Category: First Dates

Strings Optional

divorcedanddatingat30Leave a comment

Mar-2017

If you were to describe an ideal date for you, what would it be? A fancy dinner? Beers on the beach? A walk to some beautiful waterfalls? Or maybe it would be playing video games and eating junk food?

I didn’t know that last option would strike such a chord with me until I matched with a guy on Tinder and his opening line was “wanna play Mario Kart and eat ice cream?” and, dammit, the only answer I could give to that was a resounding “hell yes!”

And so we arranged a first date fairly quickly, which I always like. We did amend the initial plan, though, to just meeting for ice cream so that we would be in a public place, could both check out the other’s level of crazy and make sure we were both comfortable but, all being well, then a second date was going to be Mario Kart and ice cream at his place.

He was a 25 year old personal trainer, originally from France but had moved to Canada when he was 6 so was French accent-less, and was on some crazy bulking “diet” where he had to eat a ridiculous number of calories in a day – so the ice cream was really just to help him. And who am I, if not a supportive person?

We met at an ice cream place near where he lived – I went over a bridge for him. Well, technically I went over a bridge for ice cream, but… semantics. I wasn’t sure what to expect. If I’m being totally honest, I had 100% swiped right for the abs. The shirtless pic of him among friends had really got me. I still remember it, green leaf print board shorts, stupid look on his face, throwing some sign with his left hand that I’m not cool enough to understand the meaning of and with these glistening abs of steel.

As I’d found out with Arms, you should never judge books with good abs by their cover alone but his date suggestion, of Mario Kart and ice cream, was hardly a trip to an art gallery, so I didn’t know how much would be below the surface of the abs.

Thankfully, as we tucked into our ice cream, having been shown by him the best combo to have at this particular ice cream place, it became clear there was in fact a lot going on under that taught washboard stomach. He’d studied back in France for a year, found a lot of the North American way of life to be boring and vapid, was starting to build out his own business and loved repairing old motorbikes.

It was a good first date, even when his best friend and girlfriend happened to turn up for ice cream. They seemed nice, which is always a good sign, and it was an easy and fun chit chat that Frenchie, as he would be known, navigated smoothly. The only reason the date ended when it did was that he worked early mornings and so always had early nights. We said goodbye on the street, confirmed we’d do Mario Kart and ice cream next time and with a quick peck on the cheek, I was headed home.

Less than a week later and I was making my way over to his place – I travelled! Again! We’d also added pizza into the mix so essentially I was heading to a date dreamed up by a nine year old boy – pizza, ice cream, Mario Kart. And I wasn’t necessarily complaining.

It was a very fun night. I was absolutely abhorrent at Mario Kart, and devastated that I’d lost all the skills I’d had as a kid. It was most unfortunate considering we’d shared a fair amount of banter back and forth pre-date about who was going to kick whose ass. Turns out my confidence was misplaced.

My confidence that night in general was a little AWOL. In the week between dates, we’d had a fairly frank discussion about what we were both looking for and while up until that point I’d always been of the opinion that I was looking for a relationship, I was heading home to the UK for the entire month of April, so had decided maybe fun was a better option for now and when I came back I could re-assess. That sentiment worked with him and so the second date came with the unspoken expectation that while on the surface of it, it sounded like a nine year old’s dream Wednesday night, it was probably going to end a little differently.

And while over the months my confidence had been growing, there was something I found intimidating about the fact he was a personal trainer. It’s like when your hair needs doing and there’s a hairdresser in your group. Or when you’ve had some house renovations done and a contractor friend comes round to visit. You’re always worried about their judgement. In this case, I was worried that Mr Personal Trainer was going to be critical of my work-in-progress-body.

I know, I know, I know, body positivity is where it’s at. Who gives a fuck what someone else thinks about your body. Your body is incredibly strong and resilient and should be shown more respect than to be cheapened by numbers on a scale. But let’s be honest, when you’re thinking about being naked, particularly for the first time with someone you find attractive, there’s often a little voice in the back of your head hurling doubts at you.

But the voice got real quiet, when after Mario Kart and stuffing ourselves on pizza and ice cream – seriously, he might have been bulking, but I shouldn’t have been – the next, non-nine year old part of the date slowly but surely progressed and at the first stage of nakedness Frenchie stopped kissing me to say “your body is hot”. Umm, well, that’s not the worst thing to hear, especially from someone who improves bodies for a living.

Ugh, and I hate that I even wrote those last three paragraphs. I want to be one of those people that’s like “This is me bitches! Take me as I am!” And some days? Some days I am. Other days, most days, I’m like the majority of women (people?) who don’t always totally love everything about themselves.

Lying half naked on his couch with his compliment ringing in my ears definitely helped me relax and enjoy it more than I might have. Which was good, because his body, the sex, it all absolutely should have been enjoyed. There wasn’t a lot wrong with any of it. Apart from maybe the Mario Kart music going round on a loop in the background…

Despite the mood killer of the Mario Kart musical accompaniment, it was fun, we both seemed to enjoy it and as I left that night, saying I wasn’t sure I’d be able to see him before I left for my trip home, he asked me the most romantic of questions – “how do you feel about a threesome?”

My instant reaction was to ask which sex the third would be and he responded “whatever you’d want”. Hmm, interesting. I laughed and without answering kissed him goodbye and said I’d maybe see him in a month or so.

We weren’t in touch while I was away but when I got back I messaged him to catch up and see how things were. I realised that in the two dates we’d had before I left and now I was back, every time we texted it was easy, uncomplicated, straightforward, maybe slightly transactional? And I didn’t mind it. I always knew where I stood. Can you do this time? Yes/no. Does this time work? Yes. Great. Done.

Between his early mornings, my training for a half marathon and a busy social calendar, and his second job as a Butler In The Buff – yep, he’s one of those guys that has to serve champagne to drunken bachelorette parties wearing nothing but an apron – it was hard to get time to see each other but when we did it was always fun and it was always leading to one thing. No, not Mario Kart.

Most of the times I went over to his place, but I decided to put a stop to that after we ended up in his bedroom one time – yes, it had been the couch or bust before that but then he got a flatmate – and his bedroom was… questionable at best. Rancid at worst.

And, seriously, I need a clean and tidy surrounding to be able to fully get in the mood. The fact that his bed wasn’t even made, and I don’t just mean the covers turned up, I mean there were no sheets on the bed, and that you couldn’t see a surface because every inch was covered in.. stuff… it just didn’t make me feel super comfortable. Helped least of all by the fact that on the far side of his bed I noticed an open condom wrapper and bobby pins – neither of which had come from our interaction that night. It was definitely one of those “WTF – how did I get here?!” moments I write about a lot.

So I took a step back at that point and wasn’t planning on seeing him again, but he must have caught me at a weak spot because I ended up seeing him one more time but insisted he came over to mine. At least I knew where my sheets had been.

He came over on a sunny Sunday afternoon and brought some wine. We shared it on the balcony and chatted about life, his business, my dating. He was fascinated by me being 32, almost about to turn 33, and when he found out I was divorced – it had never come up in conversation prior to that day – it was a massive turn on for him. Which was just plain weird to me.

But regardless, whatever effect it had on him, it was a good one, we had some of the best sex we’d had that afternoon. Something I’d also learnt over this time; 25 year olds are unbelievably generous in the bedroom department. It was a revelation. And an incredibly welcome one. There is definitely something to be said for dating, or at least sleeping with, younger guys. Though maybe not as young as Billy The Kid…

Following the afternoon of sunshine drenched sex, we didn’t see each other for a few weeks due to conflicting schedules and two weeks later as I was out celebrating my birthday weekend, I got a text from him, about plans we’d made for the following week, saying he’d met someone and was dating her exclusively now but if I still wanted to meet up as friends we could.

It was a really weird feeling. Or rather it was really weird because there was no feeling. None. Other than “hmm, ok, nice.” I declined his offer to meet as friends, I hadn’t been on Tinder to meet friends and I thought it might be a bit weird for his new girlfriend. But it was the easiest “break up” I’ve had. There was no emotion involved. It had been purely about the sex and while it was unfortunate that that wasn’t going to be available anymore, it wasn’t like it had been happening that regularly anyway so it wasn’t a great loss.

And so a few days after my 33rd birthday I was able to confidently say that I’d engaged and disengaged from a no strings attached relationship. And, more importantly, my pride, my feelings and my self worth were intact. You really do never stop learning about yourself, even from 25 years olds. And the threesome never did come up again.

…previous post

Are You On The Guestlist? And Do You Have ID?

divorcedanddatingat303 Comments

Mar-2017

This is a story I’ve been kind of dreading telling… You know when things happen, situations arise, decisions are made and then you’re like “wow, did that just happen?” That was how I felt come the Monday morning after this particular escapade. But you know what? I’m not going to shy away from telling the story, I’m going to own it and chalk it up to that great big wonderful thing you can’t get without fucking up every now and again – experience!

It was my favourite weekend in Vancouver – Rugby Sevens – and as well as bumping into Toronto Dimple Chin, it had been two days filled with Tindering and Bumbling while all the players (and referees – shout out to Mike!) were in town. My friends had made some questionable swipes and started some wholly inappropriate chats but in the midst of that I’d also matched with one of the players on the Japanese team and had been messaging throughout the weekend – yes, while he should have been concentrating on playing.

He was originally from New Zealand, but was playing for Japan through residency rules, and he had pretty good banter, including calling my friend out when she had taken over the messaging for a while and congratulated him on their most recent game, which they’d lost…

We made plans to meetup on the Sunday night, when the tournament was over. It’s always a pretty big night because the players can let loose and the rest of us have been drinking for two days straight. And those sensible among us, always take the Monday off work because, like I say, sensible.

By the time the Sunday night came around, most of my friends were very worse for wear and some of them weren’t sensible and didn’t take the Monday off, so it ended up being just 3 of us who were going to see it out and head to the bar that the players all go to once the tournament wraps up.

On reaching the bar, I remembered why I don’t like going to places like this – the lineup was insane, and I’m too old/mature/boring/lazy (*delete as appropriate) for that shit. In fact there were two lines – one going either way down the street from the door. What kind of merry hell was this?!

Two of my friends didn’t even want to find out, so they sensibly bailed right away. Which left me and one of my best girlfriends, who is one of the best wing women you could ask for. Her husband had already gone home, but she was stoic in her support of my rugby player plans and had already begun finding ways for us to cut the line before I could ask what she wanted to do.

She worked out one of the lines was general admission and one was guestlist. She then found a group of mostly guys about a third of the way through the guestlist line from the door, sidled up to them, confirmed they were on the guestlist and asked if we could piggy back.

This group of fairly fresh faced guys were probably thrown by the random English woman asking them if her and her Scottish friend could join them, that they just nodded in agreement and we duly slipped into the line at the back of their group.

To pass the time waiting, we naturally started chatting to the group who were gracious enough to let us hop on their guestlist group. It turned out they were all students at one of the city’s universities and a number of them were there on baseball scholarships. They grilled us on what we knew about baseball, we responded entirely with answers relating to either cricket or rounders – what can I say? We’re British.

Finally, we got to the door, the guys kindly told the bouncers we were with them and in next to no time we were all inside. Them scattering to no doubt go and check out the lie of the land, my girlfriend and I to the bar. Priorities.

