Leither in London
Posted by Carrie in February's Magazine
So people, I finally did it. Bored of waiting for the man of my dreams to just arrive on my doorstep, I’ve taken the leap and entered the strange world of online dating. And man, is it strange.
Initially, it seemed quite fun. Instead of spending my Sunday evening watching lame TV, I was busy shopping for a man. Browsing hundreds of profiles of men in the area, I quickly eliminated most. He’s too short. That one’s too corporate. Eek, that one’s a vegetarian – then now and then, there’d be one who seemed to tick all the boxes. I’m not even sure I knew what my ‘boxes’ were until now but they seem to be – over 5ft 7, aged between 28 and 36, good with words, creative, funny and intelligent. Oh and they must not look like a serial killer. That one’s very important. On the advice of a seasoned online- dater friend, I vowed not to be TOO fussy at first and by the end of my first shopping sesh, I’d ‘liked’ an astounding 18 men. What this essentially means is that they get an email saying ‘Someone likes you’ with a link to my profile. In an ideal world, all the men I’d liked would immediately ‘like’ me back, send me a message and after a brief chat, ask me on a date. Of course we don’t live in an ideal world.
Of all those men who received my admiration in their inbox, a grand total of three returned the compliment. However a great many other men did reach out to ‘like’ me. The thrill of getting an email to my blackberry to notify me of this lasted all of two days before I realised that the vast majority of these men were very very wrong indeed – and not just for me. You don’t get much ‘wronger’ than Dr Degenerate, a bio scientist with a passion for fetishism who likes a “little gay sex from time to time but that doesn’t have to impact on our relationship.” Oh really??
Some even took the leap of sending a message. These varied from the totally random: “Are you any good at lyrics?” (I hadn’t said I was a writer) to the frighteningly formal: “I love music too. What is the favourite gig you’ve been to and why?” all the way to the nauseating: “Mmmm…you seem so perfectly lovely… why haven’t you got a lovely boyfriend to kiss you goodnight? I could if you like”.
Swerved lips
However among all the strange dedications, there were the odd few which seemed to have come from perfectly normal blokes. So normal in fact that I agreed to meet some of them.
First of all there was JMac – real name Jon – a 6ft tall Kiwi lawyer who bizarrely resided approximately four minutes walk from my front door. In his online gallery, he looked like a blonde superman, which was enough for me to overlook the fear that, in reality, the accent and sensible job would put me off. Of course I should have listened to my gut – or at least realised that a man who changes the venue of our date because “this pub’s got much better non-alcoholic beer than the other one” is not for me and made my excuses the second I’d rinsed my own large G&T. Instead, despite the additional factor of not finding him all that attractive in the flesh (much more Clark Kent than his macho alter-ego), I decided what the hell, I’ve not been on a date for eons, I’m making the most if it and accepted his offer of dinner at a nearby restaurant. And as luck would have it, the evening went quite well. He educated me a bit on the workings of online dating, shared some funny stories and introduced me to a fab little Vietnamese place seconds from my flat. Not at all awful. However when he leaned in for a kiss after walking me home, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it so I swerved the lips, gave him a swift peck on the cheek and quickly closed the door.
“Perhaps, if you weren’t into him, you shouldn’t have stayed out till midnight with him,” suggested Liv as she tucked into the leftover duck pancakes I’d brought home. She clearly had a point but wasn’t I allowed one warm-up date? Now I’d survived the first one, I wasn’t nearly as scared of going on a second and he seemed to have had a nice evening – had I really led him on? Deciding not to risk doing so any further, I politely passed on his invitation to meet again when it arrived via text a few days later. Fortunately he accepted my reasoning that I just hadn’t felt a spark with good grace and wished me well. He made the whole process so painless that I leapt into accepting another date – this time with a man who’d won me over with his opening gambit: “Selleck, Guttenberg or Danson?”
I’ll leave you to ponder that one until next time