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 59

"I've seen you smile, but I've never really heard you laugh."

After another brief hiatus from dating, I decided to give OkCupid another go. And, boy, is it difficult to get a reply on there, let alone a date, which is highlighted by the fact that I've only met two women off it after being sporadically on it for a year (technically, it should have been more as at least two girls agreed to meet me for drinks but never replied when I tried to arrange them).

As I'd alluded to in an earlier post, being on a free site doesn't mean that you're going to go on loads of dates, as, on paper, OKCupid is full of intelligent and like-minded people supposedly looking to meet others. However, being a free site does often mean that there are going to be lots of members and this results in predominantly women being bombarded with messages (including a lot from socially inept freaks). Another reason could be that with a pay site, members are possibly more likely to go on dates to get their money's worth, which I think is backed up by the high number of dates I've been on through pay sites compared to the low number on free sites. Having said all that, though, this could all be bollocks as maybe people are just becoming more choosy, super fussy, up their own arses or just plain rude.

To the date itself. We'd been e-mailing for a good few months, and, although her constant overuse of the acronym 'LOL' was a bit annoying (a real pet hate of mine, which, surely should be a punishable offence), she seemed nice. Anyway, she asked if I'd like to meet for a drink and as she fancied coming to London, she travelled up from Brighton to see me. We had a very pleasant afternoon and evening drinking along the South Bank, and although we were still in text contact the following week and she did ask if I wanted to meet up again but things just fizzled out and we never did. I also wasn't overly enamoured by her assertion that I was the spitting image of Coronation Street's Steve McDonald. I've since asked a number of friends and they assure me that this isn't the case. At all. No, sir. Really, I don't. Look, I don't resemble him in any shape or form whatsoever.

UPDATE: 2014

Upon moving to Brighton in early 2014, she actually made contact with me through OKCupid again. We met up for drinks and it was nice to see her. But, there was something odd about her though that I just couldn't put my finger on and we never saw each other again.

Date 58

"I wanna go home, I don't wanna stay."

Perhaps the most well known free dating website is plentyoffish.com, although plentyofchavs.com would be a more apt title.

I decided to create a profile for it, but it soon became very obvious that a date was going to be hard to come by. It reminded me a bit of match.com, although not as cultured or high brow, and a good idea for a search filter would be to have the ability to eliminate anyone who was illiterate, could only write in text speak and solely watched Sex and the City and Disney films.

As it turned out, the few lost souls that I did send messages to either didn't reply or deleted them without reading.

Rather unexpectedly, someone actually sent me a message and we e-mailed for a while then decided to meet for a drink. We hooked up the night after I'd had my first rendezvous with date 57, so I was a bit hungover still. She was a nice enough person, but just didn't really have anything to say, and so I probably over-compensated for the awkward silences by waffling on. This probably led her to believe that I was an ego-maniac, who loved the sound of my own voice, but I didn't really know what else to do as she was just staring at me and saying very little, whilst stealing my cigarettes. We still had 3 or 4 drinks but in the end I called it a night, so maybe her being 8 years younger than me was too big an age gap as she was very dismissive of my music and film tastes and quite patronising in general, which irked me a bit. However, she did amuse me with her middle class Kent accent consistently lapsing into a Lily Allen/Kate Nash-like mockney dialect.

This was my final date of 2010 and I, not long after, deleted my profile.

Date 57

"Then on the sand, another man, he takes her hand, a smile lights up her stupid face (and well it would)."

After not having much success on match.com I decided to try a free site as I was starting to begrudge having to fork out money on a monthly basis just to meet the occasional weirdo or person with no manners.

The site in question was called OKCupid and it certainly on paper is one of the better free sites around. In fact, its design layout and volume of people registered puts most of the famous pay-sites to shame. Being free and having lots of members, though, doesn't equate to going on a lot of dates, which is something that I will address further in a future blog entry.

