I can’t face my inbox. City Chap has replied to my rejection email, and while I’m sure it’s a very pleasant reply, I just don’t want to read it right now. It will only add to my already gloomy feeling that I’m not really getting anywhere. You might have guessed I’m in a bit of a slump. The fun of blind-dating is all very well – and I really do enjoy meeting new people – but I’m coming to the end of my third month and I’ve not experienced a single spark with any of them. Short of wearing 100% acrylic clothing, shuffling my feet on the carpet and rubbing a balloon in my hair, I’m wondering where that spark’s going to come from.
The bald stats are as follows*: I have dated five different guys. Three of those I’ve been on more than one date with, but only one made it past the second date. And after a few meetings I told him I just wanted to be friends. I don’t know whether that’s normal or not.
Maybe I should talk to my friend S who has considerably more online dating experience than me and, crucially, was rewarded for her efforts with a wonderful guy with whom she’s now made house. It would be interesting to find out how many damp squibs littered her path.
Perhaps what makes it more frustrating are the myriad stories I’m told about the people who found love on their very first date. Almost every time I tell someone new that I’m internet dating, they go wide-eyed and tell me excitedly of the friend they know who only did it the once, met their soulmate, and now live in bliss in Haywards Heath.
Now, usually I’d happily pooh pooh their exaggerated claims, but I know of some of these one-date wonders myself. It might sound encouraging, but as far as I can see it’s terrible news for the rest of us. Plenty of Fish could probably help me out here with the maths, but surely the laws of probability mean that these freak encounters mess up the odds for the rest of us? I mean, I’ll probably be the one who evens up the average – by dating for years…
*I didn’t have either the energy or the skills to knock up a pie chart/venn diagram
Hm…so you’ve met five guys and you’re surprised not to have had sparks with any of them? How does that compare to your real-world ratio? You probably know….what? At least a couple of hundred guys personally, right? With what percentage of those do you have “sparks”?