Category: Online Dating

The Doctor Will See You Now

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Jun-2017

In a summer where I was finding no shortage of dates or online dating app matches with a variety of success, his dating profile pictures were almost too immaculate. His response to my first Bumble message too smooth. His Instagram too curated. He was either a catfish or a douchebag. But seeing as he had his Instagram linked up with his dating profile, I guessed I was going to have to presume it was the second?

Regardless, I entertained his messages and intended to meet up with him, because who says I make bad choices? In our general chit chat on Bumble when I asked what kind of doctor he was – yes one of his profile pics was him in his white coat – his reply was “what kind do you need?”, it was more than a little cheesy but I didn’t hate it.  We planned to meet up before we both went away for weekend trips – him to Arizona, me to Vegas (yes, the Vegas trip I ended up chatting to Penne & Penises on – but that weeks long cold kept that from happening and, him being a doctor in training, he prescribed “lots of rest & plenty of fluids”.

It took me a while to recover from the seemingly never ending cold that impeded my Vegas fun and after a failed attempt to meet up one night, when he kept making our meeting time later and later until, eventually, I valued my sleep way too much to just say “ok” to the next half hour incremental change, finally two weekends later on a gorgeously sunny Saturday I received a speculative “what are you up to tonight?” text from him. And I figured I should just give it up and meet him.

I had actually already sort of made plans with someone else I’d just met on Tinder but Hot Doctor (maybe the easiest nickname we’ve come up with?) did fascinate me & his persistence over the last few weeks didn’t really line up with my initial douchebag presumptions. Plus those pictures… he was dark skinned with the most impossibly well kept beard, a 27 year old body that would melt butter and eyes that looked like they’d pierce your soul. In the best possible way. And this was just from his pictures…

I’d been at the beach all day, a BBQ for a friend going back to Ireland, it was a long day of drinking in the sun so the thought of getting ready to go out didn’t thrill me. Instead I suggested he come round to mine. It was a risky move, and essentially at that point the likelihood of it turning into “just a sex date” was fairly high. But, despite his chiseled good looks, I had no other designs on this meet up – he was training to be a doctor abroad, randomly in the UK, and his summer trip home to Vancouver was ending the very next day.

I also decided to have him over to mine because, I realised afterwards, I was actually intimidated by him. Annoyingly, I was intimidated by how good looking he was & how well put together he seemed. It’s ridiculous to me now – he’s human, he’s obviously not as perfect as he seems & he was obviously attracted to me in some way. So why should I in anyway be nervous to meet him, to go out in public with him?

Without realising it at the time, inviting him over to mine for wine was a way to minimise any embarrassment there might be if he got there & realised “wow, she is not what I was hoping” (although I like to think my pics are an accurate representation of me). Given all the changes I’d made to myself, both physically and emotionally, my confidence crashing and inhibiting my actions wasn’t happening as much, but there’s definitely been a few men I’ve been nervous to meet. He was one of them.

I got home from the beach, shovelled some food in my face and decided I needed a shower, to not only de-sand me but also hopefully sober me up a little. While I was in the shower my phone buzzed with a message from him. In fact, it was a picture. A topless picture. Saying he was getting ready. But the caption barely registered.. The pic was… really not bad to look at. With a Pakistani background, his skin tone was like the most beautiful coffee colour and he obviously took working out seriously.

Emboldened by the sun & the ciders, and clearly in no way sobered up from the food or shower, I decided to send one back. Not front topless but I figured a naked, tanned, toned back could work. Well, it could have worked well if I owned one of those and hadn’t been stood with my back to the sun all day getting some hefty tan lines. It wasn’t the sexy, sun kissed look I was hoping for.

Clearly more affected by the sun and ciders than I realised, I decided to send it anyway…. because I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, who says I don’t make good decisions?! I made some comment about how I hoped he liked tan lines because these weren’t about to disappear in the time before he arrived and he replied saying two things: first “wow, you’re an idiot”; but followed up very sweetly with “but damn they’re cute tan lines”.

By the time he arrived I was a little jaded, the day was definitely taking its toll on me and I had to give myself a serious pep talk to look alive when he buzzed to come up. But it’s funny what a beautiful man appearing on your doorstep can do…

To say his pictures were true to real life doesn’t do justice to real life. If possible he was even more attractive. Like some model had just stepped off some photo shoot and ended up at my apartment door. But he was very softly spoken and thoughtful with his words. And, in my judgement, that hadn’t been what I was expecting.

From the get go he had a lot to say, but also a lot to ask. He wanted to know about my upbringing, my travels, moving to Vancouver – we covered a lot of ground while sitting on the balcony as the sun set. But  when I went to top up our wine glasses (cause that’s what I needed after my day of ginger apple cider) he followed me inside and, as I turned back with the replenished glasses, he stood in my way, reached for my face and kissed me.

It was soft and almost enquiring, like he wanted to test the water to see if I was on the same page. It would be fair to say I one hundred percent was, but I also had a glass of wine in each hand. Though that may have been a good thing or I might have ripped his clothes off right then and there.

We went back to the balcony for some more wine but by that point all bets were off and I don’t think either of us doubted where this was going to end up.

There was an intensity in the way he looked at me with those big brown eyes, it was so probing and completely disarming. It disarmed me of my inhibitions entirely, I no longer felt like he might not be interested in someone like me (Instagram’s a terrible thing when you can find what someone’s ex girlfriend looked like), and instead all I really wanted was to in fact get completely, entirely butt naked with him.

So that’s what we did. And it was incredible.

We had a ridiculous amount of fun. Four times actually. In between each we continued the chats from earlier on the balcony. We talked about his thoughts on dating, his failed long distance relationship as a result of his time in the UK and his ambivalence on marriage. We talked about my marriage, my divorce, and forgiveness. We discovered a shared love of the poet Khalil Gibran, who he was shocked to find out I knew of. We talked about some of our favourite quotes of his, and I always remember one of his was “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”. It spoke to me greatly.

We also laughed at how neither of us imagined we’d be having discussions that broad and deep. Knowing that often sex dates can be just that – sex – and you count yourself lucky if the sex is at least good, never mind actually feeling like there’s some connection. But not only had we fit like a glove physically, we had also really clicked personality-wise.

He left just after midnight, after a glorious amount of snuggling that pretty much had both of us asleep. But it was his last night in Vancouver and he had to go home, back to his family house where he was staying while he was back during term holidays. We knew he was leaving the next day and, despite throwing it out there that we could always fit in some afternoon fun before his evening flight, I think we both knew that was unlikely to happen. So we weren’t going to see each other again.

