Well… the girl who just wants to be freinds and wanted to play tennis last week, didn’t end up playing tennis! It was raining however, so it was a perfectly good excuse.
She mentioned playing again this week, so we’ll see what happens…
Over the last two weeks I’ve taken out two great looking girls, one of them in particular was simply stunning. Okay stunning is too strong a word, but if you saw her on the street you would definitely take a second and third look!
So first question – what on earth are they both doing on an internet dating site? I asked them both, and the standard answer was given in both cases “I’m so busy, it just seems like a good way to meet someone special. You can’t meet someone special in a pub or club”. Fair enough I guess, and I’m pretty much in the same boat.
I took both girls to different places for a drink, both fairly upmarket and classy places. In both cases we had plenty to talk about, each of us had similar goals and aspirations, we had similar travel stories to tell (both were particularly well travelled) and one could see no reason whatsoever for any of these two girls to be my perfect match.
There’s a problem though… no connection, none at all. Why not though? Certainly I was physically attracted to them, very much so. I liked everything about both of them, but not enough to want to take things further. Whilst I had no intention of taking things further, I certainly wasn’t the only one, because they haven’t exactly been rushing to contact me in the following days either!
I’ve racked my brain and I can’t for the life of me work out why there was no connection. Is it something about me and attractive girls? Is that the problem? I don’t think so, I’ve dated attractive girls before without any problems. I think it was just that they were boring to be honest. Not boring in that you’d fall asleep spending time with them, but boring in that, I don’t know, just not exciting.
Maybe it’s that girls who know they’re very attractive feel they don’t have to try as hard, and rely on their looks to get them through? Maybe it’s that for years they’ve just had guys want them for their looks, so they’ve ignored everything else? Perhaps that worked when they were younger, but I suspect if they’re looking for a meaningful relationship they’re going to have to offer up more than their looks.
You know what else this little episode has revealed? Maybe I’m not as shallow as I once feared I was!
I’ve been out with plenty of girls from online and internet dating sites, and I’d say over the years there have been more bad girls than good girls, if I can put it that crudely. Having spent time with so many of them and not ended up with one for any longer than a month or so, I had pretty much come to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with them all.
I mean, think about it. What is a girl approaching thirty doing wrong if she’s a good catch, but until now has remained single? Surely someone else would have snapped her up by now, right? So it’s easy to assume that there must be something not so good about each and every one of them, and that’s why it never seems to work out with them. I’m not saying these dates aren’t fun (because they are!) but there’s rarely any chance of a serious relationship forming.
But then I looked at myself. If I’m approaching thirty and consider myself a good catch (which I do) then why haven’t I been snapped up by some lucky lady? I questioned myself for a second, but then realised that I’m perfect (of course!) and there’s no reason for a nice girl not to want me. I’ve slept with more girls than I can recall (not bragging, just giving you the background) so it’s not a physical attraction issue, and everything else in my life is well in order.
So why then, am I still single? I’ve broken up with plenty of girls who wanted to stay together… Ah, that’s right, I’m too picky! Well I wouldn’t say too picky, but I’m just determined to find the perfect girl and not settle for second best.
And now it dawns on me – there’s nothing wrong with all of these girls, they’re just like me – too picky! We’re all out there with these huge expectations of the perfect partner, but as we approach thirty the pool of ‘perfect’ partners is drying up, and if we’re not careful we’ll be left with no one.
Does that mean we should all go out and accept the first slightly okay partner then? Not a chance! We’re perfectionists, that’s why we all have great jobs, we’re well educated and successful, and we’re generally fit and look after ourselves. Why should we settle for anything less than the same in a partner? Ask me again if I’m still single and approaching forty…
Well the girl from a few weeks back finally got back to me via text, and the news wasn’t good… “Hi. Sorry I have not replied sooner. Would rather be friends to be honest. Hope this is ok.” Well normally I would have just ignored the message, but I’ve decided that she might be worth hanging onto as a friend. Now she wants to play tennis with me, so we’ll see what happens.
I have yet another date this weekend, so we’ll see what happens with the next one!
Of all the girls I’ve found on dating sites that meet my criteria (good looking, smart, under thirty, doesn’t smoke, no kids etc.) many of them seem to have one particular thing in common – they all work in finance. Not only that, but my day job also happens to be in finance.
So why is it that so many of them (including myself) share this common trait? I have a fairly wide network within the finance industry and attend plenty of industry events, but I never come across these types of girls! Certainly there are none that fit the bill within my own company…
Could it be that people in finance are more analytical and to the point? Maybe. Could it be that people in finance are not as outgoing and prefer the online method of dating? I doubt it, based on all the people I know through finance.
Whatever the reason, I’m quite happy for it to be the case, because there’s something about smart girls in finance that just really works for me. Not only that, but you have something to talk about when you run out of interesting things to say. Not that I’m condoning chatting about work on a first (or early) date, but sometimes you’ll actually find that people in finance love talking about their job.
