Tag Archives: Online Dating

The end of the affair

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Well, finally, I did it.

The relationship hadn’t been that good anyway.

Really, I don’t know why I didn’t do it before but, to be honest, the daily emails (usually more than 4) about who had viewed my profile or winked at me or sent me an email when, because I wouldn’t pay (didn’t need) a subscription, I couldn’t even respond or see who they were – was all getting a bit much.

Even if I WAS looking now, I wouldn’t under any circumstances, use Meetic. Bloody lying useless site.

I remember only 2 people from that time ago, when I DID subscribe for a few months. One was the guy who said he was 44 but his wrinkly elbows said about 55 – and instead of going into Venice we went to his house and did nothing (except he did make a pass which I politely but firmly rejected). The other was someone that was only a number of emails. He never seemed to want to meet. I cancelled my subscription after the minimum, ‘special rate’ period and would never bother with them again.

So, one hopes, good riddance.

Probably except the odd email to implore me to ‘come back’.

Stuff them.

The Fallout

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For every action you make or don’t make, there is fallout.

In this case, someone sent me a message. I felt sorry for him as he’d certainly paid some money for a service that wasn’t a good service. I thought, “I’ll just go on and do a reply to him”. It seemed the fair and right thing to do.

I told him that I was already in a relationship and wasn’t looking for anyone any longer.

I didn’t get a reply back but, then, I wasn’t expecting one.

What I did get, though, was a load more emails!

That’s because I logged on to reply to the message and, so, I’ve been ‘promoted’ so more people are viewing my profile.

Luckily they automatically go to my spam folder now.

As I said to someone recently, I would NEVER use Meetic again as it simply doesn’t give you a good service. If you sign up, the chance of finding someone ‘real’ is remote.

What’s love got to do with it?

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As I have mentioned in some other post or posts, there is a prostitute who ‘works’ a corner just near where I live.

She always say ‘Hi, puppy!’ when we go past. (BTW, she’s talking to Dino at that point, not me :-D ). We say Hi to each other and I mumble something about the weather (especially recently as it’s been so cold, poor thing). I don’t know where’s she’s from. She is very tall and has legs right up to her bum. But I don’t really know much about her except that she is, undoubtedly, a prostitute.

I don’t have a big problem with it, in as much as I’m not interested and I do feel kinda sorry for her in that, as a career choice (if she has any choice), it wouldn’t rate as a fabulous choice imho.

But this is a profession that’s very, very old and, at least, it’s direct and to the point. I.e. you want sex, you pay for it.

Whereas, this, apparently, is most definitely NOT!

Obviously.

I mean, even where there are men saying they’ll fork out thousands of dollars a month, the terms and conditions explicitly state:

Please take note that we prohibit anyone from promoting illegal activities (such as prostitution) or commercial activities of any kind in their profile or in messages sent on the site and if such conduct comes to our attention we reserve the right to, amongst other things, remove you from our website and ban you permanently.

So, there you are. Not prostitution. Nor anything like it. Obviously.

Perhaps I should write down the url and give it to my lady friend from the corner?

In the meantime, I met this next lady once, in the street, in Milan. And she smiled at me. But she’s really tiny and not a prostitute, unlike my lady-from-the-corner friend.


(Tina Turner – What’s Love Got To Do With It?)

Is this really what we have in store for us? God, I hope not (well, at least for me).

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Everyone is different; has a different character and, most definitely, different needs.

I really don’t care if you are married, co-habiting, single (by choice) or anything else (I’m not sure if there IS anything else) – as long as you are happy and as long as (if you have a partner), I don’t want to kill your partner or partners :-)

To be honest, what you do with your life is absolutely none of my business – unless it directly affects my life – in which case it is my business. Of course, if you ask me, I may or may not (depending on whether you’re asking for a confirmation of what you think or really asking me) tell you what I think.

Luckily, for my lovely readers, this blog is about what I think (at this moment that I’m writing, of course – in two hours I could think the opposite although, in this case that’s unlikely).

From Lola’s blog, I read this article entitled “All the Single Ladies”.

The strange thing is that I was quite disturbed by it. I mean, unsettled. Basically it was saying that, given the way that society has changed and the general ratio of men to women, being a single person was now more likely.

Perhaps I was unsettled by the truth of it, for it is not a truth I want for myself.

I understand that some people say they are happier alone. Bar a very few people, I cannot believe it, I’m sorry. True, not every society works in the same way and, for sure, partly why I am happier being ‘with someone’ is that I was brought up to believe in a household where two adults live together (with or without children).

