Date 60

"I know I'm unloveable, you don't have to tell me."

Another dating site and another disappointing dating experience. I'd been debating for a while whether to go back onto Guardian Soulmates, however, I put it off for a bit after their catastrophic relaunch and revamp in April 2011 (more of this in the next entry). Whilst reading an e-petition calling for the reinstatement of the old Soulmates site, there were a lot of people commenting on how good The Love Lab was and how lots of Soulmates members had left to join said dating site in protest. It also used the same company who used to run the old Soulmates site and had the same layout and searching facilities; plus it was free to join for the first month, so I took them up on their offer out of curiosity.

After joining I have to say that I was shocked as to how few members there actually were who had recently active profiles. All the talk of it being a sanctuary full of disheartened Soulmates was just a blatant lie. In my month there I didn't message one person. However, one woman messaged me, and she really stood out from the rest, plus she was very keen to meet up.

She was a Mancunian and told me that she'd be wearing a leopard print scarf so that I'd recognise her, but that's where the parallels with Bet Lynch ended. I was instantly attracted to her as she was very pretty, funny and we shared the same taste in music, films, books, tv etc. so the conversation easily flowed. After a few drinks she said she had to go as she needed to get up early for work the next day, which was fair enough as it was a school night, and she said she would have stayed longer as she had really enjoyed the conversation.

I e-mailed her a couple of days later to see if she fancied hooking up again, but, alas, I was met with a response that I hadn't quite anticipated. In her reply she said that while we shared a lot in common she'd prefer not to, and from her point of view that even if we did meet up it would only be as friends, but she then went on to categorically state that she had enough friends already. So, I think that was a 'no' then.

I have to say that I think that was a bit harsh, as while she was being honest, a polite no thank you would have been enough. I did think about replying to her and asking if she could e-mail me again, but make it a bit more condescending, but instead I just deleted my profile as my free subscription was just about to finish anyway.

Despite this being the 60th woman that I'd met since I started internet dating, rejection is always hard to take and I was really quite down about this for a day, as in terms of first impressions, I was quite taken by her. And although, from my point of view, we'd got on well; she really didn't like me at all! I'm not naive enough to think that every person I meet will want to see me again, but I felt that she was unnecessarily blunt and it made me question what was so bad about me for her to really dislike me. I've learnt after going on so many dates to not take these things to heart, as the whole thing is completely random and I mostly take it with a pinch of salt, but sometimes it's difficult not to, until you put it all into perspective...

Date 3

"For message received, loud and clear."

It was now Autumn 2006, and being the glutton for punishment that I am, I went back to Love at Lycos for one more date.

I'd had a lot of contact with this person beforehand via phone and email so I wasn't nervous at all as we seemed to have developed a good rapport, even though we didn't have much in common. We agreed to meet for our first date at a pub on Oxford Street and I was amazed when she came up to me as she looked absolutely nothing like her profile pictures (I think she'd had them professionally done), and if I'm completely honest, as first shallow impressions go, I was a bit disappointed. I feel a bitch for saying this but she was unrecognisable, and although I'm no George Clooney, my profile photographs are always up to date as what's the point in being deceptive about one's appearance when it's going to be the first thing that someone notices (or in my case didn't notice as I didn't know it was her) when you meet them?

Putting all this aside though, we did actually get on very well and I actually really enjoyed the evening so we mutually agreed to meet for a second date.

Date number 2 started off at the London Aquarium, in which I was mesmerised by their wonderful collection of sharks, and it ended back at her place...

She was originally from Essex and a nurse, and lived with one of her colleagues, which made it all the more surprising as to how much her flat resembled an absolute pig-sty. Being in possession of a Psychology A-Level I think that I'm more than well qualified to theorise that this was them rebelling against their workplace being so sanitised and clean. There were discarded pizza boxes, clothes, underwear, full ash-trays and junk just strewn everywhere and they were both so lazy that instead of tidying up, they just made little walkways amongst the rubbish to navigate through.

Despite this, I did enjoy her company as she was a very fun and caring person and we actually went out for a couple of months, taking in the sights of London Zoo, Camden, Southbank and her bedroom along the way. Then one day, after spending the night at hers, we arranged for our next jaunt to involve taking in the London Dungeons. However, when I tried to contact her later, I was met with a wall of silence, so after a week or so of trying to get hold of her and being ignored, I just took the hint, left it and never saw or heard from her again. I also left the world of internet dating for another year until I discovered Guardian Soulmates...