Texting me from the airport the next day, he made mention of making the fact we didn’t get to see each other again up to me in December, when he’d next be home for a holiday. December?! It was June… Jesus that’s a wait. But the thought was nice. He also told me to keep him updated on my tan lines, the subtext of which was clearly – send nudes.

To say I didn’t think we’d stay in touch was an understatement. Knowing it had only been one night and that pretty face of his was hardly going to make life boring for him, I figured he’d have far better things to keep him occupied. And by December, I could be in a relationship…

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Pasta And Appendages

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Jun-2017

We’ve talked about it before – someone being great on paper but then it not working out in real life. But what about being great on paper AND being great in text and then there being zero spark in person? How is that possible? Do people have ghost (text) writers?!

The week after the half marathon in June, and the awkward date with Whistler Teacher Slash Photographer, I was off to Vegas for a bachelorette weekend. And contrary to the general consensus about Vegas, I’ve never once gone to hook up. My focus is only ever on having fun with the people I’m with. Unfortunately on this particular trip I was sick as a dog with a cold, and so neither of those things were going to happen.

Just before I left Vancouver, I matched with a guy on Bumble and we started chatting the day I flew out. Turned out he was away for a boys weekend to Seattle and so via text over the course of our weekends we compared drunkenness, funny stories, mishaps and suntan progress. I hadn’t expected to hear from him as much as I did but it was kind of nice.

We both worked in tech, we lived near each other and it sounded as if we liked a lot of the same things. So far so good. He also had some pretty good banter. The night when our group’s plan was to go for an Italian followed by the Thunder From Down Under Strip show (yes, it’s really called that) he made the observation that it was going to be all “penne and penises” for us. He was then forever known as that to me. And given that he shared a (real life) name with Toronto Dimple Chin, I chose to save him in my phone as Penne and Penises also, you know, to save confusion.

As our weekends wore on and a couple of drunken nights threw up (pun intended) some drunken texts (more on his part than mine, because my cold had rendered me almost unable to drink), the messages definitely turned a little flirty. Add to that, him having started following me on Instagram and making comments about pictures of bikinis and barely there Vegas dresses, and you got yourself some fairly sexually charged conversations.

It was a risky move and I was aware of that but I like to think I’d always done my due diligence… to the extent that you can with online dating! At least been able to prove they were a real person and not some creepy old guy getting his kicks pretending to be a 27 year old hot guy.

I always find that bit weird. I’m not saying I don’t engage in it. I clearly do. But when you take a step back, it’s still odd to me that people can get to that level of “comfort” with someone who is essentially a stranger. That we can be so happy to share such intimate thoughts and details with someone whom we haven’t even met yet. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are some people that would absolutely not let any dating app conversation go down that road until, maybe even well after, they’ve met someone, and I always thought I was that person too. But, as I was becoming more comfortable with my sexuality and my apparently growing sex drive, I was finding it easier to let my mind wander and open myself up to people who were still just a name and some (hopefully not false) pictures on a screen.

So yes, the texts had escalated and, by the time our weekends were over, we were pretty excited to finally be able to meet up when we were both back in Vancouver. Unfortunately, the cold was still kicking my ass, and I was rendered useless for the first week after I was home.

During that time he checked in on me everyday and asked if I needed anything brought over. But I was hardly about to have a guy I’d never met, who I thought there might be potential with, see me for the first time when I looked like a massive bag of crap.

Eventually the second Monday after we were home, I felt a tiny bit better to the point that when he said he didn’t care I was sick he just wanted to see me, I agreed that he could come over. It wouldn’t have been my first choice of first date location but I still wasn’t up to going out.

After what had, by that point, been a couple of weeks of texting we finally got to meet and I was super excited. But that excitement was put on hold when he turned up wearing a Celtic football top – Celtic are a football team from Glasgow in Scotland, and the football I’m talking about is the OG, not of the American variety. But how was he to know that my ex-husband was a die-hard Celtic fan and, in my residual pettiness, I now hated everything about them?

It wasn’t the best start, nor was the fact he looked a little heavier than the pictures on his profile. And it didn’t look like muscle. But whose weight doesn’t fluctuate at times? And I’m hardly sat here with an athlete’s body. So I didn’t let it put me off. However chewing gum the whole time we had sex, keeping his white tube socks on throughout, and the incredibly off-putting sex faces? Yeah those put me off.

And yes, I had sex on a first date. And yes, I had sex while I was still full of the cold. And yes, I’m aware none of these revelations paint me in the best light…

The spark that we’d had in all those messages was definitely not translated into real life and I remember I was really keen for him to leave as soon as possible after we’d finished the no pants (but keep the gum and white tube socks) dance.

I hoped it had just not been great because I was still sick and that maybe if we’d had a proper first date, rather than a 6pm slightly sick sex date, it would have been different. But you can’t undo what’s already done and so, arranging to go on a proper second date, I just held out hope that we could figure it out from there on out.

In between the first and second date, the texts went back to being great and, maybe unsurprisingly, even more sexually explicit given that we now knew each other more intimately. And, despite the lacklustre feeling I’d had after seeing him that first time, the spark was re-instated in our messages. So I was hopeful the second date could be an improvement and wondered if he’d been in anyway disappointed in our first meeting…

As it happened, the second date ended up occuring in the exact same way as the first one – I was still sick (and by now so incredibly sick of being sick), so he came round to mine. Albeit not wearing any reminders of my ex this time, thank the Lord for small mercies I guess. But I was even less physically attracted to him and it actually annoyed me.

It annoyed me that there could be what felt like a great connection in messages, fun, easy banter, playful flirting, all mixed in with some serious life talk but when it came to being in the same room as each other it was flatlining. And that’s not to say it’s all on him, that he was a good texter but a bad in-person person.

It’s just that’s the way we were together. It was as much about me as it was him. Dating truly is a chemistry thing. And you can get the formula right on paper, but in real life it can still fuck up.

It didn’t mean we didn’t have sex again but nor did it mean he took his socks off this time either, despite me hoping that had just been an oversight the first time. At which point I decided I definitely wouldn’t be seeing him again because, let’s be honest, when the sexts are far better than the sex, you know you should cut your losses.

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Can I Go Now, Sir?

divorcedanddatingat306 Comments

Jun-2017

You know when you make plans and they seem like a good idea at the time, but then when the time comes you realise you’re tired and you’d rather stay in? But you go and figure you’ll just cut the night short but then the guy you’re out with attempts to bargain with you to make you stay out and chooses to lecture you on how much you’ll regret it if you go home? Yeah that’s what happened with Whistler Teacher Slash Photographer.

