An Easy Guide to Internet Dating

So, I’ve been with TSG for almost a year and a half now, and occasionally, we get the old, “How did you guys meet?” question fired at us. When I explain that we met on Plenty Of Fish or, more generally, “the internet”, more often than not people will then exclaim at how “lucky” I am to have actually met someone on there. They explain that they went online themselves and that no one would message them or that those that did were ugly/boring/crazy and/or desperate.

Therefore I thought I might give people out there a bit of a guide to internet dating for straight people, as everyone seems to be getting it wrong, and it’s really not that hard.

1)      Your profile.

Ladies – I’ll deal with you lot first. Your profile is too long. Men are not interested in what you named all 18 of your rabbits when you were five. They like it short and to the point. What you like, how you spend your spare time, what you do for a living. They also like it funny. For added bonus points, do NOT put anything negative in there – It makes you look negative and no one likes a negative person. No, “I think I’m ok looking”, instead put, “I’m an attractive woman who….” EVEN if you’re not sure. If you’re positive about yourself it encourages others to be positive about you.

Gentlemen. Your profile is too short. Women like to know all about you. They are VERY interested in what you named all 18 of your Rabbits. They want to know everything about you from the moment you were born. A short profile with nothing of yourself in it will not attract the attention of the woman of your dreams.

In reality all you need to do is look at a selection of profiles from people of the opposite sex – your profile should resemble these.

2)      Profile Pictures.

Again, ladies first. Your main profile picture should be a photo of you, ALONE. Absolutely NO group photos. Do you really think that any bloke is going to want to spend their time trying to decipher which person in the picture is you? “NEXT!”. Make life easy for your future man and get a pic of you alone. Second, NO SELFIES. These always looks so contrived and false, they don’t show you at your most natural, or at your best. And thirdly, NEVER have a photo of you not smiling as your main profile picture. You want to give the person viewing you a positive reaction, and when someone smiles it automatically makes others want to smile back, releasing endorphins which make them feel happy. That happiness will then be associated with you, encouraging them to contact you.

Gentlemen. The most common mistake you lot make is to take photos with your top off, or your hand holding your top up. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!? Why the hell do you think a woman worth your time wants to date a vain, self-absorbed idiot? Nope. Remove it. Next, again with the group pictures. When I was online dating, if a bloke had a group picture I skipped it. Most other people do the same. Thirdly, no selfies. See above. And again, a smiling picture is more likely to get a response than a non-smiling picture.

3)      Contacting members of the opposite sex

One of the complaints about internet dating I hear most frequently are from women who say, “No one ever contacted me”. When I ask if they ever contacted anyone the answer is invariably, “no…”. Ladies, WHY are you waiting around for the man of your dreams to just… fall into your lap? Life doesn’t HAPPEN like that. For example, I contacted TSG first. I read his profile, I liked it, I wrote him an email. It is THAT simple. It’s not something to shout about, it’s not scary, and if they don’t reply, so what? You’re never going to meet this guy, he probably wouldn’t recognise you in a crowd, YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO SPEAK TO HIM AGAIN. So get off your backside and get emailing; it’s worth it, believe me.

Gentlemen, Women will not email first. For some reason, they leave it to you to take the initiative. I’m not sure why this is, because then they complain bitterly when they get no responses and it makes no sense whatsoever.

Secondly (and gentlemen, I know you’re a bad lot for this but as women have never emailed me I don’t know if this is something that they do too) if you send us a message containing one word – “hi”, “hey”, “yo” or any derivative thereof – it WILL get ignored. This is because we do not know what to say back. Responding with “hey” leaves us both in the same position we were originally in and therefore we may as well not bother. In addition, if this is the best you can come up with on a first message, we may as well hold out for someone better equipped when it comes to imagination. The most imaginative opening email I received was from a guy who sent me a list of multiple choice questions, along the lines of “tea or coffee?” ranging from normal things (such as the previous) to some cheeky/funny ones such as “French Knickers or Thongs” (to which I replied that I prefer my men in french knickers as I feel that thongs make them look silly). Please note that if you intend to steal this method, it will NOT work if you push it too far, especially if the woman you are messaging does not find it amusing.