So what’s the verdict? Are people in finance more attracted to online dating than others? I’m going to say yes, based purely on the numbers, but I can’t for the life of me tell you why.
Sounds pretty simple right? Coffee, movie, dinner, there are plenty of options. Well yes that’s true, but your first date is a massive thing, most ‘relationships’, especially those initiated over the internet, do not get past the first date. The location of this date is absolutely critical!
Let’s go through each of the options:
Movie
For…
Against…
Dinner
For…
Against…
Coffee
For…
Against…
Drinks
For…
Against…
What else?
There are other options, and one of my best ever first dates (with someone met online) was actually a game of tennis! I know that sounds strange for a first date, but it worked a treat! When you want to talk you just approach the net and chat away, when you’ve run out of material you just go back to hitting the ball!
You need to be able to pull it off though, because if you’re rubbish on the court you’re going to make yourself look bad right from the start. If you’re dripping wet after fifteen minutes and can’t catch your breath, it’s unlikely your tennis partner is going to think much of you! If you can’t handle half an hour of mild tennis, how will you be able to handle a night of passion in the bedroom? Sounds crude perhaps, but you need to think of these things – your partner probably will be!
There are other options for first dates, but listed above are the most common ones. Personally I’d go with the option of a few quite drinks at a good venue. As I mentioned, you want somewhere with good atmosphere but not so loud that you’ll be shouting in your date’s ear all night. But if there’s an opportunity to do something different like tennis (or whatever other sport you have in common) I say go for it!
This post pretty much carries on from my last post. The burning question is - why don’t girls say what’s on their mind?
There have been a few girls lately who I’ve dated, been out with a couple of times, then they’ve just disappeared off the face of the earth. Okay, that makes me sound really bad, but I’m sure that I’m not the problem!
So why does it happen? You go out on a few dates, everything seems to be going fine, then they just stop returning messages. You know why I don’t think I’m the problem? Well firstly because I think I’m a great catch (joking!) and secondly because I’ve only ever experienced this with girls from internet dating sites. Real girls don’t just start ignoring you, but ‘internet girls’ do.
Obviously if they stop returning calls, or just start stretching contact right out, it means they’re no longer interested. That’s fine, completely fine, but why not just say so? It would save so much wondering if they’d just say it!
Thinking about this subject something suddenly dawned on me… I’ve been doing the same thing for years! You see a girl a few times, you’re not really interested, but you don’t want to tell them you’re not interested so you just drag it out until the girl loses interest herself. Then you don’t have to worry about the awkward conversation!
But now I realise that this is totally the wrong thing to do, because being on the other side of this treatment isn’t so much fun.
Now back to what I said earlier about it only being ‘internet girls’ that this happens with. I guess it’s the lack of accountability that comes with internet dating. If you’re introduced to someone through friends, or through work, there are other people involved. If a friend introduces you to someone and then you just start ignoring them, your friend isn’t going to be too impressed. When you meet on the internet, there are no other people, so if you just cut off contact with the other person there is nothing more to it. No accountability.
So what’s the moral of this post? Pretty simply really, just say what’s on your mind, ignoring people isn’t cool! I’ll be trying my best to keep up my end of the bargain too.
So on the weekend I went out with another girl. Like most of them she was quite attractive, had a good career and was clearly very smart, but unlike most of the others she was actually interesting to talk to. As an additional bonus she was quite well off, which isn’t important, but it’s always a nice bonus! Originally she wanted to do coffee, but that’s boring, so we went out for a drink instead.
It all went well, and we finished up around 10:30pm and went our separate ways. Apparently she had a training course at 8am the next day (on a Saturday!) which may well have been an excuse, but I’m pretty sure it was legit. At any rate, it didn’t affect the night, because there was no way this girl was going anywhere other than straight home after drinks anyway. And that’s fine by me, because I quite liked her, so I didn’t want her to make it too ‘easy’!
I wasn’t 100% sure at the end of the night whether or not there was a second date on the cards, but as we parted ways she made it clear by saying “I’d like to catch up again” to which I said sure that sounds great, then she finished with “well I have your number”. And that was it, all looked good. Earlier in the night we had chatted about dating and one of the things she said was most important was just being honest and upfront about whether or not you were interested in the other, so there was no reason to expect she wasn’t being genuine.
The next night I sent her a quick text thanking her for the evening before, and her reply was “Had a good night. I was a little tired today. We will have to catch up soon”. So I text her back and said “Sounds good, I’ll call you Sunday night and maybe we can tee something up. Hope your Sat night is going well”. I didn’t receive a response, but I figured I’d just talk to her Sunday as discussed.
I called Sunday night. Ring ring, ring ring… No answer, straight to voicemail. So I left a quick message, told her to call me back when she could. It’s now Monday night and I’ve heard nothing!
So what’s the deal? Why say you want to catch up again, on two separate occasions, but then go all silent? Maybe she’ll get back in contact later, because she definitely seemed genuine, but now that she’s stuffed me around I’ve lost interest in her! It’s a shame, but that’s the way it goes.
