Date 61

"Let me get my hands on your mammary glands."

As I'd alluded to in the previous entry, I was intrigued by all the furore surrounding the re-vamp of Guardian Soulmates, so curiosity got the better of me and I signed up again after my self-imposed exile of a couple of years. In retrospect, I wish that I hadn't.

For a number of years GSM was universally thought of as the most popular dating website around in terms of its layout, search engine, messaging facilities and the people on it. In this respect, one would normally go with the old adage of if it ain't broke then don't fix it, however, it appears that the good people behind the site decided to have the fantastic idea of going a bit leftfield and removing all the good features which made it popular and thus forcing people away in their droves.

The main problem seems to be that the company who designed and maintained the original site have been jettisoned, I think, in favour of The Guardian now doing it in-house. This may seem sensible in terms of a cost-cutting exercise due to the uncertain economic times at present, however, I can't see how this would be the case by the fact that the subscription charges are now higher than ever, so I have no idea where all the money is going as it's certainly not being used to develop or improve the site. Although The Guardian acknowledged that they made mistakes during the re-vamp in April 2011 by offering refunds to subscribing members at the time, they've not addressed any of the criticisms or rectified any of the poor features almost 9 months later.

The original site, while not completely aesthetically pleasing, had a simple but effective appearance to it but now it just looks cheap and generic. One of the best features which has been removed was the previous ability to be able to send one line replies to people . The most useful aspect of this was that you could let people know that you didn't have a subscription or that you weren't interested, however, now you have no idea whether people are being rude in not replying or they're just not signed up and are unable to respond. A lot of my messages to girls were ignored, and while it could be the case that I've lost my touch and people just didn't like the look and sound of me, which is not the site's fault, not knowing if they had a subscription or not doesn't help matters.

Another big grumble I have is also the inability to delete profiles from searches. This is particularly annoying when all the people whom you've messaged and haven't replied still keep coming up and clogging up searches. The profile page information itself has also been cut down, so now it's really difficult to gauge what people are like as profiles now contain the briefest of details.

Compared to the success I'd had in the past of going on a quite a few dates, this time around I was limited to just two in three months. I'm not sure if that's down to the site's re-vamp, whether subscriptions are vastly down or whether the people on GSM are now just a different demographic. The majority of messages I sent were ignored and if I was 'lucky' enough to get a reply then they would ignore my follow-up, which is a very common part of dating sites now. This is probably due to the over-saturation of members or just the death knell of manners.

Anyway, to date 61 itself. I'd messaged her first and after a couple of emails she asked me out for a drink. She was 5 years older than me, very attractive, very interesting and I really fancied her. We got on well enough and we had loads in common in terms of music and films, however, by the end of the evening I could tell she was a bit bored as when I suggested we get something to eat she said she was tired and wanted to go home. I still thought I'd email her about another date and to no great surprise she asked if we could just be friends. We've seen each other three times since, which has included going to the cinema to see The Guard (an absolute gem and my film of the year so far) and attending BUG at the BFI twice. We do get on well when we hook up, although I do wonder if she stays in contact purely so she can join myself and my friends for Adam Buxton's marvellous video showcase as I never hear from her besides BUG .

UPDATE: I met up with her again last night (May 2012) in Camden to see Avengers Assemble and a really bizarre thing happened. I'd texted her a week or so ago to arrange it but when we met up she got the shock of her life as she'd been under the impression that she'd been texting and was due to meet up with another friend of hers who happens to have the same first name as me (technically my name is spelt slightly differently). When she first saw me, she was in absolute shock and asked me what I was doing there and said she wasn't meant to be meeting me tonight! She then went into a panic and a state of mass confusion and I was just standing there not knowing what the hell to say. I actually felt like just going home as she didn't hide her disappointment that it was me who had turned up. As we'd agreed to meet for food first of all we went in the restaurant eventually and I've never felt so awkward in my life and she was also quite concerned that the other guy was going to turn up...he obviously didn't. We then went to see the film, which was good but don't believe the hype, and she apologised profusely afterwards. She also said she couldn't find her other friend's number in her phone and said that she must have deleted it which led me to assume that she'd removed his number thinking it was mine. Needless to say, I won't be contacting her again as this was actually the 4th or 5th time that we'd met after our first date as to say that I felt uncomfortable all night was an understatement.

