The real cost of dating

Location: The Somerset House, Clifton, and various places in Bath.

'The Entrepreneur' - a 38 year old, divorced guy who lives in Bath with his dog Rocky. Our first date had been the previous week in Somerset House, Clifton, which is so Christmassy and cosy at the moment with a roaring log fire - perfect date venue. He had lots to say, owns a few businesses (something to do with extracting dangerous dust through his own invention - very 'His Dark Materials') and I found him fairly attractive. He was posh, but in a nice way and I thought he was definitely worth getting to know a little better...

On our second date I dragged myself out to visit him in Bath (practically long distance!) where he met me at the station and took me first to an amazing gin bar. However we had only been sipping our drinks for about 10 minutes when he casually dropped into conversation that he used to go fox hunting. 

Having kept chickens and ducks all throughout my childhood I have witnessed first-hand how destructive foxes can be and have lost many a favourite bird. But, and without wanting to get into the details and turn this into a complete rant, I cannot stand fox hunting and believe it is a cruel and unnecessary tradition.

So although it might sound ridiculous, after he had mentioned that, I think deep down I knew we wouldn't work out as my feelings against this form of hunting are so strong. I wouldn’t ever chastise people I know that participate in hunts, it is simply something I couldn't tolerate in a perspective partner.

Despite the fox hunting comment hanging over the rest of the date for me like a black cloud, we had an ok time together, although I felt like I had to make a lot of effort chat-wise and his personality was quite serious, so that my little jokes and weird comments were totally lost on him at times. But he did show me some really cool places in Bath...Canary Bar for gin, for dinner - the Ole Tapas (a tiny authentic Spanish restaurant) and then whiskey at Hideaway. 

But that leads me on to my next rant...the cost of dating! This one date cost me £63.40! (£7.40 return train to Bath, £18 for two cocktails at Canary Bar, £30 for two whiskeys at Hideaway and £8 uber back from the station) and that's actually with him kindly offering to pay for dinner!

Of course, luckily not all dates cost as much as that. But let's say, on average, I spend £25/date, with me having been on over 30 dates now, that works out at a total of £750!…enough for a decent holiday!

(I’ll admit when I was first trying to work that out in my head, my maths is so bad that I managed to add an extra ‘0’ to the total figure and was literally running round in crazy excitement/horror at the thought of how much I could have saved. My sister thankfully brought me back to reality with a calculator.)

But still! It's a lot of money. The only consolation I can come up with is that having a partner is also pretty expensive, what with birthdays and Christmas presents, extra wedding/social invites, Valentines day etc...now which would I rather!?

Anyway...I decided not to carry anything on with the entrepreneur and it ended on good terms.

On another note, I went on a second date was with the young Woody Harrelson/Owen Wilson lookalike. We watched the rugby, got stupidly drunk, he stayed over, had bacon butties in the morning...third date tomorrow night! :-)