I’d only gone to Whistler to run a half marathon. I had no plans of organising a date, or meeting someone but while lying in my hotel room bed awake earlier than I even needed to be with pre-race nerves, I was mindlessly swiping through the Bumble and Tinder, wondering what the usually bustling ski town of Whistler would have to show for itself on a dating app in the middle of summer.

I was pleasantly surprised, but I was also sure the majority of people were likely to be just visiting. Not that it mattered – again, I wasn’t planning to meet anyone.

My friends, who were also running the half marathon, and I had arrived the night before, just in time for a glorious carb load and then an early bed. Somehow, despite travelling with two couples, I had ended up in the huge hotel room, with a King size bed, full kitchen and dining space, corner windows and a balcony overlooking Whistler village.

As I lay swiping in that giant bed, having probably used about a third of the available space at most during the night, I matched with a few people and was surprised when at 6.03am one of the Tinder matches messaged me. At first I figured it must be someone who was just getting in from the night before but, after a few messages back and forth, it turned out that when he wasn’t being a teacher, he was a photographer and had been asked to film the race. So while I was preping myself for getting sweaty while running through the mountains, he was preping himself for filming people getting sweaty while running through the mountains.

Hs asked why I wasn’t sleeping and I said I wasn’t sure when I was in such a big, comfy bed. It was a throwaway comment that I didn’t even think about because I’d just been messaging friends back in the UK and had been telling them the same thing. But I realise that making any reference to your bed when you’re chatting with someone on a dating app, instantly sounds like an invitation for sex. It was not.

He didn’t seem to read too much into it, or at least if he did he didn’t let on. Although he did make a comment about me probably needing a massage later. I wasn’t sure if it was an offer or merely a suggestion. I chose to just take it as friendly advice and skip on over it.

As it got closer to race time, he wished me luck and said he’d look out for me on the course and hopefully would see me later as well. The first part of which horrified me, to think that a guy you’ve met on a dating app might see you for the first time midway through a half marathon didn’t bear thinking about – it’s not a pretty sight. The second part of which sounded like it could be fun.

He’d been funny and engaging and he clearly had a number of passions in his life with the teaching and photographer. He seemed like an interesting guy. So I said yes maybe we could do drinks later and left it at that.

I hadn’t actually thought I’d see him on the course, I presumed he’d be filming the people who could actually run without looking like they were having a heart attack, and those people aren’t me. But would you believe it, first corner we turn on the course having come out of the starting line area and I see a guy on a bike (as he said he would be), with a camera (as I imagined he would be) sitting in the central reservation capturing everyone as they’re going up the first stretch of road.

Despite the fact it was so early on in the race and my face hadn’t yet turned the beetroot red colour that it so loves to go after any small amount of exercise, I still decided to try and maneuver my way out of his line of sight. I wasn’t really prepared to do a whole weird, awkward “oh hi, it’s you” thing while trying not to get out of breath in the first five minutes of the race.

A very long and very sweaty two hours, fourteen minutes later and I was back in Whistler village, having enjoyed some beautiful sights around Whistler (not so beautiful were the really big fucking hills). Shortly after all my friends had gathered at the finish line area and we’d picked up all the required post-race snacks, I got a text from him to ask how I’d done and how I was feeling.

As my post-race recovery of a bath followed by brunch took place, we toyed around with the idea of meeting in the afternoon, but he then said that he’d rather do a night date so suggested we meet for drinks after my dinner.

Now two things about that: 1) a guy who “would rather do a night date” instantly makes me think that they’re in it for sex and they don’t think it’s as easy to get to sex on a date if it’s a middle of the day date. Little do they know me, I’d far rather have sex at any other time of the day than at night. 2) given that we’d both had a pretty early start and a fairly busy morning, there was a high chance that by the time I’d had dinner I’d be ready for nothing but my bed. Alone.

I should also note that by this stage in our messaging, he’d started to make more comments about my bed, following on from what I’d told him in the morning about it being massive. Coupled with his insistence that my muscles must really need a good massage and low and behold he had great massage skills, they were cheeky, flirty comments which for the most part I laughed at but didn’t entertain.

By 6pm, even getting myself up after my post-race, afternoon nap was a struggle and I had a feeling that by the time I’d stuffed myself with food I wasn’t likely to be feeling much more spritely. Alas, halfway through dinner he texted to confirm we were still on for drinks and made a plan where to meet based on where we were having dinner.

The friends I was with thought it was hysterical that I had arranged a date while only in the village for two nights and were especially excited when the date plan was that he’d come by the bar we were now in and we’d then walk somewhere else for drinks. I wasn’t sure why we couldn’t just meet there. I had Google maps.

So that was the first thing that kind of irked me, as well as the time it had taken to actually get to that plan. But he duly turned up outside the bar I was in, although thankfully stood just out of the line of sight of my friends so they couldn’t gawk too wildly.

Mercifully he looked like his pics, however, everything from that point was just a bit… blah. He’d brought his bike, presumably the same bike I’d seen him on during the race that morning, so, while we walked to the bar we were headed for, he walked with his bike. Now, if you’ve ever walked with a bike or walked with someone with a bike, you’ll know it can be awkward as hell. And this most definitely was. Add to that the fact that when we got to the bar we then had to find suitable bike parking and, to be honest, it just wasn’t the sexiest thing I’d ever encountered.

Once inside the kinda weird bar (there’s a tonne in Whistler, I didn’t know why he chose this one), he didn’t know what he wanted to drink. Oh god, I could feel my spikiness rising. Then, as I was telling him how tired I was, he told me I had no reason to be tired as I’d had an afternoon nap. Um, hey, Mr, you don’t get to decide if I’m tired or not. Again, the spikiness in me rose.

Given that by the time he’d decided what he was going to have to drink I’d almost finished my first gin, I ordered a second just to make sure I wasn’t sat there empty handed, though I was already thinking about leaving. But then he ordered a second and I could feel the will to live start to slip away from me.

The chats were fine, he was nice enough and hearing about his teaching and photography was interesting, but we were very different people. Apparently he didn’t go anywhere without that (damn) bike and never went to the city. He also apparently couldn’t take a hint that I was tired regardless of the number of times I yawned.

Thankfully the barmaid then came round and told us it was last call – I could have kissed her, I was so happy for the get out of jail card. Especially when he asked for the bill to be separate so we each paid our own way – again the paying on a date debate requires it’s own blog post, but that’s for another day.

I figured he would have caught onto the fact that a) there wasn’t really a connection and b) I was hella tired. Turns out, he’d caught onto neither so as we were leaving the bar he started to throw out suggestions as to where we could go next. When I politely declined, he started to do that reverse psychology thing of telling me what a fun night I was going to miss out on, not realising that a private show with The Killers wasn’t even likely to make me stay out at this point. Ok, I lie, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Brandon Flowers.

