The Single Filez | romantic blog about date and dating

As mentioned in my last post, I wimped out of writing about my date with the guy I met at Lovestruck London’s Laissez-Faire party. Mainly because it was a ‘blah’ date and I couldn’t quite figure out how to make it interesting or funny enough for a blog post. However, there have since been developments that make me think ‘Lovestruck Guy’ is now worthy of a write-up. It turns out dude is a raging bug-a-boo. He is driving me nuts. Here, let me explain…

Who Is He?

Lovestruck Guy is a 31 year old accountant who started talking to me and my friend at Laissez-Faire. He didn’t seem like my usual type right off the bat, but he seemed nice enough, so when he asked for my number and suggested we go out some time, I obliged.

I was looking forward to the date. I think because it’s been a long time since I’d met and exchanged numbers with a guy in a real life situation. It may a bit of a cop-out seeing as it was a party specifically for singles, but hey, I’m a woman who has been relying strictly on dating websites for the past few years, so every little bit counts.

The Date

We met for Sunday afternoon drinks. The conversation didn’t flow as easily as I would’ve liked. I put it down to our different interests/background. He’s an accountant who studied physics at university. Whereas I went to college, but not university. He’s a nerdy/academic/grey-trousers-on-a-Sunday wearing type of person (the trousers reminded me of the ones my 10 year old nephew wears as part of his school uniform AND he wore them with a hoodie. WTF?) whereas I’m a chilled out, jeans at (nearly) all times, celeb/pop culture/US TV dramas and movies type of person. I’d imagine he reads the Financial Times or City AM, while I’m more likely to read Glamour, Grazia or Pride. He told me he didn’t get into music until a late age, because he was a”diligent school pupil”. Which is wonderful, really great and all, but I was a child who got put in detention for bunking off school to go and hang out at the hotel where 80′s pop stars Kylie Minogue, Sonia and Big Fun were staying. We were seriously different.

This post isn’t about our differences though, it’s about the fact that within the week of our first date he became a straight-up certified bug-a-boo. Although the date wasn’t amazing, he was a nice enough for me to consider hanging out with again.  That was until his constant calling and texting changed my mind. Since our date last weekend, he’s asked me out numerous times despite me having already told him I had plans. He text and called every single day, which for the record, I would love if I was into him, but after one very mediocre date? Just no.

One morning he text me but I was in meetings all day long, so didn’t get to reply right away. What do you know, he called me before I got a chance to respond. In fact, I don’t think I ever had the chance to call him. He’d always pip me to the post and call or text first. More recently I started waking up to text messages.  It’s gotten to the point where I shoot my once beloved Blackberry a dirty look every time it rings or a text message alert comes through. To top it off, his text messages sound like somebody’s Dad trying to be ‘down with the kids’. After 6 days of texts and calls, this was Saturday morning’s text - “Greetings! How were last nights drinks? Hopefully you busted some more dance moves”

A few hours later, before I got around to responding - “Hey there! What have you got planned for tomorrow?”

It wasn’t the first time he seemed to have forgotten I already told him I had plans. My reply was “Not sure if you remember, but last week I told you I was having a friend over for the weekend? Yep, so I’ll be with her tomorrow.”

And then I realised, I needed to put an end to this. Usually I dread having to tell guys I’m not interested, but this one made it easy. I’d gone from feeling lukewarm to feeling freezing cold, and it was time to let him know. I sent another text - “To be honest, I think we should leave it here. It feels like everyday I’ve had to explain what I’m doing and as mentioned to you last week Sunday I already had plans for this week, but yet you still keep asking what I’m doing. It’s too much for me! Good luck with your dating, take care”

I thought he’d gotten the message. I didn’t hear a thing from him for over 12 hours (hooray!). But then, yesterday evening, I got the following text - “Just taking it easy. By the way how was that concert you went to?”

Huh? What? Now he’s just getting scary.  Did he not see the text I sent the night before? And what did he mean by “Just taking it easy”? It’s not like I asked him what he was doing. Did he just chose to ignore what I said? I’ll tell you what, from here on in, I’m ignoring his bug-a-boo ass. NEEEEXT!

Tags: General Dating, Singles

I Got Issues

I learnt a lot about myself last weekend. It dawned on me that I’m messed up. When it comes to men and trying to get close to them, I’m severely messed up. I’m scared. I’m scared of them hurting me and making me feel like crap. I’m scared of saying or doing the wrong thing. I’m scared that they’re going to lose interest in me and disappear for no reason. I’m just plain old scared. The thing that is scaring me the most right now is the fact that my ‘being scared issues’ could end up messing up a really good thing.

Obviously, the reason this has all come up is because things are still going well with Older Guy. Really well in fact. So well that, on Sunday, I had a major freak out moment….

Date Number 3

We had our third date on Saturday night and he looked, NICE. I got to the restaurant a little late and he was already sat there nursing a beer when I walked in. My first thought was “Woah, he looks good”. I don’t know what happened with the choice of clothes on date number 2, but things were definitely looking up this time. A casual but trendy Henley’s T-shirt, dark blue jeans and smart dark trainers. Simple, but oh-so-good. Once again, we had a great time. Nothing exciting to tell…lots of laughter and lots of chit chat. The main thing that was different this time around was the fact there was alcohol. And lots of it.

