No Joe for this mo

Had an after-work meeting with my number one lady friend the other day and as I finished work earlier than her, I hotfooted it over to her Soho ad agency to meet her. I got there a little sooner than I should, so I mooched around in the super-white reception area trying not to look too much like I didn’t belong.

While I was feigning interest in all the reading literature, an especially dashing young chap with good hair and a nice smile came striding out of the office, past me and out of the building. He was one of those men who makes you forget your own name for a brief moment because all you can think about is how much he looks like walking sex.

Just as I picked myself up off the floor, my number one lady friend arrived and we headed off together for a night of debauched drinkery. While we were out I described the office hunk to her to see if she knew who he was, what his status was and when I would be able to go on a blind date with him.

‘Oh my God, do you mean the bloke in the blue shirt?’ she squealed. ‘That’s Joe. I’ve been meaning to tell you about him for months. I knew you’d fancy him. I only found out today through the grapevine that he is in fact a mo.’

‘Tell me everything,’ I said.

We discussed Joe for most of the evening and I bullied her into agreeing to send him an email the following morning along the lines of ‘my friend fancies you’. Playground tactics maybe, but they barely know each other and the chances of me being there just as he finished again were fairly slim. She wasn’t particularly keen on the Cilla Black idea, but I rightly pointed out that he was too delicious an opportunity to miss.

The next morning, luckily as it turns out, their email server was down, so she had to wait until she bumped into him for a face-to-face chat.

‘Joe,’ she asked tentatively. ‘Do you live in Hampstead?’ Now this might not sound like a genius chat-up line, but she has used this approach to many men and it always gives you an opening to a discussion.

‘No,’ he replied.

‘Oh, it’s just my friend who came to meet me last night was sure he knew you and thought maybe he had seen you in Hampstead as that’s where he lives.’

‘No, I haven’t been to Hampstead for a while,’ he said (still not jumping in with ‘but I remember him from last night and fell in love with him instantly’.)

‘But,’ he added, ‘my boyfriend does live in Belsize Park, which is close, so maybe he has seen me around there.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said.

And with that crushing defeat, her matchmaking career was over before it had even begun.

Is the glass actually half full?

A delightful chap called Justin commented on my previous post and told me how he is somewhat jaded when it comes to dating. He said that while he knows there are some decent blokes out there, he has met very few of them and the rest of them are only interested in one thing.

If someone were to ask how I feel about life in general and dating in particular, I would happily say that I am a confirmed pessimist. However, his opinion has left me thinking that maybe I am more of an optimist than I initially thought.

Regarding my trials and tribulations in the world of dating, I am more than satisfied being single. I have never felt the need to validate my existence through having a relationship. When it comes to exes, I am pretty much baggage-free. And, while seeing your friends' relationships is not the same as living through them yourself, I am delighted that I haven't had to go through some of the things that I've helped others through.

In my experience, there is still something of a stigma attached to being single. I've lost count of the amount of people who smile patronisingly and say, 'Oh, it would be so nice if you could meet someone, too.' I take offense to this assumption that being in a relationship is better than not.

Being single, I don't have to answer to anyone. I can go out after work and stay out all night without having to call anyone and let them know where I'm going. I can dance in a club for hours and not be accused of flirting with every man in the room. And if I want to indulge in some harmless banter with someone inappropriate, i don't have to feel guilty.

There are things that I don't have through being single. I would like someone to make a grand romantic gesture once in a while. I'd like to get home after a long week at work and find that I am being whisked off for a fancy meal somewhere, or even a weekend away. Even less dramatic, i'd like to have a couple of snogs with someone who I quite like. And this is why I had dipped my toes in the risky world of internet dating. Not to find 'The (ever allusive) One', but to just have a bit of fun.

But, while my standards are too high to allow me to settle for second best just for the sake of saying I have a boyfriend (see my flatmate and the fact that he has pretty much moved in his wildly inappropriate boyfriend of two weeks simply because he can't bear to be single), I am hopeful that there will be someone out there one day who makes me smile.

The perfect relationship probably doesn't exist and the perfect man certainly doesn't. But I am happy to accept that there is a bloke out there who would be over the moon to sit and listen to me talk about the most mundane things. Just because he enjoys spending time with me.

He's just not that into me

The world of online dating is a ruthless place. Having been on a date with Nigel that didn’t really go anywhere, I decided it was time to search again and see if there was anyone else on the site that might be worth contacting. Some of my friends are also on the site and the straight female ones seem to have had a fair amount of success, but it turns out that for gays, it is slim pickings.

I had a scout through and when I realised there weren’t any really decent men, I decided to get in touch with some not-so-decent blokes. I sent off various witty (I thought) emails and waited with bated breath. The good thing (or maybe the bad thing) about this particular site is that you can see when people have read the messages you send. Of course, when three days have passed and they still haven’t got back to you, all you want to do is send them another one saying, ‘I wasn’t even interested in you anyway and now you’re snubbing me?’

