Reading time: 25 minutes

I left London in 2010 to move back to South Africa and I swore blind that there was no way in hell I would ever, ever be moving back here. When I eventually decided to move here last year, it was a “grin and bear” it choice based mainly on my need to make enough money to do a course that I could never have afforded on my South African teacher’s salary. (Unless of course, I sold a kidney or something) . So I made the move with the explicit intent of high tailing out of London once I had done my course…and saved enough money to buy my Seapoint flat in Cape Town ( I dream BIG! 😉)

London was never going to be a long-term plan. Of course, what I hadn’t expected to happen was that I would end up falling so utterly in love with this city. I’m not quite sure how I can even do justice to my explanation of this love? But I will try… I get the same feeling of awe looking at a built-up city centre that I would get walking on the beach or being in a beautiful natural setting. I can’t help but think how incredible human beings must be to be able to design and build such breathtaking works of art. I absolutely love the variety of old and new buildings all meshed together, everything looks out of place and yet it just works so beautifully. But most of all I love the diversity of Londoners. Everywhere I look I see kindness. Strangers who are eager to chat or simply pass on a smile. Granted these friendly faces are often scattered between glassy-eyed, barely coping, dismal looking faces. (Which on my bad days, I confess I mimic so well).

But even on those days, I somehow still feel connected because it reminds me that I am human and that we all have our struggles. I love that in London you have thousands of ways to connect with all sorts of people every single day. Pick your passion, google it and I promise you, you will find a group, meet-up or a course somewhere to suit your needs. It truly is impossible to be bored in this beautiful city. But most of all, as a single woman, I absolutely love that this city is just a vibrant hot pot of gorgeous, available men!

And on that note😉.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Sunday night workshop on body language. It was here that I met a pretty awesome 35-year-old guy…um….. let’s call him Max. I won’t deny that looks-wise Max was absolutely stunning. He had that whole Jesus thing going for him…you know shoulder-length, wavy, blonde hair, a beard, the kindest eyes…and an utterly gorgeous smile. (Yep I do realise that Jesus was Jewish and most likely didn’t have blonde hair or blue eyes…but leave me to my stereotypical, white, Jesus fantasy please.😉)

But more than his looks, what attracted me to Max was his easy, open banter and his willingness to be upfront, open and honest about who he is. (Emotional honesty is the sexiest thing in the world for me. Shroud yourself in mystery and I am bored shitless!) I was very impressed to hear that he had recently given up a high paying city job to go and study again..(sounds pretty courageous to me!)….oh and did I mention he had an awesome sense of humour? We just seemed to bounce off each other beautifully. (I will admit I sat most of the night sending Max telepathic messages to ask me for my number.) So we all ended up leaving the pub just before 11 pm, after an awesome, if strangely bizarre night. (Let’s just say that we were the oddest, most mismatched group of people ever….but it somehow just worked) As we got outside Max turned to me and said rather wistfully: “You are such a lovely person” (You know, in that: “I can’t quite believe I might never see you again” tone ) “AAhhhh” I melted…and it was at that point that my carefully orchestrated dating strategy got thrown out the window!

A brief summary of my dating strategy: Have faith that the universe has my back and let go of the need to always make the first move with guys. Know that the right man will see my value and if he genuinely wants to see me again he will be willing to put in the effort! Value myself enough to know that I am worth a little effort! (NOTE: I don’t need him to scale a 1,017ft building ….

….he just has to be brave enough to ask me for my number….and then actually use it!) Let go and know that I do not have to control everything. Know that my most important job is to keep my own alignment, have fun, enjoy myself and the rest will flow from there! Not too difficult to follow. Haha

Random (super sequential) story:

A couple of months ago I went to a Matthew Hussey “Get the guy” event in central London. (Hussey is an online dating coach whose work I have followed for about 6 years now – I adore this man!) The event was run by his dad and brother (Who, I might add are also, pretty damn sexy;-) so, unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Matthew YET!!). I would like to say that out of all the free-bee events that I have dragged myself to in the last 6 months this one was, by far, the absolute best. It was so informative, funny and not a hard-sell tactic insight. At no point was I asked to shout out “Yes”, “Amen brother” or incessantly asked to “raise my hand if I agree”. What a fucking relief!😂

Anyway, during the day Matts brother, Stephen, highlighted the importance of giving guys clear signals that you are actually interested in them. (As opposed to just being a friendly girl!!) He shared a story of how once he had chatted to a girl in a coffee shop and afterwards she had casually said to him: “You should call me!” He said that as an introverted guy this was just the right amount of encouragement he needed. Interested, but cool!