Just as I was saying that I’d had fun (why did I feel the need to lie about that?) but I was really tired, as we were stepping out of the bar, I realised why he’d chosen that bar – it was right opposite my hotel. So he took it as the perfect opportunity to say “ok, why don’t we just go to the liquor store and go back to your room?”

Wow. Just wow… People’s inability to read a situation is flabbergasting at times. Take a hint. Know your audience. Sense the tone. I WANT TO GO TO BED. ALONE.

After many more insistencies from me that I really was tired and I really did just want to go to bed (ALONE!), but I really had had a good time (why must we stroke the male ego simply to be allowed to do what it is we want to do?), he reluctantly started to unlock his bike from the bike rack. Then he stopped.  Was I really sure I didn’t want just one more drink? Was I sure I didn’t want him to come back to my room with me? Didn’t I want a massage? And couldn’t that big bed use a second person?

Oh good God. By this point I was done being nice. I cut him off, told him I was going and momentarily was concerned that he knew which hotel I was staying in and with it’s proximity to where we were standing, him following me wouldn’t be that difficult. Thankfully he didn’t go full batshit crazy and do that but as I was in elevator up to my room my phone buzzed and it was him. Just checking (AGAIN!) that I didn’t want another drink because I was going to regret it.

I decided to ignore it, until just as I was closing the door (and firmly double locking it) my phone rang. Of course, it was him. I answered it mostly to make the noise stop, I can never find the silent switch when a call is incoming – why is that?!

There was yet more protestations on his part that I would regret it and I’d made a poor choice., and that he was still downstairs if I’d changed my mind. At this point I just laughed. The fact that he thought there was any chance of me going back on my decision and either inviting him up or heading downstairs to meet him again, was laughable. I was already in my pjs as I listened to his sales pitch on loudspeaker.

But I was done with the entertainment of someone trying to sell themself, it was now starting to get a little degrading, on his part, so I once again cut it off and told him I was turning my phone off and going to sleep. By this time he was pretty pissed off about it and wasn’t doing a good job of hiding it. I don’t think I could have cared less.

The next morning, after a blissful sleep in my massive bed all by myself, I woke up to more texts from him. All bemoaning my choice and telling me I’d missed out on a “night of fun” and that he could have really shown me a good time. Jesus, I hope he was drunk when he sent those.

I’d definitely made the right choice but all I could think was, I wonder what he must be like as a teacher? Was he that insistent? Did he make it that difficult when a student wanted to leave the classroom? It must be a bloody nightmare if you were desperate for a pee…

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Gone Fishing… Catfishing

divorcedanddatingat304 Comments

May-2017

Trusting your gut is all well and good but how do you employ that strategy when the very nature of dating, particularly online dating, is that of having to take things at face value? Where does blind faith stop and healthy suspicion take over? When should you trust and when should you question? In other words, how do you know when you’re being catfished?

A catfish is someone who pretends to be someone they’re not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances – so says Urban Dictionary. It can also be a verb.

I’ve had a few instances of good old catfishing that I’ve caught before it got too far – tinder profiles with pics that just look too polished, too professional. A quick reverse google image search has unearthed the Instagram of a South American actor, and IMDB pics for a Pakistani Bollywood star. Neither of whom are likely to be in Vancouver looking for a tinder hookup. Neither, I’m pretty sure, was the profile using Cristiano Ronaldo’s likeness. Which is unfortunate because I’ve always been a fan of his greasy good looks.

I always wonder at what point these guys, if they are even men, think their scam will be foiled? They obviously can’t meet anyone in person, so are they just on there purely to message? Is that enough excitement for them? The phrase “get a life” has never been more apt.

But when someone agrees to meet you in person, you presume the likelihood of being catfished is null. And so was my feeling when after chatting to a 35 year old English guy who lived in New Zealand and worked for the Kiwi Navy but was coming to Canada for a possible job here.

There were a few random moments, like when he was going out on a ship with the Canadian Navy so wouldn’t be able to text. But maybe, despite all the technologies of today, they don’t have WiFi on naval ships. Shocking. I actually didn’t think I’d hear from him again after that so when he messaged me once he was back on dry land, I was pleasantly surprised.

Another source of confusion was that he had a Canadian phone number, which I thought odd considering he was hardly here for anytime & most of that he was without the ability to use it on a ship. He also claimed to have never been on Tinder before this trip, which I’m always sceptical about – it’s always everyone’s first time… apparently.

So English Kiwi Naval Officer was flying into Vancouver for the weekend at the end of his… trip? Sailing? Cruise? Whatever they call it…, arriving on a Friday night. He’d likely be coming back for a second visit in a couple of months time for a follow up on this job so I liked that it wasn’t a definitive one & done situation. And in fact could be a lot more if the job came to fruition.

We were going to meet for a drink once he’d checked into his hotel which it turned out was on the opposite side of my city block. As I was sat having an after work drink with girlfriends before I met him & relayed the details to them, they suggested I ask for a selfie, given that the story did just seem a little random. When he messaged to tell me he’d landed, I dutifully asked, more to placate them than anything. Unfortunately, his response only caused to give me concern that I hadn’t necessarily been feeling before.

He made some excuse about how he couldn’t send a pic because his phone didn’t have data enabled, and it was a work phone, and he’d send one when he had WiFi. But we all know airports have free WiFi so something didn’t quite add up…

Nevertheless we persevered because where would be the fun otherwise? And so at 8pm I walked the 50 seconds from building to the entrance of his hotel & there he was. Exactly like his profile photos, the picture of an English gent, with a relieved look on his face.

“I don’t know why I thought you were going to stand me up” were his first words to me as he came towards me with a hug.

A few drinks later at a nearby courtyard bar, while we enjoyed a warm May evening, he reiterated that it was his first time using any dating apps, thanks to his friends encouragement, and they’d warned him that people on apps can often be flakey so he should be prepared for some disappointments. Hence his opening line to me.

He definitely seemed a little green around the edges. He was maybe well versed in naval war strategy but the ways of modern dating? Not so much.

So it was all going swimmingly (does that count as a naval pun if technically they’re on a ship and not meant to be swimming?) until he was telling a story, referencing himself in the third person and used a different name for himself than that which I had known him as up until that point. English Kiwi Naval officer was obviously not all that he seemed.

He caught himself right away and tried to explain it away that it had also been suggested to him by friends that he should use a different name “for work purposes”. I mean, clearly naval strategy is fairly sensitive information but I wasn’t sure those on enemy lines were going to be scouring tinder to source state secrets.

