The price of love

Unlikely....
I really love my iPhone

Well it's that time of year again, the time for roses, chocolate, and Sophie writing a blog which makes all of her loved up friends glad not to be her. I jest (mildly) of course, as most of my mates view my dating life as one to live gregariously to.... “he said WHAT?” (something very rude on only our 2^nd drink), “he did WHAT?” (cried about his soon to be ex-wife over starters), “he dumped you WHEN?” (day before my birthday since you're asking), followed by the inevitable “Oh Sophie, your stories do make me laugh” etc etc. And while my love life is indeed quite the laughing matter, I'd now, on this most romantic of days, like to tell you it aint all coming up roses. Especially in the financial department.

You see, you smug marrieds (or long term relationshippers) have your costs to bear, them flouncy, bouncy wedding dresses don't come cheap after all. But that aint a patch on the costs we have to bear in single life. Naw, am not talking vast boxes of tissues required as we weep into our solitude on Valentine's night (and since tonight I'm watching 3 hours of Idris Elba prancing around on my tellybox, kickboxing in nowt but his altogethers, no sobbing required thanks very much), but the price we pay for just existing without throwing ourselves off the nearest bridge, well that is some financial burden to bear.

The Valentine's Card
I found today

Think about it, we pay all of our household bills and housing costs alone with no one to share the bed with, and speaking of beds, them hotel rooms get kinda pricey holidaying alone. And don't get me started on gifting... I mean, we're not resentful of your joys in life, and engagements, weddings & christenings cost everyone. However they costs us twice the price and goddamnit, we want someone to celebrate us every now and then. Carrie Bradshaw got it right when she said “If you are single, after graduation, there isn’t one occasion where people celebrate you”. In fact the only day we make a saving is Valentine's, unless you count the piles of chocolate we bought ourselves or the latest bulk purchase of therapy sessions which we inevitably need at the realisation we are utterly repulsive to the opposite (or indeed same, let's not be heteronormative) sex. So overall life is pretty pricey when you go it alone, and 25% off our council tax cuts very little mustard.

Oh, and dating, oh dating. Smug marrieds, do you know just how expensive it is to date nowadays? A study by The Centre of Economic BusinessResearch concluded a few years ago that the average single now spends £127 per date! Cor! That's nowt to be sniffed at, especially for this girl who doesn't like a guy to pay for everything. But £127?? While it may not include the cost of the valium when it all goes wrong, it does apparently take into account the following factors:

The  guerilla marketing ploy
it turned out to be

- Clothes: Understandable, turning up naked might get the date off to an entirely awkward (to say nothing of chilly) start

- Transport: I rarely travel beyond zone 5 for a date, but still Transport For London make a pretty penny out of my love (or lack thereof) life

- Hairdressers / beauty treatments: That said, mine goes no further than a good hair straighten, perhaps where i'm going wrong?

- Gifts: considering last year I didn't get a Valentine's Day card, let alone a gift, from a guy I had started dating, I think we can wipe this one off his lists of costs if no one else's. Needless to say, the gift of a bottle of rather nice port I got him stayed on the shelf for some time.... until I drank it all myself while skyping my similarly single Canadian friend at 3am, obvs.

- Cosmetics: well, understandable, no one wants to see my unmade up mug

- Contraceptives: you have to admire the optimism on this one!

And this doesn't even include any pretty penny spent on dating subscriptions neither, which begs the question, can one put a price on love? It seems very much so.

But apparently with all of our £127s splashing about all over the shop, we're doing wonders for the post Brexit world. That self same report said that in our quests for love (or sometimes just lust), us singletons are contributing over £5 billion a year to the British economy! Not chuffing bad single lonely people, we're doing good! We're very much a one man, or indeed one woman, Brexit recovery plan! GET IN! So next time we're down the pub, out for dinner, buying paltry gifts for your 3^rd child's latest birthday/exam celebration/christmas present, take pity on us. Don't pity us for our singledom, don't pity us for our solitude, pity us for our empty bank balances and get that next round in on our behalf. Cos we might not be feeling too flush after all of our unsuccessful dating forays. Saving the economy one date at a time really does cost, and in a post Brexit economy, you owe us one.

Now I'm off to watch Idris Elba & knock back some vino, enjoy your overpriced steak and chips and cost of a ramped up Uber home. This single woman has some perving to do. 

HELL YEAH

To swipe or not to swipe, that is the question.....

