Date 75

"Money Changes Everything."

My third and final date using Lovestruck and I was glad to delete my profile when my 3 month subscription ended. Any replies to messages or profile views from other members ended after about 2 weeks of being on there so I really didn't get my money's worth.

I contacted this person within the first few days of being on the site and she very quickly gave me her phone number...without me even asking for it. So, very soon we agreed to meet in Richmond at 4pm one Saturday afternoon. It went very well and we got on splendidly, although she really hit the red wine and even after eating at a restaurant, she peaked too early and we had to call it a night at about 8pm as she was very merry.

I was very keen to see her again so I texted her a day or so later and asked her if she wanted to go to the flicks. I won't say which film as I'll just be laughed at, but she said yes and seemed very excited. Although, probably by the film I'd suggested rather than seeing me again. Apart from the fact that the cinema's heating had broken down and it was -2 outside, thus forcing us to don scarves and gloves half way through, the film was decent...and ok, I'll give you a clue what we saw: I'm Team Edward all the way. Afterwards she asked me to walk her back to her car which was about 10 minutes away and she then gave me a lift back to near my bus stop, although I had to suddenly jump out at some traffic lights which was a bit of an abrupt end to the evening as I barely could say goodbye and I didn't have a clue how the evening had gone.

I heard from her briefly over Christmas but then the trail went dead. As luck would have it though, I managed to acquire a couple of tickets for my beloved BUG at the BFI (hosted by Adam Buxton). I hadn't been for a year as tickets are like gold dust, but for some bizarre reason there were still a few for sale which is extremely rare as it's almost always sold out very quickly. I'd found out on our first date that she was a big fan of Mr Buxton, although she'd never heard of, let alone been to BUG which I was amazed at. So, although, I hadn't bought them especially for her, I told her that I had a spare and she jumped at the chance.

As it turned out, it was the best BUG I'd been to for ages and some of it was so funny that I couldn't breathe as I was laughing so much. She really enjoyed it too. However, afterwards we had a few drinks and she never once offered to pay for her ticket or buy me drinks. I couldn't obviously ask her for the money and while they were only £15, to me that's just a bit rude, is it not?

Although I got a text from her to thank me for the evening later on, I've not heard from her since so I'm just going to leave it as I actually can't be bothered to chase her. Whilst we got on well, I felt that she wasn't really putting any effort into things as I'd chosen the venues for each date and I still feel her not offering to pay for BUG was a little bit naughty. The fact that she was a smoker also bothered me a little bit too. I stopped smoking almost 4 months ago and it's still a real struggle for me. I realise it's completely hypocritical of me but having to sit out in the freezing cold while she smoked fag after fag before BUG was really unbearable, and maybe I'm better off without the temptation.

Date 74

"I want to leave, you will not miss me."

Having said in my previous blog entry that I quite liked Lovestruck; I am now utterly bored by it and I suspect that there aren't many paid up members on it, which isn't surprising considering how much it costs.

Date 74 was actually the first person to message me when I joined but it took us absolutely ages to finally meet up due to various reasons. Before we'd even met, she'd asked me to go to a gig with her of a band I had no interest in seeing. As I'd found out with Date 66, going to a gig on a date really is a rubbish idea. She said that if I didn't fancy it then we didn't have to and so I was honest with her and replied by saying that they weren't my cup of tea. She then responded sarcastically by telling me that it was nice to see that I was open to new things and offered me some more dates when she was free. I thought that was quite rude considering she'd said it would be fine if I didn't want to go. I then thought that maybe that was just her sense of humour (which hadn't translated very well in email form) so I messaged her back a couple of days later and agreed to meet her on another evening she said she'd be free on. However, she got back to me and said that because I hadn't responded straight away (I received the message from her on a Friday, was out all day on the Saturday and replied to her on the Sunday), that she'd already made other plans!

I thought that was a bit odd but agreed to another time anyway and funnily enough had to cancel due to the fact that I was suffering from a really bad ear infection. She was very understanding and I felt bad but it couldn't be helped. We made another date and she then cancelled on me due to work commitments and so the whole thing really was turning into a saga.