I told him that I knew people sometimes would use another name but generally they would give their real name once they’d met someone in person, once the threat of enemy spies had been cleared, you know? Or maybe he still thought I looked like I was after his classified documents?

He laughed, I laughed, it was laughed off and I didn’t question it further. It was stupid and seemed weird but I let it go. There was something about him that seemed suitably unassuming and naive, or at least that’s what I was choosing to believe.

With the name slip up behind us, we had a really fun night. We had a lot to talk about having both moved away from the UK, we both liked sports, we both kept ourselves in pretty good shape and I enjoyed telling him about Vancouver, particularly when he could be moving here in a month or so.

From the first bar we went to another where we ended up drinking an obscene amount of gin. He was a big gin fan too and when the bar turned out to have a crazy good gin selection we jointly decided to work our way through it.

Throughout the night he was very complimentary, although the “I don’t know how you’re still single” line doesn’t always sit totally well with me. Despite that, it wasn’t the worst thing to have drinks bought for me all night by an attractive man who had definitely awoken a new interest in men in uniform within me. While I was envisaging him in his navy whites (do all navies wear white? In my mind they do so let’s go with it) he had leaned in for a couple of kisses while we were sat at the bar and there had been some suggestive hand, arm and leg touching. The name slip had long been forgotten.

We stayed at the bar until it closed around 1am and then slowly walked back towards my apartment / his hotel. I knew I wasn’t going to invite him up – it didn’t seem “necessary”. As in, despite him only being in the city for another day and a half, we had already spoken so much about when he came back on his next trip that I wasn’t in any hurry to rush things with him. And so instead he kissed me goodnight at the corner of my building and it was a really really nice kiss. A car full of guys passed as he lent in and were hollering at us but I’m not even sure he noticed. I said goodnight and turned to walk away but I was only a couple of steps away from him when he said “can you come back please?” It was so polite and serious and in his proper English accent, I kind of got a surprise. Turns out he just wanted to kiss me again and said my lips were incredible. In fact he kept going on about my mouth… It wasn’t the worst thing to hear.

As I was climbing into bed he texted me a very sweet goodnight text “Thank you for a great night. You looked absolutely incredible and I really enjoyed ‘you’ x” It was maybe the single sweetest post-date message I’d ever received. And he used grammar! We texted a little and then fall asleep.

The next day was my birthday beach day with all my friends. It had been my birthday earlier in the week (yes, the messy night that ended with tearful chats with Malaysian Persuasion) and I was celebrating it in the sunshine with a tonne of friends, snacks and booze. I had lightly invited him, in a “it’s a big group, it’s super chill, if you don’t mind some slight ribbing you’ll be fine” kind of a way. He’d said he wasn’t sure, he’d wanted to go and do some sightseeing, but would let me know. We agreed that if he didn’t come to the beach we’d do something at night anyway, provided a Saturday of sun and day drinking didn’t wipe me out.

As it turned out, he couldn’t wait until the beach or the evening, so around 8am was texting me pretty flirty and suggestive messages from his hotel room – which would have been about 200m away from where I was, also lying in bed. He said he regretted not suggesting we hung out longer the night before, which I took to mean he regretted not suggesting we hookup, given that at 1.30am there’s not a lot of other hanging out you can do?!

After an hour or so of texting, it seemed that just a hint of an invitation was all that English Kiwi Naval Officer needed to jump out of bed and be at mine in less than 5 minutes. I had already started getting ready for my beach day so was in a bikini and not a lot else. It seemed mildly inappropriate to welcome him into my home for the first time wearing so little but nothing that happened within the next 30 minutes, before I was due to be picked up by friends for pre-beach brunch, was appropriate. In the best kind of way.

All the while he still kept up an impeccable level of manners and etiquette, seemingly never wanting to overstep a boundary or go too fast. As a result, full sex was never had and in fact I barely did anything at all. It was mostly him, giving those 25 year olds a run for their money in terms of generosity in the bedroom. To say I had a lazy Saturday morning is an understatement.

When my friends texted to say they were downstairs I had a pep in my step and maybe just a little bit of bed head…

While I was enjoying a day of brilliant sunshine, incredible time with friends and some of the best Pinterest inspired boozy beach snacks I could have imagined, English Kiwi Naval Officer (yah, this nickname doesn’t roll off the tongue so much) was enjoying the delights of Vancouver by bike. He declined the invite to join the beach celebration and instead we planned for drinks later in the evening, though he kept in touch most of the day with sweet messages about how much he was looking forward to seeing me and had been thinking about our morning rendezvous a lot.

That night, the copious amounts of sun and frozen gin lemonade pouches (look them up on Pinterest) made me not good for a whole lot so instead of going out, I suggested he come over to mine for some drinks. Showering was about all I was able to manage, though it was mostly tiredness from all the fresh air and fun, so thankfully he agreed and around 9pm he arrived at my door. I was wearing more than just a bikini this time, which he was mildly disappointed by.

We had a gin each and just chatted for a while on the sofa. It’s a very candid conversation, a lot more sexually orientated after the morning’s activities, and I really enjoyed finding out more about him. We chatted relationships, kids, work, his hate of football, our want to do whatever we desire in life, sexual preferences – it’s pretty wide ranging. And we did a pretty good job of keeping ourselves off each other, until I was getting us each a whisky and he came up behind me at the kitchen counter… Things got a little heated and there was something about him that I just found incredibly sexual. Maybe it’s the navy thing, maybe it’s his age or that he’s English, I don’t know. But he just seemed like… a proper man?!

We had a fun night, chatting and starting to fool around more and then move into the bedroom. It felt super easy and safe. But it started to get late and I was exhausted. We hadn’t had full sex so I suggested he stayed over and middle of the night or morning might change that. He seemed to think about it for a while, as we were both yawning and eventually he decided to go back to his hotel. I mean it’s on the same block so I guess it made sense? He left saying he would be back first thing in the morning to bring me coffee, the joke being that I don’t drink coffee. So he left and I went to sleep looking forward to what tomorrow will bring. Or as he rightly pointed out, when he was texting from back in his room, today – i was now after 3am.

I slept like a log and woke up looking forward to a coffee and maybe a morning walk with a certain English Kiwi Naval Officer, it was a beautiful morning. Instead, I heard… radio silence. I figured we both could do with our sleep though, so stayed in bed a little longer and waited. But it was too nice a day to stay indoors, so around 10am I got up and went for a walk and waited. Knowing all the while that he was leaving for his flight around 2pm and so we were kind of on a timer.

