The Single Filez | romantic blog about date and dating

Anyone who has read the blog for awhile will know how much I love Twitter. I’ve written many blog posts inspired by Twitter, just for starters - I Heart New York, 20 Awesome Things About Me and most recently The Modern Matchmaker July Challenge (a challenge which I failed at, btw). This post is also inspired by Twitter but slightly different to the others, this one is inspired by a BAD Twitter experience.

Following the aftermath of things crashing & burning with East End Boy, I used Twitter have a bit of a rant (as you do) and this resulted in a woman who I’d never spoken to before deciding she was going to enlighten me and tell me everything that was wrong with my behaviour towards men.

According to this woman, I need to give myself a reality check and take a good hard look at myself. According to this woman, men’s behaviour is caused by women. Apparently, I am the one to blame because I chose him in the first place. I chose him because I am in repeat mode and I am not learning. The same thing happens to me over and over again for a reason. I need to look at myself and not at others.

She pissed me the hell off. There may have been a hint of truth to what she was saying (lord knows the same crappy shit keeps happening to me) but, who the hell did she think she was? She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know a damn thing about me. I bet she hadn’t even read the blog post to familiarise herself with the situation before adding her two cents worth.

I got into it with her. Another Tweeter, Kim, got into it with her too. She told us both that we need to understand our behaviour and that we ‘project’ something in us that is reflected in men and the way they act. She made my blood boil even more so when she told me to stop getting defensive and told me “listen to yourself, where the FUCK have I blamed you?” (errr, about two tweets ago, beyotch), it was all I could do to not ram my hand through my computer screen and throttle her.

Men’s behaviour is caused by women? WTF? Are men not grown-ups responsible for their own actions? She’s saying that women are the ones who cause these cowardly men to not have the balls to let us know they’re no longer interested?

I know what I think, but what are your thoughts? Are women guilty of  ’projecting’ something that determines the way a man acts? By not ‘projecting’ ourselves in the right way are we inviting them to act like complete assholes? If guys make us feel crappy should we turn around and look at our own actions? Or, like my Twitter friend Judy, do you think it sounds like the sort of excuse douchebag men use in domestic violence situations – “but she made me do it!”

Share your thoughts…

Tags: Dating Advice, Relationships, Singles, Twitter

I love reading blogs. Sometimes they make me smile, sometimes they make me laugh out loud. Others have me nodding my head along in agreement (or shaking it in disagreement) but last night… last night I read a blog post that summed up EXACTLY how I’m feeling at the moment. It was so spot on that it actually shook me up. A bit of a realisation, if you will.

Yesterday Jess at City Girls World, a US based blog I discovered thanks to Twitter, posted a piece entitled “Are You Lonely?”.  Normally I’d say”Lonely? I’m out with friends most evenings” or “Lonely? I love getting cosy on my sofa with a good DVD all on my lonesome”.  But after reading the post, I feel like saying it out loud  “Fuck it. So what.  I admit it. While I do love my me-time,  at the same time I am as lonely as hell too”.

I’m not online dating at the mo. I threw in the towel on the MySingleFriend.com 10 Day Test once I found out it involved messaging ten guys a day for ten days. 100 guys? If you’ve ever used a dating website you will know that coming across 100 guys you would actually WANT to date is impossible.  You’re usually lucky if you come across five. Online dating is pretty much the same as searching for a needle in a haystack… bloody difficult.

On top of that, I’ve been feeling so ‘meh’ about dating recently that until seeing the post on City Girls World, I haven’t even felt inspired to blog. I’ve been busy doing great things in my career and busy planning a trip to Toronto, but the whole dating thing? I’m not feeling it at the moment, so please do excuse bear with me, I’m sure I’ll get my mojo back sometime soon.

Until then, my favourite part of  ”Are You Lonely”…

You can be a strong, independent and fulfilled woman. And you can feel lonely without love in your life. Embrace that feeling too, the loneliness, because if you cannot admit to what is missing in your life, you are very unlikely to find it.

It’s ok to want love, to hope for it, and to seek it out. And it’s ok to feel lonely and frustrated while you wait for it.

Yes I may have a great social life, yes I may own my own flat, yes I may jet off on holiday whenever I can. I do have fun, I do enjoy a busy, fulfilling life. But, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel lonely. It doesn’t mean I don’t wonder if this is how it’s going to be for me, forever and ever…

To see the article in full, head on over to www.citygirlsworld.com, say Hi to Christie and Jess and tell ‘em I sent ya.

Tags: City Girls World, General Dating, Relationships, Singles

I admit, I was a little scared at the thought of signing up for a full membership on Lovestruck.com. Although I’d had profile on there since last year, I hadn’t bothered using it, mainly because I tend to get a bit put off by sites that charge (yup, what can I say, I’m a lil’ bit of a cheapskate) but also because after a brief look, I didn’t seen anyone who immediately jumped out at me.

There was something I liked about Lovestruck though, I like their ‘Dating Tip Of The Day’ tweets and I love their cheeky chatty advertising campaigns all over the London underground. Because there was something about their tone of voice that I related to, I signed up to receive e-newsletters and gradually let myself be persuaded into trying out one of their low-key singles events, the Laissez Faire back in January. The event itself was fun, and really quite a genius idea, but it was ruined by the fact that the only guy I exchanged numbers with became the nearest thing I’ve ever had to a stalker – anyone remember Lovestruck Guy aka Bug a Boo?