The messaging part of the conversation is the time where you start to cut away the people who are crazy/boring/slutty/whom you will just NOT get on with. Don’t expect every person who contacts you/you contact to be “the one” because nine times out of ten, they won’t be. There are far more people out there who are NOT good boyfriend/girlfriend material for you than there are perfect partners. These people will find others who ARE their perfect partners, as will you if you keep looking. It’s exactly the same as in real life. Not EVERONE you meet on the street is going to be a good boyfriend or girlfriend for you, so why assume the same with internet dating? That’s ridiculous. Therefore, keep an open mind.

Lastly, don’t get offended if people don’t respond. Sometimes people find it hard to say to someone, “I’m sorry but I don’t think we’ll click.” I personally made a conscious effort to do so, as I felt it was only fair rather than leaving people hanging, and I wished them luck on their search, but more often than not I received an extremely negative response to this as people took offense to what they perceived to be a rejection. I can therefore understand why some people do not respond to people they are not interested in. However, it is NOT an insult for someone to feel that they won’t get on with you. It’s actually ok. I’m sure you’ve met people who wanted to date you but you didn’t want to date them but you liked them as a person and didn’t want to upset them, it’s the same thing, but on the internet. They’re not saying you’re a bad person, or that they think you’re ugly, or that they hate you, they just don’t think you’ve got enough in common with them.

4)      Dating.

When you’ve chatted to someone enough to decide you want to go on a date with them, you STILL can’t assume they are sane or right for you. I went on dates with quite a few people from POF (the best of them are available as blog entries here http://abstracted11.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/so-i-totally-had-date-number-2.html, http://abstracted11.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/never-date-chin-snogger.html, http://abstracted11.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/my-foray-into-world-of-internet-dating.html, http://abstracted11.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-possible-end-of-era.html) and although one or two of them just turned out to be with gentlemen that, at the end of the day, I felt I would not be able to date through a lack of “click” or due to the fact that they were boring as HELL when detached from their keyboard-wit, many of them turned out to be crazy people masquerading as sane people. Do not just assume that because you got on online that you will get on offline too, because a lot of the time that is just not true. It takes a really, really special person to be able to get on both on and offline, and when you find someone that you get on with, who also gets on with you, you know that you’re onto a winner.

Do NOT give up after the first date-gone-wrong. It happens. A lot. But you can learn a lot from these experiences, about what you do and do not want from your future partner, about who YOU are as a person. For example, I learnt that I will not suffer a clingy partner who insists on texting every five minutes and panics if I do not have the time to respond. I will not date someone who accuses me of cheating on them before we’ve even been on our second date. I will not date someone who rings me up drunk in the middle of the night, or arranges to meet and then cancels half an hour before. I WILL date someone who is caring, witty, relaxed, patient, kind, thoughtful, exciting, who has the cheekiest, loveliest smile I have ever seen, and gets himself into trouble in almost every shop we go in to due to his innate naughtiness.

And at the end of the day, ladies and gentleman, that’s what you are all looking for. Your very own SG. And he or she is out there, but it is a case of being persistent and making sure that you’re getting what YOU want in a person. If it helps, think of these dates as being more like interviews than dates. You don’t have to let this person into your life, you don’t even have to stay to finish your coffee.

Second most importantly, if the person you’re meeting expects to go home with you, or take you back to theirs, get rid. They’re after one thing and one thing only. Unless, of course, you are too. ;)

But most importantly, if anything feels a bit off about the date, or the person you’re with, leave. You don’t need to make excuses, you don’t need to feel bad, just leave. Always make sure someone knows where you are and who you’re with. If someone is getting pushy with you to get you to go on a date with them, do NOT go (yes, it has happened to me and no I didn’t go). People will try to make you feel guilty and manipulate you, but your safety and happiness is far more important so don’t worry about it. As long as you’re careful you’ll be fine! And yes, boys, this means you too!

So, that’s about it. Good luck, have fun, and most of all, remember that this is about YOU.

Stuff That Winds Me Up

I’m not someone who loses their temper very easily.

I’ve not always been like that. When I was younger, my little brother used to be able to wind me up easier than one of those self winding tape measures – he just pressed the button and I was ready and willing to punch, scream and pull his hair out.

As I’ve got older I’ve got a lot calmer, more rational and far more laid back – but certain things still have the ability to really get my goat  - so I thought I’d do a list of them so you all know what not to do in no particular order; you'll probably find that the more something irritates me the more I have written about it.

