The Single Filez | romantic blog about date and dating

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!

As mentioned at the end of my last post not only was I going on my first date kinda-sorted organised by my Personal Dating Agent, (she found him but I was the one who got it to ‘date stage’), but it was also my first date in bloody ages. After East End Boy last August I knew I had to disembark from the dating-merry-go-round for awhile. Six Plenty-of-Fish-free months later, I’m ready to jump back on again.

Who Is He?

The Silver Fox – so called because at only 38 years old, he’s already got the whole grey hair thing going on. Luckily it’s in a nice way. He’s not old enough to be compared to actor George Clooney, but not young enough to be compared to TV personality George Lamb. Either way, he’s cute AND grey and was someone that my Personal Dating Agent Natasha found on Match.com. She winked at him and he replied with a message.

The way the PDA service is supposed to work is that Natasha messages guys on my behalf and when it gets to date stage – she passes them over to me. Except in this case I was intrigued by what I saw and I couldn’t help but to reply to his message myself. Here started a daily conversation exchange which, after a week and a half, resulted in him asking if I’d like to go out for drinks.

The Positives

The biggest pre-date positive about The Silver Fox was that we had discovered via our Match.com conversations that we both love to travel and we’re both all about living life to the fullest.

The Negatives

While we both like to travel, he does things like swimming with stingrays and sharks, sleeping in hammocks in the rainforest and climbing mountains. Whereas my idea of a good break involves strutting around beautiful, buzzy vibrant cities like New York, Paris, Madrid and Toronto. At the same time, having holiday choices in common isn’t the be all and end all, so I wasn’t about to let it put me off.

The Date

Apart from a slight footwear spazz out (he’s only 5’5 and I wasn’t sure if I should wear heels or not) it turns out that I was actually looking forward to going out on a date. To cut a long story short, we had a good time. The conversation flowed easily, there were no awkward silences, there was lots of laughter and what started out as a drink or two became numerous drinks until the last train home.

The evening finished up with me not feeling sure about whether or not I actually fancied him. Yes, we got along but there wasn’t any kind of ‘romantic spark’ between us. During the date he asked my thoughts so far. Obviously I must’ve been attracted to him to wink at him on Match, but now that I’d met him in person, did I still fancy him? Pretty brave move on his part. He said he definitely found me attractive but was very much aware of our different backgrounds/lifestyles. It was good to know I wasn’t the only one who had noticed!

Him: Country boy, lives by the river in a quiet town with not much happening but cosy local pubs, can’t imagine living anywhere else and wants to stay close to his family

Me: City girl, lives in an apartment block near shops, cafes, restaurants and bars, left my hometown in my teens, would love to live in the US or Canada

Him: Old fashioned technophone. Doesn’t own a computer, doesn’t use a smartphone, only just about familiar with Facebook

Me: Would shrivel up and die without the internet (well, not really but..)

Him: Into Kings of Leon, Kasabian and outdoor music festivals

Me: Into R&B & hip hop and seeing music artists in a way that doesn’t involve sleeping in fields

Silly little things, but still noticeable. Lack of obvious chemistry aside, The Silver Fox and I both decided that we enjoyed each other’s company too much to not plan another date. So, which is best - something in common or opposites attract? Who knows?

Tags: Dating Websites, Interracial Dating, Match.com, Online Dating, Personal Dating Agent

I was on Twitter last week  (the question is, when aren’t I on Twitter?) and I saw a tweet from Paul Brunson aka The Modern Day Matchmaker, that caught my eye. Paul, a certified relationship and life coach with a huge Twitter following, had thrown out an interesting challenge to his followers:

Well hey, I defo want to increase the number of dates I go on, so tell me more…

Hmm,  sounds interesting. Slightly outside of my comfort zone, but still interesting. Y’know where my comfort zone lies? Online dating, that’s where. I’m too shy to approach guys on the street/in a bar,  so I wonder if online counts?

And there you have it. Online dating counts too. I think I’m going to like this!

Even more critical for shy/quiet/introvert types. Hopefully this will get me out of my current rut? Mind you, I once went on a dating bootcamp weekend which involved us going to a bar with ‘trainers’ and approaching guys using lines and techniques they had taught us during the day. I tanked, big time. I wonder if I’ll do any better with this?

So, during the month of July, I have to ask 10 men on dates. It can be via dating sites or in person and thankfully, not all of  the men have to say yes. The main point of the excercise is to get asking.

I figure, why not? What have I got to lose? I’m curious to see what happens. I’m curious to see if it makes a difference to my dating life. Most importantly, I’m curious to see if I actually have it in me to ask guys out!  I already have a couple of dashing male cheerleaders pushing me to make it happen – Thanks @TheSenorCGW and @9Tenets for the words of encouragement.

Anyone else want to do The Modern Day Matchmaker July Challenge with me and share their results? If so, let me know via Twitter (@TheSingleFilez) or via email (thesinglefilez@hotmail.com)
 

Tags: Get The Guy, Matchmaking, Online Dating, Paul Brunson, Singles, Twitter

I’ve been thinking lately that maybe its time I open up and try something new. Obviously, whatever I’ve been doing in the past isn’t working for me. It is something that has been on my mind for awhile but when I saw the following tweet by @IamMercedez it confirmed what I was already thinking.