After being on the site for a few months and basically not receiving any replies or interest, I was amazed when date 57 contacted me. After exchanging a few messages, we then agreed to meet for a drink at the end of October 2010. The first things I noticed about her were her Elvis/Marilyn earrings and height. Her profile said she was 5'10'' but she's actually about 6'2'', so she pretty much towered above me as I'm not particularly tall. Anyway, we got on exceptionally well and she completely drank me under the table, although she does have the advantage of being Amazonian, Australian and still being in the throes of youth as I'm more than 5 years older than her. She tainted herself slightly by opining that The Smiths 'are so depressing,' but she redeemed herself when she let on to me that she was addicted to Final Fantasy (a Playstation title I used to be into when I was a big gamer years ago).

Our second date was a week later and started off in Angel. It was bonfire night so I bought her some jumbo sparklers, which she loved, and we made our way to Camden, lighting a few along the way. We went to so many pubs that I lost count, via a really bad Mexican restaurant, where the Mariachi band just wouldn't leave us alone and we had some really strong cocktails. Then at the end of the night I was really surprised when she asked me to go back to hers, although she said that she couldn't promise me any 'sexy sex' (her exact words). We'd already drank a vast quantity of alcohol that night and when we got back to hers we started on a bottle of red. So, by the time we did go to bed we both fell asleep instantly whilst watching The Time Traveller's Wife, which I've since been told is the best way to see it. And there was no 'sexy sex.'

The next morning I woke up with the worst hangover I've ever had in my life, yet she was remarkably as fresh as a daisy, suffering no ill effects whatsoever. I must have been still drunk as I felt like I was in someone else's body. We then went to a cafe and she polished off a full English breakfast without any trouble, yet I could only manage one or two bites out of a bacon sandwich before I had to admit defeat and leave the rest. I must have been terrible company, but I just couldn't function properly and all I could think of was the long journey home, which took 2 hours on the tube and train, and how I just wanted to go to bed for the rest of the day. I explained to her that I just felt so ill that I really had to go, which I don't think she understood, but if I'd have felt fine then I would genuinely have stayed with her.

Arranging a 3rd date then became a bit of a problem as she kept cancelling on me at the last minute. I did think at the time that it was because of my poor showing the morning after our second date but I needn't have worried as I received an interesting text from her on the morning of our 3rd date. In it she said that she liked being with me but only as a friend and that she'd been seeing someone else at the same time and wanted to see how things worked out with him. I wasn't devastated but I was disappointed and decided to cancel as I just didn't feel like seeing her that evening.

So that was that, and I didn't attempt to contact her. A month or so later I received a text from her out of the blue asking if I wanted to go out for a pre-Christmas 2010 drink. I didn't see any harm in it so I agreed, and whilst it was a bit awkward at first, we had a really good time. A funny thing did happen though during the afternoon as whilst we were sitting outside having a drink and a smoke, a woman came over to our table and basically sat down with us and started chatting me up. This is an extremely rare occurrence for me and we swapped contact details when she had to go, although my Aussie friend actually seemed quite pissed off at this and left soon after. When I did try to contact the flirty woman at a later date, she palmed me off, so nothing ever came of it, but it was quite good for my ego.

I then received another interesting text from her a few days after Christmas. In it she poured her heart out to me and went on a bit of a rant about how all men were arseholes as the guy she'd chosen over me had dumped her on Christmas Day; what a nice chap! I was sympathetic with her to a point but the irony certainly wasn't lost on me.

Date 56

"Two lumps, please. You're the bee's knees, but so am I."

My last ever date using match.com and I won't be going back there in a hurry as I've deleted my profile. Date number 56 was a truly lovely lady. She was about 6 years younger then me and a self-confessed Katy Perry lookalike, although that was more to do with people commenting on the likeness rather than her being arrogant. We met for a couple of drinks near Hampton Court and agreed to meet again for a second date. We were in email contact for the next week or so then one day she deleted me from Facebook without explanation and I didn't hear from her again. A few months later, however, I was trying out a free dating website in which users could leave feedback for people they'd met, and out of the blue (as I didn't know she was on the site), she left the following message: "A real gentleman - genuine, intelligent, honest & down to earth. Too good for someone like myself." It was very sweet of her to say that about me but I have no idea what she was talking about when saying that I was too good for her as I really wanted to see her again and it makes me sound like I have a superiority complex.

