Step Two: Getting out of cyberspace.

The preamble: a few messages and a facebook add. The venue: A wine bar in Charing Cross. The outfit: an all-black ensemble decided upon after numerous freak-outs and frantic picture messages to friends. The evening arrived, and I began the long process of getting ready (it usually takes 20 minutes, but in situations such as this must be drawn out to at LEAST an hour and a half, to achieve almost invariably the same effect.) Confession time. I MAY have had a glass of wine whilst this process was taking place. Not enough to make me do my make-up like a transvestite, but what I thought would be enough to work as a helping hand in making me relaxed and open. I fretted my way to the venue, working out my timing to arrive at 7.35, when I received a text message from Sam (25, restaurant manager, a sarcastic but funny profile) saying he was ‘so, so sorry’, but he was going to be at least 15 minutes late. Transport issues, apparently. I was instructed to get seated, get myself a glass of wine and await profuse apologies and reimbursement. Little did he know that this would be my second drink of the evening, and that I’m not a regular wine drinker. Whilst I tried to keep tabs on how flushed I was getting in the CAVE of a wine bar he had selected, I sipped my rose as slowly as possible, hoping that when he arrived he’d think I was open and bubbly, when really I was just slightly pissed.

As soon as he arrived ALL focus moved from self-appraisal/loathing to judgement. I won’t beat around the bush. My immediate thought was ‘well, he’s not the 6ft he advertised on his profile’ (woe betide the 5’10 men who think they can cheat those extra couple of inches. FYI, WE NOTICE). It says a lot about my fixation with height that the issue I mention second is the ears. Oh, the ears. Small but so forward-facing it was like they were straining themselves to listen to his nose sniffing. Whilst partaking in the obligatory kisses on the cheek, hello-nice-to-meet-you and of-course-no-it’s-absolutely-fine-I-haven’t-been-here-long’s, my mind was racing as to how I had failed to notice the ears on his profile. I can’t have been THAT distracted by his (lovely, lovely) arms. Investigation the next day led to the discovery that all his photos either featured him in a hat, or side-on so you couldn’t see the full profile of his ears. Sneaky. Regardless, the rest of his appearance was up to scratch, and his chat was great. He wasn’t afraid to take the piss out of me, and obviously relished my, frankly, probably HYSTERICAL, response to his story about his Mum being on Trisha. If EVER there was a cool way to talk about your Mum on a date that was it. He was obviously a regular visitor to the bar we were at (after-work drinks or the date location for those hooked on the fishing rod? Who knows) and perused the wine list with the air of a connoisseur. Already aware that he was a few years older than me and a ‘proper person’ with a job an’ that, I tried to pretend that I too was interested in how oaky different wines were (when really I was just looking out for Blossom Hill). We whittled away a good few hours drinking, chatting and laughing, and when the time came to get trains home, he suggested going on for a drink at my local. I was fairly sure this wasn’t a sleaze move as he lived fairly close-by too, I was enjoying myself (and definitely had a wine glaze on by this point), so agreed. At my local, the great chat continued and the wine glaze only got worse. When we parted, he kissed me on both cheeks and slung the ubiquitous ‘I’ll-call-you’ my way. I pranced home thinking how lovely it was that I had had a great time, how great it was that his ears stuck out as it meant he wouldn’t be as arrogant as many other men with lovely, lovely arms, and how fun it was to get pissed on a date.