Ah, this internet dating caper, who knows what the girls are thinking! It’s all good fun though, and who knows who might pop up on there. The search continues…
Despite the fact that I don’t have a great deal of faith in internet dating providing me with a long-term partner, the most recent girl seemed like she might be a winner. She was smart, had a good job, was quite funny and she was quite attractive. Very attractive in fact… I know looks aren’t everything, but I think I scrub up well enough to expect the same of my partner and I’m still young enough to get away with being picky in that way!
Normally when I meet one of these girls I opt for dinner at a decent restaurant. Sure it’s not that exciting, but it’s a fairly safe bet. For some reason with this girl, I decided that playing tennis may be a better option. Strange I know, but she told me she enjoyed tennis, so I put the suggestion to her and reluctantly (at first) she agreed. I was very impressed how good she managed to look throughout the game, I’m sure I was just sweaty and smelly, but she did very well.
So we played tennis on the Thursday night, hit it off (pardon the pun) and ended up spending the following night together as well. We spent some more time with each other over the following week, then she invited me over to her place for drinks with her two male housemates. And that’s where things went wrong…
She warned me that her two male friends would do their best to get me drunk, and being fairly impartial to a few drinks I didn’t exactly fight them off. It was quite a wild night, so much so that at one stage the Police arrived and told us to keep it down! We were all having a great time and I was pretty chuffed to be with such a fun and good looking (really good looking!) girl.
Morning came, and I awoke in her bed, naked. It took me a few seconds to realise where I was, then I noticed she wasn’t in bed with me. Then the night’s activities started flooding back… The boys had gotten me so drunk that I was sick, so they put me in the shower, and now here I was, lying in this girls bed without any clothes!
I grabbed a towel from the ensuite and ventured out into the house where I saw my clothes draped over some chairs, drying under the fan which was still running. Obviously the clothes had to be washed after I was a little sick… There was also my wallet, phone and keys sitting on the table, still wet. Turns out she didn’t empty my pockets when she washed my clothes. Not cool!
Realising that there was no coming back from such an incident, I got dressed, gathered my belongings and made a dash for the exit. I didn’t plan on stopping to speak with the girl, who I had now noticed was sleeping on the couch, but as I approached the door I could see her eyes where now open. I apologised and spoke to her for a while, and surprisingly she didn’t seem to bothered by the activities of the night before. Amazing! Rather than overstay my welcome I headed for home pretty quickly.
Two nights later I took her out to dinner and I could tell that things weren’t completely cool, but figured everything would be okay. Over the next week she became more and more distant, and the following weekend we caught up for lunch where she delivered the expected message, that it was all over.
Any regrets? Just one, and this may sound bad, but I regret not sleeping with her. I know some people will think I’m a bad person for saying that, but I’m just being honest, I really would have liked to sleep with her! When she stayed over the week before the drinking incident we did pretty much everything else, but we just never quite got there. I suspect we would have on the night of the drinking incident, and she pretty much said that the next morning. Bummer!
Any lessons learned from this one? Yes, don’t drink too much with a new girlfriend! Although she later said that the ‘drinking incident’ wasn’t the reason for our breakup, I think it probably was because before that, things were going really great. Oh and I ended up with a non-working phone too, so it was an expensive few weeks! Still worth it though, and my mates sure loved the story.
When you’re done with meeting people in pubs and clubs, your friends’ friends are all either taken or un-datable, there’s no one decent at work and you’ve pretty much given up, there are really only two options left – internet dating, and more recently speed dating.
Internet Dating
For…
Against…
Speed Dating
For…
Against…
I’ve done both internet dating and speed dating, and really they’re both very different. Internet dating is more of a lazy method, in that you can sit back and pick through hundreds of profiles, only emailing the ones you’re interested in. With speed dating, you have to sit down and speak to each and every girl there, you can’t just pick and choose who to talk with!
I can’t recall how many girls I’ve been out with via internet dating, but I do know that I’ve been out with three girls from speed dating. One of the speed dating girls was rubbish and resulted in only one date, the second one was okay and we had dinner a few times but nothing more, and the last one was really great! We went out a few times and she once stayed at my place overnight, but then she got back with her ex-boyfriend. Bummer…
I’d have to say that girls from speed dating are generally more serious about finding someone than girls from internet dating. I guess it comes back to what I mentioned earlier about internet dating being the more lazy of the two options.
From a cost point of view, internet dating is definitely better value. For the price you pay to meet eight to ten girls at speed dating you will get around the same amount of paid contacts on an internet dating site (depending on which one you use). But… With speed dating you don’t choose the girls, with internet dating you do! With speed dating your money is gone after a few hours, with internet dating your money may last you weeks or months depending on how many girls/guys you contact.
I couldn’t say which one is better or which one is more likely to be successful, I’d say give both a try! What I can say is that lately I’ve been sticking with internet dating, but I don’t know if that means internet dating is better or I’m just lazy!