Once we got a drink, we did a walk around the place. I’d only been there once before, on the Sunday night of Rugby Sevens the year before, and I forgot how dingy it was. But that’s where I said I’d see Japanese Kiwi Rugby Player so here we were. But he’d also pointed out to me that once he left his hotel he wouldn’t have any mobile data so he wouldn’t be able to message me and we’d just have to “find each other”. If the place hadn’t been such a hole, it might have been romantic.

It was at that stage I realised what a pain the arse that was going to be. It wasn’t exactly a small bar and it was packed out – hence the massive lines outside. How was I going to know when he got there? How would he find me in amongst the swathes of university students who were just out for their usual Sunday night session and bemused by all these drunken rugby fans and players?

Rather than worry about that we went to the bar a couple more times, engaged in some hilarious people watching, feeling every one of our thirty plus years, and bumped into our newly made student friends from the lineup outside a couple of times. The third time we saw them, the guy who we’d conversed with the most in the lineup asked us if we wanted a drink. He was cute and fresh faced and screamed naivety so we felt bad taking his money and instead offered to get him a drink.

As we’d watched them from afar it was clear he was pretty popular amongst his group, both with the guys he’d gone in with and with a few groups of girls who’d made a beeline for them when they arrived. I was having serious flashbacks to my university days, which were not all that recent in my memory.

Somewhere between that first drink we all got together and the third, after we’d each bought each other a drink (he insisted he wanted to repay the favour), I decided that I didn’t want to stay out much longer. The weekend was catching up with me and seeing as I had no idea what time Japanese Kiwi Rugby Player might turn up, I didn’t fancy hanging around forever, especially when there was a real chance he might not turn up at all, or he would and we’d never see each other.

At round the same time, my wing woman, our new found student friend and I took a picture together and I remember putting my hand on his back and being pleasantly surprised by how muscular it was. Who knew baseball players were so jacked? I naturally then checked out his arms and didn’t find a terrible sight there either.

What happened next is like when the waitress comes to take your order and you can’t decide but you know you’re really hungry and you don’t want to waste more precious time, so you make a rushed, maybe slightly questionable choice.

Somewhere between the back, the arms and the gin, I decided that maybe I shouldn’t bother waiting for the rugby player who was probably having the same conversation with ten different girls over the course of the weekend? Maybe I should just take this fairly eager young stud (yep I wrote that, yep I’m having a Jackie Collins moment again) and be done with it. I was pretty sure he was flirting with me…

Fast forward maybe 20 minutes, my girlfriend goes to the bathroom and I decided… well essentially I decided “fuck it”. I ask him if he wants to come back to mine, he gave a pretty positive response and before my girlfriend returned we were off. I know, props to my girlfriend who being the wing woman she is presumed after coming back to the bar and doing a lap of the place that we’d gone, and so promptly took herself home where I’m sure she wished she’d been hours ago.

While my friend was quite possibly doing her last look for us, with me leading the way and the student grasping my hand, we headed for the door making our way through the crowds. With the front door in sight, I couldn’t wait to get out the sweaty, noisy, dark, dingy hole but being so focused on the exit strategy it was impossible to miss a whole group of what looked like.. um, yeah… what looked like, unmistakably a team of Japanese rugby players.

The next 15 seconds happened in slow motion, I can still picture it in my head. I’m striding towards the street, there’s this whole group coming towards us and in the midst of nine or ten fairly fit looking guys, mostly Japanese, I see a face that is pretty familiar given the number of times I’ve looked at it on his Tinder profile, he looks up at the exact same second, sees me, the recognition sweeps across his face as it sweeps across mine, as we’re both getting closer to each other given that we’re going in opposite directions but in the exact same path, and as we pass by, within ridiculous close proximity of each other, given how busy with bodies the place was, he looks at me, looks down at my hand, looks up at the guy holding my hand and clearly following me, looks back at me and mouths “where the fuck are you going?” with a really confused look on his face.

And just like, with a sort of apologetic shrug, I kept going and we were out onto the street with student none the wiser as to what had just happened.

The rest of that night was a disappointing blur, we didn’t even get McDonald’s on the way home. What kind of a sick joke is that? Instead we got home and both absolutely crashed. The morning however was also an equal disappointment, with some terrible morning sex which I realised halfway through was being carried out while he was still wearing socks. White, ankle sports socks. Who goes out in those? Oh yeah, the guy who was also wearing a baseball cap backwards that’s who.

The sex, was also barely even sex, if you know what I’m saying. I don’t know if it was a hangover or he wasn’t used to strange Scottish women taking him home but he definitely wasn’t the virile mid-twenty-something I had hoped.

Instead we mostly lay and talked about his courses, baseball, his family, his life ambition, he asked a lot about how I could afford to live in an apartment like I did, how I’d got into the job I had now and why I wasn’t getting up for work.

As I explained I’d taken the day off but did need to get up because I was going to meet friends for breakfast – a total lie just to get him out of my place – he stopped me and said “can I ask a weird question?” Oh god, really… “Sure!” “Would it be ok if I showered before I left? Your bathroom is so much nicer than the ones we have on campus.”

Oh dear god, this is what has become of me?! How did this happen? Why did I not take longer to make my food order?? Why was I so hungry???

As he showered and I questioned my life, I was also texting my usual group chat of girlfriends, the wing woman from the previous night and two friends we have in London. Wing woman had presumed I’d ended up going off with student, or had maybe actually met Japanese Kiwi Rugby Player, and the two girls across the pond were wanting all the details of both. In amongst many of the details they asked, they also asked student’s age and just as I was about to reply with “24 I think”, my friend pipes up and in front of my eyes, on the whatsapp screen that had been making me feel better up until that point I see “21”.

WHAAAAAAAAAT?! No! He was not 21… He was not 11 years younger than me… He was not younger than my youngest cousin… He was not more than an entire decade away from me in age!! How had I not known that? At what point had my friend got that information and I had either not heard, mis-heard or decided to not remember? Mother of all that is good in this world, there was a 21 year old CHILD showering naked in my bathroom.

My girlfriends, of course, were of much comfort at this point. Not. The kid jokes started coming in thick and fast, and given what his name was, he was quickly referred to from then on as Billy The Kid. Never before have I ever wished so much that joining that line up the night before we’d not only asked them if they were on the guestlist but if we could, in fact, also pre-check their ID.

Next post…

…previous post

Full Disclosure Required

divorcedanddatingat304 Comments

Feb-2017

Nobody wants to be a downer on a first date and generally topics such as bad breakups or ongoing medical conditions might be left until a possible second or third date. But when does trying to keep things light and fun actually become hiding, or lying about, your current state?

I met Irish Tech Triathlete online, he was 36, so entirely age appropriate (whatever the hell that means) for me, we had a lot in common in that we both worked in tech and we both enjoyed working out, not that I was training for triathlons or iron man races, and he was pretty funny.

We matched on a Sunday afternoon and by 5pm he called me. Like phoned me. On the telephone. I forgot people used them for that. It was a pleasant surprise in a number of ways – a) no one calls anymore, everyone hides behind texts (me included); b) often online matches can take what seems like an age to actually get to the meeting stage which bores me and; c) he was just as fun on the phone as he was on text.

He had a busy week coming up, and so did I, so he suggested we meet for drinks in the next hour. Um… what? I’m lying on my sofa, covered in cookie crumbs, wearing bed socks and now I have to make myself presentable not just to the world but to a first date. Ugh… fine.

An hour and a half later, cookie crumbs and bed socks gone, and we’re in a bar close to my house, having a really fun time. He was a super funny guy, we got on immediately, with a lot in common and easy banter back and forth. It’s the one difference I’ve noticed between dating North Americans and people from “back home” or maybe just outside of North America – there’s a sense of fun and banter and sarcasm and teasing that I haven’t found with people from Canada and the US. That’s not to say they don’t get there eventually but in the first instance, with someone new I don’t feel like they’re entirely comfortable with being that way. Brits or Irish on the other hand are happy to absolutely take the piss out of anyone and there’s something strangely comforting in it!

As the date went on, we had more drinks and he probably had two beers for every gin I had but he was a big guy, like 6”2 and he was well built so I didn’t think much of it. However by the time we got ready to leave he’d had a good few pints and I was aware he was definitely tipsy, while I felt fine, thankfully.

I lived a block round the corner which I didn’t strictly tell him but when he suggested walking me home, I figured I didn’t mind him knowing where I lived. When we got to my building though he made a comment about the building I lived in and how he was interested to see the view from my apartment. I’d had no intention of inviting him up but for whatever reason, in that moment I decided I’d let him come up. I was actually surprised by how much I liked him.

Did I feel pressure? A little. Did I think it was easier just to concede to a half drunk guy? Probably. Did I feel threatened? No, not explicitly. But it was another situation where maybe I should have found and used my voice more vociferously.

Voice MIA, we go up to my apartment, and in my head I know it’s literally going to be a look around, let him see the view and then say bye, no offer of a drink, no offer of a seat, nothing. I’m aware that trying to get rid of him from inside my apartment is arguably more difficult than from outside my apartment building when my concierge was 20 metres away. I’m not saying it made sense, but it’s what I did.

We duly look at the view, I show him around my tiny apartment which takes all of 20 seconds and then I say it’s time for him to go and me to go to bed. Of course he makes a joke about us both just going to my bed, which I laugh off. Then he says “but how am I supposed to get home? I drove and I can’t drive now.”

This is where, previously, I would have started feeling bad, offered for him to stay, offered to drive him myself (even though I definitely couldn’t have either), just tried to fix it in some way. But after bending over backwards for guys previously and it coming back to bite me on the arse, I decided he was a grown ass man who could figure it out himself. How had he thought this was going to play out? That I’d just let him stay? Not tonight my friend, not tonight.

He pretended to be hurt that I wasn’t helping him solve the problem he’d created for himself and then conceded that he would get a cab and come back for his car in the morning. He kissed me goodnight and it was a nice, albeit slightly drunken kiss. As the kiss went on I could feel him exerting some of that 6”2 frame on me to try and get me towards my bedroom from standing by my front door. I tried to resist, but at 5”4.5 I was really up against it.

So I pulled away, called him out on it and said goodnight. He gave me another peck, then just as I thought he was leaving, came back and started to kiss me again, and yet again tried to move me towards the bedroom. At this point I realised he had to go, so I pulled back, opened the door and essentially, hand in the small of his back (which was about mid-rib height on me), ushered him out.

I was disappointed the night had ended like that, he’d been a really fun guy and I had wanted to see him again but feeling like he was pressuring me first to come up to my apartment, then to stay and then to get me into my bedroom – it didn’t feel great. I put it down to him being drunk, he hadn’t seemed like that earlier in the night, but even if it was “just” when he’s drunk surely that was enough to be a red flag. And I wondered if he was even aware of it.

The next morning he messaged to say he’d had a great time, that he’d picked up his car and he was sorry for being a little “worse for wear”, he hadn’t realised how much he’d had to drink. I appreciated that he made mention of it. I’d have found it more difficult if he’d just swept it under the carpet. I also felt bad for him that it was a Monday morning and he was feeling rough – not a great start to anyone’s week.

Still, the end of the night before had definitely left a sour taste in my mouth and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see him again. So I replied to his initial text, something light and non-committal, wished him a good day and left it at that.

