Communication is open

I have now moved to "open communication" with Scarf Guy, which means we can now exchange proper messages. He sent the first, quite short as he was sending from an internet cafe while on holiday, but friendly. He told me a little about himself and asked a couple of things about me. He sent it earlier in the week, but I've only just got round to replying this evening. My message was longer than his, and hopefully struck a friendly tone and wasn't too boring.

I am still waiting for Barbados Man to reply to my last lot of questions. And a new guy has sent me questions. One is about how romantic I am, another about my idea of a romantic date, and a third about how physically affectionate I am (do I like hand holding etc). I am really not sure how to answer those. The multiple choices didn't include "no idea, never been in a romantic situation or been affectionate with a man"...This guy's profile put me off a little too. He'd written "dont" and "Im" (i.e. unpunctuated) and that is one of my absolute pet hates. It really doesn't take that long to put the apostrophe in, and without it the words are just plain wrong. Receiving messages spelt like that would drive me mad, so I may give him a miss.

In other news there is not a huge amount going on. I have had quite a lazy day today watching DVDs for the afternoon and evening. I had several which I'd bought ages ago but not got round to watching. It's been quite enjoyable. Next weekend promises to be a more exciting as I'm off to a concert with T.

And last but not least thank you to those readers who have emailed me, it's good to learn a little more about you :)

So I was just wondering...

Nothing exciting to report on the online dating front. I have continued communication with the second guy (who I'm going to call Barbados Man because he says he'd like to own a home there one day). We've exchanged must haves and can't stands and there are no dealbreakers there. I've sent the second lot of questions to him.

I have some questions to answer from Scarf Guy. The answers are free text rather than multiple choice and I need to take some time to think about my answers, but have not really been in the right mood this weekend. I will see if I can get them done tomorrow evening.

I felt a little sad yesterday evening. I spent the day with T and her mum, lunching, drinking wine, mooching and doing a little shopping. It was a fun day and when I arrived home alone to an empty house I felt a bit sad at the prospect of the rest of the evening. I found it rather odd as I do like (and need) time spent alone and enjoy my own company and being able to do exactly what I want. I think if I had spent the day alone I would have been perfectly ok about being alone for the evening too. I guess it was just the contrast between a fun, busy day and a quiet evening which affected me. Anyway I've felt fine today.

Ok, the third topic for this post is the main reason I am writing this evening. I have a statcounter on my blog and can log in and see some details of who is visiting the site - ISP, country, what web browser they have etc. The same visitors seem to pop up quite regularly and I've been wondering about you all - who are you, why do you read the blog. Of course I know who some of you are from your comments (and I really enjoy the interaction we have and very much appreciate your advice, suggestions and support) but the rest I have no idea about.

I'd love to hear from you - drop me a line at whenyouleastexpect@gmail.com.

A little progress

I am still communicating with Scarf Guy. I sent him some questions which required free text answers, rather than multiple choice, and he has answered them and sent his own back. He still sounds an interesting person, with some likes in common with me (e.g. travel) and others which I don't do often but enjoy when I do (e.g. walking in the countryside). He generally seems to have a similar outlook on life to me.

Slightly excitingly, someone actually started communication with me. He sent me a wink as an "ice-breaker", I sent him back a message saying let's communicate, so he sent me some questions. He looks physically more like the kind of guy I usually find attractive and I was more keen on him than Scarf Guy until I got back his answers to my first lot of questions.

One of them I sent was "how do you feel about your partner having friends of the opposite sex?". His answer was the most negative of the 4 choices, that he would feel uncomfortable with his partner having friends of the opposite sex. This was not a great answer from my point of view. I do have male friends. A couple of them I am pretty close to and see fairly often. The others I see less often, but I enjoy their company and have fun with them.

I don't think I would be particularly happy in a relationship with someone who felt uncomfortable with my friendships. I would make me feel uneasy about seeing my friends, knowing that my partner didn't like it, and I would worry about being pressured to give them up. And I am not giving up my friends for anything. They're my friends, I love them and they're part of what makes me me.

Wasn't this supposed to be fun?

I arrived home from work feeling a little deflated today. Work was a bit Monday-ish and we were low on staff so I was busy doing all sorts that I don't usually do. And I'm starting to feel like my venture into online dating is never going to amount to anything.

The one guy who responded to my questions ended up closing the match. At least half of the others I've contacted have closed the match without answering the questions. There are currently 22 guys who I have sent questions to who haven't responded in any way. And then there's the ones I wasn't at all interested in or wasn't sure about who have closed the match one me or vice versa.

I had my first questions sent to me at the end of last week. If it had happened a week earlier I think I would've been quite excited but the general jadedness that had set in by last week, as well as who they were from, prevented that.

The questions were sent by a guy who from his photo looks a little odd. He is dressed in a black leather jacket (a formal style one rather than a casual one) and a scarf and is sitting on an armchair inside a house. He's not smiling or looking animated in any way. It looks as if he set up a tripod and put his camera on self-timer. I hadn't actually got round to closing the match because his profile sounded vaguely interesting and I wondered whether he might post more photos and this one would turn out to be just a bad picture.

He did post a couple more photos when he sent the questions and they weren't really much better. One was him in the same outfit standing in front of a car, the other a close up head and shoulders shot. He looks quite stocky, he has shaved/very short hair and generally doesn't look like the men I am usually attracted to. All the men I have contacted so far have been slim-ish, have had hair and have not resembled him in any way.

