Date 82

"I started something. Typical me, typical me, typical me, typical me, typical me, typical me, typical me, typical me. I started something and now I'm not too sure."

Yet again Guardian Soulmates got me excited and yet again it was the same end result.

This person had contacted me when my subscription had run out, so I left it a few weeks before I replied. I wanted to respond to her immediately, but the cynical and tight part of me was loathe to fork out another thirty odd quid for a month when in theory I could reply and then get no response, as has happened before.

The thing is though, she'd sent such a great opening message and we had so much in common that it was untrue, so it wasn't much of a risk. We then exchanged a few really long emails as we had so much to talk about and it became clear that she was basically me in a skirt....except she was good looking and slim.

When we met up, we immediately got on and the conversation never dried up. Our favourite films were exactly the same, we even loved less know niches like 'Kitchen Sink Dramas.' We went to all the same gigs and had been at a Breeders gig recently standing near each other, unbeknownst to us at the time. Just everything in terms of tv and books as well; we had exactly the same tastes. As it was mid-week we had 4 drinks each and to be honest, I think that's pretty good for a school night date.

It got to about 10pm, and as she lived in Kent we called it a night, and I went home quite happy.

I then contacted her the next morning to say I'd had a lovely evening and would she like to do it again. She replied a couple of days later:

'I had a lovely evening too but am not sure there was anything more than a friends thing there for me. You may well have felt the same anyway, but for me I don't think it would be right to meet for another date. I hope that's OK and that you find what you're looking for.'

I replied and said I was disappointed as I thought we'd got on but said good luck for the future.

I appreciate her honesty but I thought that as we'd had such a good evening and had so much in common that surely it was worth meeting again, or at least staying in touch as gig buddies etc. I suppose with online dating if it's not love at first sight then some people don't really want to find out if others are slow growers. I thought there was potential to work on but maybe it was just an attraction thing so it was probably for the best. I did sort of think afterwards that if she didn't want to go on another date with me then no-one else will, which is completely irrational as at the end of the day it's all about that elusive chemistry blah, blah, blah.

I think that this will be my last blog entry for a while and it might indeed be the last in this blog. I'm hopefully moving to Brighton in a couple of months which means there's no point going on any dates in London now and I've removed all my profiles from all the sites I was a member of. Whether I continue the blog in Brighton; I'm not sure but I wouldn't rule it out. And you never know as I might meet someone not through a dating website and live happily ever after...

Date 81

"So drink, drink, drink and be ill tonight."

I exchanged a few messages with this woman on Guardian Soulmates, and as my subscription was running out; I gave her my email address. When my stint on GSM ended, I never heard from her so I presumed she wasn't bothered about staying in contact and I just forgot about her.

Then, completely out of the blue, about 3 months later, I received an email from her apologising for not being in touch and asking me if I wanted to go out on a date.

As I tend to do on dates, I got to the bar a bit early and grabbed a much coveted diner style booth and waited quite a while for her to arrive as she was running very late. When she did rock up, although I knew it was her (as I'd told her where I was sitting), she looked so much older and different to her profile pictures. After a couple of drinks, we seemed to be getting on fine, then I made my only mistake of the night. The bar I'd picked is always quite busy and seats are at a premium, hence why I always stake out the booth seats beforehand and then pounce when they become free. After about an hour, two women came over and asked if they could share the booth. I thought this was really cheeky and instead of saying no, I let them 'join' us. I hate being so well mannered and accommodating sometimes but I couldn't refuse their request. As it turned out they were right noisy bastards and we gleaned from their no holds-barred and loud conversation that they were a lesbian couple on a first date too.

After a while we decided to move on and went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner where we sank numerous mojitos too. By the time we'd finished I wanted to go elsewhere but she was actually really drunk (she had been quite pissed after a couple of drinks at the bar, which meant that for the rest of the evening I wasn't sure what she was talking about half the time), so she called it a night and as we said our goodbyes at Waterloo, she told me to call her.

I emailed her a few days later, as I had tickets for a comedy event for someone I knew that she really liked, and asked her if she wanted to come too but she said she was ill and I never heard from her again.