make up for it the stupidity has crept into my dating life. In the last few months not only have I chatted up a famous singers fiancé, scared a guy off by kiss and telling about our date via twitter, but also chased men that really just weren’t that into me.

And when it comes to picking the wrong men I would definitely get an A* for effort. At the time you think he's a great idea – he’s hot, you’ve had some liquid confidence and the next thing you know you’re snogging like there’s no tomorrow – in front of everyone. Except there is a tomorrow and you’d forgotten that everyone was there, until that is you turn up at (delete as appropriate) work/gym class/friends house.

You know how people say: ‘oh she’ll learn,’ – well they obviously weren’t referring to me. In my brief dating life I’ve dated or snogged a collection of unsuitable men, including two bosses, a guy that worked at my gym, an array of bar men and way too many friends of friends. And I know that if I met a hot guy tomorrow, who happened to be my best friend's brother, worked at my local pub and hung out at my gym I wouldn’t think twice about chatting him up!

And if only to prove this point last weekend I decided to chat up an instructor for a fitness class I go to. At no point did I stop and think ‘Oh this might be slightly awkward next time I go to class.’ Nope, I just carried on my merry way, accepting more booze from him while I fought off other girls for his attention. Of course the evening ended in a very drunken snog. But when I woke up the next day and sense returned I seriously wondered if cancelling my membership was a good idea!

Looking back maybe I was doomed from the start! When I was a mere 18 years old I drunkenly snogged a guy, but not any guy – he was my university flat mate, and it was ONLY the first night of fresher’s week! I was so embarrassed about it I could barely make it out of my room without going a ‘London bus’ shade of red and our other flat mates teasing me about how I wanted to be his girlfriend. The teasing and embarrassment probably would have lasted all year if I hadn’t managed to win him over as my boyfriend.

You’d think that cringe worthy moment would have taught me to watch what I drink and only approach men who had no connection to anything remotely fitness, work or friend orientated – but no - I’m obviously the kind of girl who has to learn by her mistakes – ALL of them.

So I was obviously just learning when I decided that dating my boss last year was a good idea. That awkward moment - when I had to see him at work, knowing that just two weeks previously he had told me, in a ‘he’s just not that into me’ moment, that he was just too busy to see me – was just a test of my character, huh?

And you think after one awful incident with a local bar man I would have thought twice about dating another one. But I just couldn’t help myself – his blonde hair and baby blue eyes just won me over. It’s a shame then that date number two never materialised. I now have to avoid both bars like the plague, much to the annoyance of my friends.

Maybe I’m just never really going to learn – even if my friends do ever so kindly try and physically drag me away from my latest victim! After all I’m sure it’s not just me who can’t visit her local pub anymore and has to be cautious every time she so much as pops her head into the gym......oh it is? DAMN!

My online quest.....to find the ‘one’

I think I’m a little obsessed with online dating. And it’s weird because I don’t even really like it that much. But I find myself secretly logging on every other hour to see how many people have viewed me or to check if Mr ‘online’ Right has emailed me back yet.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with online man hunting. I can go for months without the need to hide behind a computer, in my safe little bubble – but then almost out of nowhere the urge to find out what cyber men have to offer strikes again.

So it didn’t surprise me when last month, while slightly intoxicated, (and thinking it was yet again a good idea) I logged on again. And I was hoping this time would be different – that I wouldn’t get the creepy 44 year olds winking at me, have long, drawn out emails sent to me or be ambushed by men who had no profile picture and thought it was okay to ask me out in the first email. But of course it was no different – stalkers and weirdos obviously see me coming.

And now I’m worried that my addiction will spill over into real life – will my facebook and twitter account be deprived because I’m talking to men who go by the names of – ‘I am the one and only’ ‘me again’ (I can just see this one turning up on my doorstep claiming it’s just ‘me again’) or ‘rusty bin 35’ - I really hope not!