We texted a couple of times over the coming week, just small talk around our days, jokes from our first date and then the next Saturday when we were messaging, he said was skiing up in Whistler but suggested meeting up when he was back down in the city. I figured a second date was at least worth a go, so told him to text me when he got back and then we could see what time it was and make plans.

Silence.

I never heard from him again. For two and a half weeks. No follow up to our potential Saturday night plans, no messages afterwards to say his day had changed or to catch up with me after the weekend. Then one random Thursday afternoon at 5pm he messaged asking if I was free and wanted to go for drinks that night.

I was already at happy hour with a couple of friends, but figured I could go meet him after that. In hindsight, between the weird end to the first date and him going MIA for over two weeks I should have called it quits at that point, but it seems I’m not a quitter, in the worst possible way, so we made plans and I headed to meet him around 8pm.

He was really apologetic about his disappearance, which I fully called him out on. He’d been busy with work and there had been a lot of stuff going on. I explained that inconsistency didn’t work for me, which he said he understood and it wouldn’t happen again. He’d wanted to see me, but had just needed to sort some stuff out.

In the next couple of hours he did a great job of turning around the situation because somehow we ended up back in my apartment, again, and this time I was more open to the possibility of him ending up in my bed.

He was really fun and funny and (despite the initial red flags) seemed to have his shit together. He had his own place, had a good job, seemed to have a busy social life. He also wasn’t bad to look at and that never hurts. The rugby sevens weekend was coming up and he hadn’t been planning to go but as we were talking about it he mentioned it would be fun to hang out together at it, so he’d look at getting tickets. It felt like he could actually slot into my life kinda nicely, if it came to that.

Back at mine, he was far more respectful and guarded than he’d been the first night. He didn’t seem in a rush either which was nice. Or at least, it would have been if it hadn’t been for the fact that as things were about to start getting kind of serious after a whole lot of getting naked (side note – triathletes have incredibly lean bodies!) he “lost that loving feeling” – as it were.

Now, I get it, shit happens, you can’t control that thing – I mean the feeling, not the actual “thing”, although I’ve heard it claimed many a time it does in fact have a mind of its own – but twice? I had to try my best not to take it personally and wonder if my less than triathlete lean body wasn’t quite doing it for him.

After the second time, it was clear he wasn’t up (pun intended) for trying to make it work and instead just lay quietly in the dark. I gave it a minute and then asked the darkness “so, what’s up with that?” I’m sure I could have been more sensitive but… fuck it.

He stayed silent for a few minutes as the question kind of hung in the air. A number of times I wanted to interject the sound of tumbleweed and make a joke or try and offer up a possible reason or solution but instead I let the silence fill the space.

Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime, he started to talk. With an arm over his face, like a little boy admitting to something he’d done. He explained to me that the ex he had mentioned briefly on our first date was not only an ex from just a few weeks ago (the most recent time they’d broken up anyway), she was in fact also the mother of his 18 month old child.

A child he was now in a custody battle for, but was already solely looking after. A child he’d had with him in Whistler those few weekends ago and so was never going to be able to go out when he got back to the city. A child that he was going to have at the weekend and so he was never going to be able to come to the rugby sevens. A child that meant he only worked 4 days a week, yet he’d made comments about being Monday to Friday. A child he’d had done a very good job of actively avoiding talking about. A child I didn’t know he had.

The fact he had a child wasn’t the issue. The fact that when he’d told stories, like how he’d been hiking the other weekend, he purposely neglected to tell me that the other person on the hike with him, had been his baby. That when we agreed about how great living alone was, he didn’t actually live alone, he lived with his child.

I get it, it was a second date, I was hardly about to walk down the aisle and was just hearing all this stuff for the first time but there was something about the fact that it was a massive part of his life that he’d left out, so the whole picture of his life he’d painted was in fact false. Plus, now that massive part of his life was impacting his ability to be present in this part of his life.

He had been trying to learn Canadian child custody laws so he could fight for sole custody without having to pay for lawyers he couldn’t afford, he’d had to get a restraining order against his ex to stop her taking the child out the country, which apparently she’d attempted to do a number of times, he didn’t have a huge support network here with his family being back in Ireland and the 4 days of the week he worked he would do 14 hour days so he was almost working full time hours.

When he was explaining the situation, and giving the backstory, he was clearly anguished, he was clearly stressed and, despite how little I knew him (clearly!), it pained me to witness it. I started having flashbacks to when I had felt trapped and unable to cope with a situation. But that was years ago and I wasn’t attempting to date while going through it.

I mostly stayed quiet throughout his explanation. There wasn’t a lot I could say. I quieted my first instinct to help and, I don’t know, offer to babysit?! This wasn’t my mess to try and fix and while I felt bad for him and thought it was incredible he was stepping up to be the sole caregiver and I hoped the situation would resolve itself, I knew that I didn’t have the capacity to support someone through something like this. And in fairness, he wasn’t asking me to. But he clearly also wasn’t able to put it aside, which is no surprise, and so there really wasn’t a lot else to say.

He admitted he had hoped that dating might help him take his mind off it and would bring some light relief to an otherwise fairly stressful life, but had realised that in fact he wasn’t ready for it. Well no fucking shit. If he’d actually told me the situation right off the bat I would have told him he was attempting a triathlon before he could even crawl.

I halted the dragging night from taking either of us down further with a swift and entirely inappropriately cheery “well, you should probably go now!” I’m not sure I’ve ever asked someone to leave as they were lying naked next to me in my bed. But I guess there’s a first time for everything? And this felt like the right time to try it out.

And that was that, Irish Tech Triathlete, and his complicated custody issues, was never to be heard from again.

Next post…

…previous post

Death By Dimple

divorcedanddatingat30Leave a comment

Jan-2017

As I stated in my very first blog post, there have been many What The Actual F^&% moments throughout the process of my divorce and since getting back into dating, in fairness I think that’s just life in general. But most of them were “WTAF is this shit?” Few are “WTAF this is brilliant!” But every so often, just now and again, those pleasant WTAFs do appear.

Having wallowed and reflected for a few weeks after Filipeen, I eventually felt better enough (read bored enough) to get back on the dating apps and see what was out there. It had been lovely not to be on them for three months while I was dating (and then getting over) him but here in Vancouver, it’s unfortunately the easiest way to meet people.

I’d gone super blonde in the week after Filipeen – what is it they say about “new hair, don’t care”? Well I had new hair but at that point I still did care –  so on the Thursday night that I got back to using the apps (Bumble and Tinder were my go tos), I updated my photos and began endlessly swiping. As I always find with Bumble, when you haven’t been on for a while, you get a string of really attractive guys up first to make you think you’ve been missing out, and then slowly it fades into the faces you’ve seen on there months before and didn’t swipe right (positively) for then and won’t be swiping right for now.

I’m always convinced those attractive bait ones are just made up accounts – the men are too pretty – but the next morning I was to be proved wrong when one of them swiped right on me, we matched and we started chatting when I commented on the fact he stated in his profile that he hated the cold – and we were in mid-winter. The conversation went from there and by the time I was walking out my office that afternoon for the weekend, we had made plans to meet up the next night.

Up until that point he’d been fairly serious, with only slight hints of jokes in his messages but that Friday night, as I was getting ready to go out with friends and we were texting, it became a little more banterful (how I prefer all my messaging) and flirty. He had finished up work just after I did and was meeting up with some friends for drinks and he thought a dinner. When it turned out the dinner wasn’t going to happen he asked if I was free to bring our date forward a night and meet up later that evening.

As much as I was excited to meet him, it was going to have to wait. I had a friend’s birthday I was going out for that night and I wasn’t sure inviting him along would be a great basis for a first date because a) my friends are liabilities and b) we were going to an amateur strip show in a super dingy bar on the east side of the city. Yes, yes, you read that right. It was a strip show with only two rules: entrants couldn’t be professional strippers and; no sex acts on stage. Otherwise anyone and everyone could have at ‘er.

However, after a couple of drinks at the birthday boy’s apartment before we all went out, I obviously changed my mind about this not being a good breeding ground for a first date and asked him if he wanted to join. We’d been texting almost constantly and I realised it would be easier, and less rude, for him to just be here than for me to be on my phone all night. At first he sounded keen, even when I’d provided full disclosure about where we were going, but then when he realised I was already with all my friends and he wouldn’t be meeting me first he changed his mind. I did offer to go meet him separately but he insisted I stayed with my friends and we’d just do Saturday instead, as originally planned.

I was kinda disappointed he didn’t come out, it would have been a great first date story, something we agreed on as we continued to text while I was in a cab to the bar with some of my friends. He mentioned we’d just have to make tomorrow as good a story, maybe with the same level of nakedness. I had told him the show was full nudity… so his message was presumptuous… but I didn’t hate it.

He was 29, originally from Vancouver, his parents were still here but he was now living in Toronto. He had just sold a business he’d built from nothing and was recently appointed President at a new sports tech business. He used to play basketball, still seemed to keep himself incredibly fit, was 5”11 and from all his pictures looked pretty god damn fine.

The fact he didn’t live here, albeit he travelled back here for work about once a month, and the mention of nudity on the first date, I was well aware that a date with him wasn’t likely to be the start of a beautiful long-term relationship. But at that point, I decided a sex date might actually be just what I needed to wash Filipeen out of my newly blonded hair once and for all. What is it they say about getting over a man, get under another one?

As my night became more debauched and drunken and naked (the strippers, you understand, not me) there were texts back and forth with him about private dances and eventually he admitted he wished he’d come out and instead he was lying all alone in his bed. Normally I would have thought that was a not-so-subtle invitation for me to go over, but given that he stays with his parents when he’s in town, it was unlikely that he wanted me to turn up on his parents’ doorstep.

We said goodnight and planned to be in touch the next day to make arrangements. It had been a pretty escalating day of chat, considering we only matched that morning, and I was really looking forward to meeting him – he seemed like a funny (dry sense of humour) guy, who seemed to have his shit together and if he looked even remotely like his pictures I was in for a treat.

The next day, over texts and a couple of phone calls, we made plans that he would come downtown after an early dinner he had with his parents. I tried to arrange to meet at a bar but he was insistent about staying in with a bottle of wine. And to be honest, still feeling a little shaky from the birthday antics the night before, I was ok with that. So, for the first time ever, I gave a man I had never met my address and had him turn up on my doorstep.

And I know what you’re thinking – ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?! Always meet in a public place, never give your address until you know them, make sure they know you do kickboxing and can kick their ass etc etc!

Like I say, it was the first time I’d ever done it and part of me was horrified at myself, but the other part trusted my gut, and my gut told me it was ok, he didn’t seem like “that sort of guy”. You know, the sort to murder a Bumble date in her apartment. (I joke, but it’s a serious issue and I’m aware that women need to take care of their safety at all times, which I don’t take lightly.) And so just after 8pm my buzzer went and I apprehensively waited for the elevator to deliver him to the 10th floor and hear a knock on my door.

To say I wasn’t disappointed is the understatement of the year.

Things I hadn’t noticed or seen in his profile pictures – this unbelievably sexy salt and pepper hair, more expected on a man of 40 or 50 but hugely attractive on a hot guy of 29; arms that even under his jacket I could tell were going to be my favourite part about him; and this deep dimple square in the middle of his chin that I just wanted to nestle my head in forever. And something I couldn’t have known from his profile but had picked up in the couple of phone calls earlier in the day but was now confirmed; an incredibly attractive, accented, maybe east coast-ish, slightly husky voice.