Awesome!! I can do that!!…I can be cool!!! (I mean if it worked with on Stephen Hussey….😉)

So we are now back standing outside the pub and with about as much nonchalance as I could muster I worked in the “You should call me” line ! I was mildly elated when Max grinned, pulled out his phone and took my number! (Oh my God it worked!) I was even more jubilant when I saw a little bit later that he had actually sent me a message:

to which I responded:

Ok, sue me. I thought it was a cute, flirty comment….(I am a bloody teacher after all.)

In my head, the cheeky quips back to that comment were boundless. Plus we had been bantering with each other the entire night. (I gauged that he got my sense of humour! ) So I waited eagerly for my response back…and what do you know….nudda…nothing…not a word. 😶

I’m not going to lie…. I was a little gutted. I probably wouldn’t have been as disappointed had I not been raised to “dead cool status“. I mean, don’t get me wrong… I by NO means need a man to tell me how cool I am. (I ooze oodles of coolness😂. Just ask any of my many ex-boyfriends who have perused my impressive cd collection ….um…and then packed out laughing. It takes deep core strength to stand up for your mmm…..’ eclectic’ music taste you know! ) So for the record: I am tough and I am cool!!!

But it’s a certain kind of awesome when someone you think is deAd cool appreciates your deAd coolness! (You know what I mean?) It’s a long way down from deAd cool to nothing! My (still default) initial reaction was to start over analysing all the possible things I could have done wrong. 

1. Oh, my God, had I insulted the man’s intelligence? (Me and my bloody sense of humour!) 
2. Maybe he was dyslexic…and really didn’t know how to spell deAd!!!! (How could I shame him like that?) 
3. Maybe my age scared him off? (I am pretty sure I saw him gulp when I told him I was 44! )
4. Fuuuuck!!!! What if he googled me and saw that I wrote about all my dating experiences? (I’m pretty sure that might scare any normal man off!! Note to self – start writing under a pseudonym. (Noooo, Gayle, you are not looking for a normal man! You are looking for a creative, courageous man. He will not be scared off !!!)  
5. Oh dear Lord please don’t let him be dead!! What if he got hit by a car on his bike ride home that night? (Rest assured his regular visibility on WhatsApp killed that theory. Damn, I miss the pre-WhatsApp days when we could fantasize that the only possible reason a man might not call us was because he had been hit by a truck or that he had lost our number!)

So the rampage of useless thoughts lasted about a day this time (Thank God I’m getting more resilient!) But what was then left over was a residual feeling of intense irritation because I knew I would probably need to write about this. 
My Gemini twin internal dialogues raged at each other for a good three days longer. The voice of self-preservation implored me to be reasonable: “Seriously Gayle you absolutely do not need to tell the whole world about this. No one needs to know. It has no significance to the big picture of life, does it? “
But of course, my voice of authenticity and transparency won yet again. So here I am writing about the humiliation it triggered in me, because frankly, the world is full of people getting rejected, daily. Rejection is universal. In dating, it is the suckiest of feelings. I will concede that on a scale of 1-10 it’s probably a 0.2 when compared with the feelings of rejection associated with divorce or infidelity…..BUT after a while, all those 0.2 can start to add up…. particularly if you are a romantic like me who absolutely believes that everyone deserves to find love…no matter what your age. (And if that is the case, then continually putting yourself out there is a no-brainer.) I believe that I have to be brave enough to take risks and I also need to be strong enough to deal with rejection. And if I am strong enough to deal with rejection then I also need to be strong enough to write about it. Because just maybe, someone, somewhere, is feeling a little exhausted and a little exasperated by rejection and they might just be on the brink of giving up on dating. I want to be that voice in the wilderness that shouts:

“Nooooo don’t DO IT!!! Please hang in there! He/she is on their way! Just keep the faith a little longer!

