The dating Chronicles

I am a verified disaster. This is a fact, an absolute. I am starting to believe that my sole purpose in the realm of dating is to drum up hilarious anecdotes for the benefit of friends who are happily settled down and perhaps coffee really is my one true love. So I had been on a dating site and happily strung more than one blog post out of my encounters there which have been more about the contact I have had than actual dates. That website however has grown stale, no promising dates have emerged. All the perverts have already sent me their dick pics and it feels like nothing more will come from it.

Anyway this blog post is not a sob story about how Im not getting mail on a dating site because that would be very dull indeed. I recently joined a new dating site. Normally when you do this you see the same faces cropping up again and sometimes very silly men forget they have spoken to you somewhere else and try and message you there as though you've never spoken.
This site I think came to my attention because of a negative news story about it, I hadn't heard the name before so I checked it out anyway. My social life is the exact opposite of hopping so the opportunities I have to meet actual men in the big bad world are pretty slim.

So baring all this in mind, I set up a profile on this new site which took all of two minutes. It's clearly not a personality competition. There is limited room to write about yourself and your interests but you can upload as many photos as your heart desires. I always say when I join these things that I will sit down and look properly at the profiles of men that interest me and make a genuine effort to engage. However life and books and other distractions got in the way so instead I threw up several flattering photos plus my snapcode (  I like to live on the edge) and sat back and let the internet do its thing.

It is probably just as well I am a woman because if I was a man trying that approach then I would probably only be talking to myself but lucky for me that's not how the world works and I was able to choose who to speak to (based on wading through the messages I got) the first thing I realised is that while on previous sites I had set age parameters meaning I didn't messages from super young or old guys. This site did not have that setting. I received a message from an 85 year old and nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Then the snapchat adds began. I am pleased to tell you that so far the gamble has paid off in that there are no dick pic senders in the midst so far but I have discovered when someone adds me that asking how old they are is more important than asking where they are from.

Thankfully the youngest person to message me has been 18, I'd lose my life if I heard from anyone younger but even that has been a bizarre experience in itself. The thing about men younger than 25 is that they don't really enter my radar. I don't notice them, they are classed in the same category as teenagers or other loud noises to be ignored. I kind of assumed it was a two way street so its been feeling a bit like the twilight zone. Especially the 18 year olds because I have been contacted by more than one. I am still trying to get my head around the fact that people who were born the year I did my leaving cert ( yea I did it in 2000, I'm old so sue me) are technically adults. How the hell did that happen. I mean I'm flattered obviously but also a little bit freaked. I did however having a lot of fun educating one young man on what dial up was and he couldn't get his head around the technology.
You know you're really getting old when the stories from your youth start sounding like urban legends....gather round the campfire kids while I tell you about a time before mobile phones and the internet.

I think despite the mixed results that I'm going to stick with it for now. Maybe I'll meet someone decent but if not then I'll surely get at least another blog post out of it.

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