But seriously, internet dating can be a bit rubbish. Especially when men think it’s acceptable to have dating profiles which start with.... ‘I hate writing this stuff and I really don’t know what to put here.....’ errr something a bit more interesting than that please – it’s as though they’re thinking out loud but pressed ‘enter’ by accident.

And of course the cost of true love never comes cheap. Whoever cottoned on to the idea of preying on singles, looking for Mr or Miss Right was a very clever person. The adverts make out as if they’re the cupids of the internet, the Cilla Blacks of the worldwide web – and I might agree if it wasn’t for the hefty fee at the end of it all.

Then there are the emails - which we always open with hope. But sometimes they stop us in our tracks. Recently a friend had what I can only describe as a pornographic message via a dating site. Erm...sorry?! We’re on here to find love, Mr Right, our soul mates – it’s not called findmealocalshag.com (which believe it or not actually exists!). So please log off and stop sending us indecent proposals via a dating website!

The other emails don’t get much better either – Dave from Southport emailed me asking ‘I know I’m not very clever or good looking – but will you date me anyway?’ while Brian from London emailed me for the fifth time wondering why I hadn’t replied to him (erm...get the hint mate!). And what’s with men from Scotland, or even Finland emailing me? I don’t mind travelling a few miles to find my soul mate – but you’re stretching it a bit far if you expect me to meet you for a coffee in Madrid!

And why does everyone assume, just because I‘m a journalist that I’m going to be writing about them in some sort of dating column?!? Honestly.

So when you’ve deleted the odd emails, said no to the guy in Madrid and reported the men for stalking you, you may just be lucky enough to stumble on a few ‘decent men’ – well that’s what you think before you meet them anyway.

Step up number one. He seemed nice – he was intense but I fancied him like crazy so ignored those little ‘warning signs’ which I really should have picked up on. That was until I received a text saying ‘I love you – do you love me?’ WHAT???

And number two was just as bad – just in a more camp way. In his picture he’d looked gorgeous – good height, nice features and not the least bit gay! By the end of the night I felt like I was gossiping with my best mate. So imagine my shock when he tried to kiss me – I fled like Cinderella at midnight (minus the shoe mishap!).

And most recent was number three. Who I’d been delightfully surprised about when I met up with him. He’d been honest about his height, his photos and his age – always a good start. And apart from his slightly sarcastic attitude I could see myself dating him again. It’s a shame I mucked it up then. I have a habit of tweeting about my dates – so when he did the inevitable googling of me and stumbled across my twitter account he wasn’t happy! He couldn’t believe I’d kissed and told! Damn google!

I really do wonder why I keep logging on? I’m hoping my online dating addiction will come to an end one day, or maybe my subscription will just run out! Either way I’m sure I won’t find ‘the one’ online – unless I suppose I fancy a date with ‘me again’. Now where did I save his email?

'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!

Once upon a time…..

Whether we admit it or not every girl wants the fairytale. Whether it's our man scooping us up and telling us what we want to hear, proposing while the sun is setting or taking the initiative to kiss us when we’re least expecting it - we're all hoping for that magical fairytale moment.

Unrealistic it maybe, and it would probably get a tad dull if our knight in shining armour did and said all the right things every hour of every day, but most of us would like to know that one time in our lives we may just get our very own ‘nobody puts baby in the corner’ moment.

But of course it has to be with the right guy. If a guy that we dated and dumped, because he snorted when he laughed, tried to win us back by serenading us or proposing to us in front of our family we’d probably just die of embarrassment. A while ago an ex was so desperate to get back with me he told me he was going to leave a rose on my door, every day for the next month – he thought it would prove as romantic and I’d fall back into his arms. Now don’t get me wrong, with the right guy it would have been great, but just the thought of him doing it scared the hell out of me.

Basically if we’re not with the right guy their acts of kindness or gentlemanly behaviour will make us feel like their taking away our independence or indeed smothering us. Take Mr Nice guy, who I had been on a few dates with recently - he walked me to my train station, he didn’t even attempt to kiss me on the first date and he even text me to make sure I got home okay. It was nice, but it felt too good to be true.

