Here Little Fishy….

Last week I came across a great blog (please do your homework, I reposted it but if not read here) about being twenty something and single, and the realisation that it may be something to do with us rather than the men available. Too picky? Not sure.

This weekend, fuelled with a few bottles of wine and a good old moan, my single friend and I decided to sign up to a dating website. After all, the TV aerial is broken so we couldn’t watch anything, and we thought it might prove to be amusing. And it has been interesting to say the least.

And I’ve decided to tell you all about it. Its good fun, a little bit like going on ASOS on payday. Man shopping! ‘Nope, nope, hell no, looks like he has a girlfriend…. in the boot of his car, nope, hello!  hmmm, nope.’

Firstly, thanks to Karen there is a fantastic metric for screening men, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’ve used hers. I have adjusted slightly to fit my requirements (she’s from Canada so I had to research some of her references), but it’s something every single girl should print off and put on the fridge. I mean we ALL could do with remembering that a Santa Claus beard is a total deal breaker.

The Screening Process (courtesy of Karen)

Requirements for Potential Prospects

1. A pulse:  Regular breathing= 5 points, Comatose= 3 points, Dead= 0 points, Heavy breathing= Disqualified

2. A personality:  Engaging= 5 points, Boring as a sack of wet bricks= 2 points, Doorknob= 0 points, Weird= -3 points, Douche= Disqualified

3. Hygiene:  Clean= 5 points,  Unclean= 0 points, Funky odours= Disqualified.

4. Toilet trained: Independent of personal potty tasks= 5 points, Significant knowledge on how to flush a toilet= 5 points, Avid player of pee games such as `Ready, Aim, Fire`and Àll pee, no see’= 0 points.

5.  Sense of humor: Russell Brand (Mr Katy Perry)= 5 points, Michael MacIntyre= 4 points, Steve Carell (from The Office)= 3 points, Mr. Bean (from your childhood)= 1 point, Charlie Sheen (from rehab)= 0 points, Jim Carrey (excommunicated from the leprechaun community)= Disqualified

6. Dress Code: Nice Clothes= 5 points, Clean clothes= 5 points, Hobo Chic= 3 points, Hawaiian Shirts= 1 point, Rapper Wannabe= 0 points, Falling pants= Disqualified.

7.  Personal Habits: Cooking= 5 points, Cleaning up after oneself= 4 points, Adequate knowledge of using a phone to order a pizza or to call 911= 3 points, Drinking straight out of a milk carton= 2 points, Avid believer in leaving the toilet seat up= 0 points

8. Crisis Management: Able to handle a crisis= 5 points, Unable to handle a crisis= 0 points, This girl is crazy= disqualified.

9. Beards: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (sexy stubble, 1o Things I Hate About You)= 5 points, Jake Gyllenhaal (groomed beard)= 4 points, Brad Pitt (unkempt hobo beard)= 3 points, Jesus (biblical beard)= 2 points, Santa Claus (unacceptable)= 0 points

10. Attraction: I’m attracted to you= 5 points, I’m not attracted to you= 0 points, You are Ryan Reynolds= Directly pass GO, collect your million points and win the game. In fact, you don’t even need to go to GO. Its fine love.

Fine Print: Need a minimum of a million points to qualify. A long interview process consisting of awkward dates ensues if you pass the screening.

So back to my story. I know a lot of people who have had success on dating sites, and see it like a bar full of single people. This is not the case. Single or not, men go on dating sites. But let’s pretend that it is like going out on a night out and being in an environment where everyone is upfront and single. (if you want to read a hilarious blog about internet dating and douchebag men, head on over to Brooke and McKenzie, my new favourites and my inspiration to tell this story).

We signed up. We filled in all the sections, half-heartedly I might add, with me listing my likes as “Wine. Cheese. Wine and cheese.” (this one’s for you Jules!!) and each added a photo, going off to get more wine. In the time we did so, the inboxes filled up with emails. If you are looking for a boost to your self-esteem, sign up to a free dating website; it’s like a shot of wheatgrass on a hangover. We couldn’t go to the toilet for fear that the email inbox would increase to over five pages and we would lose a James Marsden look-alike in the midst of all the shite. On one occasion it happened and my friend looked at me, scared and said “I don’t think I can cope!” More wine.

But don’t expect it to be plain sailing from the inbox ego boost. We quickly established a quick fire get rid of the crazies metric (which should also be stuck to the fridge). If we had gone with our initial thought that we would politely respond to each email we would have been sacrificing our life to the computer.

1)      If someone writes you an email titled “hay” it goes straight to the bin. There is nothing wrong with a) spelling hey correctly if that is the route you will go down,  or b) and preferably, putting something more exciting.

