Bring on the Spring Flings. It's Dating Thread 132!

[VetOnCall]

Dating thread rules:

1. The first rule about the dating thread is you don't talk about it with people you're dating.
2. Develop a thick skin.
3. Do not invest emotionally too soon.
4. It's all BS until it actually happens.
5. Trust your gut instinct.
6. People vanishing, lying & being generally weird is not your fault.
7. You are the prize - they should be trying to impress you.
8. If it's not fun, stop.
9. Loo update is mandatory.

10. No dating the thread

And a reminder - you don't know them until you know them!

Hockering I'm not a girlie girl either. But I realised that if I wanted to go on dates I needed a few smart clothes and some decent make-up.
So I bought some smart skinny black trousers and a couple of tops. Then asked for make-up advice on the style section here and was given lots of helpful tips.
Went to a big department store and had a makeup lesson. Just enough to hide the wrinkles!
Finally I got my friends to help me with my hair, then we took loads of photos.
It's just enough to make me look a bit girlie but not so much that I lose who I am.
Might be worth getting your friends to help.

Sod's law that having decided to have a break an old iron re-appears. We were chatting around Christmas time but neither of us were really in the right place to be dating.
We arranged to meet twice but each time we talked ourselves out of it for silly reasons.
He got in touch again yesterday and asked if I was still interested as he's in a better place now.
Unfortunately, it's going to be a couple of weeks before we can meet. And I suspect he may bail on me again but it was nice to hear from him. He has the most lovely voice ever

Smeaton what a beautiful analogy 🎶

Blue your ex is reminding you that your relationship is over, yet you still see and sleep with each other? I’m curious as to how that’s “over” in any capacity? I think if you went NC with your ex it would certainly makes thing less complicated. Painful, maybe, but the situation you’re currently in doesn’t sound great.
My advice would be to make a clean break with the ex, possibly don’t continue contact with the Tinder person if you know there’s no (easy) future in it and give yourself some space to meet someone who is open with who they are and open to a full, happy relationship with you.

Runs a voice can compensate for quite a lot, can’t it? It’s my Achilles heel, specially Welsh. Cor. Hope you get to meet up at last.

And trust frigging autocorrect to bugger up my last post 🙄

Cover his photo is rubbish, he's a lot younger than I would normally go for but he keeps sending me little WhatsApp voice messages which are funny and his voice is lovely.
I just hope he's as lovely in real life.

NewYear I think there is busy and there is busy. I am a single parent with a full time job, long commute, long hours with travelling and I realised that I really did not have time to have a proper relationship. I'm in the process of 're arranging my life so that I do have more time but people did complain before and I understand why. I think if you say you want a relationship, you have to mean it and that does mean finding the time to prioritise it.

Keep losing my posts!

smeaton I just can't get what she was looking for! If you had said AA breakdown cover would that have been the right answer or the wrong answer? Just can't see where she thought it would go!

third I had full testing last year. Herpes is a tricky one as you can pick it up even if you use a condom and ages ago without it having active symptoms. Fingers crossed you don't have it though.

Date last night went well, he is a lovely man but he is a bit shy and I am overcompensating by being a bit too over bearing and just need to calm down a bit. We both agreed we would like to see each other more often so we will see how that goes:)

Thanks Cover

I've told the Tinder girl of my situation and that I don't think it's fair on her to get involved with it and wished her well. The bad side was that I felt so guilty even being on Tinder or talking to anyone else so I've definitely done the right thing!

Well, I had my date, and I think I'm done with it all now.
Nice enough bloke, but very 'blokey' - he was hungover from a 'messy' night last night, and was 20 mins late, none of which boded well.
This sounds horrifically snobby, but he just wasn't very bright. Now I'm not exactly Einstein, but it would have been nice to have a decent discussion about something!
He also laughed at the fact that I knit and said even his grandma isn't old enough to knit (wtf?), he votes Tory (that's fine in itself, but I don't) and was very confused as to why I would go on protest marches. He's very much a playing rugby with the lads kind of bloke, and that's just not who I'm after.

I give up, I really do. The likelihood of me finding someone even on OLD is slim to none I think!

Fourth date yesterday, we DTD and it was amazing. Realise it's such early days and we've all been here before though.

Met his friends when we were out and they all told me what a great person he was, then told him he was punching!