This WTAF moment was possibly the best, most pleasantly surprising I’d ever experienced. I had to do all I could to pick my jaw up off the floor and make words come out of my mouth while simultaneously quieting the voice in the back of my head that was saying “well, he’s going to be disappointed with you”.

He’d brought wine so while I got that opened and he took a look at the view from my place, the easy chatting we’d had over text picked up in person. He was super easy to talk to and had led a really interesting life. He was also clearly a lover of the finer things (the wine he brought was not a cheap bottle, apparently he only flies business class and his taste in hotels includes some of the finest in the world) and I think knew he was very successful for his age, but in a matter of fact, appreciative, because he’d made so many sacrifices, kind of a way. And I didn’t hate any of it.

We discovered a shared love of rugby and spoke about the rugby sevens coming up in Vancouver in a few months, but he didn’t think he’d be in town for it. I realised I was already hoping to hear of any next visits to Vancouver he may have, and we weren’t even through our first glass of wine yet…

With so much talking, it took me a while to realise that either we were going to just have a lovely evening of wine and chit chat or he was going to have to make a move. Because I knew I sure as hell wasn’t. I also realised that surely being in someone’s apartment, other than it having easy access to a bedroom, made it more difficult for something more physical to happen naturally, no? At least at a bar you might be huddled around a table and able to get a little closer. Or moving from a restaurant to a bar there’s the opportunity for some contact while you’re walking. At the movies, there’s the potential for a brushing of hands. Sitting on the couch in someone’s house? You really had to make that shit happen for yourself. And I knew that I, for one, would not be the one to do that. No matter how much I wanted to get a little closer to that dimple.

We ended up talking about basketball at one stage, with me asking him if he’d always played, if he still played etc etc. I commented that, despite playing in high school, it wasn’t the sport for me given my short, fat fingers. As I said it, he leaned forward and took my wine glass out my hand, placed it on the table and took my hand to look at said short, fat fingers.

I was simultaneously distressed at the fact he was now examining one of the areas of my body I hated the most – why had I brought up my goddamn chunky digits?! – but thrilled that, other than a swift hug when he’d first arrived which I hadn’t been able to enjoy because I was so pleasantly stunned, we were now engaging in physical contact.

That physical contact seemed to be the only in he needed. He briefly dropped my hand, to have more of his wine, and then in one swift movement was over on the other part of the sectional sofa, half standing, half kneeling on the sofa over me. It felt imposing and incredibly sexy, and I was aware instantly, there was something about his energy in that moment, that he was probably very dominant sexually. This could be fun.

He was forceful in a very flirtatious way, so that not once did I have a concern about a man, whom I’d met only a couple of hours earlier and let into my apartment, ordering me around. To be honest, I was more than happy to comply. He took his shirt off and the delight I experienced when he first arrived, was elevated by about a hundred. His arms were, as I had imagined from that first in real life glimpse, delightful. That salt and pepper hair, which turned out to be outrageously long on top of his head when I actually ran my fingers through it, and matching stubble and chest hair was ridiculously sexy. And that dimple? Good God, that dimple.

The only thing I didn’t like was some of the chat. Now, I’m a talker during sex, I mean not like a “hi, how’s your day been” kinda talker, but I like keeping the lines of communication open, vocalising appreciation, making suggestions and laughing. There’s nothing I love more than when you’re comfortable enough with a sexual partner that you can laugh at the unavoidable weird/awkward/funny stuff that happens during sex. Silent sex does not do it for me.

But some questions, particularly when you don’t know your partner all that well, you know like when you only met him for the first time when he turned up on your doorstep two and a half hours ago, just seem a little forced and unnecessary. And I know for some people hearing their partner talk about what they like and want done to them, in the midst of sex, is a massive turn on and usually I’d be all for it but I found that I struggled a little with not knowing him all that well.

What I didn’t struggle with was when, after making out and getting pretty handsy on the sofa for a while, he picked me up, carried me to the bedroom and threw me on the bed. And I’m not just using that phrase because it sounds great. He actually threw me down on the mattress with such force I remember bouncing. I wasn’t sure bouncing was sexy, so I attempted to steady myself, find some composure and maintain an air of sexiness.

The sex was better than great. He knew what he was doing and obviously knew what he liked, but he was also suitably generous. The one thing I did notice, however, was that when we started having sex, the kissing stopped. I think there’s something that men, and maybe women, equate about kissing during sex with intimacy, and when they’re not looking for a relationship, they think that a way to avoid that is to minimise intimacy. There is, of course, the argument that sex in and of itself can be one of the most intimate acts that humans engage in.

What was a little more off-putting than the no kissing, was the lack of post-sex cuddles. I think I’ve said it before, I’m a massive cuddler. That closeness, that comfort, I miss that as a singleton. But similarly to the kissing, I think for some people that closeness after sex scares them because it feels too intimate. As if having your genitals entwined just moments before somehow wasn’t.

So instead we lay, slightly apart, in bed chatting until he said he should get going. I realised at that point that we hadn’t really had any particularly deep conversations. It was all fairly surface level. And despite the groping, the nakedness, the hot sweaty sex, I could have had almost the same level of actual conversation with him sat in public at a bar.

It was unfortunate to see him get dressed again but that dimple at least couldn’t hide behind clothes. We talked about maybe seeing each other on the Sunday, but we both had plans with friends and, as we hugged goodbye, we left it that we’d see how it went.

The next morning, as I was filling in one of my girlfriends, the girlfriend who helped craft the final text to Filipeen, about my previous night’s antics she commented that she knew someone who worked in the industry that Toronto Dimple Chin (as he was now Christened) used to work in. Within three minutes she came back to me to tell me that yep, her friend knew him, mostly in a professional capacity but that he was a good guy. We joke that she’s better at finding out stuff about people than the FBI. Those memes you see on Instagram about giving someone a first name and five minutes later they have the whole family tree? That’s this friend of mine. In fact I have two of them, and they’re hilariously helpful.

As it turned out Toronto Dimple Chin and I never caught up the next day, and he left town at the beginning of the week. He’d said it would be about six weeks until he was back again so I said he should text when he was next back in town and we could maybe catch up. “Catch up” obviously meaning, get together and have sex.

Four weeks later, I was with said FBI agent girlfriend and my best straight guy friend, the one Filipeen had concerns about, at a bar inside the sports stadium where we were spending the weekend watching rugby sevens. As they were ordering drinks, I happened to turn around, and see walking in our direction Toronto Dimple Chin and some friends. Despite the crowds, he saw me at the same time, said something to his friends who carried on walking and came over to where I was standing.

Jeez, I’d forgotten just how attractive he was. Is anyone else seeing this?!?!

As soon as he was beside me I remembered that my two, fairly drunk, friends were nearby and while, yes, they would indeed see it, I also hoped they’d keep their shit together and not embarrass me.

He and I hugged and said hello as they sidled up beside me, their drinks replenished in both hands, so it was an easy and quick introduction and then, in my friends’ defence, they said their goodbyes and headed back to our seats. Though I could tell by the look on their faces there was much they wanted to say.

Toronto Dimple Chin and I had a fairly quick chat, he said he wasn’t supposed to be in town but his plans had changed, that it was nice to see me and we should do something while he was still in town. I agreed, another quick hug, a glance at the dimple and I returned to where my friends were sitting and he headed off in the direction of his.

Before I even reached within earshot of our seats, I could tell the two witnesses were filling in the rest of my friends with the details of the bar encounter. As I approached my girlfriend stopped talking, looked at me and said “he is one of the most attractive men I’ve seen in real life, in my life”. And I couldn’t disagree.

It turns out even our straight, male friend thought the same. When they’d turned around and saw me chatting to Toronto Dimple Chin, he’d said “I don’t know who he is, but I’d do him” and then was apparently incredulous that I had in fact actually already “done him”.

It was a relief to know that I hadn’t dreamt up his attractiveness or remembered the cuteness of that dimple through inaccurate rose-tinted spectacles. And not only for me to be reminded of it but for friends to witness it as well – it made me sound a little less nuts when I was insistent that he was probably the most attractive man I’d slept with.

Despite the excitement of seeing him again and the pleasantries we exchanged in the stadium concourse, we didn’t meet up during the rest of his time in Vancouver. Instead we texted a couple of times and then it sort of went nowhere, which was kind of disappointing but if I’m honest, if he lived in closer proximity and I’d seen him more? That dimple could well have been the death of me.

Next post…

…previous post

Getting Into Cars With Strange Men – Part 1 of 4

divorcedanddatingat30Leave a comment

Oct-2016

You know when you were young and your Mum always told you not to take sweets from strangers and your school used to have sessions about how you shouldn’t get into cars with strange men? When did that change to the point that one random October Sunday I decided it was a good idea to make plans for a strange guy to pick me up and take me to the woods for a walk? It’s funny how things change; at eight I would have been shouting “STRANGER DANGER” to ward him off, but at 32 I was hoping it would be romantic.

On said Sunday, I came out of a morning kickboxing class to a message on Bumble from this guy who I’d exchanged a few messages with a couple of months ago. When he ghosted mid-conversation I never thought anything of it, it happens so frequently when you’re chatting to people on dating apps. Him reappearing was actually more surprising. In fact, it was just nice that the message had been sent at 9am on a Sunday and not middle of the night Saturday, so I didn’t need to try and work out if it was the dating app equivalent of a drunk text, such is the sad state of affairs that we’re dating in.

I replied and we chatted back and forth about what a gorgeous day it was and what we had planned for our Sundays. He said he was going to take his dog out for a walk to this trail round a beautiful cove I’d heard a lot about but never been to. My mindless reply telling him that exact thought, along with “it’s a perfect day for a walk”, resulted in the quickest date arrangement I’ve maybe ever experienced, when he invited me to go with him (and the dog).

By this time, I was home and showered, our chats had moved to text so he had my number and just as I was mulling over in my head whether this hastily arranged date seemed like a good idea, he called me. I was impressed. People are so apprehensive to use the phone nowadays!

He said he would come and pick me up (which also impressed me because it was entirely out of his way) and he’d drop me off again after but he thought maybe I’d want to hear his voice before a strange man came and picked me up. It was a fair point and I appreciated the fact he’d had the foresight to realise that.

In my head I knew that agreeing to a random guy coming to pick me up in his car and taking me to the woods didn’t seem like the most sensible thing I’d ever done but I was trying to listen to my gut, and it was telling me it was ok. Even writing that now, I know it sounds nuts. If a friend had been telling me this story or that they were intending to do this I’d be like “NO! STRANGER DANGER!!!!” My eight year old self, and normally my 32 year old self, was a stickler for the rules.

Instead I decided to text my friend all the information on him that I had – his full name, where he worked, his phone number, screenshots of his Bumble profile – and hoped that if my body was found in the woods, they would at least be able to catch him. Ain’t that a romantic first date thought!

After the sobering experience of having to decide what to wear for my first ever “active first date” (seriously, who am I? I’m that person going on a hiking first date. Ugh. Get out.) and despite the insanity of the situation I was actually feeling pretty good about it.