1.       My laptop.

My laptop is one of my favourite possessions. I don’t know what I’d do without it. But there are there are times when I’d quite happily throw it out of a window from my first floor living room. For example, whilst writing the last sentence an AVG notification popped up telling me to renew my licence. WHY could it not have chosen a time when I was actually looking at the screen?! I wrote another whole sentence before I noticed and that is HUGELY frustrating. Other times when it is going slow I find frustrating. When I want to do something, I want to do it NOW. Not in half an hour, when it’s sorted its shit out, not in three hours, after it’s completed a scan, but NOW!!!

2.       My Mobile Phone.

When I don’t have my mobile pho ne I am barely able to function. It doesn’t have to actually work, I just have to be able to turn it on and see the reassuring glow from its screen to know that I am in the safe hands of o2. And yet, I have never yet had a mobile phone that is capable of doing everything that I require of it. For example, my Samsung Jet was incapable of making me a breakfast smoothie, my blackberry was unable to scratch my back when required and my Samsung S3 Mini does not come with a built in butler service. But once again, the main thing that irritates me is its lack of speed. I rarely close all the applications that are open on it, but I expect the phone to be able to multi-task as well as my brain does, and I get extremely frustrated when it takes 2 minutes to open Candy Crush when I am also running Instagram, Facebook, Chrome, AVG, and What’s App simultaneously.  Technology should be advanced enough to keep up with me already. If it doesn’t, why the hell doesn’t it?!

3.       Losing stuff.

I am, as you are probably aware, dyspraxic. This means that I have an appalling short term memory. I can remember stuff that happened when I was still in the crib like it was yesterday, but I cannot remember what happed two minutes ago when my boss asked me to book our contractors into Selfridges. Luckily, I have developed mechanisms to help me cope with this – I write EVERYTHING down. Sadly, this does not help me when I lose the list. The second I put something down, I forget about it. Usually, I can cope with this, as it only takes about 5 minutes of searching to locate whatever it is I have lost. Sadly, things start to go downhill when that five minute time frame is up. That’s when I start to get angry. As I approach the ten minute mark I start to lose control of my emotions. Usually, this is where I start to shout at objects that get too close, or any people who happen to be unlucky enough to be standing too close – especially if they don’t appear to be helping me look hard enough. At around 15 minutes I start to get a tad violent. Mainly towards objects, but don’t stand too close to me just in case. By 20 minutes I’m in tears, usually from rage and frustration towards myself, but I like to externalise it by blaming anything and anyone else, internalising is unhealthy, I believe. By the 30 minute mark, I’m hysterical, bordering on madness. The worst part is, that I find myself unable to STOP looking and calm down. I MUST WIN. Therefore I must keep looking.

4.       Cheaters.

I am an extremely competitive person. Most people won’t play board games with me because it is not worth the fight that occurs if I lose - and I always lose. I am a natural born loser. If someone is being competitive with me, I will not play with them because I hate people who rub it in your face; bad winners are worse than bad losers I feel, but then I wouldn’t know because I’ve never won. At least being a bad loser is understandable. A winner should win with style and grace. And competitive people are NEVER good winners. But what I hate worse than any of that, are the people who cheat. What is the point of winning if you don’t win for real? Why cheat and take away everyone else’s chances of experiencing that feeling of having won? If I find out that someone has cheated at something, I will refuse to do pretty much anything with them ever again I’m a forgiving person the majority of the time. I have, in the past, forgiven the same person for the same thing over and over until I really can’t take it anymore, but I cannot forgive a cheat. Something interesting I have also noticed is that people who are willing to cheat at board games are also more likely to cheat on their partners and in life in general – but I don’t know if that is just coincidence. Either way, the scumbags that cheat at monopoly deserve to have the death sentence brought back for them. I swear to God. (The Sexy Guitarist just randomly laughed in the background about something and said “Haha, I win!” I nearly lynched him. Now THERE’S a bad winner.)