But of course that all changes when it’s with the right guy, anything which is deemed fairytale worthy we’d see as sweet and a ‘melt in their arms’ moment. I remember gushing about boyfriends who had looked after me while I had the flu, held my hair back when I was sick or even saved me in my hour of need. But when it’s not the right guy we may as well be wearing a t-shirt saying ‘I’m a princess, but I’ll save myself thanks’.

And all those movie moments are great – Danny and Sandy singing ‘you’re the one that I want’ and Patrick Swayze coming back from the dead to give Demi just one more kiss. But if they actually happened to us, whether there’s dramatic music on in the background or not, we may just be a little freaked out! A prime example is High School musical, it seems like a great idea when were watching it and we’d die for a guy like Zac Effron to declare his love to us through song. But in reality if our man broke into song and dance, half way through a night out, we’d either think they were gay or some sort of closet musical fan!

So do these so called fairytale moments, with the right men, just happen to the likes of Cinderella and ‘Pretty women’? Or can we expect it now and again too?

I’ve had my share of fairytale moments – watching the sunrise, picnics on a summer’s day and romantic gestures which would make the romantics amongst us sigh in delight and cynics curl their toes and scowl, but I suppose I’m still waiting for that ultimate one. The one which knocks me off my feet, takes my breath away, makes me smile at the thought of it and without any doubt makes me believe I’ve picked my Mr Right.

And on the flip side, of course sometimes we don’t need saving. Ever since I’ve become single I’ve learnt that I don’t necessarily need a man to make me happy. Whether we save ourselves, our friends come to our rescue or our so called prince charming fails to materialise. Sometimes not having someone there is a blessing in disguise – it teaches us things, makes us better people, and whether we believe it at the time or not, makes us stronger and happier people.

And even if we do manage to have that fairytale moment – where the prince saves us from a world of gloom or Matt Damon beats up the bad guys for us ( yep, my own personal fantasy) I suppose it’s what happens afterwards that matters - after all we’re all looking for a happily ever after….aren’t we?

Do I date to blog, or blog to date?

Being a dating blogger can have its downsides. Namely when you don’t have any dates. And after a few months of being dateless I was starting to get worried – for me having a date every week became as normal as people getting up and going to work. So had I lost my touch or merely just dated all the single men in London?

And when I wasn’t dating it was like everyone was rubbing it in by going on dates instead. Two of my best friends both casually mentioned how they were going on dates and most of my other single friends were being set up around me, chatting up cute bar men or talking about their latest conquest. Even my Mum was on the net setting up dates.

Maybe I was getting too picky or was I just being lazy? I couldn’t be bothered with internet dating – it was just too much effort to email yet another ‘potential’ and rehash the same old details. I had stopped bugging friends to set me up and men on nights out just weren’t blog worthy enough.

So I sighed a breath of fresh air when I finally got a date last week – I was officially back in the game. And I realised I’d actually missed going on first dates. The classic first date nerves, the awkwardness that comes with it, the free drinks (only kidding…well kind of!) - I had missed the whole shebang of it. So much so that when a friend of mine told me she had a first date planned I almost turned up in her place. Don’t worry I didn’t!

And when potential dates find out you’re a dating blogger it can have its downsides too. Google is great but I merely have to mention my name and men know about my dating history before I’ve even sipped on my first glass of wine with them. The first date to uncover my little secret pretended for all of ten minutes that I wasn’t a dating blogger while I reeled off all the other work I did. Of course I tried to deny it, but when he claimed he knew where my last date had taken place he had either been stalking me in person or on the net – and I was hoping it was the latter.

And another date, who knew about my blog, told me he had read it in detail, written down notes and thought he was fully prepared to see me. I wondered if he was expecting me to give him a pub-style quiz at the end or hand out tasks throughout. He was dating me, not appearing on mastermind.