Until, that is, as I crossed the road to his car after he’d texted to let me know he’d arrived and he got out to hug me and open the passenger door, I realised I couldn’t see a dog. The dog we were supposed to be walking. The dog he’d said was pretty big. So big that surely I couldn’t miss her in his Audi hatchback. Where was the damn dog?!

I tried not to let the panic rise too quickly, even as I started to slide into the passenger seat, but just as I tried to resist him the closing my door, on the off chance I needed to make a run for it, I saw the sweet relief of a dog ear pop up behind the back seat. Thank god.

She was a gorgeous 5 year old Rottweiler / Rhodesian Ridgeback mix and he was a 38 year old Filipino Canadian who worked in corporate travel and lived in an apartment he owned over on the North Shore. They were both great companions for a Sunday afternoon hike.

The chat in the car was easy, we hadn’t covered much ground in our messaging conversations previously so it gave us a lot to talk about on the 25 minute or so drive out there. And that didn’t stop while we were walking up through the woods to the lookout point over the cove. Or on the way back down as the rain randomly started. And even when we got all the way back downtown for him to drop me off a number of hours after he’d picked me up, he actually drove around the block a couple of times so we could finish our conversation.

Arriving back to my apartment building, all I could think was “I’d really like it if he kissed me” and I was aware that since he’d picked me up earlier that afternoon he’d opened and closed every (car) door for me, so if that continued it would likely present itself as a pretty good opportunity for him to make a move should he want. Well, it would have if it weren’t for my over-eager concierge coming to open my door first.

Why is it that when I’m struggling with shopping bags or luggage, they’re never anywhere to be found, but when I’d like to be left alone to hopefully invoke the perfect end to a date, they come rushing out with a “hi, how are you? Do you have anything in the trunk?” No, fuck off! (Jokes, I’m actually very appreciative of the service they offer. Sigh.) And so a big romantic end of date kiss didn’t happen, but a peck on the cheek and a pretty tight hug wasn’t the worst alternative, albeit that it was done with the concierge only a few feet away.

Closing the door behind me as I got back into my apartment, I remember having an incredibly gleeful moment of “WTF”, which made a nice change from the “WTF I want to kill myself” moments that some previous dates have induced. The whole thing had been such a surprise, both in it’s spontaneity – that morning I’d been planning on a quiet day of chores – and in it’s success – we seemed to really click, he seemed to have his shit together, it seemed like a great first date.

I texted him as I was getting into bed that night and thanked him for including me in their walk (he’d made it very clear, he and the dog came as a pair) and for going out of his way to pick me up and drop me off. He responded by saying they don’t normally let outsiders crash their Sunday walks but they were both incredibly happy they’d made an exception for me and they couldn’t decide which one of them liked me more. Cue falling asleep with a smile on my face.

Four days later we were meeting for our second date. After the outdoorsy nature of the first date, he suggested we go the other direction and do dinner and drinks downtown – much more my natural habitat and far easier to get dressed for. Seriously, trying to decide on an outfit for a first date when you have to take into consideration that you’re going to be doing some exercise, you don’t want to get too sweaty, but it’s kinda cold outside AND you want to look cute? Not easy my friend, not easy.

On the Thursday night we planned a date at a bar not far from my place and about half an hour before we were due to meet he messaged and said “I’m running late so do you mind if I don’t pick you up, I’ll meet you there but I promise I’ll walk you home?” Now, the place we were meeting was literally 4 blocks from my house, which he knew, and he was using transit to get downtown so it wasn’t like he could just swing by in his car. At no point had I imagined he would have been coming to “pick me up”. His manners were a massive turn on, there is something about chivalry that gets me riled up, in the best possible way.

In a similar fashion to our first date, our second followed suit with more to talk about than we had time for. Over multiple drinks (we discovered a mutual love of gin) and some food, we covered a variety of topics of conversation. But what was nice was that, whereas on our first date we covered some fairly hefty topics – our parents’ divorces, our past relationships, sibling relationships, how he was open to a relationship but would want to take anything really slowly and the reasons for that -, on our second date we actually talked about a lot more light, random stuff – favourite trips, food and drink loves, friends, home decor.

We also talked about alter egos. A subject I had never thought much about before. Don’t get me wrong there’s a drunk me, but I hardly would call her an alter ego. She’s just an ego. LOL. But he had this whole persona, which in fairness he said did come out when he was drunk but also when he was in any competitive situation. He had a name and everything, his friends would refer to it oftentimes…. Ok, good to know, I guess.

The seeming end of the date brought with it the sense that, again, we didn’t have enough time to say everything we wanted to. So as he walked me home, and made a comment about my apartment, I decided that a nightcap would give us the perfect opportunity for some more time together and for him to see the apartment he was enquiring about.

As we headed up in the elevator I had hopes that he would kiss me at some point, his tactile taking of my arm as we walked home seemed like a good sign. But I was also sure, and happy with the likelihood, that a kiss was as far as it would go. Nothing that I knew of him up to that point gave me the impression he would sleep with someone on a second date and given what he’d said on the first date about wanting to take things really slowly, which again he’d re-iterated over dinner that night, it really wasn’t even a consideration.

Once back in my apartment, I got to making us each another gin of the night. As I did he moved up behind me just close enough that I could feel his clothes just lightly touching mine. Taken by surprise that he didn’t seem to even be waiting for drinks before making a move, I carried on measuring out the gin. As I poured the tonic, he slipped his hand round my waist, turned me to face him and right there, with tonic can in hand, we had our first kiss.

He was sweet and gentle and as far as first kisses go, it was pretty great. It lead to a whole lot of kissing on my couch, interspersed with more chatting and drinking the gins that I’d eventually finished pouring. I had been hopeful for a kiss but this was probably more than I’d been prepared for. It got pretty hot and heavy pretty quickly.

What I definitely wasn’t prepared for was that during the teenage-like make out session, he made a comment along the lines of “I would love to sleep with you”. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t exactly not having the same thought but, as I mentioned, he had made it so clear, so absolutely crystal clear, that he wanted any new relationship to go slowly that I presumed that would have meant he’d take longer than two dates before he slept with someone.

It turns out, two dates was just the right amount of time for him to be ready to sleep with me. I was surprised, but not unpleasantly so. Much like the first date, it took me by surprise but it felt right despite it also kind of seeming a little insane. Initially I did stop and ask him if he was sure. I didn’t want the fun of the night, or the gin, to be clouding anyone’s judgement. He barely let me get the question out before he assured me.

I went with it and I wasn’t disappointed. And neither was he.

He stayed over til morning, and throughout the night there was more great chatting, a lot of incredible sex and an abundance of snuggling. And I’m not going to lie, the snuggling may have been my favourite. Being single there are a lot of things I miss about being in a relationship but snuggles? They might be at the top of that list. And, despite it only being the second date, I was hoping there might be a lot more snuggles to come…

Next post…

…previous post

You And Me Does Not Equal One Plus One

divorcedanddatingat30Leave a comment

Oct-2016

When it comes to dating someone new, I’m sure most of us have been guilty of rushing a little bit ahead of ourselves at one time, at least I know I have. Hell, that’s my go to when I meet someone new! But when is it flattering and when is it too much?

I matched with Ukrainian Nigerian Engineer (clearly the nicknames write themselves most of the times) on Bumble and it turned out this tall, dark skinned, well dressed 28 year old lived on the opposite corner of my cross-streets. He asked me out fairly swiftly, which I always give multiple brownie points for and he also suggested a really nice bar that was close to where we both lived. Add to that the sensibility to suggest earlier in the evening considering it was a Sunday, and I was impressed so far, though maybe I’d already mentioned to him how much of a Granny I am and love early nights?

On the night in question though the bar turned out to be closed for a private event so we ended up in a nearby, although not quite as nice, alternative. Other than that slight hiccup, it was a good first date. He was chatty, he was interesting, he told me all about his new job and the travel he might get to undertake as a result, he seemed to have a good group of friends and he was also super interested, asking lots of questions of me. Interesting and interested are two key things I look for in someone, especially on a first date.

He walked me home afterwards but we were essentially going to the same place so it was hard not to I guess. We said a very respectful goodnight with what felt like a bit of a cursory hug and I remember leaving and not really feeling like I’d got a good read on him. As easy as he was to talk to, I got the feeling he was kind of quiet and we know how I do with quiet guys… He also hadn’t really given me any strong indication about how he felt about either the date or me.

I followed up later that night with my usual “thanks for the date and the drinks” (he paid) text and over the next few days we exchanged polite chit chat about our working days before he asked if I’d like to go out on the Thursday night. He’d read about some gallery opening and suggested we go check it out and then have dinner. I love a man with a plan! And not just “drinks”. So given that I wasn’t sure exactly where things were going prior to that, I took the second date intention as a good sign.

On a pouring wet October night, he picked me up and we went to this random little gallery over on the east side of the city and checked out what turned out to be a fairly small exhibit. But it had some great pieces and the wall with artwork made entirely out of business cards provided us with plenty to discuss around the merits of modern art.

After deciding neither of us were going to be making an investment in business card art, we made our way back towards downtown and an Italian place that does great pizzas a little closer to home. And while sipping on our wine and waiting for our food to arrive, I had one of those moments when recognising something in someone else makes you realise something about yourself. I love those kind of realisations, they fascinate me!

We were discussing his background – Ukrainian, Nigerian, in Canada since he was a young child is fairly unique – and when I asked how often he goes back to Nigeria he said “I’ve only been once and to be honest I don’t think I’ll go again.” I asked if he felt a bond to the country or if it would be a heritage he would pass onto his children ,if he had a family, and he said “no” to both.

In that moment I realised that if I were ever to have children, which is still TBC, of huge importance to me would be making sure they knew they were Scottish. (This presuming I have them here in Canada. I’d hope they’d be bright enough to know that they were Scottish if they were born there…) I realised that having children in Canada would mean I would have no commonality in terms of upbringing with my children, we would have had completely different lives, they wouldn’t even necessarily understand the cultural nuances and the pop culture references of an entire part of my life.

These were all gaps I’d considered that I would potentially need to bridge with a partner if they weren’t from Scotland, but I’d never thought about having a similar disconnect with my own offspring. And I know there’s a debate around nature vs nurture (and I think there’s a lot to be said about both) but as we sat at the table I was struck by what an enormous responsibility that felt.

At the same time, I realised that his answer of not wanting to pass his Nigerian heritage onto his children was kind of disappointing to me. I know it’s likely due to the fact that he didn’t feel a connection to it himself but it just didn’t sit particularly well with me.

While I was trying to digest the nugget of self discovery I’d just unearthed, along with my incredibly delightful truffle pizza which had since arrived, it was unfortunate timing for him to tell me a story that would literally make me choke.

You know there are those times when you start telling a story, or you’re halfway through, or maybe in fact you’ve gotten right to the end of it and you all of a sudden think to yourself “why the fuck am I telling this story?” Yeah, well this obviously wasn’t one of those times for Ukrainian Nigerian Engineer cause he just kept right on telling his story while I’m pretty sure my face contorted into the exact human version of the flushed face emoji.

It turns out his new company were getting in the planning of their Christmas party early and were asking everyone to RSVP that week. His colleague who was organising it had gone up to him in the middle of the lunch room, catching him entirely off guard, and said “are you coming to the Christmas party?” and as quickly as he said yes, she then tacked on “And what’s your plus one’s name?”