I also chose to write about this because I think it is such a good example of something that happens so much in the dating world. It is so terribly easy for us to fall into the trap of giving our power away to random strangers. There is nothing more intoxicating than meeting someone you really gel with. It truly is a wonderful feeling, but if my dating experiences have taught me anything, specifically in the last 3 months…. it has been this:

Learning to navigate the dating world has absolutely nothing to do with other people….EVER. The only relationship that matters is the one that you have with yourself. It’s never what another person is doing, saying (or not doing or saying) that hurts us, it’s what we think or believes about their actions that cause us so much pain. I felt terrible for a day because I forgot that! I forgot who I was. My truth is I love my mildly sarcastic, sometimes cheesy and always melodramatic sense of humour, I love being in my 40’s and having the clarity and peace of mind that comes naturally with age. I am also so very proud of myself for finally finding the courage to start putting my writing out there, and for not hiding behind an alias. And yet, despite all my beliefs it only took me one nanosecond to forget them all as I automatically made Max’s ‘perceived‘ opinion of me more valuable and more powerful than my own opinion of me. I say ‘perceived’ because the fact of the matter was he actually did like me as a person. He said that I was lovely and he deemed me deAD cool. But for whatever reason, (that I will most probably never ever know), he didn’t want to pursue anything further with me. That doesn’t make him a bad guy, it simply makes him not the guy for me. End of story. Put the bat down Gayle. Move on.

NEXT!

So after a few days of processing and a little bit of writing, I simply booked myself another meetup for the following weekend. What I absolutely love about my dating life these days is that every single weekend that I go out ….I meet the most incredible woman AND MEN (Wohoooo!!) who I just seem to click with. Granted nothing has materialised on the romantic relationship front yet but I think I have got pretty good at reminding myself daily that my job is simply to have fun and enjoy my life. I am learning to really appreciate the people that come into my universe, even if it’s just for a couple of hours. My default internal dialogue has become:

Everything is always working out for me! Even when it doesn’t feel like things are working out…..I know in my heart of hearts that everything is working out for me!

I can’t always see the big picture but what I am building so far looks pretty fucking deAd cool!😂 So I am just going to keep finding the different puzzle pieces and keep the faith that my end product will be a masterpiece. (Even if it looks more like a Picasso than a Renoir😉)

The Finale:

There is no doubt that I am a raconteur…I love telling stories. But what I also love is hearing other peoples stories. As a result, I have, through the years, collected a whole host of dating stories from other people. The story below, of how my friend met her husband, is one of my favourites because it so beautifully highlights the lengths a man will go to when he finds a woman he wants to be with. I asked my friend if I could use it and she very kindly wrote it out for me. (Thank you, babe, for letting me post this)

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When I met my husband, I had been single for about a year, after coming out of a very serious (I had mistakenly thought) relationship.
I was in no mood to ever date anyone again and actually just felt like I wanted to remain single and happy forever. Having said that, I did have a LIST of what I wanted in a husband and I only told my sister what was in it. I prayed about it, but I never told anyone else.

I had wanted to join the worship team at church, as I play the flute, but the problem was that there was already someone in the band that played the flute (him). So, one evening, after church, they announced that they were looking for a new flautist since he was leaving.
I went and signed up for the audition, and had to fill in a lengthy application form with my entire musical pedigree. (I didn’t seriously think it would be hard to get in since I have a B.Mus degree and am a Music teacher.)
Cue the day of the audition, I am asked to play a few songs with the existing members of the band, and I don’t realise that he is actually listening from another room (and that he has not even read my application form.) He then appears from nowhere and asks me if I am able to play the song in E? I naturally feel annoyed and a little offended since I have a degree in music and can obviously do this. (I am now thinking that I am quite happy that he is actually leaving since he is so very annoying!)
Not realising that I would see him again three days later at a band get-together where I found out that he didn’t know what my job was and he was actually quite mortified.
The next day, I get a text from him asking me if I taught Music to adults. I said yes and considering that I had other adult students, I thought nothing of it. I prepared a stack of theory papers for our first lesson and told him to contact me when it was done so we could schedule the next lesson.
Much to my surprise, he contacted me the next day to say that he had finished everything!

I actually taught him music theory and a few flute lessons for about three weeks before I realised that something was up! I kept giving him more work to do, and he kept showing up. We got to know each other over multiple coffees while I thought I was teaching him Music Theory. I honestly had no idea that he was interested in dating me, and because of that I was brutally honest with him about my life, the decisions that I had made and what I wanted out of a partner (if I ever found one) etc. There were no games. I met his parents for dinner after knowing him for a week (I couldn’t understand why, at the time, and honestly told him I really didn’t think it was necessary!)

About three weeks after meeting him he sent me a text at midnight on my birthday, quoting word for word what I had asked God for my future husband to think about me. I was completely shocked, as I realised that this was the person I had prayed for. Immediately totally panicked I phoned my sister in the middle of the night to tell her and she just said: “Well, it seems God has delivered your husband”

We started dating two days later and have been together ever since.