A rare and unwanted species.

I don't generally get overly personal on my blog, but I have a fairly large winge coming on. I am not writing this for sympathy or for any "plenty more fish in the sea" comments because although kind, it's not helpful.

Anyone who knows me well is aware that I have been single for quite a while now. There was a brief relationship in there but the less said about that the better really.

Anyway, long story short I joined the internet dating scene as it seemed like the only way to meet new people. This was back in 2011 and have been on and off with it since then. Just for clarification before my winge begins I would just like to state for the record that some people I have met have been "good guys" just not for me or vice versa and this is only my opinion of my experience.

I feel it is fair to say that I have now almost had my fill of the whole internet thing and here are my reasons.

It would seem that women of my age who do not want children are the least wanted species on dating sites. Many men of similar age and older are still looking to have children so usually have an upper age limit of late 30's. Certainly 40 seems to be the magic number that they do not go above, even if they themselves are up to ten years older than that. It starts to become fairly demoralising looking at profile after profile and being discounted on account of age and the fact I don't have a maternal bone in my body. Not having a particularly professional job these days does not fair so well either and seems to render me a bit stupid.

Sadly though, I think many women tell lies on their profiles too, which only makes the few honest men more wary. One chap I had a brief email correspondence with told me he was leaving the site having just unwittingly had an affair with a married women. As if being single wasn't hard enough!

I have quite a few more gripes but will leave it it that for now

 At least some things never fail to make me smile.

Peace x

All photos by Caroline Harvey

A little bit of a rant.

I have recently signed back up to a dating site. I tried this last year and the relationship did not end well, but despite this I thought I would try again. It is not my ideal way of looking for love, so to speak, but I find it really difficult to meet new people. I don't particularly want to start new hobbies, go to evening classes or as many people have suggested take up salsa lessons. I am not inclined to go to bars and clubs on my own, so what do you do?

However, I am finding the whole thing quite distressing this time around. I have been on a couple of dates and I have met some genuinely nice people, they just sadly weren't for me, but I am beginning to wonder if internet dating is actually just the modern version of kerb crawling.

I understand that people may view my profile and think "OMG no way!" after all it is really a very intensified version of what we do every day in real life. We check people out in our heads and make assumptions about who they are based on how they look and dress. With internet dating this is what you do in the comfort of your own living room. We check people out and dismiss or not, purely on the information they give you and a few photos. For all I know I could be rejecting the best guy out there just because he has put on a dodgy photograph or tells me he enjoys the theatre!

I feel like I am on an emotional roller-coaster half the time. I get excited when I chat to people and they seem nice and even more excited if I actually get to meet them in person. Then there is the let down if things don't go well. I feel bad when people 'wink' at me and I don't really feel the love back, because I know how I feel when there is no response to a 'wink' or email. I feel I want to write back and apologies and tell them that they are probably a very nice person but I do not think they are suitable for me. What is the etiquette for internet dating, because I don't really know?

If you want to try and get your monies worth and meet as many people as possible, I think you would have to make dating a full time job and do nothing but sift through hundreds of profiles a day. Not very romantic really. I have been told the old adage many times "if you stop looking it will be right there in front of you" or "love will find you", but frankly as optimistic as I am, I am not sure I believe that. So until then I will persevere, but I don't hold out much hope.

My conclusions about the whole thing at the moment are;
Men of my age prefer younger woman
Younger men like the thought but not the reality of an older woman.
Older men like young woman.
I like men of my age or younger.
There should really be a website called Playersd*ckheads&w*nkers.com, so as to leave room for the people who are genuinely looking to be matched.

I have posted this photo before but feel that it is appropriate for this particular rant.

Rant over. 

If you read this and feel like you would like to go on a date, get in touch, at least it would be cheaper.

Peace x

All photographs by Caroline Harvey.