But in a fit of fed-up-ness at the lack of interest shown by anyone else, rather than close the match I responded to his questions. I'm beginning to wonder whether I should lower my standards when it comes to looks. I don't think they're particularly high, but judging by how many of the men I though attractive have closed the match, maybe I am. Maybe I am going for men who are much more attractive than me and thus out of my league. Or maybe I need to go for men with a different look to my usual "type", as it seems my usual type isn't attracted to me. I don't know.

All of this gets me to thinking about why no man has ever asked me out. Just about every woman I know in real life has been asked out at some point in some way, whether by a friend, an acquaintance, a colleague, a friend of a friend, an acquaintance or someone else. It may not have been an official "let's go on a date", it may have been more of a mutual agreement but it's still better than I have done.

I think I need to stop here, as I feel myself about to cover ground that I'm sure I've covered more than enough previously.

Puzzled

I got my first proper eharmony response last night but it's left me a bit puzzled. One guy has answered my questions.

Four of the answers made us seem quite similar (he likes time "for his own personal reflection", he is usually early), the fifth less so as it said he doesn't like travel and prefers to stay close to home. And here's me, just booked my second trip to another continent this year. I'm someone who wants to see as much of the world as my budget will allow.

I decided not to reject him just on the basis of one question and went ahead and answered his. One of them asked about a dream holiday destination, and there was the option of writing in your own answer if none of the pre-set ones fitted. I used the opportunity to put in an answer which made clear my love for travel, figuring that if he hated to idea of dating someone who likes to see the world, he could back out. He didn't. He posted his list of must haves and can't stands.

And that is what has got me puzzled. Most of them were pretty normal, such as I can't stand someone who doesn't keep clean and I must have someone who is enjoys the humorous side of life. One however I didn't really understand. It was "I must have someone who is reserved and traditional in their sexual needs". What on earth does that mean??? How can you be traditional in your sexual needs? Does it mean you always let the man initiate sex? Does it mean you don't want sex very often? Does it mean you're not very sexually adventurous? I have no idea. Plus, surely everyone has their own idea of what being reserved in their sexual needs entails.

I should point out that the wording is eharmony's not his, but as he has picked it he must know what he means by reserved and traditional.

Even if I did understand the statement I'm not sure if I know whether I am reserved or not. I have no experience with a partner, and I don't tend to discuss sex with my friends, so can't really compare what I think my needs are with their actual needs to decide whether I am reserved.

The next step is to send off my must haves and can't stands which I haven't done yet. I'm too busy puzzling over this. Part of me is tempted to carry on communicating until we get to open commununication so that I can ask him about it. Is it just me puzzled by this? Does anyone else understand?

A response!

Well only a minor one, but a response nonetheless. One of the guys I requested a photo from has posted one. He must have seen my profile and photos and he hasn't ignored my request, he hasn't closed the match, instead he has posted his photo, which seems positive. I have now sent him my questions so we'll see what happens.

Some more of the guys I'd sent questions to have closed the match, but I've sent off questions to a few more. I currently have 12 I am "communicating" with, which in reality means I have sent them questions and I am waiting for their responses. A little disappointing that not a single one has responded, but as recommended by the website I will give it a couple of weeks before I become totally disillusioned with the whole thing.

In other news I have another holiday booked. I had a lovely day with T yesterday, much of it spent on the Internet researching flights and hotels. We found a good deal and are off to Chicago later in the year. As we were talking yesterday, I did wonder what she might think of me signing up for online dating. We spoke about it briefly once, when a mutual friend was trying to persuade me to sign up, and she said she would NEVER be desperate enough to try it. I hope she would understand that to me it's just another way to meet men, as I have failed to meet anyone I connect with in my day to day life.

One way traffic so far

Well there isn't really much to update on eharmony. I sent off my questions to guy number one, then looked through the rest of my matches and sent them to four more. I got home tonight and had yet more matches, so sent off questions to four of them. I'm not really sure how many is a sensible number to contact, but based on advice from Ecrivain, I've contacted all those who interested me. I also requested a picture from a couple of guys who sounded interesting.

Last time I logged on a grand total of zero men had answered my questions, which doesn't worry me yet as the first ones I contacted have only had a day or two. I've just checked now and two of them have "closed the match", which is disappointing but not the end of the world.

What is annoying is that one of them used the option of "other" for the reason. Especially so since all the guys who have closed the match without any contact from me have also said "other". Really??? None of the other options was applicable? I've closed a few matches myself and have not used other once. My main one has been that after reading the profile I'm not interested in the match. I also used age gap once. Is it me or is other a cop-out? If it's the way I look couldn't they at least say they'd rather not say?

Of all the many people I've been matched with so far none has opened communication with me, though some have viewed my profile. Maybe they haven't paid the subscription, or maybe they haven't logged on recently, who knows.

Some of the guys didn't appear to have made any effort whatsoever with their introductory information, putting in random strings of letters for several answers. Needless to say, I closed those straight away. Others had bad grammar and spelling which I find exceedingly irritating, but as long as it wasn't horrendous I have ignored it so far. A few had given answers which didn't make sense, were pretentious, or were just plain bizarre. I guess I am coming across a much wider range of and many more men that I do in day to day life. It really is eye opening.

On a completely different note, my friend T is coming to visit tomorrow, so I should have a fun day.