But something was starting to feel very uneasy with me. All the little things that by themselves could maybe be explained away, when I replayed them back in my head, started to pile up into a big, questionable WTF. Him being incommunicado while he was on the ship, not being able to send me a pic from the airport, giving me a false name, not wanting to sleep with me or stay over but doing everything else, as if somehow staying over and having sex crossed some line he was trying to avoid? And now, essentially disappearing on me.

I decided to text him – if we haven’t learnt it by now, know that I do not like loose ends. They don’t sit well with me. I want them tied up and dealt with. He actually did respond with some story about how he overslept then went for a run and twisted his ankle and was now in a rush to get packed and checkout of the hotel.

Knowing how close he was staying to me, it wouldn’t have been an obscene suggestion if he offered a plan of meeting for something to eat before he headed to the airport. Instead nothing. In fact I heard nothing again until he was at the airport, when he then went to the other extreme and was texting me a tonne of stuff about how he was sorry he fucked up the morning, he’d really wanted to see me, I was the best part of his trip, he already couldn’t wait to get back to see me again, he was excited to tell his friends at home about me and he would be in touch as soon as he touched down in Auckland.

Those texts were coming right up until he boarded the plane. And then…. Nothing. I figured out roughly when he’d be landing in New Zealand… Nothing. I figured it might be a couple of days before he was caught up on work and sleep… Nothing.

As the days passed, I was playing the weekend over and over in my head and started to think I had made a judge error in judgement. The gut feeling that had deserted me for the previous couple of days was now in full force like a heavy meal sitting in the pit of your stomach. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the person I thought I’d been getting to know was not a person at all but a facade of someone he’d wanted to portray. How did I know any of it was real? How did I know he even worked for the navy? Ok well I’d seen a pic of him in a naval uniform which a quick google search confirmed was a legit NZ Navy uniform. But how did I know he was here for a potential job move? How did I know he wasn’t here with a wife and two kids tucked up in his hotel? How did I know he even left back to New Zealand?

I didn’t. I don’t. A year later, I still don’t have the answer to any of those questions and for a long time afterwards, every time I walked past the corner of the hotel he stayed at I felt physically sick. Sick that I’d maybe been made a fool of. Sick at the thought of maybe bumping into him there again. Sick that people can be so callous with another person’s feelings and time.

I had taken things at face value but my gut was now definitely telling me all was not what it seemed, though I won’t ever know the true extent of the catfishing expedition. And maybe that’s best.

Next post…

…previous post

Sweet Like Honey – Part 1 of 3

divorcedanddatingat302 Comments

Mar/Apr-2017

You know those times when you make an assumption about someone/something based on it simply being the unknown and then it turns out to actually be wrong? This story has one of those. It also has the other extended version of that: when you make an assumption, it first of all looks like you were proved wrong and then you end up being proved absolutely, 100% right but by then you’ve changed your assumption based on when you thought you were proved wrong. Following me?

As the multi player dating game was heating up with Frenchie, I happened to match with another 25 year old guy at the same time (the age range on my Tinder app still hadn’t been increased from rugby sevens weekend) and so my friends made the joke that if you put them both together I was dating a 50 year old, which might be more appropriate… (but the age debate is for another blog post!)

He was first generation Malaysian Canadian, in that his parents had moved here from Malaysia and he and his younger sister were the first generation to be born here. He worked for a telecom company by day and was also a ticket office supervisor at the hockey arena when there were games or events on there by night. From the outset, he seemed confident and fun. He messaged me first after we matched, asking me about my job as an operations manager as he’d done operations at university. It was a nice commonality to start off with, and he asked me out for drinks pretty quickly after us starting to chat.

We matched over the weekend and began chatting on the Sunday, and the first date was arranged for the following Sunday due to our schedules being busy in between. I liked that it had been arranged quickly but I half expected that the communication may start to fail in the week leading up to the date and thought it unlikely that we’d make it all the way to the Sunday with the impetus to actually still meet up. But we ended up messaging most of those 6 days in between.

He was funny and cheeky and flirty, and our text chats were easy before we’d even met. We would mostly text during the day when we were at work and there were a couple of times that the subject matter got a little Not Safe For Work. Part of me worried that, as is often the case when initial text conversations become sexually charged, he was only going to be after one thing and I did think there was a chance he was a typical millennial fuckboy. They’re truly not just urban myths.

He was 25, from stories he was telling me it was clear he liked to go out a lot (weekends, midweek, it didn’t matter, which to 32 year old me sounded exhausting), he was good looking, seemed to be a bit of a gym rat, his Instagram certainly looked like that of a wannabe insta-famous millennial and one his dating profile pics was him as a shirtless Trojan Soldier when he was doing promo for Trojan condoms at Pride Parade one year. (Fun fact – google Trojan Soldier on urban dictionary. You learn something new everyday. Or at least I did!) So there were all the ingredients for him to turn out to be a total douche but he also came across as sweet and earnest in a lot of his texts so I was interested to meet him.

Meet we did, one rainy Sunday March afternoon at one of my favourite local bars, which I chose because it had a fireplace and it felt like a day for drinks by a cosy fire. He’d never been to that bar and when I introduced him to their own locally distilled gin he was more than approving of my choice. I was struck by how much older he seemed than I expected. But, side note, am I the only person who always thinks people are older when they first meet them? I’m a terrible estimator – of age, height, weight, distance, anything, terrible – and I’m not sure why but when I first meet people I will always automatically assume they’re older than me. Even when I know they’re not, I feel like they’re older than I expect. There must be some psychological reasoning for it… but enough of that tangent for now.

I was also struck by how attractive he was. His white t-shirt was a great choice on his part to show off a hint of the ripped body I’d seen in the Trojan photo. As with our texts, our conversation over drinks was easy and fun but maybe a little less flirty. We talked family, and work, and life goals, and gin. He was just getting into gin so I began to extol the virtues of being a gin drinker on him and introduced him to the classic cucumber garnish. It was a really fun and easy date and the time passed super quickly, which is always a good sign. It was only dampened slightly by his acceptance of my offer to pay half the bill. But that’s what happens sometimes when you offer!

We said goodbye out on the rain soaked street, and I was more than a little disappointed that he didn’t try to kiss me. As I walked home through the puddles, I realised that in spite of how suggestive some of our texts had been he hadn’t been like that in person at all. And I didn’t know whether that was because he was actually all talk and more shy in person, or because when we’d met he had changed his mind about me. I hoped it was the former. This would also allay some of those fuckboy fears.

