Wednesday 14 September 2011

And Why Not?

So. Hi.

If you found this blog there's a very good chance I begged asked you to follow it. And if you're following it there's a good chance you know me and have already been subjected to one of my anecdotes. Sorry – you get them all over again here. Hence why I've monikered this little hub of self-indulgence Dater Overload. Clever, huh? Punny.

So, why the blog? What's with all the blogging already? 

It occurred to me last Wednesday, as I sat on a train home at about 9pm at night, after a "date" that had kicked off at 7.40pm(ish), and had clearly bypassed success in favour of AWKWARD (I'll explain why in a later post; when it comes to dating, awkward is my default setting.) ...that cometh the hour, cometh the blogging opportunity.


In the last few months since taking a new approach to dating – that is, actually dating rather than complaining about my other default setting: perpetually single I've accumulated a few anecdotes that I felt needed to be shared, and through the medium of blogging. 

And since I haven't kept a diary for longer than five months since about 1998, well, writing to an invisible audience should spur me on, right?


I have to admit, I'm not a serial dater. I'm a simu-dater*, yes, though I like to term my approach prospecting; at best, keeping my options open, or as my friends would so prosaically put it, KISSING A LOT OF FROGS.


via here
...I should state for the record that it helps none that I look nothing like this girl.

Nor am I "kooky" like this girl (just quirky, and that's not the same as kooky, OK?):





…Oh wait. Maybe that's where I'm going wrong. Instead of rocking up to dates in this (minus fairy lights):



I should channel this little fashionista:

via here
Though I'm not sure attire is necessarily the issue.


I digress.


So, I have been Dating (cap. D) on and off since about November, December 2010, with varied results, though the fact I'm still single is testament to (deep breath) how flawed the whole set-up is, how certain sites feed into your insecurities by encouraging, nay, forcing you to create this whole, attractive persona that will drop away the moment you make human contact with that individual who happened to Nudge you... or the affinity tests don't ask the right questions, or the sites play host to people who, let's be honest here, would be better placed defending their honour to 55p women's magazines that shall remain nameless. (And nothing at all to do with my extreme pickiness and exacting standards.)


...Yeah, I think we've hit on the real issue here. I suffer from DATING-RELATED CYNICISM. 

But the moment that I get over the hurdle of believing that I won't meet my lobster through a dating site, that may well be when dating really starts to work for me. 

But only I can come to that conclusion. You can tell me until you're blue in the face that your sister's housemate's cousin's neighbour met her soulmate online but I'll just counter that I'm not your sister's housemate's cousin's neighbour, it hasn't worked for me thus far – and I need to be proven wrong, clearly.


So as I recount my anecdates** I'll also be trying to change my mindset and channel some positive energy into my endeavours.

Wish me luck.


(Please?)

* "Simu-date" -- see Sex and the City, Series 6, Ep1, To Market, To Market when Carrie offsets the pressure of dating Berger for the first time by meeting a different date.

Screengrab from DVD
** Anecdates = anecdotes + dates... See? ...That was my blog name of choice, except someone got there first, blogged for three months then abandoned it. Who would do that? (Um... See my earlier statement on keeping a diary... :-) )

PS Not sure why but my line breaks vary from standard to colossal. One day I'll understand HTML …

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