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

Following on from my blog post about how ‘off’ my bullshit radar is’, it turns out that I really need to stay strong and listen to my gut instinct. Usually the first feeling I get about someone is the right one. No matter how many ‘chances’ I want to give someone, they very rarely surprise me.

Despite blogging about my reservations, I went ahead and gave Fit Irish Guy another chance. I was annoyed when he pulled out of our date last weekend but I was pulled in again after he sent a text apologising for letting me down and explaining that he’d had a long week. He followed it up with another text saying that he’d like to meet up at some point if I wanted to try again. As mentioned previously, I always like to give people “a chance”. I mean, what if he really just wasnt feeling well before? What if he’s a great guy and I just need to meet him to see that? It was worth another go, right?

So I said that if he was sure he really wanted to do this, then yes I’d be up for trying again. He assured me that he wouldn’t have suggested meeting if he didn’t really want to meet me. Fair enough, a very good point (or so I thought). He asked where I worked and suggested we do a lunch date this time around. Sounded good to me.

I was already skeptical on date day but I didn’t think that he would flake out again, not after last time. But, thats exactly what he did! He called me 45 minutes before we were due to meet (the first time we’d ever spoken on the phone by the way) to tell me he was running late and could we put lunch back another 30 minutes. That’s fine, I actually appreciated him calling to say he was going to be late (FYI fellas, we always prefer to know this in advance rather than being left to wait at the meeting place, alone) plus I had work to do so I didn’t mind sticking around in the office a little bit longer. What really got to me was then receiving a text from him 20 minutes before our new meeting time to say that he was having a nightmare and could we put lunch back another 30minutes? At this point, not only am I starving but I’m in disbelief, what is it with this guy??  I was waiting for someone to jump out of the shadows to tell me that I’ve been punked. Was he doing this as a prank, he must have been doing this for a joke, right?

I told him that I couldn’t do lunch at that particular time as I had a meeting (he’s a teacher and was on half term school holiday, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t have work to do!) and that on top of that I was now starving. I put him out of his misery and told him we should probably just leave it.

Thats it now. Fit Irish Guy is out of the game. First impressions count for a hell of a lot in the dating game and if he’s already shown me that he’s a time-wasting-jerk before we’ve even met, so I now refuse to waste another minute of my time on him. Two strikes and you’re out mate!

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Tags: General Dating, Online Dating

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