The next day though, the flirty texts were back and it wasn’t long before he mentioned that he regretted not kissing me the night before. Ok, so it wasn’t that he’d changed his mind about me, maybe he was just a little more shy / reserved / unsure in person. That wasn’t the worst thing and actually only made me want to see him again more.

His regret about not kissing me apparently made him feel the same and so the following night, he was working at a hockey game and with the arena being a five minute walk from my apartment, we arranged to meet up after. Initially it had been planned we’d meet for drinks but he ended up working later than expected so I told him just to come over to mine when he was finished. It was a Tuesday night and the thought of getting ready to go out for drinks at 9pm wasn’t super appealing.

Turning up on my doorstep, he was a smarter version than the Sunday white t-shirt and jeans outfit, in his work attire – and I’m a total sucker for a guy in a suit. I got us a drink each, gin of course, and we settled on the sofa to chat. Our text conversations carried over into real life chats and it wasn’t long before he made good on his regret not to kiss me on the Sunday. It was one of those kisses that makes you go a little weak at the knees and I don’t think we stopped for the rest of the time he was at my place. The only thing that broke up the make out party was the knowledge we both had to get up for work the next day. Otherwise I’m not sure where it might have ended…

We made loose plans for the weekend but they were very much TBC given that we were both busy so when we found ourselves out separately with friends on Friday night but mostly texting each other, we decided that at 1am we should have a McDonald’s rendez-vous. Honestly, I’m not sure there’s anything more romantic to me. A guy that wants to meet to eat junk food at 1am? I’m here for it.

I found my way to the Golden Arches first and started to use the newly installed self-serve order kiosks at the McDonald’s a block from my apartment. In a fairly gin soaked haze I was about $30 into ordering burgers and trying to decide on just how many nuggets to get when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said “I think you need more burgers”. The sound of his voice and his breath on my neck, plus his encouragement to up the burger order, invoked the knee weakness again.

We were both drunk and it made McDonald’s even more fun. We only ordered and waited for our food but somehow even that seemed like a great date. I ordered way too much food, and a tonne of nuggets because as we both agreed; nuggets are life. Plus, of course, all the dipping varieties. We were drunk and hungry and seemingly pretty horny. It was an interesting combo.

Heading back to my apartment, I’m not sure what we were more excited about – being able to fully make out or being able to crack into the nuggets. I actually think the nuggets had a slight edge. So sat cross legged on my living room floor with the coffee table covered in wrappers and boxes, we had ourselves a feast. The lasting memory of the night though, was that in amongst the dips I’d ordered, I’d apparently included a pot of honey… or else they’d thrown it in there by mistake? I don’t ever remember seeing honey in the sauces sections but there we were.

After much debate as to why you would (or wouldn’t) eat your nuggets with honey I decided to give it a try, I reasoned that it must be like having chicken and waffles with maple syrup. So I duly dipped one of the boot shaped poultry delights into the shallow pool of honey. And I can honestly say, in that moment, my life changed. I’m usually a sweet and sour girl with my nuggets but this was a game changer. It was so damned good and I was happy to be proven wrong in my original disgust at the thought of battered chicken with sweet honey nectar.

Malaysian Persuasion, as he would be known to my friends, couldn’t believe it was actually that good. He described my face as orgasmic and so as we made veiled references to having sex, which resulted in him hurriedly trying a nugget and honey, agreeing it was in fact life altering and then proceeding to undress us both in record time, before I knew it we were in my bedroom and all the sexual tension from our texts came spilling out.

I want to pause here to note that, while I welcome a guy who encourages late night McDonald’s, having partaken in said McDonald’s right before you are going to have sex with someone for the first time makes for a lot of mental anguish. At least, it did for me. Thankfully I’d been feeling pretty good about my body in the weeks around this time but after a quarter pounder with cheese, a dollar menu cheeseburger, six or seven nuggets and many fries I was hardly feeling like a sex goddess. But why let belly bloat stop you?

I put the body issues to the side and we got down to it. It was a fun filled night of incredibly hot and sexy, but also sweet and careful at times, sex. And again, as with Frenchie, it was proven that 25 year olds a) are incredibly giving in the bedroom and b) have the stamina of… I guess a 25 year old? After the sex, we slept, then we had sex, then we had more sex, we showered, we slept a bit more, then there was more sex, another shower, some more sleep and finally some more sex before it was mid-morning and we both had Saturday plans to get up for.

To say I was sleep deprived but incredibly satisfied for the rest of that weekend is an understatement. Who cares about eye bags when you lost count of the orgasms you had last night?  I mean, really though?

So it had been a fun first few dates but the following week I was leaving for my trip home to the UK for pretty much the entirety of April and I wasn’t sure what exactly that was going to mean for our daily texting and newly found sexual obsession with each other, as it turned out to be. Let’s just say the texting from then on was almost entirely NSFW.

We decided to fit in a last date on the Tuesday night before I left on the Thursday, so a couple of drinks followed by some fun back at my place was to be our last meetup. But on the Wednesday I found myself organised ahead of time for my flight the next day and so we decided on a last minute dinner at my place We ordered food from a fried chicken place and found to our enormous delight that they had an incredible beer infused honey that they serve with it. It was of course followed by more great sex. Is twice a habit? If so it’s a habit I was pretty happy to be forming. It was a perfect last night.

Before it was over, I decided I needed to bring up what was going to happen when I was away. I made it blatantly clear that I wasn’t in any way expecting him to be in touch and, in fact, if he preferred we could just put a pin in things and then see where we were once I got back at the end of the month. I fully expected him to take that get-out clause

Instead, much to my surprise, he insisted I messaged when I landed because he’d want to know I got there safely. So the next day we texted almost constantly – while I was finishing packing, on the skytrain to the airport, as I was going through security, waiting in departures and up to the point my phone had to go off as we were taxiing to the runway. I guess I was making the most of it figuring that once I’d informed him of my safe arrival that get-out clause I had offered would fully be taken.

Instead, furthering my surprise, once I’d sent him the “made it, jet lag is going to kick my ass but I’m here” text, our texting continued as if we were still in the same city. Albeit with an 8 hour time difference in the stage of our days. And so it would continue for the three and a half weeks I was in the UK. We texted day and night and with my jet lag keeping me up, it meant there was only a short spell while he was sleeping (the majority of my morning and into early afternoon) when we weren’t in contact.

He knew about every friend I caught up with, how all my dental appointments were going (the reason for my extended trip) and the joy I was experiencing with every home comfort food I devoured. I knew how each of his days at work were going, what he was doing each night, his weekend plans or that he was out at a bar craving nuggets, honey and apparently me. Yes, our texts were definitely sexually charged. It was fair to say a lot of it was full on sexting.

