Date 182

"Pass the pub that wrecks your body."

I had an early warning that this person was going to be flakey after she cancelled our first date 12 hours after we'd arranged it. We hadn't been chatting very long at all on Tinder (about 20 minutes) when she asked if I wanted to meet up the next day. I had a suspicion that she was a bit tipsy but said yes, not really expecting it to happen, and I was proved right.

She lives in Croydon and had initially suggested I meet her there but I said it was just as easy that we meet somewhere more fun in London. The next day I contacted her to confirm whether we were still meeting and she bottled it by asking if we could postpone as she said that the festive period had caught up on her and she wasn't feeling very good; so I was probably right that she'd been a bit drunk the night before.

We'd pencilled in to meet at the SouthBank the following weekend and I was surprised when I texted her the day before to check if the date was still on and she said it was. So I made my way into the capital again and when she rocked up she didn't look like her pictures. I sort of knew it was her as a blonde woman was heading towards me smiling, but I'm not sure I would have known otherwise. There was definitely a resemblance but I suspect that her profile pics were a few years out of date.

We had drinks and a meal and, although I'd enjoyed her company, I was ready to go home but she insisted on going to another pub. I think she just wanted to continue drinking but it was getting close to 11pm and I was more interested in not missing my train back to Brighton.

We said our goodbyes at Waterloo and I suggested that she could come to Brighton if she wanted another date. She seemed very keen and we discussed it again briefly by text but then the messages stopped very abruptly and I never heard from her again...This was probably for the best though and I can only assume that January caught up on her.

Date 181

"So, goodbye."

I assume that this will turn out to be the last date that I meet from Guardian Soulmates considering it will be ceasing to exist from June onwards, and I deleted my profile about 2 days before they made it free for everyone.

It was a great site to be on in London and when I used to live there I met lots of interesting people through it. However, my experiences haven't been great on it the last few years with barely anyone replying to messages and a month's subscription coming in at a whopping £32!!!! I never understood where the money went for that as every time I contacted them about something like glitches on the app, it never got sorted and the format it used hadn't really been updated in the 15 or so years that it was active. I assume a lot of the non-swiping apps will become equally as obsolete soon as why spend a month messaging people and getting nothing back when at least with swipe sites the matching capability means you're halfway there to exchanging messages with someone.

I digress though. I met my last GSM date for coffee and cake that lasted probably under an hour and it was ok. She was quite insistent about a second one so we met for drinks but that was quite quick too and was probably only 2 drinks worth.

The pub date was definitely more fun but I'm not really a fan of cafe dates. Plus she'd made more of an effort to dress up. Our third date was meant to be the pub again but she postponed it due to there being a bad weather forecast, which turned out not to be true. So, it didn't take place but not for a very good reason. When we did rearrange it was for coffee again and I genuinely can't remember anything about it.

These took place in January and February, so before Lockdown, and I've obviously not seen her since but she's still in fairly regular contact, usually sending me links to news stories that are a couple of days out of date. So, she's either bored or just trying to keep a dialogue going. She's a nice person but I'm not sure if we'd meet up again as I just don't know what we'd do as she's usually only ever out for a short period of time before she has to get back.

Farewell Guardian Soulmates.....

Date 180

"Your youth may be gone but you're still a good man."

Before we met, and at her suggestion, we had a Facetime chat. I normally don't like doing that but it was great. We spoke for about 2 hours and it felt like we'd had our first date. I decree that it should be the way forward.

After our chat, she was very keen to meet and although she lived about an hour away from me near the Surrey/Sussex border, she was happy to drive over to me on a Sunday. I was surprised that she was so enthusiastic with her being 10 years younger than me and an absolute stunner, but we'd got on really well on Facetime, so what could go wrong?

Well...nothing really, but sadly she just wasn't into me when we met in the flesh. It was a beautiful sunny winter's day and we walked into Brighton along the seafront, seemingly continuing where we'd left off from our previous chat.

I bought her coffee and cake and we had a mooch around the shops, even managing to bump into some friends of mine along the way. I felt very comfortable with her and it was a really lovely afternoon. 

We made our way back to mine after an hour or so and she popped into my flat briefly for a nose around. I also gave her a small Christmas present (chocolate coffee thing from Waitrose), which she seemed really happy with and said she'd open it on the 25th. 

I got a text from her the next day thanking me for the afternoon but saying that she hadn't felt that old elusive, possibly mythical, spark. And that was the last I heard from her. I wasn't surprised as I'd sensed a possible disappointment emanating from her during the date. I thought she might have got in touch with me on Christmas Day regarding her present as I knew she loved coffee and chocolate but perhaps she just doesn't like Waitrose. 

Date 179

"If you must write prose and poems, the words you use should be your own."

I didn't know this before I met this woman for coffee, but she's a tv presenter, radio presenter and journalist. She also writes articles about online dating in national newspapers.

Although the date only lasted an hour or so, I got a good vibe from her and she was funny, good looking, friendly and ten years older than me. I came away feeling happy and I felt she wanted to see me again. She filled me in all her media work and she's got a very big internet presence so it wasn't difficult to find her articles.

The next day I texted her to enquire about another date and she suggested another coffee one...I found this totally unimaginative and uninspiring but I said yes anyway, thinking she'd choose somewhere to go but then I never heard back from her.

I wasn't that bothered really as I found the offer of another possible coffee date a bit boring so a few weeks later I suggested going out for drinks over Christmas. I'd not heard anything for a while so deleted her number on my phone. Then a few days after Christmas, I got a text from her out of the blue saying she still had family staying but when they were gone she'd contact me about meeting up for drinks. I never did hear from her again.