So if potential dates know about my dating past and trip-ups, will it put them off? I’ve had guys running for the hills when they’ve found out they may appear on the net. Even when I’ve clarified that I only write a dating blog. So after my dating drought I wasn’t surprised when my recent date, after stumbling across my blog, emailed me to let me know I wasn’t quite the right ‘dating material’ for him. Maybe if I hadn’t revealed his toilet habits in a previous blog we’d be married by now. Damn.

But if the tables were turned then I admit I may be a little reluctant go on a date too - especially if I knew he’d be analyzing my every move. If I drunk too many vino’s would I be an alcoholic? If I didn’t make him laugh would I be known as the moody cow he’d been lumbered with for the entire night?? Or worse - would I be classed as a no-go cougar or the girl who he officially went on his worst date with?

I suppose there’s always a downside to everything. But in my bid to get more dates I suppose I’m going to have to stop being so lazy, picky and possibly googleable. And as for blogging about the dates I go on – well that’s not stopping, for at least a while yet. Maybe I’ll just have to change my tack. My dating ad will have to say in big red letters - Please apply within – dates who have a GSOH.

TMI (too much information) syndrome

Sex with your ex girlfriends, how many notches you’ve got on your bed post and definitely your toilet troubles – they are all classic cases of too much information.

When we’re dating, or even in a relationship us girls can be a little inquisitive, okay just plain nosey. But sometimes you boys don’t know when to stop when you start revealing the ins and outs of your past behaviour, or even current behaviour when we’re not around.We may ask about your previous sex life and you may have visited strip clubs, dated underwear models or dipped your toe in the threesome dating pool but we really don’t want to know about it – however much we quiz you.

Like the saying goes - what we don’t know won’t hurt us. Not that I’m giving you a free pass to go all John Terry or Ashley Cole on us but when it comes to your past sex life it’s usually best left in the cupboard marked ‘Do not open’. And if we do delve into it we usually regret what we find out. After lots of drunken questioning once I found out that a boyfriend had had a threesome with another guy –the other guy being his best friend. It was a classic mistake of too much information and one which made me not able to even look in the direction of his best friend again without a weird image in my head.

Sadly it didn’t stop there either – I’ve had guys I’ve dated revealing sex positions their exes have preferred, how good a one night stand was and how many women they’ve managed to seduce into their bed.

And a couple of mentions about an ex girlfriend is fine, but when you start delving into your past relationships like we’re your therapist - along the lines of ‘I just don’t know where it all went wrong…’ we’re going to start worrying if you’re with the right person. And the more you moan and slag off an ex girlfriend the more we’re going to wonder how much of a decent person you are – if you can slag her off and make her sound like the bitch from hell then what will you be saying about us in six months time?

But it’s not just your sex lives where you’re revealing things that make us want to cringe. After a series of emails on a dating website recently I got a bit more than I bargained for in one email. Things were going swimmingly – the emails were funny, we were getting on famously and then he just had to delve into an area which us girls just don’t want to talk about. I’d asked him if he’d felt hung over from his previous nights antics but wasn’t quite prepared for his reply of: “I’m not actually feeling too bad, but my bottom feels like its been blown off after the curry I had last night,” – eek!!! We hadn’t even shared our first date but already I was getting a play by play account of his daily toilet habits – nice.

And of course we trust you but when you mention boys and holidays in the same sentence then fear usually spreads through us like a wild fire in a forest. A few years back a former boyfriend couldn’t wait to go on a rugby tour he’d been planning with the boys. But instead of reassuring me that it was a chance to spend some quality time with his males mates and enjoy the sport he loved so much he stupidly revealed the motto which all the boys were standing by – ‘What goes on tour stays on tour’ – how could any sane girl not jump to ‘stripper, bed hopping and one night stand’ conclusions?