And friends are important. Good friends are irreplaceable, of course. I have many friends. Not thousands but enough for me. Being in a friendship takes work on both sides. And yet, there are friends (like Best Mate and I) who don’t need to be in contact for quite a while and just pick up the friendship where we left off. And I would do almost anything for Best Mate. She is there, even if I am having problems with my partner or even if I don’t have a partner. I love her to bits.

BUT

She is not the same as a partner – and I don’t mean for sex. After all, for sex, if I wanted to, there is a tall, leggy prostitute that hangs on the corner of the street and is there when I take the dogs out for a walk. We even say ‘hello’ now. Well, why not? Anyway, as an aside, business seems to be quite good for her. Maybe it’s one of those businesses that thrives in crisis periods?

But I digress. And, anyway, she is a woman so not really interesting to me.

So, if not for sex then what is a partner for? Why is it that I consider it essential for my life and others (including the woman who wrote the article) don’t?

But, then again, the article doesn’t say that a partner is not essential but that, given the fact that she dumped her (probable) partner some time ago, assuming that she would be getting one later and could settle down when she felt like it, and now, finding that a partner is unlikely to be found, she has, in fact, come to a realisation that ‘this is it’ and that she had better get on and enjoy what she has.

And I think that is my point.

My greatest fear is to be old and alone. Since I don’t have (and won’t have) any children, unless I have a partner, I shall be alone when I am old.

But it’s not even that, really.

After V, I thought that, given my age, I would remain alone. For those of you that have been readers for over three years, you will know this.

But I found, after a few months of being alone, that ‘being alone’ was not an acceptable life for me. I NEEDED a partner to share things with, to cuddle up with at night and, mostly, to not feel ALONE. ALONE I cannot handle. And, as you may know, I thought that I cannot be the only person in Milan who thinks this way and so I went out to find the other person who felt the same (or, more or less, the same).

And I think that’s the problem with this woman. She hasn’t come to terms with what her single life is and doesn’t want to commit. And, by not committing was thinking that when the right man happened along, they would both know and everything would be fine.

However, as I said before I started the online dating search, it’s no good waiting for Mr Right to come knocking at my door if I am stuck there night after night. No, I needed to go out and FIND him.

And I think that, in spite of her positiveness, she is, in fact, ALONE and, possibly too busy to feel LONELY – but she may well feel lonely later and that she is fully well aware of that.

Friends, of course, will be important to her but there are those times when (even when you’re with friends) you feel alone. With a partner, I don’t get this feeling. With F, I don’t feel alone anymore.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. They are, after all, just my opinions and thoughts.

Stop looking for your soulmate

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For those of you who have been reading this blog over the last 2 years or so, you will know that, having thought I had found my soulmate, I found that I hadn’t, apparently. At the end of it I thought that, given my age and, having already done it all twice before, I wouldn’t even be able to find someone else to live with but then I changed my mind. I decided that I DID need to be with someone and that there had to be someone out there, somewhere, who was looking for me. I did the internet dating thing to save myself having to go to bars and clubs, seeing it, as I do, as an alternative to those social places.

I was determined. I don’t know that I ever thought I would find my soulmate or, even, if that was important. What was important was to find the ‘person for me’. I had some preconceived ideas about who that would be. The criteria narrowed after a short while. They couldn’t be too young nor too old. In the end I found someone and, to be honest, that someone was a surprise and (partially) unexpected. But I remain intrigued about how people find their soulmates and, even, if that really exists or if it is your soulmate but only for a period of time (that period being undetermined and indeterminable).

I remember my sister. She, as I told her more than once, always tried too hard. Her criteria, it seemed, was always non-existent. If they moved and were male it was enough. Now I look back on that as probably her trying to hard to be straight and conform, since she has a girlfriend now.

I was at a friend’s house on Sunday. She is setting up this internet dating lark. She is very clear. She doesn’t expect to find the perfect man on the internet – only to determine exactly what she DOES want. To be able to refine her criteria. But, I wonder, is she just saying that?

Anyway, I was interested to read this:

Relationship gurus expend enormous amounts of energy debating whether “opposites attract” or, conversely, whether “birds of a feather flock together” – largely, it seems, without stopping to reflect on whether relying on cheesy proverbs might be, more generally, a bad way to think about the complexities of human attraction. Should you look for a partner whose characteristics match yours, or complement yours? The conclusion of the Pair Project, a long-term study of married couples by the University of Texas, is, well, neither, really. “Compatibility”, whether you think of it as similarity or complementarity, just doesn’t seem to have much to do with a relationship’s failure or success, according to the project’s founder, Ted Huston: the happiness of a marriage just isn’t much correlated with how many likes, dislikes or related characteristics a couple does or doesn’t share. Compatibility does play one specific role in love, he argues: when couples start worrying about whether they’re compatible, it’s often the sign of a relationship in trouble. “We’re just not compatible” really means, “We’re not getting along.” “Compatibility” just means things are working out. It simply renames the mystery of love, rather than explaining it.