As someone who claims to be a 'dating expert' I can only assume that she's never read any of her own articles.

Date 178

                                    "A double bed and a stalwart lover for sure."

After chatting quite a lot on Bumble, our first date was arranged only a few hours before we ended up meeting. We both had a free Friday evening so met in a pub near me.

If I can be allowed to be shallow for a moment, I was pleasantly surprised when she walked in the pub as her profile pictures didn't do her justice and she looked a lot younger than she actually was. We got on really well and got pretty drunk and we ended up going back to my flat and sleeping together.

The sex was great. The best I've had in a long time. Although she'd lived in Brighton for years and years, she'd grown up in Croydon and at one point during the night, her previously hidden strong South London accent came to the fore when she said "can I suck your dick?" You had to be there...

We really paid for our drunkenness and lack of sleep in the morning though. She went home in a taxi and straight to bed but I had to make my way to East London to see Newcastle thankfully beat West Ham 3-2. I'm not sure how I got there on only one hour's sleep but the adrenalin and jubilation got me home. This might have been different had we lost.

The next day she texted me and wanted me to go to an event with her in which loads of her friends were going. I felt this was a bit fast to be meeting her friends but she was very insistent and kept going on about it all day, even though I kept saying no. It sounded like a really good show but the thought of meeting her friends felt daunting but she wouldn't let it go. I thought that was that but then she invited herself round after it had finished and drove over.

It was about 8pm on a Sunday night and so we went for a walk along the seafront and went back to my flat for a cup of tea. I liked her but she was becoming really intense and talking about future things and it felt like she thought we were a couple. She was fairly recently divorced so I think she was looking to go straight from that to another serious relationship.

I couldn't see her that week as I was having building work done at my flat so stayed elsewhere for a few days. Her texts were becoming really incessant though, to the extent that if I didn't reply instantly then she would send another one not long after.

I was getting really put off by this and if I didn't reply straight away I'd feel guilty!!! This went on for another week and I just wasn't enjoying being in contact with her. She was a really nice person but every time I thought about having another date it just didn't make me excited.

In the end I thought that I just had to put an end to things. I was worried that she'd react in an adverse way so I got a friend to help me compose a text to her. I know how I feel when I like someone and it's not reciprocated so it's best to let the other person know what's happening. I told her that we'd had a lovely time together but it's not the right thing for me and that I hope she understood. She took a day to respond but she was really nice about it so I got an unusually mature response from someone for a change.

Although I am looking for a meaningful relationship, she just wasn't the woman I want one with.  In spite of the fact that she sounds like Adele (her description of her accent) in the bedroom. And I don't mean her singing voice.

Date 177

"Shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to."

Just before our first date, while I was walking across Charing Cross/Hungerford Bridge over to the South Bank, I received a text from 177. It partially showed up on my watch as "I think that the elastic has gone in my..."

Obviously, when I read the full text on my phone it turned out to be her tights! I'm not quite sure why she was telling me this though, and she didn't know either. It sort of summed her up though as she was a funny one in all meanings of the word.

After a few drinks, I suggested dinner and she was overjoyed and said that no-one had ever taken her to dinner on a date before. I wasn't sure if she was taking the piss at first with her reactions but she just tended to get very excitable about things.

The evening was fun and in the days afterwards she basically invited herself to my place in Brighton a couple of weeks later for a horror movie night. So, she came over one Friday evening. We had a lounge picnic, watched a horror film, drank wine and swapped dating stories (unsurprisingly I had a lot more than her).

When it came to sleeping arrangements, I offered her my bed and said I'd sleep on the sofa but she was insistent that we sleep together. This led to partial sex until she got shy halfway through and the rest of the night was spent with us writing song titles by The Smiths on each other's backs with our fingers and having to guess them. Her idea.

The next morning I made us breakfast then had a shower. After her shower she announced that she'd left the bathroom door open and was disappointed that I hadn't joined her. So, she was certainly giving off mixed messages. She then proceeded to run around my flat like a child who's had too many Smarties, and began jumping on my bed. At this point, I didn't really know what to make of her, so I was quite relieved when she eventually decided to go home.

We kept in touch, but the texts fizzled out and I wasn't too bothered about seeing her again, particularly as it would have been only a matter of time before she found my secret stash of Sunny Delight.

Date 176

"And you must be looking very old tonight."

I initially had thought about cancelling this as, although I was yet again travelling to London to meet her, she'd said that on first dates she only met for a drink or two and not for long. In reality, that's sensible and probably how first dates should be, but I wondered if it was worth my while going all that way.

I got there a bit early and nabbed an impressive diner style table in a bar then got a text from her saying that she was also there. I knew she was a few years older than me but the only other person in there was sitting over the opposite side in a pink jumper, but she looked in her late 50's at best. I got another text from her saying that she was wearing a pink jumper...

I saw her go to the bar out of the corner of my eye, order a drink and make her way over to me. For a split second I thought that there was maybe more than one person wearing a pink jumper in the bar that evening, but she said my name inquisitively and told me that she was normally good at recognising men from their profiles. The irony wasn't lost on me as, I'm not saying that she lied about her age, but she was meant to be about 5 years older then me and not 15. Meeow.

As it turned out, she was a really nice person and we had a few drinks, as opposed to a couple. It was quite clear that a second date wouldn't be happening but she sent me a really lovely message the next day saying that I'd restored her faith in humanity. I'm not exactly sure how I did that, so I can only assume that I was polite and normal in comparison to the nutters she normally meets.