Pairing up

A night fairly long ago, this old broad and fellow single team mate (you know who you are!) decided to venture out into the sea of singledoom. We'd purchased, with our hard earned, tickets to a singles' night - it should be fun, fun, fun! The tickets certainly said 'fun' and the email enticement suggested a lot more than fun. And who were we to argue?

So the eternal optimists ... ventured forth.

Firstly going to a singles night, is portentious. Single in, single out. Not that I usually enter such a deal with unadulterated blinkered optimism, I mean I was there but it felt more than a little forced, many would say contrived. Of course, it has to be, it's a singles' night and let's face it, coupled folk our age, anytime after 8 of an evening, should be found as a curled up couplet under the duvet with their respective teeth in matching glasses on the bedside table. And they say romance is dead ... but I fast forward too soon.

The entrance to the 'venue' had been singlefied. Hope was draped sniggeringly over the entrance as fairy lights twinkled in feigned delight. It teased that it was offering all the fun of the fair ... sort of. Fun, although touted and exclamation marked on the ticket,  proved to be elusive. The fair analogy was a complete flight of fancy.

Walking into the bar, I immediately felt like I was the audience of one to a huge, but not very well sung, Welsh choir. As my head turned to survey the crowd, I was aware I was one of the tallest in the room. The crowns laid bare before me, proved that shallow-ness was not the sole domain of men. 

Then fear gripped me, as the first person to catch my eye, looked like a kindly soul but was also probably older than my dad. As I sipped on my 'free' flute of champagne, my eyes darted around the room trying not to meet anyone's gaze, which I agree is not probably a good strategy at a singles' night.

Hope ebbed faster than the champagne left the flute.

Devising an exit strategy, I found my wing-man and we waddled out, the curtain of hope long gone as we wandered back into the valley of singledoom.

We found a taxi in the crisp clear night, and zoomed off along the motorway, and homeward bound. 

And there it was, a singles' night. To be fair, I suspect that many of the singles were having a whale of a time, but as a fellow whale, on that particular night, my preference was beached.

Cyber Dating Pond

Internet dating, some squirm at the very thought while others may see it offering a little help in negotiating the piranha filled dating pond. After my own interesting experiences, I'd rather skirt around the banks and avoid the teeth, or worse not have a panic attack upon the realisation that razor sharps aren't even interested in my flesh.

But this isn't about me, it's more about the razor toothed fishies.

Whilst this particular fish put off the razors with too much honesty... many razors don't seem to be so fussed with this trait, in fact it's probably viewed as a hindrance. This fish, put a pic up in real time (give or take a few months). Mr A had posted a photo which I should've worked out by the hairstyle was from the eighties and this cyber-fifty-ish was pushing towards his seventies in realtime. Even at my most desperate, I couldn't date somebody Dad's age. Mr A, who had once sported a beautiful, full head of hair was now somewhat more follicularly challenged. Why oh why, would Mr A think that I might not notice the ever so slight timewarp? (Even with my failing eyesight!?!) It's not the lack of hair I lament, but the lack of honesty.

Another little cherub greeted me at a table in the ubiquitous cafe. You know the scene, poor sap hiding behind a menu, eyes darting and hoping the person with the 'mad eyes' isn't the same less mad-eyed person on the receiving end of your little e-missives.

Said ME approached the table with his hand outstretched. As we shook hands, he squeezed his eyes as if testing his bladder, noting, 'I should be able to wait for a few minutes'. (How long before I can abandon Ship Nohope?) The ship was badly hulled in the first few nanoseconds and was sinking fast. When he requested Chamomile tea and took out 'two vitamin' pills (assumed they weren't Viagra!) I tied my laces tightly and scarpered as quickly as my middle-aged pins would allow me, in the politist possible way, of course.

Another interesting thing I noticed was the assumption that as an older fish, you'd be up for anything, which is all very well but dodgy hips and being a little less agile than in youth, would preclude some of the acrobatics suggested in the second missive from one particular razor. I'm not shocked, simply surprised that some razors might think that the social norms and pleasantries have no use in the cyber dating world. I wonder if these razors ever actually get to sink their teeth into any flesh. Or perhaps they work on the 'probabality factor' where if they chuck out enough hooks, something's bound to be hooked.

Other interesting tidbits I've picked up from friends who have dipped their toes in this rather despairing pond, are great to regale with girlfriends over a glass of wine or three. One chuckled that a would be dater with an out-of-date pic suggested they put their coffee date off due to his stomach stapling surgery. His photo, showed a man in the peak of fitness but the Georgie Pie in the background should've been both a hint and a portent of what was to come.

In Auckland there is the dreaded man drought but I think there's possibly more of an honesty and good mannered drought from my own, often peculiar, experiences.

But alas, let us not end on a note of bitterness as it does nothing for my wrinkles!

I have two very dear friends who met and subsequently married in the very pond I've been so disparaging about. I'm not sure how they did it, but they found each other and, well, isn't that just lovely! There is hope!

Don't despair, patience might prove to be the greatest virtue in this new and sometimes scary world of dating.

Muddle-aged dating

Dating as you have to deal with the spread of middleage is daunting. Some might venture to say terrifying. In fact, so terrifying that I've decided to sit it out this later-age dance and if the frog hops onto my dance card then, and only then, I'll decide whether or not to leap. I suspect my feet will remain dry and firmly on the ground, but who knows, I'll keep a bit of lippy in my purse just in case.

As you wrestle with your girth, and the life lines, children shine a completely different light onto your situation.

Sometime ago, I dated a gentleman... or at least a bloke... with whom I had little in common. He was a pleasant sort of chap and it was nice having someone to pop around for a cuppa and a chat. The relationship rocked along for a few months and at the conclusion ('the dumping') my youngest son noted with cynicism, 'He's gone back to Planet Idiot, eh mummy?' From the mouths of babes, the big fat truths.

Unfortuantely, the most magificient feature of my at-the-time chap was his propensity for the most astounding... well... farts. They were rounded and full and trumpeted as you can only imagine the most farty of farts to sound like. Their comedic value knew no boundaries with my two sons. No embarassment ever accompanied the aromatic trumpets, nor apologies. To be fair, in the farting arena, they were the grand champions. The Mike Tyson of flatulence.

We bumped into him sometime after the last aromatic intrusion into our lives and I noticed, for the first time, the very roundness of his bottom, and suddenly it all made perfect sense with regard to the cachophonous nature of his emissions. Physics and biology, quite fascinating.

I hope my bottom wasn't eyed up and compared to a pachyderm. Oh sod it, what if it was?