Now, there are many answers he could have given to that question: “I don’t have one”’ “I’ll need to see if she’s available”; “I’m a lone wolf”; “she lives in Yemen” – I mean, so many answers. Instead he gave my name. Not only did he give my name, he then thought it was a good idea to tell me that he’d given my name and so was now essentially asking me to go to his office Christmas party.

Now, again, there are many things wrong with this, but the first one that came to my mind was that the Christmas party was on the 16th December. It was only the 27th October. And it was our second date. Holy shit balls, we were making plans for 7 weeks away… To compound my shock, I still wasn’t really getting any in-person vibes from him that he was particularly interested in me. Apart from, you know, giving my name as his plus one to his work party in almost two months time.

Having picked my jaw up off the floor and returned my eyes to their normal size, I tried to quickly end the date. The heritage discussion, Christmas party plus one invitation and also a discussion we’d had about his car while parking that sort of presented him as a little materialistic had all really turned me off.

When we said goodbye as he dropped me back off at home, I had kind of made up my mind that I probably wouldn’t see him again – so he was going to have to change his party plus one’s details – and realised the fact I could see his building from mine probably wasn’t ideal in this situation but I’d never seen him around before we’d met online so why should I now?

Because Sod’s Law, that’s why.

Of course, just over a week later I was out with friends at a bar round the corner from my apartment and as we were all sat chatting, actually about another date I’d just been on (blog post to come), some guy walking behind me just caught the corner of my eye as he stopped right over my shoulder and just stood staring, the way someone would when you want them to notice you’re looking at them.

I turn around to meet the stare and there’s Ukrainian Nigerian Engineer. I get up from the table, hoping he didn’t just hear the last comment my very crude friends just made, and try to usher him away from the group. But he seemingly had other plans and as soon as our hug was over he started introducing himself to my friends. Um, ok then.

I was really caught off guard. I never introduce people to my friends, they’re too much of a liability and now was definitely not the best time for intros considering they all knew I wasn’t planning to see this guy again.

Despite him now being ensconced in hellos with my friends, I still felt like there was someone staring at me and as I turned around again I realised the table of what I presumed were his friends are now all watching our table intently. I laughed and said “oh looks like you’re wanted, you better go” hoping it would cut short this very out of the blue meetup. But no. He insisted I go and meet his friends now also.

So I politely went over, how could I say no when they were all watching me?, and did the round of names and waved hellos but before that was even finished one of them piped up with “so I hear you’re going to the Christmas party?” Cue incredibly awkward silence from him, who had taken his seat again and left me standing like a lemon by the side of the table. Cheers.

I mumbled something about how I’ve heard engineering Christmas parties are the best (what?! I don’t know!!!) before sharing an awkward standing/seated goodbye hug with Ukrainian Nigerian Engineer and then making the hastiest of hasty retreats back to my table of friends, where I swiftly told them all to “drink up, we’re leaving.”

First the Christmas party, now the friend introductions… but yet still no real sense of intention from him. It was just slightly confusing.

We texted a little after that bar encounter but my Mum came to visit and then it was almost Christmas and eventually we just stopped all communication, which suited me fine. Until that is I bumped into him in the street one day. Of course.

We shared the usual “what have you been up to” chat while dodging weekend shoppers passing us by but when he started to go down the route of “we should catch up sometime” I stopped him before it went any further and said “I’m actually seeing someone just now”. It sounded like such a lie coming out my mouth but it wasn’t.

Regardless of who else I was seeing, and there was someone else by then, all of the interactions I’d had with him had either left me wondering if he was interested in me at all or wanting him to massively pump the breaks, there was no in between, no happy medium and in neither circumstance was I that attracted to him.

So I decided to chalk this one up to experience, appreciate the lesson I’d learnt about how important passing on my Scottish roots is to me and vow not to date anyone who lived across the street again. That last part has not held true…

Next post…

…previous post

Women Can Be Assholes Too

divorcedanddatingat30Leave a comment

Sep-2016

This blog of mine is in no way meant to man-bash. Despite the frustrations I may have encountered with dating, and my experience with my ex-husband, and some of the shitty things guys have done, I’m still pro-men, I’m still pro-dating, I’m still pro-relationships.

I’ve talked a number of times with my guy friends about approaches they’ve taken to dating and, of course, I know them as good guys – they’re my friends, I like them for a reason. But I also know that from some of the stories they tell me about their dating I’m like “wow, that was a dick move, but you’re not a dick”. And inherently, I know that just because a guy’s actions may make them seem like a total douchebag, that does not in fact mean they are a total douchebag.

In the case of my dates with Fresh Off The Boat Irish, I hope he remembers that too…

I remember when I first got to Vancouver, my priorities were settling into my job, finding out where to get good pizza and trying to work out the coins (loonies and toonies confused the hell out of me). For others, like Fresh Off The Boat Irish, as he became aptly known, the priorities lie with finding a date it seemed.

When I matched with him on Tinder, I was still going through my phase of going on as many dates as possible in the hope that by doing so I’d find “my person” quicker. Up until this point it had actually only resulted in meeting more wrong ‘uns quicker. But that wasn’t deterring me and so soon after my Blah, Blah, Blah & Blah dates, I set up an after work drink with this funny, rugby playing, Northern Irish guy who was full of great banter.

But from about half way through the first beer on our date, I knew this wouldn’t be going anywhere romantically. Not least because it kind of ended up being a “welcome to Vancouver” seminar presented by Yours Truly. I’m not sure if I instigated that or he did but between telling him about rent prices, how to get a phone contract, the best place to watch rugby from home, and generally an overview of life as a foreigner in Vancouver I felt like I could have been working for the working holiday visa people.

We went on a second date though, I wanted to see if maybe I’d been too quick to judge. He had a great personality and he was a lot of fun, so maybe I could get over his (lack of) height and find him physically attractive eventually? Ugh, that’s my least favourite conundrum. How to know if the guy you don’t find physically attractive will ever become appealing to you sexually… I’m yet to work this out… I feel a whole other blog post coming on about type…

Alas no, the second date really only confirmed my initial suspicions but he was a really funny guy and I know he wanted to meet people so I decided the next time I was out with my friend group, I’d invite him out thereby not only introducing him to people but also maybe giving him the indication that I saw him more as a friend and so getting me out of having to have the difficult conversation. I know, I know, I always talk about wanting people to just strap on a pair and have the goddamn difficult conversation. In this instance, I was definitely shying away from my own mantra.

So come the long Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, I was going out with a group of my friends to an Oktoberfest event that was essentially an afternoon of drinking, obviously, and I figured it was the perfect time to bring him out. However, the couple whose basement he was living in had invited him to join them for Thanksgiving dinner so he couldn’t join the beer festivities but I suggested we’d be going out after so maybe he could meet up with us then.

Unsurprisingly, the afternoon at the Oktoberfest were indeed beer soaked and as it drew to a close and we made plans for where we were going next I made sure to keep Fresh Off The Boat in the loop. He was really keen to come and meet us, he said dinner had been great but it was a bit weird being with a family he didn’t know and there wasn’t a whole lot of drinking going on so he’d love to escape to something potentially more fun. I promised him we most likely were.

The only problem was his dinner was still kind of tailing off and he was waiting for the right moment to take his leave of absence, plus he was staying out in a suburb of Vancouver that was going to take him about 45 minutes to an hour to get into Downtown from. So I kept him updated of our movements and he was going to join us when he could.

However, somewhere in the midst of him saying his thank you’s and goodbye’s and getting to downtown, the afternoon of drinking really started to take its toll on me and spending the best part of the early evening bar hopping had only compounded that. So at some point I decided to that the most sensible thing to do would be to go home. My mother would be so proud. Or at least she would have if I hadn’t already been incredibly drunk. But, put it this way, I missed the part of the night where two of my friends ended up in a bush (and that’s not a euphemism) so I’m thinking it was the right decision.

The one thing I forgot to do was let Fresh Off The Boat know that I’d called it a night and was no longer in the last bar I’d given him an update from. Oops. What didn’t help was that my phone had also completely died, which is very unlike me to let that happen given that it’s like a third hand to me. Double oops.

Fast forward 6 hours and I wake up at 4am and have 7 missed calls, 3 voicemails, and 12 texts from a progressively more angry Fresh Off The Boat. It started with the “ok, I’m out! getting in a cab and headed for downtown” through “hey, where should I meet u?” to “are u still out???” to a voicemail saying “I’m downtown, outside the last bar you said you were in, I’m looking like a bit of an idiot just hanging around, can you answer my texts?” right to “you better not have gone home and fallen asleep! Are you fucking kidding me?”

Oh. Holy. Shit.

I’m a terrible terrible person. I felt so unbelievably bad. Dicking people around like that is my least favourite thing and I can only imagine how I would have felt if it had been the other way around. And there was nothing I could say. I got drunk, I took myself home, I passed out and forgot I’d said for you to come all the way in from the burbs just to get stood up on a slightly chilly Vancouver October evening. There’s not really a way of dressing it up to make it look better. So I didn’t bother.

I texted him a few hours later when the hangover blindness had subsided and I could face the world a little more. He replied much, much later in the day saying “I can’t believe you did that” and that was pretty much all he said. I apologised a number of times, but made sure to never over-promise just to make it up to him. I had to remind myself I was trying to friend-zone him so taking him out for drinks or a dinner would for sure give him the wrong impression and maybe making him hate me by standing him up was at least one way to avoid the awkward conversation?

So there, I said it, I hold my hands up – sometimes I can be an asshole to date too and I’m not too proud to admit it!

Next post…

…previous post

Blah, Blah, Blah & Blah

divorcedanddatingat302 Comments

Sep/Oct-2016

After the excitement of Arms (part 1 & part 2), I guess I knew the next dates would be… interesting. Physically they had a lot to hold up to. Sexually, if it got that far, they were going to have to be out of this world. And on a common connection level they’d need to be pretty spot on. Unfortunately, if not unsurprisingly, none of those marks were hit.

The first, was a 26 year old Canadian, who’d just moved back from Vancouver after being in Australia for a year. He was a lawyer, lived and worked downtown, and we arranged to meet for drinks one day after work.

I always think if someone has travelled they should be fairly well socialised and have something about them, something interesting, something to say. This guy? Not so much.

The fact that even making the arrangements of where to meet was difficult should have been a red flag. He kept saying “I haven’t lived here for a few years”. Yeah but prior to that this was the only place you lived, you were back here visiting within those two years you lived away and things don’t change that fast – just pick a goddamn place! Then he did and it was shit, so be careful what you wish for, I guess.

Unfortunately, things didn’t get any better when we met. On first sight he was cute, with a lingering tan from his recent travels and blonde curls framing his babyface. Which at least was pretty to look at when very swiftly after we arrived I found myself bored. Like, looking around the bar bored. Generally I can, and will, talk to anyone. But this was painful.

Add to his lack of chat the fact that anything he did say centred around really not wanting to be back in Vancouver, not liking the job he’d gotten since he moved back but thought it was the best he could get, and hating where he was living. I actually left feeling marginally depressed.

Babyfaced Non-Aussie Lawyer had brought my mood down to zero over the course of two gin and tonics. That takes some doing, cause the gin alone lifts my mood so he’d managed to entirely counter those effects. Dating is hard!