2)      “How heavy is a polar bear?” I fell for this the first time. Guy 1 got a reply. “Enough to break the ice!” Lord. Add it to the metric, if you see this joke, bin the email.

3)      “Fit”. “Gorgeous”. “Sexy” If any or all of these three words come through, accompanied by NOTHING ELSE! they get binned. How are you supposed to start a meaningful conversation from that?

4)      If the email is from a person with no head, only their t-shirt pulled up to reveal a rippling torso, they go in the bin. As we all know, I am a massive fan of a buff body, but I am also not the type of girl who would post a headless photo of myself in my bra. It’s not what one does! (Note. This has been the hardest of the metric points. If I see a six-pack that I would break my finger poking, it is something hard to walk away from. I have overcome this by flicking to my Ryan Reynolds screen saver. Thank God for Ryan!)

5)      As with #1, if someone spells ‘gorgeous’ ‘gawjus’, a little piece of me dies. It’s like when you sneeze and someone says bless you and you say thank you. Apparently this is bad, and if you don’t clap, you are the key suspect in a fairy’s demise. Or something.

6) If they ask me why I haven’t got a boyfriend. There is no easy answer. Because I moved out of living in a house in the country with my ex because I wanted to murder him for not picking up his pants? Because I attract men who are married, engaged, total douchebags or all of the above? Because the guy who was the closest thing I have had recently to a boyfriend is a thirty something workaholic? Because I am insane? Not sure any of these are socially acceptable.

That’s the do not pass go rationale. After that, it’s an entire minefield, but collectively we anticipate that 95% of emails didn’t get a reply. I got the guilt about this for a time but as my friend pointed out, if you respond to someone who looks like a serial killer and/or can’t spell, you are only encouraging them.  I don’t think that is admissible in court, but OK.

Some snippets of conversation:

“In all his photos his friends are smiling and he has vampire eyes!” Delete.

“I think he might be responsible for the death of his Gran” Delete.

“He looks like Eminem.” “Do you like Eminem?” “No I think he looks like a chavvy oik” Delete.

“You only like him because he is mixed race and you like that. He said ‘gawjus!” Half-hearted delete.

It’s now nearly a week on, and what have I learnt? (It’s like writing a science experiment!) I have learnt that Karen is right. I am picky. I get bored easily and annoyed quickly. If someone doesn’t ask me a question, I don’t reply. After all, I’m not trying to force a conversation with someone I don’t know.

There are a great deal of nutters in the world. I refuse to repeat a great deal of the content provided, as my mother often reads this, but some of the tamer ones:

• Pitbull advised me to “grab somebody sexy and tell them hey, so hey” aaah! You will never get anywhere near grabbing me.
• “Send me a picture of your feet!” I loved this. No “hi”, no warm up, just a podiatry request.
• “Hey gawjus, I fink you are the girl I am supposed to marry. I read your profile and I fink I love you. Let’s meet up.” From one dodgy photo and a few lines of text? Surprised you can read….. This one actually added a point to the metric.
• “If a man in a big red suit comes and puts you in a sack, don’t worry, I asked for you for Christmas”. Vomit. If a fat old man tries to put me in a sack he will be administered with a sharp kick in the general groin region and an ear bending so terrible that he will regret ever attempting to grant Christmas wishes.

But on the upside, I have learnt a lot about myself. All that matters to me is that someone gets that I am always dry, regularly sarcastic and often a little bit odd in my humour, and have the correct personality to be the same. During this scientific experiment I have :

• Awkwardly seen someone who I shared a drunken snog with on a night out at Christmas.
• Noticed that a once good friend of mine was now single and contacted him to offer a chat if needed (who says Facebook keeps us in touch?!) PURELY PLATONICALLY.
• Given my number to two people. This yes, makes me picky. But bonus to the people who made it to this round!

And thus are my findings. In conclusion (they always round it up with a conclusion, don’t they?!) I feel there is nothing wrong with being picky (my granddad would TOTALLY agree. He hates all our boyfriends, deeming they are not good enough for his princesses). It might mean you end up dead being eaten by alsatians before someone sends an ambulance, but I think I would rather that than be romantically attached to a man who has a foot fetish, takes his advice from a rapper who looks like he had a stroke, and cannot spell. I’ll keep you posted if anymore classic, must-be-shared emails come through. Until then I will remain reporting from the field. Over and out!

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Hiding From Technology

I remember the days when you used to arrange to meet someone, and you had to be there. There were no mobile phones (well there were, but we youths were not allowed them) and so if you were meeting your friend in town for shopping, you agreed a place, and were in said place at said time. This is now not the case.