So when I met Mr TMI recently I knew it wasn’t going to work out. After he had revealed the amount of girls he’d slept with, how he was up to his eye balls in debt, how he hated his job and the icing on top of the TMI cake – his big ambition to marry a stripper in Vegas one day, I decided that however honest a potential date could be, a little bit of discretion is always a good quality to seek out.

And if you still don’t quite get it – then let me turn the tables on you. If you found out your dream girl had more notches on her bed post than you’d had hot dinners would you still want to take her home to meet the parents? Nope, thought not.

So the next time we ask you how many girls you’ve slept with, if the stripper you were forced to watch on a stag do was hotter than us or if you’ve ever dreamt about that really hot women next door, either keeping tight lipped or bending the truth a little would be a good option. Because after all, what we really want to know is none of that, in any way, compares to dating us….

My stuttering, blubbering dating techniques

In normal life my mouth rarely gets me into trouble – I’m polite, friendly and have a way of getting people to open up to me. But when it comes to dating it’s as though I suffer from Jekyll and Hyde syndrome.

I embarrassingly have something programmed into the dating part of my brain which means when I like someone I just have to say something stupid, irrelevant or just downright dumb. You know, one of those – ‘I’m just going to bang my head against a wall now’ moments.

I either pick up a bout of verbal diarrhoea – with something along the lines of ‘Did I tell you about the time my cat pooed on my bed?’ or reel off a joke which I’ve forgotten the punch line to. In special circumstances, usually when I really like someone my mouth goes dry, my hands start to get clammy, my head starts moving like one of those nodding dogs and I splutter out something which even my14 year-old self would have cringed at. And in both situations my potential love interest usually leaves looking at me oddly and wondering who the freak he just spoke to was.

And being the flappable idiot I become when a guy that I like is anything but a two mile radius from me I wouldn’t be surprised if I actually started spouting off things which were on my mind like – ‘Can I snog you please?’ or ‘I wonder how your surname sounds with my first name?’ – they’d be running scared before I’d even attempted to bag myself a date with them.

So you’d think if I had time to plan what I wanted to say I’d come up with a cute, sassy one liner which would make them think, ‘Wow this girl is cool,’ – but no I’ve managed to kill my street cred when it comes to e –flirting too. Like the time I was sharing flirty email banter with a minor celeb (okay he was just a reality TV star) and he asked if I wanted to watch him DJ one Thursday night. My reply? “I don’t think I can, it’s a school night,” I thought I was being funny – he obviously thought I was some sort of nerd who had a 9pm curfew. Funnily enough I never got a reply back from him.

So it’s always great when friends share the ‘dumb dating talk’ limelight with you. One revealed the moment she became speechless when she saw the object of her desire at the gym, then proceeded to walk head first into a weights machine. And when a hottie walked into another friend’s work place all she could utter was a squeak, before she dropped her newly made hot chocolate over her keyboard. She tried to dab away the choccy mess like it didn’t matter – when the reality was she had totally short circuited it.

And I can’t quite decide if alcohol helps matters. On the one hand it gives you the confidence to think what you’re saying sounds like you’re not an over-excited school girl, but in reality it’s probably doing more harm than good. After one glass you’ve got the confidence to steam roll the flirting, after two you’ll probably say something you wouldn’t dare say if you were sober. And don’t get me started on a whole bottle worth of wine induced confidence – it’s got me into trouble more times than I can remember.

And rest assured if you’re of the male species and the conversation flows like wine into my glass - if us girls are comfortable in your presence and we can have a good old natter with you it usually means we see you as a brother, a mate or even a father figure – sorry!

So it really is a surprise that I’ve been on any dates, at all, in the past year – have men just felt sorry for me after my blabbermouth has tripped into their lives? Or have I just dated guys who I wasn’t really that into? Whatever it is I’m sure the embarrassing encounters will continue long into my dating years and beyond. Life might be so much simpler if I was one of those girls who said all the right things at all the right times - but wouldn’t that be boring? I’d rather be the girl who trips up any day.