We planned this date the last time we were out and at the time I suggested he leave his car at home so that he could get the train and be free to drink. You know, just loosen up and have fun! I’ll tell you what… he was a lot more comfortable (jokingly undoing the top button of his jeans because he’d had too much to eat, which obviously meant I felt okay to do the same!), a lot more touch-feely (he put his arm around my waist when we were walking to a bar afterwards) and a lot less backwards about coming forwards (there was kissing, lots of kissing!).

We finished off the date at a late night salsa bar. The music, vibes and salsa dancing was pretty awesome but to be honest, we were too busy being ‘into eachother’ to pay much attention to it. He said “he had a good feeling about me”, he said things that referred to the future, jokingly asking if I was sure I didn’t want to go to Barbados with him in October, and mentioning the winter too. Me being as cautious as I am, I took it all in, I enjoyed the attention but at the same time I’m thinking “I’ve heard it all before”. It may sound mean and cynical, but I really have. Every time I meet a guy, they’re all into me, saying how amazing I am and how they can’t believe I’m single etc. Doesn’t stop them acting like assholes and disappearing off the face of the earth with no explanation  just a couple of months down the line does it?

I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and continued to have a wonderful night which ended with him missing his last train and us sharing a taxi home instead…

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Errrr, no, we didn’t go ‘there’! We didn’t go home together, as such, I was dropped home first and then the taxi took him home afterwards. One step at a time people, one step at a time…

Can’t Escape My Issues

During our Saturday night date Older Guy and I planned to meet up again on Sunday. Yup, we were going to see eachother twice in one weekend. He said he’d come along to an event I had wanted to go to for awhile. All good until, on Sunday morning thanks to Twitter, I noticed lots of friends talking about going to the very same event. I panicked. I didn’t want to go out with him and bump into people I knew. I didn’t want to have to introduce him to anyone, explain who he was or how I met him. I wasn’t ‘sure’ enough about him yet. What if I introduced him to people and then things didn’t work out? I’d have to put up with being asked about him over and over again, which is what usually happens…

I’ve gotten to the stage where I don’t tell my friends or family when I’m dating. They get too excited for me. They have even higher expectations than I do. I hate constantly having to explain things to them when things go wrong.

Also since attending a dating seminar on Saturday, I had started to have doubts about Older Guy. Doubts that now, I realise were just my own little warped way of ‘protecting’ myself; me making excuses, trying to find reasons to back out, trying to find things wrong with him. “He’s too short”, “I’m not sure about how he dresses” “He’s not that confident (cocky) alpha male type I’m used to”, “Do I really like him, or is it that he was just the best of a bad bunch on POF?”. There was something said in the seminar that made me feel like I wanted to go out and test what they had taught us to see if I could find the man I ‘really’ wanted. Matthew Hussey, the guy leading the seminar asked us, “When did women stop selecting men?” He used the example of how back in the olden days women had perfected the knack of choosing a man and making him do all of work without him realising she was the one who selected him in the first place. The old ‘walk past and drop your handkerchief’ routine, drop your hankie in front of him and walk on as though unaware. The gentlemen (hopefully) would pick it up and return it to you, initiating conversation and feeling like he’d come to your rescue. He said that nowadays women sit back waiting to be approached and when it doesn’t happen… they settle for a guy who selects them rather than being proactive and selecting a man themselves. Is that what I’d be doing with Older Guy? Would I be ‘settling’ just because he was the best guy from POF to get in contact with me? Yep, my brain really does like to indulge in a spot of working overtime, that’s for sure.

I didn’t know how to tell Older Guy that I didn’t want to go to the event because I didn’t want to bump into my friends. That would be plain mean. So, instead, I just asked him if we could do something else instead. He suggested I go to his friends BBQ with him. Say what, now? I didn’t quite know what to say to that one… I think I might have said nothing. As in; awkward, silent, pause. He playfully said “What? Are you scared?”. This got my back up and I replied by saying…. nothing. He said he’d come and pick me up. He said it was a family type thing, kids, bouncy castle etc. I appreciated he felt good enough about me to have me around his peeps but I still wasn’t feeling it. Is it weird I just want to keep it to ‘me and him’ at this stage? Am I being way too cautious in saying I’d prefer to get to know him and feel secure about him before being around his or my friends and family? What felt like the most awkward phone conversation ever ended with me saying I didn’t want to go to his friend’s BBQ and him asking “So, I’m not going to get to see you today then?”. Uncomfortable.

I felt weird after getting off the phone with him. That’s the moment it hit me; I actually like him. That’s when I realised that my hesitations and my complicated reactions to things that seem normal to him could mess things up. I ended up going to my original event anyway, I went alone and met up with and tagged along with a couple of girlfriends who I knew were going to be there.

But god, I really hope I haven’t messed things up…

Tags: General Dating, Matthew Hussey, Relationships, Singles