I'm 26 years old and I must admit by now I thought I would have my life sorted. From a young age, I dreamt that I would meet my match, my soul mate, my prince charming (thank you Disney!) in such a romantic way - love at first sight, saving me from a dangerous situation or as simple as a handsome friend asking me out on a date which would change my life. Sadly none of the above has happened - to be honest I am not shocked by this. I did think I would have found my husband by now however the rest of the above is just a girls fantasy.
After dating various friends (I will blog about this later on) and not meeting anyone through work, my hobbies, friends etc. I decided that I needed to take action; I cannot sit back and wait for him to find me, I need to help him be able to find me. So I decided to sign up to online dating!
I thought I would initially sign up to one of the free sites - Plenty of Fish.
I was surprised at the number of members - thousands! It does have it's downside though, for example finding your Uncle on the dating site with a picture of himself from 10 years ago was an experience..
Women are out there thinking that's what he looks like as of today or maybe a year - 2 years ago (at a push)! I felt sorry for them... let me tell you they were in for a shock!
Personally I don't understand why people do this - surely when you meet up on a date it's game over..... (just to update you all, my uncle is still single...)
Just like I could see my uncle, a lot of older men contacted me to see if i was looking for a "sugar daddy".
A guy contacting me to see if I would treat him like a dog was the last straw - goodbye plenty of fish - it has been emotional.
I signed up to Eharmony - I quite liked the idea of filling out a personality test and the computer finding a match for you. As you're reading this, you'll probably thinking well it's obvious it didn't work for her and you would be right. I hardly got any contact from anyone! In a few months, I received about 10 emails... In an attempt to find out why I contacted EHarmony - they blamed my profile and my pictures for the lack of responses. With my confidence knocked, I decided to google to see if there was anyone else out there not Eharmony worthy - to my surprise there were quite a few people in my situation.
In a bid to prove Eharmony wrong - I signed up to a different free dating site - Okcupid.
Within a few days, I received around 20 emails! A lot of the people that contacted me were my age, lived quite close to me and seemed very friendly.
I even arranged a date with a guy that worked in the media industry. Unfortunately there were a few problems on the date:
1) his picture looked nothing like him!
2) his greeting was awful - guys at least smile when your date turns up. In his defense he did say I was prettier in person so at least I knew he didn't think the opposite.
3) make sure you include your date in the conversation - I got so bored during one of his rants that I started thinking about my shopping list!
4) don't compare some artists to having aids - he would prefer to have aids than listen to some music - quite a bold and needless to say offensive statement.
5) don't insult your date's occupation -accountants are just in-putters... you don't use your brain. I got up and left when he tried to teach me about allowable business expenses......
I was talking to a different guy for a while but he was a bit sex obsessed - he seriously couldn't talk to me for over 10 minutes without sending me a dirty picture or bringing up sex. Don't get me wrong, we all have needs but I like to get to know someone well not just what they like in the bedroom.
After my bad date and seeing quite a few of my ex's and friends on this site, I decided to leave. It was a good site but seeing some many people I knew made me feel less confident.
My current dating site is Match.com (it was on one of the cashback sites so in theory I was getting it for free!)
Their advertising states that they create more long term relationships than their competitors. Match.com you have a challenge on your hands!
I will keep you posted.........
thank you for reading the first installment of my blog - I hope you will join me on my long journey to meet the man of my dreams and thereafter.
Please feel free to leave comments / questions and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
