Side swiped

So it’s been a while since my last post. I’ve completed my Love Coaching sessions, and have been flying solo on my quest to find love. So how did 2015 end?

Well, the dating quest started out a little sluggish. I went online and became part of the swiping brigade. And all I can say is the experience was exhausting.

Basically – there is no quick route to dating or finding love.

My first encounter in October was with Mr Comedy Website Designer. Things started out promising with this one. He was funny, interesting and was one of the few initial matches who actually messaged me back. This is the interesting part – about 90 per cent of people online have no intention of actually conversing with anyone let alone going on dates.

It became so frustrating – I started doing a little study. I matched with Mr Just Arrived in London; Mr In-London a few days a week; Mr Cheeky Irish Man; Mr Green Eyes; Mr Hampshire; The Fonz … the list goes on.

I matched and waited; I matched and messaged; I matched and accidentally called one chap the wrong name. He at least messaged me back – but he failed to see the funny side of my mix-up and the lines of communication went dead. But generally most matched and did nothing. A few would bother to unmatch me, but 90 per cent did nothing. Which I found baffling. Why register on a site and match with someone and then not do anything about it?

So when Mr Comedy Website Designer came along – he was a breath of fresh air. He messaged – he messaged a lot. And therein lies the problem. Four weeks into conversing back and forwards and three failed attempts at going on a date I finally had enough. You see I’d met a friend the week before who had told me about this theory of Attachment from a book by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller that basically summarises the three main categories of how adults behave in relationships – anxious, avoidant and secure. The upshot is that by its very nature, online dating sites tend to be heavily weighted with avoiders and avoiders never match together because – well, they avoid any type of relationship.

So I opted to call out Mr Comedy Website Developer after he pulled out of a date for the third time. I labelled him an avoider. The boy did protest too much. He went into denial, sulked and then suddenly was all ready for dating. He even tried to call me an avoider when I told him it was too little too late. By this stage I was over the entire encounter. I’d spent a month messaging backwards and forwards, having the promise of dates, cancelled, and even last-ditch attempts by him to try and re-instate said cancelled date only minutes before it had been scheduled to start.

It was exhausting and I hadn’t even met him. Imagine trying to have a relationship with someone like this?

I was deluged with gif messages of Lionel Richie singing Hello, and numerous other attempts at getting my attention – but I held firm. I wanted a man, not a boy and certainly not a time waster.

So as the year drew to a close I was convinced I would end it dateless. Wiped out by endless swiping.

And then out of the blue the dating drought was broken. But that, my friends, is a story for another blog post.

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