Love your life

Hey guys. I’m back. Sorry about my lack of post last week- I was on a family holiday with no access to internet. To be honest, it was nice to get aware and collect my thoughts regarding my life and what has happened recently. Its amazing what a difference some space can make.

I have decided that things with the guy I had been speaking to are calming down as he has moved away to, effectively, a whole new country. At first this made me quite sad because it was nice to have someone to pop to the cinema with, someone to talk to! However, dwelling on such things won’t change them. Therefore I am looking on the positive and trying to meet other people. Back to good old online dating hey. But this time round, a more relaxed attitude will be taken because I am in a place where I am happy on my own. I have my university work, I have family, and I have friends. So a man will not complete my life- he will only enhance it. A perk, as it were.

So yes, just a quick update this week.  But I want everyone to remember that your life is not made by a relationship. Yes they are nice, and yes it does sometimes feel like the single life is a bit rubbish. But hey, you are a whole person. You should be happy on your own before you can be happy with someone else. No one else is going to complete you as a person. So live life happy and enjoy the single life. I mean, think about it, one day when you are married or in a serious relationship, you won’t be able to do anything on your own anymore. So enjoy it while it lasts.

See ee you all next week where I will hopefully be talking about long term relationships/marriages, what makes them work, and what singles can learn from such relationships.

Love, C. X

Serial Dating.

Hello once again guys. So today I write to you at the end of a bank holiday in the UK, and I hope everyone has enjoyed it. So this week, I have been super busy interviewing three people who are self-confessed serial daters. I asked them what this term meant and the replies came together as roughly describing a person who has been actively dating for a few years without being in a relationship during that time. I personally would call this a serial singleton. but I was corrected by the fact that often serial singletons are not actively looking.

Along my interviews, I have found that these people are no different from anyone else, and that none would appear to have any reasons which would contribute to their lack of successful. For example, none have severe disfigurements, nasty smells or are mentally deranged. They are all highly successful within their careers, however, some feel that this is partially to blame for their lack of dating success. They suggest that they spend too many evenings at home working, when they should text back that individual they met at the wine bar last week who they got on with like a house on fire.

This led to me to thinking: what is it that leaves many people unable to transfer a high number of dates into the start of a promising relationship? Well, as said above, these people above thought it was a mix between being over cautious, not focusing enough time on making a transition, aswell as just general life not throwing up the right situations for things to progress. However, one person who went from serial dater to being happily married with a child on the way said that one of these was more important than the others for their change in fortunes.

Liz* was a person who would arrange and attend upwards of 4 dates a week, aswell as working 6 days a week. Like many of us, she went to dates which were, she admits laughing, horrendous. However, she says that atleast one date every 2 weeks would look promising for a second date. However, she said that she would often forget to reply to an invite for a second date and would therefore miss the opportunity. When she went on her first date with the man she has subsequently married, she told me that she actively made time to reply and arrange a second date soon after the first. I would suggest that this is a good idea as leaving it too long between dates could lead to forgetting crucial pieces of information about your date which were important.  And from then on, she has been living in a whirlwind, having married the man of her dreams 7 months after meeting.

So what have I learnt from these wonderful people this week, which I can take on my dating journey? Well, firstly, we need to be active, If we like someone we meet on a date, we need to make sure that they know. secondly, the time gap between dates 1 and 2 is important. Leaving it too late could lead to awkwardness or forgetting, and too short a period of time could appear over enthusiastic. But most importantly, when you meet the right person, you will know.

Next week, I have no idea what I will be talking about, but I hope you can join me for some more ramblings about love, life and everything else. Thanks for reading guys. C. x

*names used were changed to protect identities, but information shared in this blog was checked with interviewees before publishing.

Installment 3: Male Online Dating and speed dating introduction.

Good evening guys and girls.

Well, what a week it has been. Ive been so busy with university work, as well as advertising this very blog. It feels like only yesterday that I last updated you all on my online dating escapades.  

So, last week I said that we would hopefully be getting a male perspective on dating via the internet. So unfortunately, the guy I had arranged to write something was, like me, so busy this week. Therefore, what I have done is I have outsourced some opinions via google searches, and asking people via my personal online dating profile. 

What I have seen online is that a lot of guys originally join up to dating sites with a lot of heel-dragging. I think their pride gets in the way, as happens with a lot of things in their life, and they think that they are being seen as desperate. However, I think, like us, they find it hard to decide what sides of their personality to put across on their profile. 

One guy said to me:

“I struggled with writing long lists about myself, and feel like im just window shopping”. 

Initially, I thought to myself that the term window shopping is a bit harsh. However, I slowly realised that that is all we are doing anyway. Window shopping for a person who looks like someone we could get on with, before (with much trepidation in a lot of cases) casually bowling into the store to peruse the goods first hand via some in-site messaging.

Another guy told me that he felt an unspoken obligation to make the first move when a woman had viewed his profile and he liked her. This is something I find interesting, as you would think that in this day and age, men and women both understood that we are equal and that a woman, if she desired, could send the first message to a guy to let him know that she is interested, surely? Apparently not. 

So, what I can surmise from my short (and very brief, sorry readers) survey is that men feel like they are obliged to make the first move, even though, sometimes, they would quite like a woman to message them first. So Girls, next time you are looking for a guy, whether it be online or out in the ‘real world’, maybe take the lead and show your confidence by talking to him first. And guys, if you have any opinions or perspectives on dating (in any form) please contact me, as I would love to hear them.

Ok, so on to my next topic: speed dating. Now, I know you are all going to shoot me, but I was planning on going on a speed dating night, but i bottled it. I know I know, im terrible. However, when I looked at it in the clear light of day, i realised that I hate talking to people I dont know when Im in a comfortable environment, so how on earth am I going to survive in an environment I dont know with a bunch of strangers? Nah, it was never going to happen. However, next week I will be interviewing a couple who have been together for 5 years and who met through a speed dating event. This is very exciting. I hope to ask them about their experience, and also whether they had any experiences during speed dating which were less than fantastic. 

So I hope you can join me next week for that. I am so sorry that the post this week hasn’t been what I had planned. However, sometimes life just gets in the way. Please contact me via email (single20odd@gmail.com), facebook (http://www.facebook.com/single20odd) or on twitter (@single20odd) with any stories about your own experiences, or just to let me know what you think of the blog. Once again, thank you for reading, and make sure you join me next week. 

Bye for now, C.