I woke up the next morning with red-stained lips, a huge wine head and a foreboding feeling. Had he actually had a good time? Had we laughed as much as I remembered? Had I actually looked nice or did I not notice red-wine flush in all my excitement? Should I have got so pissed? Was it obvious? And the main issue: SHOULD I HAVE PAID FOR DRINKS? As I thought back on the evening, I realised that he had taken pretty full control of getting the drinks in, and keeping my glass topped up. He was obviously aware that I’m a student, but I began to panic that I should have been more 21^st century and offered to pay my way. We are 21^st century dating, after all. This led to my (probably unwise, and still slightly inebriated) decision to send him a whimsical by lighthearted text saying ‘I’ve woken up with a red-wine head and a feeling that I didn’t say thank-you for buying me all those drinks last night. Thank-you! The Fonz.) – a reference to his pisstake of my leather jacket and a reminder to him that we had a GREAT TIME. A couple of days went by. Then a couple more. With no reply. And no promised call. I spent this time frantically canvassing male friends for advice on what the appropriate amount of time to wait for contact was, receiving wildly different estimates. “Two days, max.” “Nine to ten days, easily.”

Approximately seven days after the date, I discovered that he had deleted me from facebook. Charming. This obviously led to intense analysis of the date, his decision to ask me to go on to another pub, and self-relection. Maybe he thought I was brash. (Not helped by my favourite accessories which share this characteristic.) Maybe he thought I was an alcoholic. The most annoying this is, that I’ll NEVER KNOW. As one of my BRUTUALLY honest friends summed up; ‘well he was obviously attracted to your looks, so you must have ruined it somehow with your personality’. Cheers. After a few days of ‘I-hate-myself-I-must-eat-icecream-straight-from-the-tub’ behaviour, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, reminded myself that I would have been embarrassed to introduce his ears to my friends, and got back online. This was only the beginning of what was to become known as my ‘hectic dating schedule’.

Step one: setting up.

The first challenge of joining a dating site, before you even get close to having to wade through messages from the sub-humans of our species, is creating a profile that will appeal to the small percentage of normal and, dare I say it, desirable men you’d like to attract. I started by having a browse of some existing profiles, and quickly became fascinated by how people attempt to present themselves, and fascinated by why some people would want to present themselves in certain ways. Generally, I could understand the motivations behind people’s profile decisions.  A series of holiday/festival/nights out photos: suggestive of a fun, carefree, adventurous attitude. A list of favourite books: intellectual, thoughtful. The ‘I never thought I’d use a dating site but…’ explanation:  self-deprecating, non-threatening. I was less clear on the motivations behind usernames such as ‘thesadnessneverends’ and taglines which read ‘don’t waste my time’. 

Before I was even allowed to create my profile and worry about how my sarcastically worded ‘about me’ would come across, I had another preliminary hurdle to jump, in the form of a ‘true or false’ quiz designed to ascertain each person’s levels of ‘self-confidence, family orientation, open-ness, self-control and easygoing-ness’. Many of the statements requiring an affirmation or negation in the form of mouse-click were fairly straightforward: for instance, ‘I think children are an important part of family life’ or ‘financial stability is important to me’. Less expected were statements such as ‘I do not like my partner going out socially’, and the rather bizarre ‘I like sex to be planned to some extent rather than completely spontaneous’. Presumably these measures ensure that people as controlling and sexually uptight as one another are paired up, thus leaving normal people, such as myself, free to date without fear of encountering those who like to stay indoors having scheduled sexual encounters. Saying that, the list of people suggested as ‘matches’ based on my results began with a guy who specified that he wanted a girl with ‘little to no sexual experience’. As the ‘sex in a bunk bed scenario’ alluded to in my previous blog entry may have already suggested, this is not a description easily applicable to myself.

