Oh, that dangerous internet dating! What if you get killed?!

I went on a date the other day. Overall it wasn’t too bad. I met a bloke after work for a drink. He originally messaged me on a dating app I’d installed on my phone. I don’t know why I installed it to be honest. (Probably cos it was free). I’m not even that fussed about dating right now. He was quite chatty in his messages even though he’s not my cup of tea in the looks department, but I try not to go by that all the time. A great personality can make someone a lot more attractive so occasionally, you’ve gotta give a guy a chance.  (Sometimes though, you just know don’t you?)  So anyway, after consulting with my fb friends and getting their varied opinions, I decided to bite the bullet and give him a chance. He was a little bit shy, lacking in confidence and not very good at eye contact. He bought my drink without hesitation which was a plus.. There were some awkward silences but we managed to keep them mostly at bay. I saw glimpses of his sense of humour, which had veered into ‘inappropriate’ territory when texting but he was fine face to face. I figured it was more down to him trying to be funny via the written word and failing dismally than anything sinister or blatantly rude. We can’t all be grammar gods! If we meet up again though, it won’t be in the romantic sense.

I once got invited out by a fella I met in a pub. Let’s call him Bert. Bert told me to meet him outside this club as there was a reggae night and he wanted to take me for a dance. When I got there he was nowhere to be seen so I texted him.  He replied saying he was already inside and I should go in and find him. It cost me £10 to get in! Ok I thought, not a great start but maybe I’d misunderstood. I’ll find him and he can buy me a drink. Did he heck! I found Bert, drink in hand, dancing with some girl. When I interrupted him after watching for a couple of minutes and asked him if he was gonna buy me a drink, he pointed me in the direction of the bar and proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the night. I bought myself a drink and found a gorgeous young guy to chat to. Later, when Bert realised I’d ditched him in favour of the gorgeous toyboy who was apparently smitten with me, he had the nerve to drag me away from Mr Gorgeous and have a go at me in front of everyone!  Not to worry, Bert left feeling a lot more embarrassed than I did after I gave him a piece of my mind.

                     This has happened to me before—>

I’ve been on a lot of dates in the past 10 years. Some good, some not so much. One guy was on and off for a few years but really, none were long lasting. The majority of blokes I’ve dated have been from the internet. It’s a fabulous way to meet fellas… if you’re not that fussy.  Unfortunately, I am indeed extremely fussy. I talk myself into going on dates with men I’m not attracted to because there might be a slim chance that he turns out to be so much more than I think and because going on dates with men I DO find attractive hasn’t worked out for me. So I say to myself, try something different.  There’s a saying my mum said to me years ago that sticks in my head.

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

Or something like that. Maybe it didn’t stick that well actually. But you get my drift. So, having dated men I fancied and it not working out, I tried dating men I wouldn’t normally go for and unsurprisingly, that hasn’t worked either.

My colleague said to me the other day ‘You can’t judge someone from a picture’. Maybe not, but you can judge whether you find them attractive. That’s how dating sites work. They all show pages and pages of photos, not pages and pages of profiles.  The photo is your first impression. It’s the deciding factor on whether or not you look at their profile. Guys, you need to realise this or you will NEVER get a date! There are FAR too many photos on these sites that resemble a day at a funeral! Smile dammit!  

There’s still a lot of concern about internet dating.. mainly by people who’ve never done it. Some of my friends get worried that I’m gonna get attacked or kidnapped or murdered on a date instigated from a website.  I’ll take this opportunity to put their minds at ease. This is me on the inside when I go on a first date. Ready for anything. 

I have enough common sense to talk to a man a few times to get a feel of his personality before I agree to meet him. I make him come to my hometown where I know every street, every nook, cranny and twitten in town for a quick escape if necessary. Not that I’ve ever needed to use that knowledge in a lifesaving scenario!  I also only meet and have dates in very public, usually busy places. I never get picked up or dropped off at home. There will also be a record of him in my chat history. So, if anything, I’m safer on one of these dates than I am on a date with a fella I met in a pub or anywhere else, that I have zero info on. I know people lie on the sites but people in pubs lie too! Besides all that, I’m a total cynic and rarely take anything they tell me at face value. I’m far from gullible. I’ve chatted with enough men over enough years and listened to enough lies to get an inkling of when they might be dishing out balony. As for those conmen who wheedle their way into women’s lives for the money, I’m skint with no chance of getting a loan so trust me when I tell you I’m not a target! 

The risks are no more or less than a regular date with someone you don’t know. The biggest risk I face when going on a date with some bloke off t’interweb is death by boredom! If I get any more messages that say nothing more than ‘hi’, I’m liable to drown myself in my own sink!