So, observant readers may have noticed both a lack of posts of late, for which I truly apologise… And truly attentive readers, well-endowed in the memory department, may indeed recall a post about dating earlier this year. Well, the two may are intrinsically linked as I have *drumroll please* recently decided to join Tinder. I’ve dabbled a bit in online dating in the past as regular blog readers might be aware, but never with a great deal of success and never on Tinder. But following a not so brief hiatus from the world of online dating, I have decided to give it a second chance and get back in that saddle.

I am sure most of you savvy types out there know all about Tinder. Recently hailed by Vanity Fair as creating a ‘dating apocalypse’ (well that’s cheerful!) it’s a mobile phone app designed to facilitate dating opportunities/casual hook-ups through the easy medium of swiping on a profile picture. It’s right for yes &  left for no ta, not in a month of Sundays. All you have to go on to make such a momentous decision are a picture (sometimes several) and perhaps a brief description of who they are, what they are looking for, and witticism or two (if you’re lucky… you’re often not). It’s mildly addictive, swiping through profiles with the speed and proficiency of a *retro reference alert* 1980’s Daley Thompson’s Decathlon enthusiast. Searches for your ideal match can be refined by proximity and age, meaning if you cast your net wide enough, you have a veritable feast of mankind with whom to flirt. And I do loves myself a feast of mankind. If you have swiped right on a chap (or indeed chappess, let’s not be too sexist/hetero normative here) and they similarly have swiped right on you, then IT’S A MATCH and you can get down to the serious subject of a natter, with potentially a date/ casual hookup (as per your own preferences) in the offing if you play your cards right.  

Now, what with my living in London, and there being a vast pool of men into which one can dip ones toes (the pool, not the men. Ew), I decided early on that there ought to be some method to my madness, some science to my swiping. As such, I have applied some rules to my ‘swipe criteria’ all of which are guaranteed to get a left swipe from me: 

Nudity

There is a fair amount of nudity on Tinder…. and not always in a good way. Luckily I haven’t yet fallen foul of the dick pic, however in a manner similar to a silver backed gorilla seeking his primal (primate?) partner in crime, there is an awful lot of chest baring. Thus, one of my first ground rules is never swipe for a nudie. After all, if that’s the first thing they think entices a member of the opposite sex to swipe right, they have another think coming… for me at least.

 The selfie

Now, I don’t mind a selfie. I have been known to pop off a few myself, however if a man has not yet got to grips with the reverse camera phone switcheroo & can only snap a pic of himself, David Baileying into a mirror then I don’t want to know. Technology has moved on peoples, get with the programme. Oh, and while we’re at it, what is it with men taking pictures of themselves in the mirror of quite obviously public toilets? It only makes me wonder if they’ve washed their hands, and quite frankly, that does not a romantic moment make. As for the unfortunate chap that also included his obviously curious family members in said bathroom photo (mmmm sexy), I have no words.

The LOL

I dislike a LOL. More than that, I detest it. It sings to my grammar pedantry and hatred of pointless abbreviation. We’re not operating in 1998! We're allowed more than 160 characters per text nowadays y’know! *grrs* For these reasons a LOL infuriate me, however, the absolute worst thing about a lol is the insincerity of it all. A laugh out loud, did you? DID YOU REALLY? Or did you merely raise the glimmer of a smile??? A mere upward curving of a lip in response to a cat doing a weird thing on the internet or something. And don’t get me started on a ROFL. When was the last time you actually saw someone rolling on the floor laughing that wasn’t a squealing toddler, veering wildly between hysterical laughter and the ever present risk of incontinence? NEVER. That’s when! So when a LOL appears in a description, it’s swiping left they go, and good riddance too.

CAVEAT: Exceptions to the LOL rule include dearly loved members of family, friends, and those old enough not to know any better. None of whom I’m looking to date.

Tell me more…..!

My final, and perhaps most crucial ground rule is no describey, no likey. So many of these profiles have precisely zero to say for themselves, literally. All photos, no words. And while some of your carefully selected snaps may tell me something about you (Mr Man on the Overland with his freshly purchased loo roll, I’m looking at you), nothing says I can’t be arsed more than an absence of a profile description. After all, if you’re silent in your profile, I dread to think what you’re like on a date, and I’m certainly not looking to date a monk undertaking a vow of silence.

One would think that with a raft of deal breakers such as these, that the pool would be rapidly diminished (& we haven’t even mentioned how many potential partners’ rules my profiles has broken. Plenty I’m sure!), however this is not the case. I have a number of pre-Christmas dates set up, and at the very least it’s better than sitting on me tod watching Masterchef Professionals. However, if one of them turns up, fresh out of the loo, camera phone grasped in soggy hand, semi naked, interspersing a loudly bellowed LOL with utter silence, I may have to reconsider my views. But until then, wish me luck!