On one occasion, I had a barney with ex-boyfriend over my whereabouts. My phone had died. I was in the hairdressers. He had strict instructions to meet me at the hairdressers at an allotted time, but he had done a sort of drive-by walk past and panicked when he couldn’t see me, so gone to the pub with his friend (couldn’t see me, tsk. Suuuuuure! Definitely can’t see me from over there in the pub).I called him from a payphone. That was a task in itself as payphones are now like dodos; they are extinct. If you see one it’s normally an exhibit, or in the case of the payphones in my town, a tramp toilet. Ohgood. I persevered nonetheless, and found my next problem: It’s not ten pence to make a call anymore. Inflation has made it at least fifty pence, which I didn’t have. Finally, I got to make the call. He didn’t answer. “Ah well” I thought “I’ll leave him here!” I have no heart. I should have been cast in The Wizard of Oz.

So I went home, and when he finally arrived back, I was confronted with a very stroppy boy. “But I tried calling you from a payphone that smelled of pee! I made the effort!” was my argument. “I even left a message!” no message. What went wrong? When I tracked back it turned out that I had cleverly remembered the first five digits of my first boyfriends number (I don’t know how I did this. I can’t remember doctors’ appointments and what I was doing when I went into the kitchen, let alone the number of a boy I met seven years ago), added them to the last six digits of ex-boyfriends number, and left a complete stranger a mardy message about sticking to time structures and getting the train home and feeding the cats.

Emails are even worse. I had a conversation with a guy a year or so ago that was trying to sell us something, and my boss was asking some quite tricky, yet fair, questions. Man on other end of email did not like being grilled on the ins and outs of their product, and got a little testy with me. He sent a really tetchy response to one of my questions, and then obviously thought better of it, hitting the email recall button. This is a joke invented by the makers of email; something to further sink you into the embarrassing levels of mistakes. I not only got the email, but then got an email saying that the individual wished to recall the first. Hahaha. So its turns out that you can’t actually recall an email, you can just further notify the respondent of your mistake, rather than just sucking it up and styling it out. Brilliant.

My other pet hate is text messages. It is so possible to come across completely wrong through a text message, no matter how finely crafted you think it is. It’s all about perception, and often the day a person is having. Send a text, leave off a smiley face? Possible alienation. I got a message during a particularly busy day a week or so ago from a friend that was a bit mean, but in a jokey fashion. I didn’t read it, carrying on with what I was doing. A few hours later I got another one “I put a smiley face on the end. That makes it OK, doesn’t it?!” hahaha.

My friend recently wrote a text message out, went to delete it as it was deemed by the group to be ‘a little harsh’ and accidently sent it anyway. Cue uncomfortable silence in the air until the recipient responded. Ouch.

The kiss conundrum is also one that bugs us mere mortals. If someone doesn’t put a kiss on the end of a text, I do not care. If they put one, I do not care. It doesn’t send me into a spin about whether I have upset someone or whether I will ever talk to them again. Apparently some people are clearly mental, and so it does. It’s a war zone out there! Just pick up the phone and call.

So I will remain snuggled in my metaphorical duvet, in my comfort zone, away from virtual conversations. If you need me, practice your words. Many thanks.

*disclaimer: this doesn’t mean you lot!*

If you want to hear regular pearls of wisdom (I can’t back this up at all) then follow me on Twitter (@lillyheart999)

What Can I Do To Make You Love Me?

These really made me laugh. I found them on Schmitten Kitten, a blog that is too funny for words. What do you guys think? It seems to me the guy ones are a whole lot easier than the girl ones!

Dating in the Dark

I’ve talked a little around the mad time my friend is having with online dating, and how she is getting on. As an update, she has three on the go at the moment and is enjoying coffees on the Southbank and conversations over dinner, and having the time of her life. And good for her.  They all seem like charming people and she hasn’t any need to make a decision yet, so she is juggling studying for her PhD around dating some hotties.

And it made me think, what is the best, weirdest or most memorable date that you have ever been on?

Personally, I’ve been on some really great dates with amazing people. Ok so maybe they weren’t amazing people who were right for me, but I have spent time with some funny guys, or interesting men, and people who have shown me new things. I mean, without my date with a guy called Steve a few years ago, I would have never found Souk on Covent Garden; a fantastic little Moroccan restaurant in the heart of London, or learnt the Arabic word for meatballs. The more people you fill your life with, the richer your experiences are.