5.       People who think they’re always right.

This works mostly for people who think their OPINION is always right. If the subject being debated is a scientific fact, then who am I to argue? But when it comes down to things like Religion, I get extremely angry with people who try to shove their beliefs down my throat. I was raised as a Christian (although I’m not very good at it), however, I find that the people who are WORST for this impingement are other Christians. The ones who hang out in the centre of town and sing/dance/preach at you as you’re doing your payday shopping spree. Yes, you are entitled to your beliefs, but WHY do you feel that it is necessary to spew those belief at all the poor Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims (of which there are an abundance in this city) who are in town simply because they want to get an eye test or some Millie’s Cookies? Why are you ramming what you believe down their throats? You may believe that you are right, and maybe you are, but that does not mean that you have the right to go around pointing your finger and being all “HA, you’re going to hell!” it’s just another way of being a bad winner. And doesn’t Matthew state, “Judge not, lest ye be judged”? Why not hang around in the centre of town with a sign saying, “You might be right, but I might be right. We’ll find out.” People will hate you less.

6.       Mornings

I am not, and never have been, a morning person. I don’t really like GOING to bed – there’s so much I want to do and I never seem to have time for it, but I like LEAVING my bed even less. When I wake up in the morning I must be treated with caution, love and care; a bit like a bomb that hasn’t gone off since WW2 that has just been discovered underneath the local nightclub.

The SG’s most recent hobby seems to be to see if he can get me to explode. This morning I was woken with “go do the washing up, and get me some breakfast; I’m hungry.” Needless to say he was astonished when he found himself washing up and frying sausages and bacon simultaneously only seconds later, whilst I sat on the sofa reading my book with a satisfied look on my face. I don’t think he could work out how that happened, and is still a bit puzzled about the whole thing.

When I wake up in the mornings I like cuddles and talking and closeness. Or I like to feel like I have a plan for the day. I like to know where I’m going and what I’m doing. If I can get a bit of both then all the better.

7.       People who talk to me when I’m trying to read.

I like to read. A lot. But I find it incredibly frustrating when I’m trying to read and someone decides that that is the right time to have a conversation with me. The only people who do this are the people who are not readers themselves. Come on people, you don’t walk into the cinema and try to have a conversation with the person sitting next to you all the way through the movie, do you? With reading it’s ok if you’re having a proper conversation, but if you’re wanting to say a few words, stop, then say a few more so that I’m stopping and starting – consequently reading the same sentence over and over again – just don’t bother, because I will make you eat this book.

8.       Other people’s lack of spelling and punctuation

We all went to school right? And in the exception of a few cases (eg, a valid reason for being unable to go to school or dyslexia and similar problems) we were all taught to read and write. Therefore, there is no excuse for being a 14 year old that is unable to work out which “there” you are supposed to use. No excuse for not choosing the right “to”. HOW THE HELL do you think you are going to get a decent job that doesn’t involve spending the rest of your life cleaning up drunk people’s poo if you are unable to write, “There they are! With their cat”

“They’re happy?”

“Yes!”

IT’S NOT FRIGGING HARD PEOPLE!!!

What about punctuation? The number of emails I receive where the people writing them do not understand that a full stop is still used at the end of a paragraph. You don’t just hit enter and hope for the best. Commas are completely disregarded and most people wouldn’t know the difference between an apostrophe and an armadillo. But then, I am also aware that most of the people who fail to pay attention to these extremely important little things are the ones who are at the bottom of the pile in the work place. Spelling and grammar is so important because everyone takes their first impression from what they see. Dyslexics can and do use spell check – why can’t you?!? And there is absolutely NO excuse for failing to use a comma.

These are all the things that infuriate me most, although I may add to this list in due course....

I did mention that I’m much CALMER than I used to be, right?

And as a bit of revenge for saying "I Win", here is a picture of SG asleep on my sofa last night... who wins now, SG?

The Badly Chosen Boyfriend and the Pizza Incident

We all do it. We all have that boyfriend/girlfriend in our past that, when we deign to think about them, we think, "Why the hell did I ever consider them as date-worthy material? Was I temporarily brain damaged? Was I being controlled by aliens?"

My first long-term boyfriend was possibly the worst person I could have ever chosen to date.

I’m not saying he wasn’t a nice person – he was in fact the opposite. He was quite self-centred, but on the whole wouldn’t harm a fly.

The reason he was so terrible a choice for me is because we were so completely and utterly incompatible. I found him boring, irritating, selfish, immature and he had no loyalty whatsoever.

We used to have conversations and I’d find, on later trying, that I could not recall a single word he said. He was interested in History (Yawn), Politics (Kill me) and creative writing (about history and politics. Dear GOD).