However, when the lovely folks at Lovestruck London got in touch and offered me the chance to try out the site for a week, who was I to say no? Lovestruck works slightly differently to any other site I’ve used before. It allows you to search for people according to where they work. Perfect for those who have fallen in love (or lust) on the train, the underground, the bus or in the street on their way to or from the office. On your dating profile you have to give your nearest station and you update your profile status to say whether you’re ‘free for lunch’ or ‘free tonight’. Swanky concept eh?

Being used to the delights of PlentyOfFish.com once I logged into Lovestruck, my first thoughts were something along the lines of “Oh my god, what kind of amazing dating website is this? Guys here can actually string proper sentences together and everything”. Obviously, I’d spent way too much time trying to decipher the messages from the men on POF.

Once I got past the fact that men on Lovestruck knew how to spell, I then got stuck into the mission of finding men to wink at/send messages to.  I found a cute guy; Indian, 35, an architect, worked near me, decent sounding profile, so I winked at him. He winked back (hooray!) and then…. nothing (booo!). Dude, I make the first move and you reciprocate but can’t even make an effort to put together a message? *Sigh*.  Anyhoo, a day later I messaged him and he messaged back, I replied… aaaaaand have I heard anything since? *insert tumbleweeds*

I did receive quite a few winks and also a couple of messages from guys but typically, none of them were men I was even remotely attracted to. To be honest, I think a week was too short a time to make a fully informed opinion on Lovestruck. I definitely think the mechanic is great and in theory, it’s a new way for me to bond with guys who live or work near me. But at the end of my trial, all I was left thinking was ”Dammit! What the hell is wrong with me? Can’t I even find a guy to go out for lunch with?!”. FML.

Tags: Dating Websites, LovestruckLondon, Online Dating, Singles

Last week I had  the most interesting first date I’ve had in bloody ages. Interesting enough for me to stay out past midnight on a weeknight. Interesting enough to feature a few kisses (and THAT’s something that hasn’t happened since last summer with Older Guy) and interesting enough for me to be going out with him again.

Who Is He?

I spotted East End Boy on Plenty of Fish (not that I’m keeping score, but that’s eHarmony 0 – 2 Plenty of Fish) and after a couple of messages were exchanged he asked how I’d feel about having a “proper chat, because it’d make for better conversation”. I was a little surprised. He was asking to speak to me on the phone, and not asking for my email, BBM or MSN deets? What kinda madness was this? Of course I actually loved the old school-ness of it all and once I got over my initial shock, I gave him my number.

Turns out that not only did I find his voice attractive, but he was actually nice and easy to talk to. Nice and easy enough for us to be on the phone for three (yes, THREE) hours.

The Positives

- The fact that we stayed on the phone for so long was pretty damn impressive. Conversation definitely flowed easily.

- We had a crazy amount of things in common – he too has family in Barbados (although he’s half Indian/half Iranian), he too has taken many trips to New York and Toronto and to top it off, he too has a love of 90′s hip hop and R&B.

The Negatives

- The only negative thing pre-date was during the phone call I noticed he was a name-dropper.  Why during our first ever convo was I told that he knew certain music artists, DJ, club promoters etc? How is that important? He obviously thought it would impress me, but it really didn’t. I work in PR for chrissakes! Do I go around bragging about everybody I’ve worked or partied with? No, because it is LAME.

The Date

Other than the fact I felt taller than him in heels when we first met (I’ve resigned myself to the fact that men lie about their height on dating sites), it was a good first date. I really enjoyed his company. I thought he was funny, we related to a lot of a the same things and I was even comfortable enough (with the help of a few cocktails) to call him out on the wanky name-dropping behaviour which, weirdly enough, he really seemed to appreciate it. So yep, the conversation was good.

Or at least, the conversation WAS good until he got around to ‘the previous relationship interrogation’ part of the date. Oh, how I always dread the previous relationship interrogation. “So, how long ago was your last relationship?”, “How long did it last for?” Blah blah blah. I totally understand why guys want to know this stuff but the problem is, I haven’t quite figured out how to explain that I’m a 34 yr old woman who has never had a long term relationship before, without sounding like a right weirdo, saddo, loser FREAK.

I’ve feel that being honest about this puts me at a disadvantage from the very start. At the same time, I wouldn’t want to lie either. When he asked how long ago my last relationship was I said, two years ago. Actually I was referring to “The One I Thought Could Be The One“, but little did East End Boy know that this was only a whirlwind  ’relationship’ that only lasted three months – hardly anything substantial to write home about.

He seemed really surprised that my last “relationship” was two years ago, like he couldn’t believe I’d been alone for TWO YEARS. He asked “Don’t you miss it? Don’t you miss having someone to spend time with, hug, snuggle with etc?”. I told him I can’t miss what I never had. When it got to the “how long was your longest relationship question”, I completely changed the subject. Explaining always makes me feel hot and uncomfortable. I myself don’t know how I’ve gotten to this age and not had a ‘proper boyfriend’, so how do I explain it to someone else who will obviously judge me before they get to know me?

Overall it was a good date and we’re hanging out again this weekend, but back to the issue at hand – how the hell do I deal with ‘the previous relationship interrogation” in an honest way, without scaring men off? Any suggestions?

Tags: General Dating, Relationships, Singles