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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!

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.

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…

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…

• You can read all about the person first
• You can see their photos first
• You can start slowly with email or instant messaging
• There is a plentiful supply of potential partners

Against…

• People can (and do!) lie in their profiles
• People only put their best photos online, sometimes quite old!
• Some people like to spend a month emailing before they’ll agree to meet up (if ever)
• There may be something wrong with everyone on there…

Speed Dating

For…

• You get to speak to the person face to face
• You get an idea of what they’re like very quickly
• It’s only ten minutes or so, so you don’t have to come up with too much chit chat
• They can’t hide behind misleading photos!

Against…

• There’s generally a much smaller pool of girls
• You have to move on when the bell rings, regardless
• There may be something wrong with everyone there…

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!

Does online dating really work? What a question! I did a Google search for this term and found plenty of results, but most of them are just full of advertising and don’t actually give any answers. Shame that so much of the internet has gone that way, but I digress…

I’m going to use this blog to tell you all about my personal dating site adventures, and I hope that it will end some day with me posting a photo of my wedding day and telling you all to sod off! But seriously, I hope that my experiences will be of some value to someone out there.

So a bit about me then… I’m still under thirty (only just) and in case you were wondering, no there is absolutely nothing wrong with me! I look after myself, I’m fit, I look okay (better than most anyway!) and I have a well paying job. I have a good life, I have no children, never been married, no baggage and I think I’m a pretty good catch! This isn’t a sales pitch, I just thought you should know who you’re dealing with, and what chances of finding love online I should have.

I have pretty high standards too, probably too high for me to be able to justify! Definitely too high for me to justify actually… It certainly reduces the pool of potential dates, but there are plenty of smart and beautiful girls out there, so why not aim high? Maybe if I’m still not hitched by the time I’m forty I’ll have to reassess my ‘standards’!

I registered on popular dating site RSVP quite a few years ago, and in between ‘real’ girlfriends I’ve used it to meet other girls. I’ve lost count of the number of girls I’ve been out with from the site, but only a handful have been good enough to graduate to a second date. I’ve only slept with one of them, but there has been plenty of other ‘action’ with some of them. Don’t take that the wrong way, I don’t use these sites for one night stands, I’m genuinely looking for something real, but I’ll take whatever else is on offer in between. I’m a young man, I have needs you know!

That’s enough for post one. Over the coming weeks I’ll start writing about some of these dates. Maybe some profile tips would be good, plus whatever other entertaining things I happen to come across. I may even write about non-dating site dates, but we’ll see…