According to the US psychologist Robert Epstein, that’s because a successful relationship is almost entirely built from within. (He cites evidence from freely entered arranged marriages, arguing that they work out more frequently than the unarranged kind.) All that’s really required is two people committed to giving things a shot. Spending years looking for someone with compatible qualities may be – to evoke another cheesy proverb – a classic case of putting the cart before the horse.

For F, of course, his most ‘successful’ previous relationship was with a blue-eyed, English, Taurean. He cites this often as if to explain why he is with me. He is saying that it is ‘inevitable’ that we would be together. Conversely, of course, it could also be inevitable that we will split up!

I look for things that we like ‘together’ and find few. I worry that we don’t have enough in common, the most obvious being my love of all food whereas he is so picky. As I said to my friend (mentioned above), if F and I had met in some bar or club, I’m not sure that either of us would have given the other a second look. We met only because we had chatted for some time first.

Yes, the pictures I saw of him – he was sexy. But, mainly, he was funny – he had the ability to make me laugh and feel better. He still does and may it long continue.

As his friend R said, he was ‘ready’ when we met. So was I. We both wanted the same thing and so, together, we can get the same thing from each other.

And, I suppose, that’s why V and I split up. We no longer wanted the same things. F is not V in any way. V wasn’t M in any way. F and M are not similar either. Being compatible or not seems, as it says, to be unimportant as to whether it works or not. You (both) just have to WANT it more than anything and be prepared to step off the deep end and see how it goes.

And that, together with making those small sacrifices to make your partner happy seem to be the only requisites to have a happy and loving relationship – for however long that lasts.

For the above ‘piece of advice’ plus other tips (that can replace your New Year’s resolutions) go here and enjoy :-)

The day before you came. Only 365 days ago.

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I sit here, at the new, old table. It is cold. Not freezing, just not so comfortable.

I have many things to do today. I have a plan. It is, after all, a year (tomorrow night) since we first met. I cannot believe it is a year already and, yet …….. is it only 365 days? It seems like less and more at the same time.

I like having a blog. It reminds me of things that I may have forgotten. For example, this is what I wrote about our meeting, before we met, as I was getting ready – “This one actually seems important but will, in all probability, end up like the rest.”

Well, it didn’t.

And, about the night we met, I wrote “I want this. I want him.”. And, I still do.

And this song came up recently and, although it is a little strange in that it is sung as if it’s not a good thing, for me it explains that there was a time before F and then the time after. So, enjoy, since I think it is one of their greatest songs anyway :-)

Jealousy – yes but no but yes but no …… oh, I don’t know. What do you want me to say?

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Yes but no but yes but no

There is the usual shaking of the head. And the usual “you’re not jealous?”, said with an incredulous voice.

“No, why should I be?”, I normally reply, continuing with “and anyway, I trust him”.

Of course, this is so. I do trust him. I think this relationship is more important to him than anything else. He expresses things by actions, as he has always pointed out. He doesn’t go down to his home town because of me and the dogs. I get invited to almost anything he goes to. He stays at my messy place even if it must irritate him a lot – his place being so perfectly tidy and all.

He doesn’t really do words. He’s a visual person. An action type of guy. Words, to him, are meaningless if the actions say something different – so he chooses to express everything by action rather than using words.

I keep it all under control. But, still, sometimes it’s difficult.

After all, the response I give is usually, 99% of the time, true.

But, occasionally it isn’t. But that’s a little like the exchange – ‘How are you?” – “I’m fine thanks”. It’s the way I am. I have to project happiness and be positive. Negativity annoys me.

But, as you, my dear reader, will know by now, what goes on inside is not the same as the projected Andy. The inside Andy is full of doubt and insecurity and, yes, jealousy!

“Some people said ‘But what about Andy?'”, he reports.

Yes, indeed. What about Andy? Do you honestly think he feels nothing? Do you think that comments like ‘It’s only sex and as long as he comes back to me and doesn’t fall in love” or “I don’t care” make him feel better?

The other thing is – what did he see in them? Or is it that I am just the different one? I am a reaction to the ‘norm’.

