Back In The Dating Game

It’s been a while since I’ve done a dating update. I guess the combination of being ditched by Pussy Boy, being totally underwhelmed by teenager in a 30 year old’s body Mr PAYG and then the slightly too intense Italian Guy back in May. Followed by my failed attempts to meet up with Fit Irish Guy in early June was enough to put me off dating for a little while. I became disheartened by the calibre of men I was meeting (i.e. they all sucked!) so felt, that since I had a trip coming up that it would make sense for me to take a date break to allow me to come back feeling fresh, raring to go and ready to date again.

Who Is He?

‘The Business Man’ is a guy I’ve been exchanging messages with on POF for about a week before we decided to meet up. He’s 32 years old and like me, he’s not originally a Londoner but has been living here for many years. The Business Man gets his name because duh, duh, duuuh…. he owns his own business. He seems to be doing well but poor thing, it’s left him too busy to date, too busy for fun generally by the sounds of things.

First impressions before meeting him were all positive. Good flowing conversation on POF, a couple of phonecalls plus he initiated a good amount of ‘Hey, how was your day?’ text message conversations in the lead up to the date. He seemed keen, and guess what? I didn’t mind one little bit.

*Sidenote: Isn’t it strange how when we’re not sure about a guy, exchanging lots of text messages before meeting up can seem way too eager and kinda sorta creepy? But yet, when we’re feeling the dude, it can feel absolutely fine, normal even. Funny that.

The Positives

- He looked cute.

- Although his spelling/grammar wasn’t great (sorry, an online dating pet peeve of mine), he had a sense of humour about it. In brackets at the end of his first message to me “Look, all of my capitals in the right place. Just for you”. Cute!

- Sounded nice and was easy to talk to on the phone.

- Um. Did I mention he was kinda cute?

The Negatives

- Messed me around a bit sorting out the date (which turned into a positive when he moved work-related things around so that he was able to see me).

- His spelling made me cringe a little, especially when he spelt Leicester as “Lesta”…

The Date

As you can see, I was *really struggling* to find ‘before date negatives’ for this particular update because to be honest, there really wasn’t anything that bad. I guess that’s the reason why I was actually looking forward to this date – he seemed promising, and normal.

He looked like his pics, shorter than his profile indicated but he had lovely muscular arms (a weakness of mine) which his profile hadn’t indicated. He was a nice looking guy. Not in a ‘phwoar’ kinda way, but in a ‘he’s actually quite cute kinda’ way.

Within the first 30 minutes of the date he complained about a leg injury, a shoulder injury and his allergies. I found out he doesn’t drink alcohol (yes, you read right. He DOESN’T. DRINK. ALCOHOL.) he only eats Halal meat and he doesn’t like hot weather. In mind head I was thinking “Sweet Jesus, get me outta here NOW!” but then I stopped and made myself think about the ‘Mr Good Enough’ theory. I had to literally tell myself, “C’mon now, stop looking at every little superficial thing as a reason to write him off. You picky cow.”

I’m glad I stuck it out, he turned out to be OK. He was pleasant, I found his background really interesting although I probably scared him half to death with all of my questions about his family once I found out they came from the African country of Malawi but his Dad was Indian and his Mum was half black/half Indian. Fascinating, right? I learnt loads about the history of Malawi. Both cute AND educational. Bonus.

Overall, it was a strange date. He spent a lot of time on his phone – work stuff? He thought we were only meeting for a quick coffee while I had been thinking we were meeting for Friday evening (alcoholic) drinks. I was the one who suggested staying out and the idea to go get something to eat, came from me. I don’t know quite how to evaluate this one. Yes, he did offer to give me a lift (in his very fancy car) to the train station but other than that, I didn’t come away from the evening with any indication that he was interested in me. There was no mention of another date, no mention of giving me a call. Nothing. I text him to let him know I was home safe and to thank him for a lovely evening, all I got back from him was “Oh that’s good, didn’t take you long to get home”. Reckon I’m going to write this one off as a no-go methinks. Good thing I have a date with a different guy lined up for this Thursday eh?

NEXT!