Valentines Schmalentines

It is that time of year again, the one where marketeers are king and the high street is festooned with pink & red. Yup, it’s Valentines Day... again.  To celebrate this manmade celebration of mass hysteria and one-off price increases, I have decided to share my experiences in the World Of Dating.

As an almost perma single person, my love life (or lack thereof) has been of much fascination to coupled up friends and colleagues of years gone by. Perhaps it’s just the nosey parker intrigue of living vicariously. Perhaps it’s the general smugness of ‘aren’t we SO glad our lives aren’t like that’. Either ways, my dating history has provided many hours of amusement in the past, and so, to celebrate the annual festival of love, I hereby present to you (in no particular order) my top 5 worst dates:

Mr (Or Misters) Do You think I Can’t See You?

According to scientifical research, people lie on dating profiles, no shit Sherlock. Women apparently lie about their weight/body size, and men most often lie about their income and/or height. It is the latter that I have most frequently experienced. I’m no height Nazi, I like a tall man, but I’d rather have a 5 foot 6 lovely than 6 foot 2 dickhead.  The thing about this guys, is it’s obvious. I can quite easily see the fudging of the truth if you claim to be a head taller than me and I’m towering over you in my flats. And furthermore, if I know from the get go that you’re lying about something as obvious as your height, I can only wonder what other porky pies you might be busting out…. Incidentally, a good (tall) female friend of mine had a good tactic for dealing with this. Exasperated by her multiple experiences of this phenomenon, on one date she ended up making one poor soul take his shoes off and do a back to back in a nearby mirror, & irrevocably proved his fibbing ways. Needless to say, she never saw him again, and has now ended up with an awesome gentleman, who isn’t as tall as her, but then again never claimed to be.  So the lesson to be learned gentlemen, if you want a relationship, own your height, that or wear Cuban heels. But be warned, we can see both, and neither is attractive.

Mr Survey Monkey

First dates are often the time to suss each other out, ask questions, generally chat and sound out whether you really want to see them again. Fair play I think, that was until one particular chap came along. Never have I been quizzed so thoroughly. Questions ranged from my job (standard), hobbies and pastimes (equally standard), past relationship history (hmmmm, iffy ground for a 1st date I feel) and then the ultimate zinger, who my role model in life was. A bit odd I thought, but I went with it, muttering something about my mum or something, and then he busted out his answer… William Hague. Yep, you heard it, William Hague (by the way, this was in the pre-Angelina Jolie days). That right wing, nasal sounding by-product of a chance meeting between Thatcher and Humpty Dumpty. I know religion and politics should never be mentioned at the dinner table, or indeed bar stool, unfortunately, my date didn’t and, being the Tory disliking woman that I proudly am, I scarpered.

Mr Job Interview

There I was, having met this chap on a night out, and having decided to take a punt on a date, we met in a sunny beer garden for an afternoon of conversation and flowing drinks. Or so I had hoped. However, 10 minutes into the date, I popped to the loo, returning to our table to find my date in deep conversation with the rather drunk woman from the table next door. Sympathetically indulging her, as she poured out her heart to us about her recent break up, I took pity on her. That was until she revealed her profession (the same as my date’s) and immediately started interviewing him for a vacant position within her company. This went on for 5, 10, 20 minutes, and before I knew it, ¾ of an hour had been lost to a sobbing, vacant position holding woman. I’m not sure what I found most insulting, the fact that all the while she was interviewing my date she was smoking my cigarettes, or the fact that a job interview for a possible fictional position was vastly preferable to my company. Either ways, I hopped it and never saw the man in question again.

Mr Ex Wife

As I said, talking about relationships on a first date is a general no no, let alone crying into your napkin about your ex wife leaving you within ten minutes of our meeting. Nuff said… NEXT!

Mr BDSM

So there I was, on a first date, again a result of internet dating. He seemed pretty normal (don't they all!), and certainly nothing to be scared of for an independent feisty woman like myself. We had bantered for a few weeks, never really finding the time to meet up, so eventually when we did finally find some space in our mutual calendars, we had a great backlog of repartee to draw upon. Things were going pretty swimmingly, we’d had maybe 3 or 4 drinks, and conversation was flowing, lubricated by booze and a generally flirty atmosphere. Needless to say inhibitions were coming down, gently so I thought, but to my date, with all the force of a medieval portcullis barring the way of an invading army. It went something like this:

Me: So, you must really love your job huh? (or something equally inoffensive)

Him: Yes, but not as much as I’d love to choke you round your neck as I’m *insert bedroom antics imaginings here* to you.

Now call me a prude, as you well might, but I feel such things should be left for, well certainly not for the first date anyways. Fifty Shades of Grey? Perhaps just one shade, and a pretty dark one at that. I never saw him again and his BDSM predilections were left to another poor soul… hopefully still breathing

So be content smug marrieds, you have reason to be smug indeed, but while you will be paying over the odds for your romantic candlelit meal for two, I shall be out on the lash with a group of equally single friends, reveling in a combination of double vodkas and footloose (even if somewhat bitter) fancy freedom.  You may be on the receiving end of flowers and jewelry but it is gift enough that I won’t be getting out a tape measure, mopping up tears, struggling for breath or disagreeing violently over politics. Plus I’ll be smoking all my cigarettes myself thanks very much.