Anyway, one bit and sent a reply. All was going well; we exchanged emails, he seemed like he wasn’t harbouring any psychotic tendencies and his replies weren’t littered with spelling mistakes, but then he went and ruined it. When we got onto the topic of music, I mentioned that I had been to see Prince last year at the O2 (best night of my life) and he replied with: ‘My musical tastes are pretty limited. I like all the usual stuff – Abba, Steps, S Club 7 and Scooch.’ At what point did he think it was acceptable to say that to a Prince fan, of all people? Needless to say, I ceased communication forthwith.

Then next potential suitor was The Man Mountain. His profile listed his build as ‘athletic’ and he had the look of a mad man about him. He also stated that he wasn’t looking for an email marathon and was only on the site to meet up with people. That worked for me, so I fired off an email. Within minutes he got back to me and suggested we meet after work. Having sent his picture, email address and mobile number to all of my friends (should I go missing and end up chopped to bits and dumped in the Thames), I agreed.

The evening was fine. He was indeed very athletic and the conversation was flowing. However, the roid rage was a bit of a problem as he started on two separate groups of four people and I decided early on that I wasn’t really up for anything with a sociopath.

He asked me what I wanted out of the evening and what I was looking for. Before I had a chance to answer, he said: ‘I’d like to see you again, but I think maybe we should go on the pull together.’

Fair enough, I thought. I wasn’t actually interested, but as soon as he had said that, I suddenly really wanted to kiss him. I didn’t, but we did agree that he would email me the next day so that we could arrange an evening out.

Eight days have passed and still no email. Why is it all you need to hear is that someone’s not interested and then they’re all you can think about?

I had to delete his number from my phone for fear of drunken text messages. And in spite of it all, I’m still logging on and searching for Mr Right. I doubt he’s on there.

Love on the tube

I am back to my old habits. Fantasising about men on the tube. It’s my new favourite hobby and one that I threw myself into this morning. A dashing hunk in a grey suit got on at Chalk Farm and really made my day. I didn’t actually speak to him, of course. A packed Northern line train at 8:30am on a Tuesday morning isn’t the best place to strike up a conversation with a potential suitor, is it?

So what do you do in this situation? Having fired at least thirty furtive glances in his direction throughout the journey, I then watched him get off the train at Old Street and spent the rest of the day dreaming of what could have been. Instead of working, I created a whole personality for him – his likes, his dislikes, the fact he watches Gossip Girl but won’t admit it – and dreamt up various scenarios where we could bump into each other and he would say, ‘I’m so glad to see you again; I missed my chance to chat to you on the train the other day.’

I’m not alone in this ‘missed opportunities on the tube’ dilemma. My friends are all the same. They are stylish, sexy and successful and yet they are all still single. Male, female, gay and straight, they –like me – live in hope that one day their ideal partner will chat them up while they leaf through their copy of the London Lite.

Don’t get me wrong. None of us are desperate. We enjoy our lives; we just hope that one day someone amazing will brighten up our mornings.

The easiest solution to my morning predicament would have been for me to make the first move and speak to the object of my affection. Stand me in a bar or at a party and I’d have no qualms about initiating a conversation with a handsome chap and if that leads to a mild flirtation, then great. But doing it on the Underground just seems so embarrassing.

And yet, if he had spoken to me, I wouldn’t have thought he was a crazed sociopath. I would have breathed a sigh of relief and handed him my number with a wink and a smile.

As the clock ticks ever closer to 6pm, I am keeping my fingers crossed that he is on the train this evening and that he makes a move.

If you are reading this, Mr Grey Suit and Cheeky Grin, talk to me. I won’t bite. Unless you ask me to.

I'm back. Again.

Tut, tut, still not blogging anywhere near as much as I used to. What can I say? Like washing, once you get out of the habit, you find it hard to jump back on board.

Now, I know that I have said before that I would get back into blogging again and then nothing. But this time I really mean it.

There is plenty to report. Not least the fact that I went to the cinema last night to see Sex and the City: The Movie. No plot spoilers here, but bless the poor saps who work at the Odeon in Swiss Cottage – they fashioned a pseudo-themed evening whereby staff made an effort to dress up (I say 'made an effort', but what I mean is, three girls wore Matalan tea dresses) and extra bods were laid on to saunter around the foyer with silver trays boasting After Eight mints and condoms. Bit of a strange combination, but at least you get a nibble and you know you're safe.

There was also a badly organised 'best dressed' award for some sap in hot pants and white fishnets. She was clearly a) friends with the staff members and b) not of this land.

What else has been happening to keep me away from the land of the blog? The new job has been going really well. No more sitting next to strange people who just don't get me, so that's nice. And I'm back to having a view of the river.

Onto the man front. Most of my friends have been dallying in the rather scary world of internet dating, so I thought I would give it a bash. I joined that site where your friends leave a profile for you rather than writing one for yourself. Turns out that the gay online dating community is slim pickings. One or two emails were sent and then I went on a date with a lovely chap called Nigel. He was good on paper, but didn't really deliver in the flesh. We had a brief snog in the rain as the evening drew to a close, but there was no bed hopping. Instead, I popped to the Ghetto and took someone else home instead. Let's just say, he was a very warm and tender lover.

OK, this was a brief 'I'm still alive' post and I hope to be putting more up soon.

Crikey, I remember when I used to add two or more things a day. Those were the days.