“No, he’s not in fashion. That’s good”, he tells someone last night. They all agree. It’s much better if I have nothing to do with the fashion industry or art or something ‘gay’ like that.

But, then, that means we have even less in common. That means that he has plenty of opportunity and I don’t. Or something like that.

I was jealous of Si, his colleague. Si is very nice. He says things to me like “He loves you very much”. He says the things that F doesn’t. Si is straight, apparently. But this is the fashion world. Worse still, it is the Italian fashion world with the men who are Italian and who think that being married or having a girlfriend doesn’t exclude them from having casual sex with other men! But I’m no longer jealous of Si. He is a really nice guy. I know that he and F are close. But I don’t think there is anything else.

Again, I wonder what he sees in them. Unattractive, camp, over-effeminate guys.

I dislike a lot of gay people – because of this and their seeming inability not to involve casual sex in their conversation at some point or other.

The guy says; “I love Gay Romeo. You can chat and then you have some nice guy come round and have sex”

Actually he didn’t quite say that. The person he was chatting to, in this story, which happened two days ago, had a girlfriend and wanted money for the sex. Apparently they negotiated. He was explaining how this was the first time he had paid but how it was so much cheaper in the long run because he didn’t have to buy the cocaine and the drinks that would have been invariably required. And, apparently, the guy smiled and was nice all the time. He told the guy to keep every Wednesday free.

It’s not that I feel that I’m missing out – I just have never wanted that type of life. Nor, really, do I want to hear about it. It’s not that I want to shut my ears to it. It’s that it is, for me, quite depressing to hear. It worries me that I would end up like that. It’s the same with homeless people. After all, the sex part is not important, it’s the lack of real emotion, of intensity between two people that’s important (even if the sex would be ‘intense’ – it’s not the same). Surely?

And then I think – maybe it’s not jealousy. Maybe it’s insecurity? Yes, not being sure, perhaps? Maybe?

I’ve never understood why, when people get really jealous, all their rage is taken out, not on their partner but on the person their partner is with (or they think is with). That has never happened to me. If I got jealous in the past, the only thing is that I don’t want to see the other person. But I’m not angry or anything towards them but towards my partner.

Perhaps it’s not actually jealousy. And perhaps that’s why I don’t understand it?

Perhaps I should have kept the original subtitle to the blog. The one about coming here to find the passion and that it is here, all around me but that it never really touches me inside.

Perhaps I just can’t get the same feelings and I am mistaking one for another?

Meetic – why do I still appear on people’s lists?

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Sorry for the non-posting. I’ve been a bit busy, not had enough sleep and feel like crap, to be honest.

But that’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is to say to you out there – do not trust Meetic with your money!

Several times a day I get notifications, by email, that someone has viewed my profile.

I know, having used it for several months last year, that most people at the ‘top’ of any list are those that are online, followed by those that have been online in the last few days.

Except that I haven’t. So, unless by extraordinary coincidence, people are trawling though old profiles or being so specific in their search criteria as to have found me as being one of the only people, Meetic are placing me at the top of lists for no apparent reason. It almost makes me want to sign in as a fake person to see where I DO appear!

Maybe I will. But not today.

>F will be away in his home town at the weekend. I may go down on the Saturday for the night. We shall see. That’s not what is making me feel crappy either.

On being British

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I like being British.  Am I proud of being British?  Well, to be honest, not always.  It’s not that I’m not proud, it’s just that, well, I’m British and being proud is not seen as a good thing.  After all, as we all know, ‘pride comes before a fall’ – and when someone has been proud, we see their fall as just desserts.

But I do like being British.  Firstly, I speak English (obviously, proper English – none of your mispronounced, misspelt, New World stuff for me).  In spite of the fact that the Chinese language (I forget which one of them) is actually spoken by more people in the world and Spanish is up and coming, English is still the universal language for communication.  I thank our Empire for that (and the Americans power following its demise).

Secondly, we have ‘ways’ of being; ‘ways’ of doing things that I use to my advantage, especially here.

And so I was reading this and the fact that the Immigration Minister has pronounced that there should be instruction on ‘how to queue’ because that is at the heart of Britishness.

There again, in my opinion, is the problem with people.  They get ‘Britishness’ completely wrong.  It’s not the queuing that’s important although, yes, people who jump the queue will result in a load of people who feel resentment and, these days, anger.  No Britishness is all about ‘not standing out’ from the crowd.  Or, rather, not making yourself stand out from the crowd.

