Date 102

"And I doused another venture, with a gesture that was absolutely vile."

Back to Tinder with another two-dater.

When I met this person for drinks for our first date, I was eager to see her again as she had such great music tastes. She seemed good company too and picked a good pub for us to meet in.

For our second date, I booked us a table at an excellent Japanese restaurant in Brighton; no, not Wagamamas. However, I knew as soon as I met her beforehand that we weren't suited and the night felt very awkward until we got shit-faced and ended up snogging. I managed to find us a pub open until 1 am and we were in there for a good three hours. I can't remember anything about our time in there, apart from her telling me 'no tongues' and me ordering quite a few doubles before closing time.

That wasn't such a good move, as I only got about 6 hours sleep and when I woke up the next morning I was still drunk and didn't start to feel sober again until midday. I had to go to a family picnic, which could have been a disaster, but luckily I managed to hide my inebriated state without any dramatic consequences.

I didn't attempt to contact her again as, if I'm honest, I found her a bit odd and she didn't have much to say for herself. She also had a bee in her bonnet about my height and kept going on about how small I am. For the record, I'm 5'8'' and she was a few inches less, so I'm not sure what that was about. I never heard from her either, so the feeling was clearly mutual.

Date 96

"Hair brushed and parted."

It's really difficult to get replies on free dating sites. I imagine this is because they are over-subscribed, and from female friends I know who are on them, women apparently get inundated. I still don't see why I rarely get responses though as I write proper messages so it's clear that I've read their profiles and I try to be funny. A previous date said to me once that I'm not handsome but she found me attractive, so maybe that's where the first impressions problem lies...or it could just be that my jokes are really bad.

Anyway, I digress. The point I'm also making is that I do get replies on pay sites so I tend to go back to them. I don't think I've ever had a one month subscription on a pay site and not had at least one date from it. 

So, I went back onto Guardian Soulmates and someone actually replied to me and we met up for a few drinks. It was fine and she was very nice and we got on well enough, but neither of us made plans for a second date. One thing I have to say is that her profile pics looked nothing like her and they were at least 5 years old, AT LEAST. So when I saw her coming towards me I actually just guessed it was her. This is not me being shallow either but my pics are always up to date, so it's not really too much to ask that others do the same. I had a magnificent head of hair in my 20's and as much as I'd love to put those pics up it's not really fair to do so! Not that she was bald or anything...

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 25

"I grabbed you by the guilded beams, that's what tradition means."

Yet another false dawn again. Myself and the lady in question had been e-mailing each other for ages before we agreed to meet up for a drink and when we eventually did it was a fantastic evening.

We seemed to click instantly and we had a fantastic night of laughter and copious amounts of alcohol was consumed. I thought I'd finally found someone who really liked me, judging by all the compliments I was getting and when we were finally about to go our separate ways she said to me that she'd been wondering all night when I was going to kiss her. I duly obliged as I'd been wanting to but didn't know whether it would have been appropriate or not, such is the shy gentleman that I am. This act of lust went on for such a while that I nearly missed my last train home and in the end I actually only just made it onto the last carriage when I begged to be let on and some kindly inebriated young chaps took pity on me and hauled me on just before the doors closed.

I texted her the next day to say what a great evening I'd had and received quite a cool reply which surprised me but we met up again for a second date a couple of weeks later. When we hooked up for the second date she, again, seemed initially cool but as soon as the alcohol flowed she seemed a lot more comfortable and as had happened on our first date; she grabbed me just before I got on my train home and kissed me on the station concourse while disgruntled travellers kept pushing and shoving our selfish selves locked in a passionate embrace.

She then disappeared for a month or so when I never heard from her (despite contacting her), which I found most odd, but then as luck would have it; I won two tickets to see a CSS gig (absolute gold dust) and I asked her to join me for what would be our third date, and she duly accepted. Yet again, we had a fantastic night: CSS were of course superb (one of the best live bands I've ever seen) and afterwards we went to a pub in Camden to sample their finest beers and wines. Then, as was now becoming common place, she grabbed me before I got on the tube to bid me a very fond farewell and she told me to contact her to make plans for our fourth date (unchartered territory for me thus far).

Sadly, the fourth date never happened. I texted her a couple of days later and heard nothing then received a call asking me to ring her back for a chat. I did so, fearing the worst, and she said she just wanted to be friends as she didn't feel that there was a spark between us and she didn't feel that we had anything in common, plus she wanted to settle down and she got the impression that I didn't want to.

In all honesty she had a point and I wasn't actually that disappointed that she'd 'dumped' me, although it's never nice to be rejected. I did actually feel extremely aggrieved that she hadn't mentioned anything before the CSS gig though, as in retrospect I think that she would have known then that it would have been our last date and that she just went along with it to go to the gig with me.

I've never seen her again and I did feel a tad bitter that she took me for a ride because there were so many other people whom I could and would rather have taken to see CSS. I respect her honesty completely, as we probably weren't right for each other (we did get on though) but I think that was out of order on her part.

Date 9

"Seems...fair enough."

Another very quick date after work. We both lived/worked locally to one another so met for a coffee.

She was very pleasant company but there wasn't any spark. She told me to mail her again to hook up for a drink which I did but got no response. I mailed her again a month or so later and she told me that a relative of hers had died so she didn't have time for dating, which was fair enough.