With the distance and suggestive texts driving us, the sexual anticipation only grew as the weeks wore on. More than once, one of us wondered aloud how many more nights it was before we saw each other and why we both couldn’t just stop with the sexting?! We’d save ourselves a lot of anguish. Instead we kept on, with each of us almost taking it in turns to start entirely inappropriate discussions when the other was having dinner with family, or trying to concentrate at work.

And I kept expecting the texts to stop, that he’d get bored waiting or get distracted by some shiny young thing when he was out at a weekend with his friends. But they never did. He bemoaned me being away for so long, told me numerous times he missed me and talked a lot about what he was going to do to me when I got home. And it didn’t just involve eating nuggets and honey.

In amongst all the sex chat, we also shared more about our lives than we may have even done if I’d been in Vancouver. He was hearing all about my family and where I grew up and I think it encouraged us to share stories and background that we might have otherwise never got round to covering in in-person discussions. We shared childhood passions and family dynamics. For all that there was a lot of suggestive, even filthy, chat, there was also a lot of foundation building it felt like.

I had a momentary wobble of trying to understand what the hell this would mean for us once I was home but as my very good friend Arms told me “why are you trying to work that out? You don’t need to think about that just now. Wait til you’re home and then you’ll either see for yourself or you can talk to him about it in person. Don’t do it in text!” He had a point, and so I put those fears aside and went back to texting him, likely something about his big, hard… never mind.

So as my trip was growing to a close and I was preparing for the emotional rollercoaster that is the ever-fraught family goodbyes, there was an added excitement about getting back to Vancouver to see him. I’d never had that before. I’d never had someone to come home to. Not that he was “my person” or that I even knew what the hell was going on but it was just nice to know fun awaited. As much as I knew there was definitely a conversation to be had around what the fuck had happened while I was away, with us texting each other everyday, and what that meant when I was back, if nothing else I was expecting some mind blowing sex on my return.

Or at least, that’s what I thought would be waiting for me….

Next post…

…previous post

Multi Player Game Loading…

divorcedanddatingat302 Comments

Mar-2017

In this world of online dating, the swiping and matching and compatibility scores make it all seem very game like, but when I entered it, I still expected it was going to be a two person game. Turns out I was wrong.

I wanted to write about this because my post earlier this week and the one coming up next week combine to very much exemplify the trials and tribulations of multi player dating, as I like to call it. I also had someone ask me “are dates with just one person not a thing anymore?” after listening to my Instagram stories over the last few weeks. And it was a fair question!

It’s true, I am knee deep in the world of multi player dating, that is to say that at any one time there may be multiple men I am chatting with on an app and/or going on dates with. It’s the done thing now, in a world where you can scroll endlessly through “options” as if shopping for clothes and you know you’re only ever a few swipes from a match at any time, it seems people no longer wish to be tied down too quickly, if at all. And I feel really really conflicted about it.

On the positive side, it does allow you to meet a lot of people, in a relatively short space of time, and give you good comparisons for what you are/aren’t looking for. At my age, I hate wasting time on anything, so at least this way it feels like efficient dating. And I’m all for efficiencies.

Plus, given the sheer level of flakiness of people – is it just Vancouver, or is it the same everywhere? – you could be chatting with ten guys online, have organised three dates and only one of those people will you actually end up meeting in person. So it’s kinda like making sure you have enough fish in the bucket to catch one, does that make sense? (Side note – is it terrible I’m comparing men to fish and dating to fishing?)

It does also help me stay a little more unattached than I might otherwise. I love to jump head first (into that fish pond) and I have definitely been guilty of getting ahead of myself when there wasn’t any foundation for it (this is a whole other blog post topic) but at least when there are multiple guys on the scene it allows me to not be motivated by a fear of scarcity and so build an entire life in my head with someone I’ve met once.

And at the end of the day, it’s how it is now. I didn’t feel that I could really not get onboard, unless I wanted to be the girl who was dating one person at a time when every guy I was dating was probably chatting to numerous other women. People who haven’t dated in years can’t get their head around it, and neither could I until I was thrust back into this dating life, and will say they couldn’t/wouldn’t do it but I’m not honestly sure there’s another way.

That doesn’t mean I love it, however. It took me a really long time to be comfortable (if I’m even comfortable with it now?) and I still have pangs of guilt at times because, you know, I have a conscience.

The whole practice feeds into the fact that people don’t give things a chance to develop – we’re so quick to move onto the next if the first date isn’t perfect, if the person doesn’t tick every single one of our prerequisite boxes, because we think the person we have a first date planned with tomorrow might! In the same way online dating apps can feel like online shopping, we also hope for the same return policies it seems.

And in having another first date set up for the next day are we setting the expectation that today’s date won’t be good? There’s a balance between not putting all our eggs in one basket and making sure there’s another egg available should the one we picked be bad. (Side note – now, men are eggs? Wow, all the comparisons are coming out today…) But there has to be something to be said for going into a date with nothing else on the horizon so you do truly give it the time and effort and mindfulness it deserves.

It also means you have to trust in the mis-trust, as I call it. You trust that the other person has the same level of mis-trust, that this isn’t going to work and so is also multi player dating. You never talk about it, you just assume that they know the rules of engagement, and so are also still swiping and matching and dating, and assume that they assume the same of you. There’s a lot of assumption, and let’s be honest, that’s never going to end well.

Where it does end normally is in an awkward conversation where one of you decides they don’t want to multi player date anymore and instead wants to get back to the traditional two player game, so has to ask “are you still dating other people?” No one wants the answer to that question to be yes. So the other tact is to go at it from the assumption route and frame it as “I’d like if we didn’t date anyone else anymore”, making it known you assume they have been and that essentially you have been also. It’s tres romantic. And let’s not even get into the health risks of sleeping with multiple people.

The whole thing just feels like being on a series of the Bachelor but you don’t get to see the other contestants, how’s that fair? You can’t beat the competition if you don’t know the competition, am I right?! Jokes, be yourself, don’t compete for anyone. But it makes my point.

And at the end of the day I like monogamy! Sorry not sorry if that’s boring but at the end of the day that’s what I’m looking for, that’s what I’m comfortable with, that’s the goal so why do I have to endure the uncertainty and ambiguity and secrecy that comes with multi player dating. And I always struggle with it because it makes me think lesser of the person (people!) I’m dating because I know they’re doing it…. but we all are!

What is it they say, don’t hate the player, hate the game. Though, if we’re honest, we could all be better, more mindful players too.

…previous post

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.

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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

Getting Into Cars With Strange Men – Part 1 of 4

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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…

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You And Me Does Not Equal One Plus One

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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…

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