Of course, if just ‘not standing out from the crowd’ were essential, we would have no famous British people until they were dead.  The thing is that you are allowed to stand out, providing that it’s not because you have been making yourself stand out – i.e. someone can push you forward as long as that someone isn’t you.

Of course, the correct response to this, should you find yourself standing out there, through no real fault of your own, is to be completely self-effacing; shy but not embarrassingly so; properly attribute your ‘success’ to others or the team; be truly grateful that there are others who think you are there (out of the crowd) even if, of course, you feel you did not possibly deserve it, etc.

Of course, there are always exceptions.  In fact, there is one exception to this overall rule.  That is when you are drunk.  And by drunk I mean very drunk (totally pissed, wasted, rip-roaringly drunk).  Then you can do anything you want – but, of course, you must regret it and suffer for it from the next morning and on until the end of your life!

Which is why I found the article so funny.  Hadley Freeman’s take on what is actually required to be British I disagree with, in the main but I will go through the five points:

1.  I’ve always found that dinner at 8 means that you will sit down to eat at about 2 minutes past 8 – unless there are late-comers, who will be frowned upon as they have made themselves stand out!

2.  We don’t always (in fact rarely) react with squealing excitement.  Understated excitement means not making yourself stand out.

3.  OK, I agree with 3 – or you say something like ‘Oh this old thing – bought it years ago’ as if that makes up for the fact that whatever it is is the most stunning item of clothing in the room.

4.  No one really cares how well Marks and Spencers do – what’s important is that the quality of their underpants is second-to-none and that their food quality is absolutely amazing but sooooo expensive.

5.  Just not true.  We do date.  We also court and, as she correctly says, ‘pull’.  But she misinterprets ‘pull’.  When you go out on a date it is with a predefined person for a meal or a drink or to the cinema.  When you ‘go out on the pull’ you are single and very much hoping that, by the end of the night, you have pulled someone who may, or may not, be a future date.

However, I just loved the end bit to number 5.  This is so true, especially of me (although I found online dating a way around the getting drunk bit).  But, just for those of you who don’t read the article, she says that the British method of coupling is like this:

go to a party, get extremely drunk, drunkenly kiss someone you have been making eyes at for some time but obviously never spoke to because you were sober then, go home with them, move in with them the next day, marry them.

It really made me laugh.

Online Dating – Dos and Don’ts and Scams

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Well, those of you who have been following my ‘adventures’ through 2009 will know that I used online dating websites to find the man of my dreams.

So, obviously, I have a good opinion of them.  But there are a couple of pieces of advice I would give.

1.  Some are good and some are bad.  You will learn which are which but, if you’re serious, use as many as you can find to start with, weeding out the ones that are not good or don’t have the right mix for you later.

2.  Don’t part with any money to start with.  Just get a feel for the site and the type of people who are there.  Once you find the site(s) that have the right feel and the right people, only then consider paying.  Don’t worry about emails and stuff until you’re sure the right people frequent the site to begin with.

3.  Be very specific about what you want.  Specifying, for example, an age range of 20 to 70 is really not what you want, I suspect.  I thought that people just above my age would be fine but found that, in reality, I didn’t want anyone that bloody old. Nor, indeed, did I want a ‘kid’ who lacked maturity (and even below about 35 was pushing it – we are talking about men, here).

4.  Remember, people will put forward their best side.  This is a bit like going to a club or bar but without the loud music or drinking or dancing.  You see someone you like, you chat to them for a bit and, then, maybe, you get to see them.  Seeing them in the flesh (or ‘second date’) may be a bit of a shock.  Be prepared.  I have to add that, sometimes, I was amazed at how awful the photos were when compared to the real person, so it’s not always the best photos they put up.

5.  Remember that some people are looking for, how shall I say, one night stands.  That’s OK if that’s what you want.  Just be aware that, maybe, they’re not looking for what you are looking for!

6.  Be safe.  Be careful about where and who you meet. I wasn’t particularly and one of them could have been a bit hairy but wasn’t in the end.  But, then, I’m lucky in that I’m a bloke.  Tell someone where you’re going and give them phone numbers or any other information you can about the person you plan to meet.

7.  Beware of scams.  There are people out there who are just trying to get money.  I had one of them and, on looking at the photos again, I could see that it was a model and not a real person.  But here is a link to an article from the Guardian that is an interesting read.

But, for me, it was just like going out but easier since you could send a ‘wink’ or a message or an email and, well, if they didn’t respond it was nowhere near as painful as going up to someone in a bar and getting a rebuff.

And F is the result and so it worked out really well for me.

If you are looking and try it out, I hope it works out well for you too.