I, however, at the grand old age of 18/19 was interested in design, reading (not about history or politics) and having fun.

Emotionally, I was far more mature than he was, despite his being about 3 years older than I, and I was less inclined to live by everyone else’s rules than he was. I would get frustrated with the fact that he would never do anything without saying things like, “my Dad says it should be done this way” or “My friends say I should do this”.

I was far more likely to take other people’s advice on board and then choose the method I thought best, rather than what everyone else thought best.

The Bad Choice Boyfriend was such a stickler for doing it the way you are told and not straying from the instructions that we ended up having the worst argument of my life over a pizza.

I had come home from work at Vision Express one evening, knowing that the BCB was cooking for us, and when I got home he suggested pizza. As I do have a bit of a penchant for pizza I happily agreed, and off he popped to the shop over the road to grab a Chicago Town. Upon arrival back he started reading the instructions, and I warned him to NOT put the pizza on the top oven shelf, as I know that our oven got too hot and it would burn before it cooked. I immediately stopped paying attention and went back to doing whatever it was I was doing before he returned.

BCB joined me, but within 10 minutes I could smell burning.

“You need to check the pizza, something’s burning,” I warned.

“Nah, it’ll be something on the bottom of the oven,” he replies, and remains where he is for a further 5 minutes, while I fidget and panic about my food, but decide to remain where I am and not “take control” as I was often accused of doing.

After checking on the pizza he exclaims, “The pizza is burnt!” to which I replied, “Did you put it on the top shelf, or the middle one?”

“The top one, like the instructions told me to.”

I pointed out that I had warned him not to put it on the top shelf, and explained that I had told him that due to prior experience with our oven – it was a fan oven and the instructions were for conventional ovens.

He decided to go back to the shop and purchase a new pizza.

Attempt two of cooking the pizza went down in exactly the same way – BCB was not one for learning from his mistakes, and this time, instead of calmly explaining WHY the pizza had burnt, as I had the first time, I was pissed off. “How could you possibly manage to burn ONE pizza, let alone TWO?!?” I screech at him, incensed. “It’s not fucking ROCKET SCIENCE, it’s a FUCKING PIZZA!!!”

“Well, I’m SORRY. But I was just FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS like you’re SUPPOSED TO!” he yells back.

“FINE, I’ll COOK THE BLOODY PIZZA THEN!” I continue to screech.

“NO, I’m QUITE capable of cooking a SHITTING PIZZA, thanks.” He replies, and storms out, back to the shop to purchase their last mighty meaty.

Christ knows what the shop owners thought about our pizza eating habits.

BCB returns armed with the mighty meaty and shooting daggers at me like it’s my fault that he’s a complete moron.

I have turned to my common state where I am so frustrated and enraged by his incompetence that I am incapable of actually speaking to the boy and therefore completely ignore his presence.

The pizza successfully makes it into the oven, this time he assures me that it is NOT on the top shelf, so my anger wanes a little bit. I know he’s not doing it on purpose, and he really can’t seem to help himself when it comes to following instructions, so I relax a little and begin an awkward attempt at reconciliation.

After about 10 minutes he goes into the kitchen, refusing my offer to do it for him with irritation, and returns after fiddling about a bit and deciding that all was well. He reassures me that the pizza is looking healthy and will be ready to eat soon, rather smugly.

After five minutes he goes back to the oven, and suddenly all I can hear from him is, “SHITTING BOLLOCKING BLOODY PIZZA!!!”

I turn on the sofa, almost in slow motion, and I see BCB holding what looks like a black Frisbee in front of him. Apparently he had decided that the pizza was not cooking fast enough on the middle shelf, and during the brief “checking on the pizza” interval, had once again moved it onto the top shelf, which explained his earlier smugness.

Naturally, I flipped out. I have never been so filled with rage, before or since. All I wanted was a bloody pizza. I would have settled for ANY pizza at this stage – even one with anchovies on it.

I was incapable of speech for about 60 seconds, and then when I managed to make a sound it was a high pitched shrieking noise that could only be heard by small dogs and rodents.

I think it was on that day that I realised I was dating someone who was quite possibly mentally handicapped. There is no other explanation as to how someone managed to burn a pizza -

Not once,

Not twice,

But THREE TIMES.