What if my problem is that who I’m attracted to isn’t who I’m supposed to be with? When I spoke with the dating expert and life coach last month they both asked me what my “type” was. For some reason (probably wanting to be “politically correct”?), I felt uncomfortable with being totally honest. The fact is that my “type” tends to be black guys. When walking down the street if I spot a hot guy, 9 times out of 10, he will be black or mixed race.

I went to a predominately white school and always had crushes on white boys as a kid. I won’t even start on how hugely obsessed I was New Kids On The Block as a child (who am I kidding, I still love them even as a 33yr old!) but those things aside, I can honestly say that I’ve not had a romantic relationship with a guy of the ‘caucasian persuasion’ as an adult. It’s just one of those things I guess.

I can’t help but wonder if like a Kenya McQueen, a character in a movie called ‘Something New’ that I watched recently, could be missing out?

Simon Baker and Sanaa Lathan as Brian and Kenya in Something New

In ‘Something New’ the character Kenya is urged on by her friends to try something new and to let go of her dream of the “ideal black man,” she goes a blind date with an architectural landscaper named Brian, only to cut the date short once she sees Brian is white. The two meet again at a party, and Kenya hires Brian to landscape her new home. I don’t want to ruin the film for you, so I’ll let you guess the rest. However, it was interesting to see how Kenya dealt with her own personal hang ups as well as those of her friends and family.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s no different to a guys having a preference for boobs rather than bums, or blondes rather than brunettes. I just happen to have a preference for black and brown skin. It’s what ‘does it’ for me. I can’t apologise for that!

However, I am absolutely aware that I’m not doing myself any favours by limiting myself and don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of white guys that I find attractive. Problem is… they are all famous hahaha! I find US actors Eddie Cibrian, Sean Faris, Hugh Jackman, Mark Wahlberg and Zac Efron (Yes. I’m aware he’s about a decade younger than me, but did you see 17 Again? Nuff said.) beyond hot! Oh, and I have to give an honourable mention to the UK’s own David Beckham (hubba hubba).

But, seriously. Have you seen Eddie Cibrian??

Eddie Cibrian *Swoon*

Isn’t he gorgeous? Here is another one, just because its my blog, and just because I feel like it….

Look at those dimples!

Now, the question is, how do I meet these guys? White guys don’t approach me and the places I tend to socialise at tend to have a predominately black crowd. I accept that my Mr Right could be black, white, yellow, green or purple but how will I know unless I’m open to it, right?

I have so much more to say on this subject but I’m interested to hear your thoughts. Have you dated outside of your own race? Do you have ‘a type’? Any tips, advice, suggestions? What do you think of Eddie Cibrian? Come on, I want to hear from you!

Tags: Dating Advice, General Dating, Interracial Dating, Relationships

I’m not unattractive. Then again, I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it. I do admit I am hugely biased, but I happen to think I’m far from ugly. Unfortunately though, thanks to this dating malarkey, my confidence has been shot to hell. Over the past nine months I’ve been dating like a mofo and I’ve been putting myself  ’out there’ more than I normally would but apart from a few entertaining disastrous stories to share at dinner parties, I haven’t seen any substantial fruits of my labour. Why is it so bloody hard for me when it comes to these things? If I’m pimping myself out so much then why aren’t I seeing results?

For instance, I have a friend whose long term relationship came to an end a month or so after I starting blogging and even though she hasn’t joined any dating sites, or put herself out there on a serious level, she’s still seen way more action than I have. She’s actually been seeing a guy for the past few months now. This is the norm for me. I always see people break up and get into brand new relationships (my parents included), all while I stay single. It just doesn’t happen for me like it happens for other people. Maybe it helps that my friend is  the type guys stop driving down the road to speak to. It’s amazing to see the amount of heads that turn when she walks down Oxford Street. But, that’s not me, I’m not that chick. Even less so when walking down the street with my friend, haha!

Remember my ‘Pretty, Sexy or Cute‘ post from last year? Well, I’m that cute chick. I’m petite, youthful- looking and have a great smile (so I’ve been told). I’m likeable, smiley, friendly, (relatively) sensible. Guys like me as a sister. I’m that friend they want to protect and look after. I’m not the glitterous, glamorous sort of chick that stands out in a crowded club or bar. I’m not that crazy hot, edgy, sexy, flirty, uber-confident type with the ‘I know I’m a bad bitch’ attitude. No matter how many times I’ve admired that chick or even wanted to be that type of chick, I never have been.

On the positive side, my looks are a blessing in a different way. My Mum, at 53,  is always mistaken for being my sister and people often don’t believe she has a 34 year old daughter. We even share our clothes and shoes. I have those genes, so I know that one day my ‘cuteness’ will work in my favour. Until then, all I can do is work with what I’ve got and hope that one day (soon) I find a man who is on the lookout for that cute cute chick with the great smile and a whole lot of other stuff going for her *wink*. Anyway, I’m stunning in my own way… my Dad says so!

(Strangely enough, the same day I wrote this post, rapper Fabolous starting tweeting about the very same subject, except he put it way more ‘eloquently’ than I ever could… ahem.)

Tags: General Dating, Men, Single woman