Date 55

"I lost my faith in womanhood."

This will go down as the most mental and scariest person that I've met so far on my internet dating travails, and even now I still get shivers down my spine when I think about her a year later. Unbelievably, things got off to a very promising start and we actually went out for a few months.

Our first date was surprisingly fantastic as, for some reason, I wasn't looking forward to meeting her at all, and we seemed to click straight away. We met along the South Bank at about 8pm and after numerous pub stops, found ourselves in Soho at 3am. At this point we were both absolutely hammered, and, whilst standing outside a pub trying to get our bearings, she inexplicably just walked off without me, saying she had to get home. As I live out in the sticks I'd missed my last train home by about three hours so I chased after her and luckily managed to catch her up. I didn't have a clue where I was and I had no idea how I was going to get home so I asked her if I could sleep on her sofa. She would have been well within her rights to refuse and I would have accepted that, but thankfully she agreed and so we went back to hers. I promised her that there wouldn't be any funny business and that I just needed a place to sleep, and true to my word I slept on her sofa and went home the next morning.

We then met up for a second date a few days later around the London Bridge area. I have to say that it wasn't very pleasant as she was in an extremely grumpy mood the whole evening and very distant. However, despite this we met up again a few days later in Richmond and then a week after that we went to Soho and visited a Noel Fielding art exhibition. It largely used Bryan Ferry as its muse so I was in my element. After food and drink we ended up going back to hers and sleeping together for the first time.

By this time we were in constant contact and would speak on the phone every night. Although we were getting on really well I had become very conscious of her severe mood swings and hyper-sensitivity. The first sign of it came when I went round to hers one day to bring her some food as she was off work ill. Beforehand, she'd started sending me really dirty texts and then proceeded to tell me that she liked things done with her neck and hair. I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant so asked a friend and he told me to take along a garrotte and comb! Anyway, as it turned out, during sex, she liked her hair being pulled and she also liked to be throttled and strangled. I tried to do what she wanted but I just felt extremely uncomfortable so after a while said that I couldn’t. She was a bit pissed off and asked me if I had any kinks. I couldn’t really think of any so said that I watched porn sometimes. She was so disgusted and horrified by my admission that she kicked me out of her flat! I managed to patch things up with her, although in retrospect I wish I hadn't. Little things like this would then occur over the coming weeks where I felt like I was treading on egg-shells and having to watch what I said.

The next date which really sticks out started off very well but descended into a farce by the end. I took her to Primrose Hill and we had a lovely long walk as it was a beautiful July evening. I then took her to a restaurant in Hampstead and she then suggested we go back to hers via Tesco to get some booze to carry on drinking. When we got back to hers I sat down on the sofa whilst she was in her bedroom for a few minutes and inexplicably she came back out wearing her pyjamas and dressing gown and said she was going to bed and that I could watch tv. I was obviously a little confused and was trying to wrack my brains for something that I might have said to upset her over-sensitive self during the previous half hour; I couldn't think of anything though. Then, to make matters worse, before she went to bed she put the tv on for me and as a Vincent Cassel film was on (I cannot stand the French fella), I happened to comment that he was punching above his weight by being married to Monica Bellucci as I said that she was absolutely stunning and he clearly is not. What a huge error of judgement on my part that was as I would later find out. At this point I wished that I was at home but I was a bit stuck considering it was 1am so I went to bed to try and sleep. We were both wide awake for hours, but I didn't know that she was too as it transpired that she was in a huff with me and had been pretending to be asleep whilst simultaneously ignoring me. The reasons being that Monsieur Cassel is her favourite actor and she didn't like me insulting him, and on our first date I'd told her that she was stunning (which she was) and by her weird logic I'd upset her by saying that Signora Bellucci was too! No? I don't get it either.