He's cooking for me this evening. Keeping feet firmly on the ground, but it's hard not to get a little excited.

That's a shame sky - back to the drawing board or giving it a break for now?

sky that’s exactly how I feel about most of my dates, I tend to date older men in hope they have grown out of the “getting pissed up with the lads” stage but so me of the older men are even worse. I have a few hobbies that most people would find boring, I wouldn’t be impressed if a date took the piss out of what I do in my spare time.

daffo and popcorn you both sound like you're having fun, which is the main thing!

loves I think I'm just going to be passive on OLD for the time being really, not actively looking.
It doesn't help really when my mother rolls her eyes and tells me I'm not being fair on my kids every time I do have a date. It's exhausting on all sides really!

Woohoo for popcorn and Daffy

Sky don't be upset, it's crap my date before last was a Nigel Farage admirer and I got drunk enough to be stupid. Onwards and upwards?

sky my mum is the same, she tells me I should find someone the normal way . I have given up all hope in OLD, I’m still on POF but not putting much effort into it anymore. I think the chances of finding anyone is pretty slim.

Sky you are still a person and deserve the opportunity to have time with adults. I think dating makes me a better mum because I feel more rounded for the opportunity.

Take tonight for example, date didn't look, talk or act like I expected pretty bizarre date , but it was an experience of me being me and not X 's mum. I have friends, but it's not wrong to want a BF. Mr Hat is off my list.

Well, as sad as this is, I decided to get the laptop out and spend an hour or so doing some calculations.

I currently have 390 women who want to meet me on POF. The ones who've swiped right, some of them viewed my profile, some didn't. I can't see the women who I wanted to meet as it doesn't show me that, but I can look through those profiles and just note down a couple of things in a spreadsheet so I can try to understand my target demographic. I did a course in marketing once :)

Also, I've favourited 171 women over the time I've been on there, as a way of flirting a bit and seeing if they favourite me back. Or just because I'm too busy to message them right this second, so I'll come back and do it later - which I only sometimes manage to do. I've been favourited by 73 women. Some of them I actually met for dates, but very few were mutual.

So

On average, the distance of women I favourited was about 25 miles from me. The average distance of women who favourited me was roughly 220 miles, but this was thrown off by the few in Europe and the US. I could only do a bit to remove them from the calculations, but that brought it down to 71 miles. Lots of likes from the south coast and Scotland.

I liked, on average, women about 3 years younger than me. Some were older, some were 10 years younger.

But on average the women who liked me were 5 years older than me. There were a few 68 year olds in there, more than 20 years older than me. A few in their early 30s too, even some in their 20s, but not many.

I didn't do a full analysis of education levels and whether they had kids or not, but I did notice a startling correlation between those who had either snapchat filters or significant tattoos, and a high school education.

Also a correlation between tattoo photos and inspirational messages as profile photos.

I want to spend more time digging in to education level versus humorous headlines, as that seemed to be a thing too, but I don't think I can face it.

So the take home message from all this market analysis bollocks is:

People swipe right on people younger than themselves. Rarely older

The people I fancy don't fancy me back

Educated people don't spend time fucking around on Instagram

Women have an unrealistic approach to geography :)

There you go. This has been the latest edition of BantStats,

You're welcome :)

Bant Well them's some depressing statistics!!

Anyone else dated two friends, without them knowing?

I didn't realise they know each other until one said he was back from another city as had been away with his club. It's an unusual small club, other potential date wasn't feeling well so didn't go. I know because of travel method and the set-up other end it is the same club.

I'm seeing one of them tomorrow. I think I like the other one more so far, but he just wants to chat. Why does this feel a bit like cheating?

Just back from my second date. FFS bored is not the word. We have different views on lots of things. On paper he seems perfect, but he didnt make me laugh once, not fucking once! I didnt get much chance to talk, he talked ALL THE TIME, about himself, about money, about his business, about... well anything. I struggled with this.

How do I say thanks but no thanks? In a nice way. There is just no spark there for me at all, not even a little bit.

Thanks Smeaton I was having similar thoughts. I'm wondering if they have already messaged about this ms chocolate they are going to meet. Part of me is still tempted to go tomorrow I must be mad.

Really smeaton its that simple? Ok, I will wait to hear from him when he gets home. Thank fuck he doesnt have my number.