Approximate reading time: 11 min
I never thought I would say these words….
but
OMG, I have finished my dissertation.
I feel immensely proud of myself.
(I am an academic genius!!!;-)
I can’t believe my 4 years of doing this master’s are almost finished.
I have learnt so much about myself.
My main goal in taking this course was to understand my own attachment style, and I think I can say with 95% certainty that my goal has been achieved.
(That is all to be unpacked in another post at a later date)
Ok, moving on,
Let’s get down to my dating life.
Mmmmn do you ever wonder if I might be afflicted with “Main-character” Syndrome?
(Is there a pill for that?)
As you may recall, in my last post, I had five dates planned.
EXCITING STUFF!
(As always, all names will be changed, to protect the anonymity of the men (And little boys;-)
Date #1 Brandon
Brandon cancelled 2 hours before the date.
I am not going to lie, I was a teeny weeny bit annoyed.
For a couple of reasons.
- I had spent the day dogsitting, so I had made a concerted effort to wake up really early on A SATURDAY morning to wash and painstakingly blow-dry my hair to salon perfection AND pack everything I would need to get ready for my date night.
- Brandon sent me the loveliest message about 30 minutes before he cancelled, telling me how much he was looking forward to meeting me.
- Brandon lives in Brighton, so I spent £21 buying a ticket for our date
His reason for cancelling was:
“Sorry, family emergency.”
Not,
“I’m sorry my 91-year-old granny needed to be rushed to the hospital, could we reschedule please?”
Not,
“I accidentally drove over my cat, and the vet says it will be touch and go….could we reschedule please….?”
Honestly, it was just a little bizarre,
after sending such a sweet message …?
But I sucked it up and reminded myself that I had clearly dodged a bullet with that one.
Date #2 Pete
I am ashamed to admit I cancelled my date with Pete, who also lives in Brighton, the same night Brandon cancelled his date with me.
It was a shameless knee-jerk reaction fuelled by three things:
- My super annoyance at Brandon, somebody had to bear the brunt of my frustration.
(“Deeply sorry, Pete.”)
But …..I sure as hell didn’t want to spend another £21 on a train ticket to see a man who might cancel at the last minute again.
2) It had been 5 days since I had sent Pete my availability calendar, and, as of then, he had still not bothered to fill his in, so we could actually schedule the date.
I got bored with waiting.
(Not so sorry, Pete)
3) In my attempt to be more open-minded and say yes to more people, rather than ones I am instantly attracted to, I clicked on Pete. I did, however, find myself having profound ‘clicker’s remorse’ almost straight afterwards, which was then only compounded by his lacklustre, non-existent attempts to nail down our date night.
So frankly, Pete had to go.
(It’s a battle out there, and unfortunately,
some men will be lost.)
Date #3 Ryan
My date with Ryan was booked in Reading, which, FYI, cost another £25 in train tickets.
But the man turned up!
I had a date!!!!
Aaaaaaaaaaand he stayed longer than 5 minutes!!!!!
Honestly, it was a really lovely evening.
We pretty much sat speaking from 6pm to around 10ish.
We laughed a lot, he got my sense of humour, and he seemed to enjoy my endless stories.
(And I made a valid, conscious effort to let him talk as well!!!;-)
We agreed to see each other again, exchanged numbers, and there have been a couple of messages this week.
So let’s see how that goes 😉
(Out of respect for a good man whom I may be seeing again – his date does not get psycho-analysed;-)
Date #4 Hugh
Hugh cancelled the day before the date with this message:
“Sorry, I have to cancel our date tomorrow, I am mildly annoyed at life at the moment!”
Fair enough, I genuinely appreciated his honesty.
(God only knows we’ve all had those days)
Date #5: Noel
My date with Noel was another great date.
He was 6’4″ and had that whole bald-with-beard thing going on, which, bizarrely enough, I find super sexy.
I’ll be honest ….in his photos, he looked… ummm… how do I put this nicely?
Mmmmm, maybe a bit like a wishy-washy people pleaser?
(FYI: MY people judging reading skills are exceptionally superb!)
But
NEW – Non-judgmental me…
is trying really hard to remind myself, daily, that some people have NOOOOOOOO idea how to weed out the bad photos.
(And when I say ‘some people’ I am referring to a large percentage of the online male population )
So, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my initial judgment of Noel was completely wrong.
He was a grown arsed man,
with strong feelings and opinions,
on a whole host of things which I found doubly sexy.
He was a high school teacher who had studied philosophy and wanted to study child psychology next.
(Oh my God, we were cut from the same cloth!)
I know I have written about having a ‘type’ of guy….but at the heart of it all…I am a sapiosexual; I find intelligence incredibly attractive. All I really want is someone I can talk to, someone who challenges me and brings different perspectives into my life.
Someone I can debate and have deep discussions about life with.
(That’s not asking toooo much, is it?;-)
The date lasted about 2.5 hours,
and it didn’t really feel like we ran out of things to talk about.
I was very conscious that I definitely didn’t feel as relaxed with him as I had with Ryan, and I most certainly didn’t laugh as much….but I loved the topics of conversation we moved through, so that was a good sign.
If I am honest, I did find him to be just an incy-wincy little bit judgmental…
I mean, he wasn’t a big fan of my beloved ‘Attachment Theory’
He was going on about how Attachment theory is primarily based on Western cultural norms and may not accurately reflect child–parent relationships in other cultures.
Mmmm, good point, Noel
….we discussed it
…I shared my viewpoint
…..he listened.
Amazing!
(What more could a girl ask for?)
10 minutes later, while talking about a completely different topic, Noel went on a little bit of a tangent about how much he dislikes Italians – because they are just too loud and hot-tempered!!!
(I apologise if I have any Italian followers- I defended you, I promise!)
I couldn’t help but laugh at the contradiction.
Like Dude,
you just labelled a psychological theory as culturally biased, but somehow it’s perfectly ok for you to make sweeping generalisations and stereotype an entire culture all by yourself?
Ummm, isn’t that like….. kind of…..
the exact same thing?
I confess, I did point this out to him.
We had a bit of a laugh about it.
No one’s perfect- right!!
(And let’s face it, at the end of the day, this “Judging Princess” has no leg to stand on when it comes to passing judgments on other people’s ‘judging’ habits.)
More than anything, I just felt happy that I was being myself and speaking up for what I believe in.
So it was a good date.
That said, when we left at 8.30 – he hugged me goodbye, and every inch of my gut said he wasn’t going to say ‘yes’ to a second date on the app.
(I still said yes!)
As predicted, my ‘powers of observation‘ are also truly astounding, and Noel sent me the much-dreaded “Dear John Gayle” message the next morning.
I was a little gutted.
(For ONE day only)
Of course, my logical head knows it’s not a personal reflection on me,
or my worth.
But still….it suxs.
And then just for fun, I get to come online and tell the world all about it.
Like, why in God’s name would I do that?
The answer is simple.
Because rejection is universal.
It happens to the best of us.
If I want to find love,
then I need to date.
And if I’m going to date
– then I’m going to have to get used to rejection.
Just imagine how amazing it will be, one day,
when I get to post all my wedding photos up here!!
So, thank you for joining me on my journey, whoever/wherever you are out there.
Now, if you will excuse me, please.
I have a date tonight…
and I need to go salon-blow-dry my hair;-)
