The Single Filez | romantic blog about date and dating

To Pay Or Not To Pay… now, that is the question.

Paying for dating sites is a dilemma I’ve been faced with recently. As  you may have noticed its not something I like to do.  I had a free three month trial on My Single Friend last year and recently had a free week’s Lovestruck.com trial (ah, the perks of a dating blogger), but other than that I’ve spent most of my time on free dating website Plenty of Fish, which for the sake of my sanity, I recently decided to call it quits.

Call me cheap if you like, but personally, I like to think of it that I just prefer to spend my hard earned cash on other things. Saving up for holidays, buying clothes, eating out at nice restaurants, socialising with my friends… now that’s the stuff I don’t mind spending my money on.

Also, there’s a part of me that still can’t quite get my head around the fact that my life has gotten to the point where I have to PAY to find a date.  What happened to being able to get dates the ‘normal’ way? Things are really that bad that I have to pay to find someone who wants to go out with me? These feelings aside, unfortunately, my lack of meeting guys in the flesh has confirmed that although I think online dating sucks, recently it’s been the only way I’m able to get dates.

So, as a little experiment for myself more than anything, I’ve just signed up for 3 months membership on paid-for site eHarmony. I’ve heard many good things about eHarmony and I want to see if it lives up to the hype. Previously I’ve always been put off eHarmony because, at £35 a month, it’s one of the more expensive sites out there. Also the fact that the sign up process requires answers to pages and pages of questions AND the fact they don’t let you browse photos ahead of signing up were barriers to me. I mean, paying before even getting to see who is on the site – isn’t that like going into a shop and shelling out your cash on something before knowing what it looks or feels like?

Nevertheless, what’s that popular saying? “You get what you pay for?”. Well, maybe I need to accept that in this day and age paying to get dates is something I have to embrace, and if that’s the case, why not go all out and pay for one of the most successful and internationally known dating sites? Watch this space!

Disclaimer: I actually used the eHarmony 3 months for the price of 1 deal they have on at the mo, but whatevs

Tags: Dating Websites, eHarmony, Online Dating, Singles

It didn’t take very long, but things have already gone sour with East End Boy. I spent my evening sat at home eating Marks & Spencers chunky chocolate cheesecake (it’s amazing, go buy it) when I was supposed to be out having my first non week-night date with a guy who I was actually excited about.  I wish I was able to explain exactly why I was home stuffing my face and drinking wine (pity party, much?) instead of being out enjoying a date, but I can’t,  because I don’t even know the answer to that one myself. However, I can tell you how it all played out…

Our first date was so enjoyable that I stayed out until 1am on a week night. That same night we made plans to meet up again at the weekend. Last Sunday, despite the fact it was raining cats and dogs and I wanted to stay cosy indoors, I went on our second date. It turned out to be the best date that I’ve had in a very long time. We went for a walk around Spitalfields market and ate dinner and shared dessert at Giraffe. Like before; plenty of good conversation, plenty of laughter, plenty of discovering we had many things in common and generally having a really good time.

We got a bit smoochy when it was time to say goodbye (PDA alert!) and he asked the same question he asked at the end of our first date, “when am I’m going to see you again?”. I was crazy busy over the next week but we managed to agree on a convenient day for us both. When I pointed out that we’d be seeing eachother again in only two short nights’ he laughed, he hugged me and he said “you’re not used to this are you?”. I admitted that it’d been a long time.

I got home and realised I had double booked myself. I already had plans on the evening I was to meet him. I wanted to see him but I didn’t want to let my friends down, so when we spoke on the phone the following night, I told him I’d do both. I’d spend a couple of hours with my friends and then meet him afterwards. He wasn’t happy with that idea because it would mean we’d only get to spend a couple of hours together. He suggested moving our date to another evening (tonight) when we’d have more time. He said, (NB: HE  said), that he wanted to spend time with me to get to know me. I thought it was sweet and I was totally up for the idea of seeing him at the weekend.

Knowing I’d be out with my friends instead of seeing him, he told me to give him a call when I was on my way home so that we could have a chit chat. I called him Tues night, he didn’t answer. He text the next morning to apologise and said he’d call me that night. That text message on Weds morning was the last I heard from him. I called him on Weds night but once again got no answer. I didn’t think much of it until it got to Thursday night and I saw him online on Plenty of Fish. Absolutely nothing wrong with him being on there (hell, I was on there trying to hook up other dates too), but I found myself getting annoyed. He hadn’t returned my call. He could see I was online but oh no, he still didn’t message me. On top of all that, we had made plans for Friday night and now I was being ignored?