UPDATE: Despite vowing to never have anything more to do with her, some months later I randomly bumped into her on a night out in Camden when I was out with a couple of friends. She joined us for the rest of the evening and was actually very good company. Since then we've actually become fairly regular cinema buddies and we do get on pretty well. However, I always let her contact me first as I still feel uneasy about her not knowing who I was! And, in fairness to her she has since told me that she's still embarrassed by what happened.

Date 62

"If you're so very entertaining,

then why are you on your own tonight?"

This date pretty much sums up the pitfalls which can occur with internet dating and why a lot of the time it can be a frustrating and not very pleasurable experience.

My 3rd date from OKCupid and one that really came out of the blue. She messaged me first which was surprising as I hadn't logged on at the site for a few months so I'm amazed that I cropped up in her search. Anyway, her mails were the funniest I've ever read and we shared a love of Forbrydelsen (the Danish tv police drama phenomenon translated as The Killing) amongst other things, so I was intrigued. She even compared herself to Forbydelsen lead character, Detective Inspector Sarah Lund, by claiming that she owned an extensive range of knitwear and had a great arse in jeans, which was a bit cocky to say the least.

After a few days of exchanging really, very funny e-mails, she sent me her mobile number and told me to call her one night which was very forward of her. I'm not particularly fond of talking on the phone at the best of times, so speaking to a complete stranger and potential date was a bit nerve-wracking. I rang her anyway and we had a good chat although neither of us mentioned going on a date as I think maybe we were both waiting for the other to ask and I couldn't gauge whether she wanted to or not. I left it about a day then asked her about meeting up and she agreed thankfully and started texting me a fair bit.

We met up at a bar and she was one of the most confident and self-assured people that I've ever come across, which was plainly evident when she started happily conversing with a German party in their native tongue, whose reserved table we were temporarily trespassing on.

I've said this many times before, but from my point of view we got on really well as she was hilarious. I also thought she liked me too when at one point she said: 'I'm sorry, but I have to say this. How the hell are you single as you're really interesting and fantastic company?! You're not married are you?!' I didn't really know how to respond but surely that's a good sign if someone says that you on a date, right?

I, therefore, thought that there would be a good chance of us meeting again. How wrong I was. I messaged her a couple of days later, after not hearing a peep from her, to enquire about a second date and she completely ignored it and I never heard from her again. Whilst it's disappointing to receive a message back saying 'no, thank you,' it's much more preferable to being met with stone, cold silence. Honesty is always the best policy as you can't expect every girl to like you so that's fair enough, but when you've actually met someone in person and they know that you're waiting to hear back from them, then to say nothing is just bloody rude and very arrogant. She works for a major bank in the city and is obviously experienced in screwing people over, so I clearly got served by a true playa.

UPDATE (February 2012): About 5 months after our solitary date, I was having a quick browse on OKCupid. I happened to see her profile and decided to click on it for a bit of a nose and it transpired that she was now living in New York. The next morning there was an email waiting in my inbox from her telling me about her big move and asking how I was. I didn't really want to reply but because I have manners (unlike her): I did.

I happened to mention that I was now on match.com. She then went on a bit of a rant about how I should be going to gigs and meeting women rather than bothering with dating sites and that said sites don't work as they're more geared towards social networking than finding romance.

I have to say that what she said makes sense particularly the social networking part, however, there are a number of points where her argument falls down slightly. Firstly, why is she still actively using a dating website if it's so easy to acquire dates from other means. Secondly, when using these sites I've always believed that you should treat others as you'd liked to be treated yourself, therefore, not replying to someone after a date even just to say 'no, thank you' is really bad form and a perfect example of how so many people just see internet dating as a big game. Thirdly, how difficult is it to meet girls at gigs? I go to a lot of gigs with friends, where I catch up with them and we watch the band in question. How is it possible to start going round a venue and chatting women up with a band performing and the music blaring out. It's difficult enough trying to get a good position to see when it's packed, then when the gig is over there's a mad scramble to get out of the door. And finally, my sister and another friend of mine are both in happy and long-term relationships with men they've met off Guardian Soulmates. Whilst I believe they are in the minority and have been extremely lucky; they are proof that dating sites can work as you usually meet people you'd never normally come into contact with.

Oh, well, it's probably just as well that we didn't go on that second date after all...