The next date was with a 32 year old Canadian travel marketer at a really great cocktail bar I’d been wanting to try for a while so this guy got instant brownie points for a) picking somewhere and b) picking somewhere good. However, for happy hour at 5pm on a Tuesday it was lacking a little bit of atmosphere.

Thankfully we had a lot to talk about and enjoyed 3 cocktails each while discussing his travels around the UK, his job which I was pretty fascinated by and my recent found love of kickboxing and half marathons.

By the time he paid the bill and we left though, I knew that no matter how easy our chats on that date had been and how much of a nice guy he was, I wasn’t attracted to him. He looked decidedly middle aged for his 32 years, and while I know I’m no 20 year old, it was a little off putting. In my mind now, I associate the colour brown with him for some reason, though I’m sure that’s not the only colour he was wearing…

I was only just formulating these thoughts as we were fumbling with the door and umbrellas though, so when he quickly said he’d love to do it again I didn’t have time to respond appropriately so just responded inappropriately with “sure, I’d love to!”

Ugh, I hate that. I hate being that girl, I hate being the one who lied, who was dishonest with their intention. Nobody really wants to be the one that has to tell the ugly truth but, in my opinion, it’s far better than doing what I did and then having to follow it up with a text that explains that… what? I changed my mind? Had a change of heart? Am just a big ol’ liar who couldn’t just strap on her big girl pants and say “this was lovely, but I don’t think there’s anything there for me”? Why is that so hard????

I won’t even repeat word for word the bullshit text I sent, but suffice to say, it was bullshit but covered what I should have just said at the time. And Canadian Travel Marketer was such a nice guy he just said in reply “that’s a shame, I thought we had a lot in common but I wish you the best”. Seriously, dating is hard.

Next up was a lunchtime date with a 34 year old Irish financial worker. He’d been fairly lowkey in messages but was quick to make a plan for us to meetup and after realising neither of us had time after work for a few weeks, we decided a lunch hour date was going to be the best bet.

So I kept my schedule clear, made sure I took makeup with me to work to do a little refresh before I rushed to meet him to ensure we had enough time to eat and chat before either of us had to get back to our respective offices.

Possibly the only good thing to say about this date was that I got to eat. I mean, I paid for my own, but at least I got to eat. And, let’s be honest, if that’s the best thing you can say about it, you know it was a shithole of a date.

He’s quite possibly the most negative guy I’ve ever been on a date with.

His job was ok but he wasn’t loving it. The friends he’d made since he moved here were nice but a bit boring. Vancouver was ok but he’d probably rather be at home. He was applying for his permanent residency but the whole process was a hassle and expensive.

Here’s a thought bud – if you dislike it so much here why don’t you fuck off back to Ireland and not apply for residency, you absolute loon? I felt like I worked for the City of Vancouver’s PR department by the end of lunch – I had put so much effort into trying to convince him it was a great place to stay. And I spent the entire walk back to my office wondering why I’d done that. I’d actually rather he left.

And quite possibly my breezy disposition and selling of Vancouver put him off as well because we clearly both ended the date on the same page – never wanting to text again. We didn’t text again after it, at all. Mutual ghosting is the only ghosting that’s acceptable. Is dating supposed to be this hard?

Lastly on my run of blah dates was this really quiet Canadian Country Boy. He’d moved to the city and seemed a little overwhelmed by it all, but I admired his bravery and not once did he talk about moving back out to the sticks where all his family still were. He didn’t seem to have spent too much time downtown but was keen to meet me somewhere near where I lived, and again I admired the fact he wasn’t shunning something he obviously wasn’t super comfortable with. Not least because I’m a city girl so if he couldn’t get on board with that then it would have been a non-starter.

Our first date was at one of my favourite happy hours that I suggested. I did all the ordering, seeing as he’d never been and I knew what was great, and for that night at least it worked. But when on the second date (yes this one got to a second date, such a rare occurrence for me, I know!) he still wasn’t really able to order his own beer without some assistance I started to wonder how far out in the country he’d actually been living. Did they not have bars out there?

His initial quietness turned out to be real shyness, which in turn presented itself as awkwardness. Unfortunately, if I can’t make someone comfortable, I don’t deal well with that and I’ll do one of two things – laugh or become really awkward myself. So you end up with a shit show one way or another. And when he admitted he was even shy around his nieces, who are toddlers!!!, I pretty much knew this was probably done.

The last game of the World Series was on in the bar we’d met at and I worked out that if we got the bill right then I could probably be home before the Chicago Cubs would eventually beat the Cleveland Indians and watch it by myself, which at this point was preferable.

Shortly after I watched all the celebrations in the comfort and non-awkward silence of my own apartment, I texted Canadian Country Boy to say I just didn’t think there was a spark and I thought he was maybe a bit too quiet for me, or in fact maybe I was just too loud for him. He texted back saying “thanks for your message, maybe you’re right.” Way to grab it by the balls!

And so in a short space of time, I went through four first dates and a second date, which left me feeling flatter than flat. And in these instances, I’d gone for the nice guys, the good guys, the ones with “good” jobs, not swiping on them because of their muscles (or arms!) and this was where it got me…

Dating. Is. Hard.

Next post…

…previous post

The Arrival Of Arms – Part 1 of 2

divorcedanddatingat30Leave a comment

Sep-2016

Offering to play tour guide for two Kiwi guys who were in town for a couple of days, I knew it wasn’t going to be the most conventional of Tinder dates but I’m not sure I could have imagined just how unexpectedly it would turn out…

I matched with this super fit Maori Kiwi guy on Tinder that turned out was living in Calgary, far far out of my preset distance radius of 10km – what can I say? I want to meet a man but I don’t want to travel far to do it! He explained he’d used the feature on Tinder where you can swipe in other cities, to meet some “people” before a road trip he was planning to take with his friend in a few months, but let’s call it what it was, it was to meet girls, not people! We chatted a little but it never came to much and, despite his washboard-stomach-filled pics, I quickly forgot about him.

Until, that is, he turned up in my Bumble search a few months later and we matched again. Being that the female has to start the convo on Bumble, I opened with the classic “I might be wrong but I think we’ve matched before on Tinder – the joy of being on multiple dating apps!” He responded pretty quickly and said he thought so too but unlike last time he was now in Vancouver on his road trip.

It was a random Wednesday night and I’d just had a couple of girlfriends round to watch a naked dating show from back home (if you haven’t seen Naked Attraction, google that shit) when he asked what I was doing night. I said I wasn’t up for going out but we could maybe arrange to meet up the next day. And when I say we, I mean “we three”, yup his friend was going to come too… At first it seemed like it could be a little weird but actually it felt like it might take the pressure off in a strange way.

So we made plans to go for drinks that next night and, after waiting for what seemed like AN AGE for them both to get ready at their hotel (which happened to be in the dodgiest part of town), they finally made their way to meet me by my apartment, with just one slight misunderstanding of directions enroute.

Prior to arriving, he told me that he was wearing a shirt that was too tight for him and not to laugh when I saw him. Hmm…interesting tactic to make sure I fully checked out the tightness of said shirt the minute I saw him. In fairness, as soon as I came through the doors of my building out onto the street, even if he hadn’t mentioned his shirt beforehand, I’m pretty sure my eyes would have still gone straight to the arms.

THOSE ARMS.

As I think I’ve mentioned before on here, I have a thing for arms. It’s been getting progressively “worse” as the years have passed. A bicep you can really grab onto? Bliss. A shirt just slightly straining to contain the muscle? Heaven. I have to seriously restrain myself from just reaching out and touching a good one. Like a lot of people do with pregnant women’s bellies? I’m like that with arms, just wanna reach out and have a stroke.

Ok, anyway, the arms were great but you see how they sidetrack me? And I knew instantly he would forever be referred to as Kiwi Arms. Not least because his actual name wasn’t too far from Arms, so it all made sense.

As the three of us started to make our way to the bar I’d suggested for drinks, Kiwi Arms declared he didn’t actually drink. He’s a Crossfit coach and lives a pretty healthy lifestyle. Um.. ok, well this should be… interesting (read boring)? Thankfully his friend piped up with “well he maybe doesn’t drink but I sure as hell do” and with that we became like 3 mates just going out for drinks.

And that was kind of how I felt the night was going as we were having some drinks (alcoholic for two of us, non for the other one), sharing life stories and grilling Kiwi Arms’ mate about his dating life. I’m pretty sure the waitress probably thought I had two friends visiting from New Zealand and not that I was kinda, sorta, not really on a Tinder date with the one I was sat next to.

At least that was how it felt, and what it likely appeared as, until I felt a hand slide up my leg under the table. At first I couldn’t tell if it was an accidental graze but after the second or third lingering touch I decided it was maybe a little more purposeful than I first thought. And for the first time on the “date” I actually thought there might have been a chance of something happening.

His friend looking across the table at us made me rethink that in an instant though. How exactly was this going to work? Dear god, I hope they didn’t expect a threesome…

We moved from the first bar to more of a club type place but it turns out we were one of only two groups in there – it’s fair to say I don’t normally go out on a Thursday night. Having said that the tunes were 90’s classics and despite not drinking anything Kiwi Arms was more than happy to bust out some moves. For such a random night, which had the potential to be ridiculously awkward, it was incredibly fun.

Not enough fun to keep us in that bar though, and after one round I suggested we went back to mine for our next drink. But as soon as the words were out of my mouth I quickly followed it up with “but seriously, just for a drink, there’s no three-way stuff happening.’ I didn’t think it needed to be said but you never know and I figured it was better to state my case before I ended up with 2 strange men in my apartment looking for a threesome. Ya know? Or maybe you don’t..

Anyway! After they had a quick chat with each other (the content of that conversation I would’ve loved to have been privy to), we headed back to mine and Kiwi Arm’s friend and I had another drink. After the one beer, his friend made his excuses and asked me to call him a cab. There wasn’t much of a discussion other than some comment from his friend along the lines of “I’ll leave you two kids to it”.

The door had barely closed behind him when Kiwi Arms clearly decided to make up for all the wasted time during the first part of the night and let’s just say I was much more sure of his intent than with the first under-the-table leg graze… For someone I wasn’t sure had any interest in me a couple of hours ago, he was now making things crystal clear.

To say things escalated quickly is an understatement. The catalyst was a single question which has haunted me since – “have you ever done it on your balcony?” My answer to that was no, and at that time it was truthful. But since that night, I’ve been asked that same question by a number of other men and have always had to deflect it in anyway possible. Because honestly, they only want to hear the answer I was able to give Kiwi Arms that night. And I’ve never been able to give it again.

All I’ll say is sex with a view and fresh air isn’t the worst. Would recommend. Add in glimpsing those arms gripping onto the handrail in front of me and you have yourself a party. A balcony sex party that is.

From the balcony, to the bedroom, it was a long, and amazing, night. In fact so long that at one point we took a break and ended up in the kitchen cooking bacon in just our underwear – he needed protein and it was the only thing I had in my fridge that wasn’t alcohol. But it was at this point that the saying “never judge a book by it’s cover” presented itself in human form to me.

We talked about everything. He spoke about his family (he’s one of 13!), his previous drug problems, his decision to leave a well paying engineering job to pursue his passion of becoming a Crossfit coach, how he’d followed a girl out to Canada which was how he ended up in Calgary, his process for writing in his journal everyday. And he didn’t just speak. He asked.