Unperturbed, I created my own profile. I stuck to a pretty tame list of likes and dislikes, selected a range of pictures to display aforementioned fun, carefree, adventurous attitude, and sat back to await messages. Within twenty-four hours, I’d received, amongst others, messages from both a forty-one year old referring to himself as ‘daddy’ and a sixteen year-old asking if I’d take his virginity. The cross-section of manhood out there is massive and, frankly, terrifying. Initially, I felt guilty for not replying to people’s messages, and spent a bit of time messaging people whom I wouldn’t give a second glance to in a bar. Quickly I realised it was like fresher’s week at uni: giving the time of day to any old plebs, because you don’t know any better, and then promptly learning that you’ve got to be cut-throat if you’re going to have any chance of getting to the good stuff. Sorting the wheat from the massive amount of chaff, as it were. My judgements became quicker and quicker, more and more specific. Anyone not living in zones 1 and 2 was an instant click-off. Ditto to those under five foot eight, anyone with a profile picture taken of themselves topless in the mirror, and anyone who used ‘lol’ in an about me or message. My tagline which stated I was looking for ‘fun dates with non-creeps’ resulted in a message from a guy asking if I’d like to go on a fun date with crepes. Any initial positive response quickly dissipated after a quick browse of his profile revealed that he liked ‘women who would be told what to do’. Misogyny instantly negates witty wordplay. 

Whilst the percentage breakdown of creeps/non-creeps is roughly ninety to ten, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the amount of seemingly funny, intelligent and attractive men out there in the fishing pool. And so, by the end of the week, I had my first date lined up.

An Introduction.

So. Hello. I'm Alice.

After 6 years of being in a relationship (...well, several different relationships which ran concurrently into one another), I have found myself aged 22, at university, living in London, and properly single for the first time since I was 16: when I thought that being single was both social suicide and an affirmation that I was, infact, the ugliest girl in year 11 (patently untrue, it was Alison Thomas). In contrast, my current situation should be a recipie for romantic success. My life should be a hotbed of sexual frisson, full of short-lived but exciting affairs with inappropriate boys, a kind of romantic montage of flirting in the library, dates along the south bank filled with laughter and whimsical witty jokes .. etc. etc. At least, that's really how I'd like the '22, free and single' chapter of my autobiography to sound. (Too many of my life decisions have been, and will continue to be, motivated by my 'how would this sound in my autobiography?' thought process. This includes a failed seduction of my hairy seminar tutor and one horrifying sex-in-a-bunkbed scenario.)

However. For several reasons; including being at a 70% female university, not having a thing for weedy art boys, hating students and not just being unattracted to, but actively disliking men under 6ft tall, I have found myself with a shortage of men whom I am interested in, and men whom are interested in me. After lamenting this fact to my mother, she responded with some classic 'Mum advice' that sounds like a cleverly worded soundbite from a romantic comedy trailer. The hook. "Alice, you just need to get out there on dates with strangers. You're guaranteed one of three things: a good dinner, a good time, or a good story."

Armed with this advice, the knowledge that generally, most guys are too afraid to ask random girls on dates, as well as some less soundbite-sounding advice from one of my best mates ("join the dating site I'm on, it's such an ego boost how many men want to date you if you're not facially horrifying"), I have set about to do three things.

1. Meet many different men.

2. Use dates to experience many of the things that I'd like to do in London for free. (Who says Feminism is dead...?)

3. Arm myself with an endless ream of great anecdotes to tell to my friends over drinks, thus satisfying my attention seeking persona.

In order to achieve these three things I have taken one small step: signed myself up for www.plentyoffish.com.

At this point I feel that it's fair to compile another numerical list about why this is less creepy and desperate than it may first appear.

1. It is, in some way, an excuse to write a blog, practice my writing, and generally entertain myself at the expense of many of the weird characters that exist on the planet, but seem to congregate on the internet.

2. I am NOT looking for a relationship, and so will never have to bear the burden of telling people that I met my boyfriend/fiancee/husband on a dating website, or bear the similar burden of the lie that we met in a bar/at Alcoholics Anonymous/anywhere less embarrassing.

3. I have made it a rule to never message anyone first, ensuring that I can still play the part of the innocent prey, rather than the horrible internet predator. (Let's forget the fact that I'm putting my photos and 'About Me' out there in plain sight of all the predators. For some reason, the image of a gazelle wearing a photograph of a steak and sitting in plain view of a lion springs to mind.)



Stand by for progress reports. I'm going fishing.