During all this, I was getting a bit fed up with her emails. She continuously kept asking me to go to gigs with her to see obscure bands that I just wasn't interested in. I love going to gigs but not with someone I'd never met before and not to see a band I'd never heard of. I think that, like Date 66, she just had spare tickets that she needed paying for, and the thought of having to fork out for something I didn't want to go to just to do her a favour didn't appeal to me. Another noticeable thing about her messages to me was that she would write very lengthy essays about herself and never ask me about anything. We did finally agree on a date when we were both free, but by this time I wasn't really looking forward to meeting her, but I felt that I couldn't back out of it.

We met one afternoon and I was dreading it a bit, however, this was mainly because I'd stopped smoking the previous week. And, as it happened this was the first online date I'd ever been on as a non-smoker. It was a very strange feeling not to have a pre-date cigarette to supposedly 'calm my nerves' beforehand but it probably helped that she wasn't a smoker either, although that didn't stop me from thinking about tabs the whole time especially when I started drinking.

She was originally from Edinburgh and a midwife but as it turned out she wasn't good company at all. She took the chance to belittle most things I said at every opportunity and her sense of humour was so sarcastic that it was actually bordering on being aggressive. I am now a man in my mid 30's and like many other gentlemen of a similar vintage, we are going a bit thin on top. I'm not bald by any means but I am receding a bit. This is something I'm a bit sensitive about (as most men are) and when she started making jokes about this, I'd had enough and called an end to proceedings, which was the first time that I'd done this myself despite having been on 74 first dates. I can take a joke but I just felt that this was the final straw and I just didn't want to spend any more time with this virtual stranger constantly taking the piss out of everything I said, yet I was expected to be polite and appear interested in what she had to say about herself and her life (which was a lot). I was also disappointed by the fact that she'd been to see The Human League the previous night which I'd have gone to without a second thought, yet the only bands she'd asked me to go to with her were utter shite ones.

Date 73

"I lost my bag in Newport Pagnell."

After permanently deleting or deactivating all my dating profiles on Guardian Soulmates, Match, Plenty of Fish, OKCupid and Tastebuds, my life appeared to have a void in it; so I joined a site that I'd never been on before called Lovestruck.

My first impressions of the site were good in terms of its design and search facilities and it has plenty of members. My only sticking point initially was the price as it's vastly more expensive on a monthly basis than any site that I have ever used before and I don't quite understand how they can justify that. The whole site is geared towards 'busy' professionals who want to date and so you can only sign up if you live in one of 8 cities in the UK e.g. London, Manchester, Birmingham etc. I suppose some people may see that as being a flaw but as I currently live in London; I'm not interested in meeting anyone too far away. Another feature the site offers is that you can show whether you're free for lunch or dinner each day, which is not something I'd ever use as I prefer to exchange a few messages first, although that may appeal to some people.

After initially signing up, I quickly received quite a few winks and a couple of messages and so I was sorely tempted to subscribe but I resisted for a few days as I was still put off by the high price. In the end I signed up for 3 months as the deal they offered for that was significantly lower on a month by month basis.

Funnily enough, after being subscribed for a few weeks, the interest shown in me by others before I became a fully paid up member dropped to virtually zero...hmmm, I wonder why that is? I guess my status as 'fresh meat' wore off pretty quickly.

I wasn't exactly enamoured by Date 73 at first as one of her initial messages informed me that her flatmate thought that I looked like a serial killer. However, after a few more emails she asked me if I fancied meeting for a drink so I said yes.

The date nearly didn't happen as when I was making my way into London, I started to suffer from vertigo and nausea on a train platform and nearly cancelled. It did pass after a while though and I assumed it was just nerves, although after feeling worse the next day I found out that I had an ear infection.

The date itself was fine, and she'd just got back from visiting Newport Pagnell, which was great as it gave this blog entry an easy title. As a lot of you may have noticed; this blog is named after a song by The Smiths, and each dating entry has a lyric or song by them at the beginning, and luckily, Morrissey once mentioned the aforementioned Milton Keynes town in one of their songs.

She was 5 years younger than me, had a subtle Northern accent and was good company but I'm really struggling to say much more about her other than the fact that she occasionally went to the shops in a onesie and having worked in numerous bars in her youth; had discovered, after intensive research, how to make the perfect Gin and Tonic. She was a nice person but I didn't have any burning desire to see her again after the date had finished, and I think that she probably felt the same as we both didn't make any attempt to contact each other again.