My Dating Disasters

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 wi...

OK...that's the exaggeration of the year, but everyone loves a dramatic title right? And this is to show anyone reading this blog who thinks I'm too picky or judgemental, that I'm really not, and that experiences like this are what have made me wary and not want to go through a similar situation again. Because I really liked this guy. But I was such a fool. He turned out to be a complete dick. Here's the story... He was from Bumble and we had a really good first date (Brewhouse, Clifton). He's a film director and had some interesting shoots coming up, so we had lots in common and I thought he was super hot. We stayed out late for a school night, had far too much alcohol and ended up sharing an Uber. He has been the only guy from any of these dating apps who actually tried to come home with me after the first date (the old 'can I come up for coffee' classic) and although I said no, in hindsight that maybe should have been a warning sign. We ended up g...

Location: Browns, Bristol Another disaster date. Well not so much disaster as another disappointment. But then really what should I expect by now, especially as I already had reservations beforehand.  His pre-date messages were long and detailed affairs, which didn’t bode well for my short attention span anyway, but when he attempted to describe his job using phrases such as 'cloud application' and 'system analysis', I couldn’t even compel myself to keep reading. A simple ‘my work has something to do with computers’ would have been more than sufficient! He had looked fairly geeky from his pictures, but my colleague Jo, who since finding someone lovely online herself a few weeks ago has transformed from extreme dating cynic to a fountain of positivity, assured me he could pass for a low-end Clark Kent...  I will never listen to this ‘new Jo’ again however, as when I saw him across the bar unfortunately he was channeling more of a Eugene (the lovely-but-n...

So the Dating Disastee is back from travels and ready to try and crack the dating world once more… But first, an observation. People in relationships love dating apps. Not for themselves (I hope), but my non-single friends are always making suggestions on how to improve my profile, which pictures I should be using and having a good old swipe through the current offering in my radius - getting very excited whenever they successfully ‘match’ me.  But everyone has such completely different tastes as to what is attractive in the opposite sex and in what constitutes a profile worthy of them making that all-important swipe right, that I often find myself with lots of matches that I have no interest in whatsoever. And it got me thinking more about this… The photos. With dating app users making a decision as to whether they like you based entirely on your looks in the space of a second, as fickle as it is, photos are really important.  And that’s why some selections com...

Location: A pub in a village near Kenley I squeezed in this date on the way back from a lovely weekend with my uni friends. I must have literally organised it for the same day we connected – efficient dating!  My friend Fi dropped me off in this random small town where my date had arranged that he would pick me up to take me to a nearby pub. It was a beautifully sunny day and as luck would have it, he had a BMW convertible, so felt very flashy driving along with the top down. Really can’t remember much else about the date itself though which isn’t a good sign, just that there were lots of dogs in the pub garden and they seemed to be getting more action than I had had in weeks! Nothing else came of it.

Location: The Milk Thistle, Bristol I accidently stood this date up! I had been trying to organise a badminton game with my friend Cherry for the Tuesday, but there hadn’t been any courts available so I swapped to looking for the Wednesday instead. Boring boring. Anyhow managed to get the days mixed up and I was with Cherry when I got a message from him saying ‘you must be running very late, because I thought I was late but you still haven’t arrived’ – oops! He forgave me enough to try again and we met at one of my favourite cocktail bars in Bristol – the Milk Thistle. He was running late this time (getting his revenge no doubt) but the drinks are so expensive in there that I didn’t want to get one in before he arrived (in case he didn't arrive), plus they’re super strong and it was a school night after all… He was quite good-looking, but very skinny legs. And I like chunky men. Prefer slightly overweight to underweight if I’m being fussy. He seemed like a really cool gu...

Location: The Vittoria Rainy Monday. Monday evenings are for sofa cuddling and an early night, but for some reason I decided a date would be a more efficient use of my time.   I realised the error in my ways at around 4pm at work, when I messaged said date to call it off. It was another of those ‘not really excited by pictures or chat’ moments and I had a nice supper of poached eggs, salmon and avocado I was looking forward too. But, he didn’t take it lying down and actually sent some quite funny responses to my cancellation message that were enough to reluctantly convince me to change my mind again and give it a go. So I walked to the Vittoria (his choice) after work in the pissing rain. It’s not a pub I have ever wanted to go to before despite its close proximity to work, because from the outside it looks old manny and smelly.  I went inside and it was indeed old manny and smelly.  My date stood up to say hello and unfortunately I immediately knew I d...