Friday came. I still took heels to work, just in case. Throughout the day, everytime I received a text message I thought it might’ve been him. But no, I didn’t hear a thing. Admittedly, I didn’t chase him.  I was waiting to see if I would hear from him. I felt that chasing him to find out why he hadn’t gotten back to me would give him the upper hand. It would make me look like the weak one, begging for his time and attention. It would give him yet another opportunity to ignore me. Does that make sense? Or am I being too petty? Should I have contacted him to find out why he’d suddenly gone quiet? Or was I right to leave it alone?

What confuses me (about him and others this has happened with) is how does he go from wanting to spend more time with me, wanting to get to know me better, kissing me, enjoying that everything feels familiar with me… to not returning my call, to being online (on POF) at the same time as me but not messaging me and to going all quiet when we had previously made date plans? It doesn’t make sense.

With all of the guys I’ve dated but not been excited about, I’ve let them know. Yes, I am a huge coward and I tend to do it via text message, but at least I do let them know. The difference with this is he WAS interested. He wanted to see me, spend time with me, he would grab my hand while walking down the street FFS! So shouldn’t he have had the common courtesy to let me know what had changed?

I can’t deny it. I’m actually quite disappointed. I had bought a new top, I had researched places for us to go. I was really looking forward to what was going to be our first non-weeknight date.

More fool me, eh?

Tags: General Dating, Men, Online Dating, Relationships, Singles

Last weekend I had my first date in two months. As much as I think online dating sucks, I really can’t deny the fact that it has proved to be the best way for me to secure dates. I stop visiting dating sites and I’m dateless for two months. I start browsing sites again and voila, like magic, I have a date within a week. Kinda speaks for itself, right?

Who Is He?

I’m going to call him “Short Stuff”. Because, duh, he’s short. At 5’2″, I’m short but I’m a girl, so it’s seen as cute (so there!). As far as men go, at 5’6″, he’s hella short.  Short Stuff first messaged me via Plenty of Fish approx a week before our date. He’s 34, lives and works in Bournemouth, a seaside town a couple of hours away from London. I came close to nipping it in the bud after just a few messages. My feeling was, what’s the point of dating someone who lives hours away?. He replied saying I was the most decent conversation he’d had on POF in awhile, and that he’s a pretty understanding guy so whatever I decide is cool but… what do I have to lose? He does make a very good point, eh?

The Positives

- His messages were normal. Chatty, no text talk, no creepy lecherous ‘hey baby’ talk.

- Through messages I found out that, like me, he’s a fan of travelling. He was even lucky enough to travel around South America (Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil) a few years back. Niiiice.

The Negatives

- He lives in Bournemouth, I live in London. There’s two hours inbetween us and I don’t drive. It”s not the other side of the earth, but sometimes it’s frustrating dating someone who lives on the other side of London let alone a different town.

- Doing too much online. Asking me out online. Arranging the whole date online. No asking for my number. No suggestion of talking on the phone first. No ice breaker. No chance to hear his voice or get an inkling of whether or not there would be any chemistry. I ended up having to ask him for his number, and on date day no less!

The Date

It was a nice date. Nothing horrific happened. We met at the train station (he was late, but text in advance to let me know). He looked good. He had a nice smart/casual thing going on. We walked along the Southbank to Gabriel’s Wharf. Had a couple of lattes in Studio 6. Talked and shared experiences about travel, Plenty of Fish, family etc and then headed home. Nice. Pleasant. Uneventful.

Although, I have yet to figure out how 5’6″ equates to him feeling the same height as me in flats? I’m ashamed to say that I came away from the date thinking, I could be excited about him, if only he was a few inches taller. And then it hit me,  am I (all 5 foot 2 inches of me), height-ist?

Everyone is taller than me. Even my 14 year old sister is taller than me. It’s just the way it is and I accept it that way. So it’s kinda odd for me, to be worried about wearing heels on a date for fear of being taller than a man. It wasn’t something I’d ever had to deal with before and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

Jeez, it’s not like I’m tall. Is it so wrong of me to want to be able to wear sexy heels on a date if I so choose?  I’m only ickle, is it too much to ask not be taller than my date? It doesn’t seem to bother Katie Holmes, Sophie Dahl, Nicole Kidman et al,  but ladies, what about you? Does the idea of being taller than your date bother you? Does height matter?

Tags: Dating Websites, General Dating, Online Dating