I can't remember how, but we managed to patch things up but alas there were more fun and games around the corner. We'd been going out for about six weeks at this stage and she wanted me to go to a friend of hers birthday. Normally I would have said 'yes' but the party was due to take place in a really nasty, chavvy club in Clapham on a Friday night and I just could not entertain the thought of attending. The idea of going somewhere like that in Clapham of all places filled me with absolute dread as it is a setting absolutely alien to what I am about. I was also due to see her on the Thursday and Saturday nights so I thought that would be ok if I ducked out of this hell-like scenario. I was honest with her about my reasons for not going and she flew into an absolute rage by sending me abusive texts and emails for a couple of days. She then rang me up as if nothing had happened and when I told her that I wasn't happy with the abuse she'd been sending me, she put the phone down on me and had the audacity to email me the next day demanding to know why I was ignoring her! At this point I'd had enough so I told her that I wanted to call it a day to which she sent me some really bizarre emails about how I clearly had issues and that I'd been leading her on and she accused me of being all sorts of things. As I hadn't heard from her for a few days I thought that that was that.

I then the made one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made in my life. She sent me a text out of the blue asking if we could meet up to discuss things. I always like to give people another chance and to sort things out in an adult way so I agreed and we hooked up and she went on the charm offensive and apologised profusely so I forgave her. I still don't know why I did. She also let slip that she wasn't used to men saying 'no' to her and that she always got her own way, so me not bowing down to her every whim was a new experience for her.

A couple of days later she was due to go to Australia for a few weeks so she invited me around to hers and in all fairness we had a lovely evening of food and drink. Evenings like this were why I liked being with her as she could be extremely good company. She had so many good qualities which explains why I kept wanting to give her the benefit of the doubt, whereas early on and in the cold light of day, I should have taken note of the warning signs and ran in the opposite direction.

The next morning we said our goodbyes as she went down under. During the three weeks she emailed every day telling me how much she missed me, which I found bizarre and uncomfortable (which I told her) as we hadn't been going out long at all and she should have just been enjoying herself. She would also complain if my replies were too short!

Anyway, she arrived back after her trip and rang me as soon as she got in the door of her flat and we met up the next day at South Bank. We had a lovely day and she bought me loads of presents and we were getting on really well. When the evening was over I sort of knew that she wanted me to go back to hers but by the same token I didn't want to be presumptuous, so as she didn't say anything I went to make my way home and she asked me to go back with her although I sensed she had the hump on the way home. When we were back at hers she said she was going to Clapham the next day to meet a friend and wanted to leave her flat at 12pm and as I was going there to change trains she wanted to travel there with me. I actually had to be home the next day a bit earlier than that so I said I had to leave hers at 11am. Later on when we were in bed she told me that she was really angry with me because I had to leave at 11am the next day and she went into one of her moods despite the fact I would be spending the best part of 24 hours with her so I wasn't impressed.

The next morning she prodded me at 7:30am and said that she wanted me to leave, so I went in the lounge and took the presents she'd bought me out of my bag and left them on the floor, said goodbye then departed. I then remembered that I'd lent her a book while she was away and so I went back, knocked on her door and very politely asked her for it to which she obliged (Pies and Prejudice by Stuart Maconie if you were wondering). Feeling quite angry, but in actuality a bit relieved, I made my way to the station then realised my train wasn't due for another couple of hours, so I rang up a friend to tell him what had happened, bought a coffee and wandered around the not so delightful surroundings of Purley until I could get home.

I can't emphasise enough how much in the end she actually scared me with her mood swings, and I'm not sure if I was dreaming it or not but I have quite a clear memory of seeing her going through my mobile phone on the last morning I was with her.

I spent the next few weeks in constant fear of her contacting me, but she never did.

Date 54

"The passing of time."

An interesting evening with this Canadian woman. She worked for a big film company so we had a lot to talk about in terms of movies and the like, so I was in my element. She also told me that she used to work as a PA for Roxy Music guitarist, Phil Manzanera, and that one day Bryan Ferry rang up and was a bit surly. I think that that anecdote was my favourite part of the night in retrospect, as I love to hear anything to do with the white dinner jacketed Geordie crooner.

After a couple of drinks, she said on our way home that she'd like to see me again, and told me to contact her. So I emailed her a couple of days later asking about a second date. She didn't respond for about four or five weeks, and in her reply she said she wanted just to be friends. In the end I didn't actually reply to her, which I know is rude, but I just thought that if she takes so long to respond then what's the point?