He asked me about my marriage, about moving out to Canada by myself, how I dealt with the loss of that relationship, why I took so long to get back into dating, how gratitude had played a part in where I was now.

These were deep, raw, long, honest conversations. And he was no longer this muscle-head gym junkie that I’d maybe first assumed from his dating app profiles. He was this sweet, funny, sincere, genuine, emotionally sensitive, self aware guy.

Albeit with massive muscles, stood in my kitchen, now eating bacon in his underwear.

There wasn’t a lot of sleep had but their road trip was carrying onto the States the next day and I had an easy Friday ahead, so we made the most of it. There was a lot of sex. It was probably the most energetic sex I’d had up until that point of my dating life. And while at first I was a little intimidated by his clear and present hotness, it actually only made me feel better about myself. Neither of us hated the mirrors in my bedroom…

In the morning, after maybe 3 hours sleep, we rallied for some pre-work, pre-road trip fun. Though this time we kept to the confines of the bedroom, it was daylight after all and my balcony isn’t exactly out of view of the neighbouring buildings. What do you take me for?!

He commented afterwards that it was a good showing for our last time and I unthinkingly said “unless of course you’re still here at lunchtime and fancy a quick one.” Fast forward 4 hours, turns out he is still in Vancouver, he’s somewhere near my apartment (which in turn is near my office) and he does in fact fancy a quick one.

Having re-lived many, many of the previous evening’s events in my head while sat mindlessly at my desk since getting into the office, I weighed up the fact I’d never had lunchtime sex, I was never going to see him again and, as they say, a girl’s gotta eat. Jokes. That’s disgusting. Full disclosure – that exact saying did run through my head and I did laugh.

In the midst of this one of my colleagues had been messaging me about maybe going for lunch but as soon as I got the text from Kiwi Arms saying “I’ll be at yours in 10”, my Brazilian colleague must have wondered where my appetite had disappeared to as I grabbed my keys and my bag and practically ran for the door, while shouting something about having to move our lunch to Monday.

We arrived at my apartment building at about the same time and, unsurprisingly(?), today’s shirt didn’t seem that much looser than last night’s. Albeit maroon and last night’s was white, the muscles were still being effortlessly well presented where the cotton met the skin, mid-bicep.

Whether it was tiredness, ill-preparedness or the lunchtime rush, our middle of the day session wasn’t without its difficulties. But the ease with which we laughed through it and managed to eventually get it to “work” had us actually high five each other afterwards. And, if my memory serves me right, I’m pretty sure he called me “champ”. We were all romance.

And with that high five, and a cursory kiss and hug in my building lobby, 10 minutes later I was on my way back to the office. Tired, every so slightly sensitive in certain areas and wondering what the hell had just happened in the past 20 hours…

Next post…

…previous post

Yo, Bro! No?

divorcedanddatingat302 Comments

Aug-2016

Why is it that saying no to an offer of a drink or a date makes us feel like we’re somehow being rude? Why were we conditioned from childhood, by our parents, by society to think that giving an honest answer about whether we actually wanted to do something or not was worse than possibly offending someone or hurting their feelings?

(Side note – given recent weeks’ news cycles, I want to point out I’m not about to launch into a story of how I was pressured into something that made me feel violated or in any way constituted sexual assault but it the story does talk to the wider societal norms and the pressure that we, as women, feel that in some way have maybe led to those things.)

On a random summer’s Friday night I got a text from one of my best guy friends asking what I was doing the next day and did I want to go to a pool party that some guy he knew was throwing at his parents house in this super nice area of the city. My answer was, of course, yes I’m free and yes I want to go.

I love living downtown, my 511 square foot apartment is just fine for me and the few possessions I chose to keep post-divorce. But an actual house? With a garden? And a pool? Yeah, I’ll happily take a day there thanks very much.

Late Saturday morning, along with another guy friend of ours, we drove over to that side of the city stopping to pick up some food for the BBQ and drinks on the way. At that I offered to be designated driver on the return, rather than deal with a bus or cab home and need to go back for my friend’s car the next day. I don’t do very well when mixing sunshine and alcohol, or so my friends tell me when I come round after fainting, so it was probably best to keep the alcohol to a minimum when the sunshine was already at maximum.

The impressively large yet cosy looking house was beautiful. The pool and sloped, landscaped garden were stunning. The patio with tiled outdoor kitchen and corner sunken hot tub was incredible. This was how to spend a summer’s day, I was in heaven.

When we first arrived it was just the my two friends and I, the guy whose house it was and another of his guy friends. They were already on the patio drinking with the outdoor fridge fully stocked and a whole pile of towels and floaties ready – I liked their preparations. I especially liked the stack of red solo cups. I still find them such a novelty having only ever seen red cups in Hollywood high school/college movies until I moved out here. It’s like living out some childhood fantasy… if only it had been a kegger.

It actually felt like the only thing missing was a keg. When we turned up I could have sworn it was the setting of an American Pie movie. It just had that typical All-North American (I say North American because I can’t say American because we’re in Canada which is like someone saying England when you’re in Scotland but the saying is All-American so just work with me here ok?) feel to it. Including the two guys. Board shorts on, red cups in hand, talking about how the one guy’s parents, the house owners, were away in Mexico I think.

They were really nice guys and, from the stories they were telling, it was obvious they weren’t opposed to getting up to some shenanigans back in the day. In fact, it still felt like they were living in “the day” so I didn’t doubt they still did stupid shit now. The host was a super fit snowboarder who was training to become a helicopter pilot and wore a big ass diamond stud in his left ear. Bro!!

I’d use the term “Frat Boy” but maybe only because my versions of Frat Boys were more Prince William and Prince Harry-esque than Stifler and Oz. I have boarding school and Edinburgh University to thank for that.

The sun was beating down already and, while I was desperate to get my clothes off and my tan on, stripping off into a bikini while just sitting on the patio and being the only female amongst four guys (two good friends and two total strangers) didn’t feel super comfortable, so I chose to endure what tan lines my chosen outfit might result in and keep covered up.

After a few drinks (them, not me – I allowed myself two ginger apple ciders over the course of 8 hours) they decided it was time for the pool and so at that point, finally!, I got down into a bikini. Toes dipped in the water, sitting on the edge of the pool as the guys attempted to show off their diving prowess and throw balls around was bliss.

Not long after a whole bunch of Bro’s friends showed up, females included thankfully, and the fun and noise quickly escalated. It was a really great mix of random people all intent on enjoying a beautiful summer’s day. As the afternoon and the drinks wore on the stakes in the pool games got higher and I started to notice what I thought was flirting coming from Bro aimed at me.

The friend who’d invited me swam up beside me mid-afternoon and said “I think [Bro] likes you, I think you should date him”. Now, my friend and I have very frank dating chats, he was also single at the time and we loved telling each other what the other was doing wrong in their dating life, what they should do more of, less of and ultimately who we thought they should be dating. Was it always sound advice? No. Did we always take the advice? Thankfully, also no. And in this instance, I was definitely going to ignore him and presume the beer was to blame for the misplaced encouragement. Surely he knew that Bro was maybe the furthest thing from my “type” – if in fact I have one of those, which is debatable.

But flirting by a pool is one of the easiest things in the world – you’re both not wearing very much and the always-a-winner tease of going to push someone in the glistening blue water is a sure thing. And so as attempting to push me in became tipping me off the diving board, became full on rugby tackling me into the water, I probably couldn’t argue with my friends note about Bro “liking” me. It was fun, it was flirty, it was fine.

By early evening, we were all in the hot tub and the flirting had died down, most likely due to me choosing to sit at the opposite side of the bubbling water from him. Conversation had turned to who thought they could slackline across the pool and the male bravados were out in full force. With the amount of alcohol, and by this point weed, that had been consumed, I wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea for anyone to be attempting that and being the only sober one I didn’t really want to end up playing lifeguard or ambulance driver, so I made hints to my friends about making an exit.

After declining Bro’s offer for us to “just stay!”, we dried off and took turns getting changed in the guest house. Bro joined us by the outdoor kitchen in the midst of my friend asking me if I the real reason I wanted to leave was that I was going to meet up with a guy from Tinder who’d been texting me. That wasn’t true, I’d blown the guy off (in the “said no” type of way!) and I was going home to go to bed. Despite my protestations, Bro joined in with my friend giving me shit, quickly followed by my other friend returning and adding to the jokes.

After a solid 5 minutes of jabs at my expense, Bro turned around and just said “fuck him, you should go on a date with me”. I was kind of caught off guard, not least because I knew my two guy friends would be loving witnessing this and I could already imagine the chats in the car on the way home. I threw back an off the cuff comment along the lines of “well you’re kinda busy with a house full of people right now, so you probably shouldn’t bail” trying to make it sound like I took the invite to be for that night and that wouldn’t work, so oh well, nevermind, see ya.

He laughed and said “another night”. And it was at this point that I was aware that both of his statements were just that, statements. They weren’t questions. In no way were they threatening but they were definitely a little presumptuous. And I immediately felt stuck.

I was standing in the beautiful garden of his parent’s home and he’d been such a great host all day, but did that mean I should say yes to a date? He was a really nice guy (albeit not really my type and a little short) but did that mean I should say yes to a date? He was a friend of my friend’s so I knew he wasn’t a lunatic, but did that mean I should say yes to a date? And I knew that turning him down with people to witness it may bruise his male ego, but did that mean I should say yes to a date?

I said yes to the date.

I just didn’t feel, for all those reasons listed above, that I could say no. And there’s a good chance it’s partly down to weakness or a need to try and always be nice on my part, more than it is about how I’ve been conditioned but the fact that I was even concerned about his ego more than I was about my own wants speaks to the choice not being entirely made for myself.

But it’s those sorts of feelings and those sorts of behaviours that can so quickly become agreeing to take a drink from a guy in a bar when you don’t want his attention, or saying “sure” when a guy asks you back to his place rather than admitting it might make you uncomfortable and saying goodnight, or allowing a guy to kiss you when you’re actually in no way on the same page. Finding your own true voice in those situations can be incredibly hard. And so much of it is fear-based. Fear that you’ll upset them, fear you’ll make them mad.

Like I stated at the beginning, this is not some story that turns into me being forced upon sexually, but looking back at the situation now I know my answer wasn’t my truth and that disappoints me. Especially given that in my situation, I likely could have said no and that would have been the end of it.

Instead, I gave him my phone number, thinking he might never call but a few days later he messaged me and we set up a date to go to a comedy show. He was very sweet in texts and by the time the date rolled around I was looking forward to seeing him. He picked me up, he paid, he was funny and the off-colour humour in the show landed well with us both. So it was a fun night, but that was all it was. One night, it went no further than a goodnight kiss on the cheek and in no way did he make any other presumptions on our date, for which I was thankful.

The date itself was unremarkable but the situation, while fairly vanilla in the grand scheme of things, definitely gave me thought around how easily (or not) I allow myself to be drawn into situations I’m not 100% comfortable with and how I can better manage my own behaviours. There’s a balance between being amiable and being true to yourself. There’s a way to say what you mean/think/feel without being offensive. And at the end of the day, the other person’s reaction isn’t something you can control. I’m still working on finding the balance…

Next post…

…previous post