I went on a great date recently. Date three. I received a text to tell me to not wear heels, and bring a hoodie. I was out of my comfort zone as I am very much a wear heels or flip-flops and not wear a hoodie on a date, but I sucked it up and went along. We had dinner, and then I was handed two golf clubs (apparently it is a heinous crime to call them bats, my bad) and driven to the crazy golf near us, which was locked. I boosted over the fence, and we played an interesting game of crazy golf, only playing the rounds where you could get the ball back. And I won (although if you mention this to him he gets a competitive look in his eye and says I cheated, and of course I didn’t win!) it was really different to your normal go out for a drink, and it was fun (although I did nearly lose a toe as it was dark and I fell over something). There is something to be said about someone who thinks outside the box and plans something interesting to do.

How about you? Whether you are married or single, im sure there is a date that sticks in your mind as being a little out of the ordinary. It might be a good reason or a bad one, but I would love to hear!

A Right Royal Wedding

The Royal Wedding is the talk of the town, and I’m surprised by how much of a big deal it is here in the USA. I thought that by escaping for Easter and coming to stay with my family I might get a little respite from the whole palaver, but that’s not the case.

Firstly, the build up has been phenomenal. Every morning when the TV is on the news has done a round up of what she will wear, if there are any hints on who the dress designer is, what the hen do will be like, if she is pregnant (that was my favorite one!). Foreign correspondents have been inserting their two pennies worth and the rain prediction has been wrong every day up to the wedding.

I woke up this morning and it was over. Don’t get me wrong; im not anti royalist and i think that should William become King it will be great news for England, but the wedding of the year wasn’t enough to make me rise early to turn on the TV. I watched the footage this afternoon though, and I was both amused and touched in places. I thought it was really sweet how the newly weds disappeared off into the sunset in a little car with learner plates and just married over the number plates (although it was in an Aston Martin) and I was amused at some of the hats! Seriously guys, it may be Phillip Treacy but it’s still a monstrosity! he Princesses were my favorite, closely followed by Elton John resembling and Oompah Loompah, and Victoria Beckham’s interesting style choice.

My sister isn’t interested in the Royals at all. She thinks they are a waste of time, but I like them. William and Harry seem like genuine boys and I like the thought of a new era of Royals reigning over the country. I like that Kate and William have lived together and done their grocery shopping at the local supermarket without having aides and waiters to attend to their every whim. I like how elegant and timeless she is despite her now Royal standing, and I think that as a pair they will take England to a new period in time. We should embrace it. It was touching to see the Union Jacks waving in the breeze around Buckingham Palace too; giving us a sense of the patriotism that we so often forget.

A friend who is in the army commented that it would be nice to see the support to the country more often, and it made me think that where I am at the moment, in California, there are flags all over the place. You see the star-spangled banner and the California flag, and people here are proud of their country. Servicemen get mentions at big games, and they are a whole lot more appreciative of their country. In the UK the England flag is so often associated with hooliganism; three lions on the shirt and sunburn from foot fans in other countries. Most people can tell you when St Patrick’s Day is (and all the connotations og green, drinking, and more specifically, Guinness) but its rare to find someone in my age group who can tell you St George’s.

I think that if Prince William and Kate Middleton can inject some interest back into the youth of Britain, then good for them. And if not, we got a day off, didn’t we? And another one next year for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Good old Royals!!

Biological Warfare and the Cat

My cat wants me dead.

Seriously. I may be being slightly dramatic, but she is definitely plotting something or other. When I get home from work I try to stroke her, and she runs away, or tries to bite me but in the evenings when she has tired of chasing birds and tormenting the squirrels, she makes her strange cooing noise, gets on my bed and head butts me in the face so that she can get a tummy rub. But as soon as she has had enough, she bites me again. It’s like cat Russian roulette.

Biological warfare (BW), also known as germ warfare, is the deliberate use of disease-causing biological agents such as protozoa, fungi, bacteria, protists, or viruses, to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants. Biological weapons (often referred to as “bio-weapons” or “bio-agents”) are living organisms or replicating entities (virus) that reproduce or replicate within their host victims. (Wikipedia)

I think my cat has been on Wikipedia. She has recently invoked a biological warfare campaign on me, and to be honest I’m not really sure what I have done to deserve it. When her rightful owners (father and step mother) are out I feed her, give her water, let her drink my tea when im done with it and permit her to sleep on my bed and not get locked in the kitchen. We reside in a generally harmonious way, so I don’t know what I have done to upset her, but seriously, she is plotting against me.

It all began with the poor dead mouse. I don’t particularly like mice, but I especially felt peturbed when a mouse turns up, dead on the hallway floor, missing one leg.

Then, a mere two days later there was the tick incident. I don’t know much about ticks, but I know that if you have one, this is bad. So when she got one, I tried to pull it out with the tick device, and she bit, scratched and generally tried to kill me. But I got it out, it waved at me (didn’t think that it was actually a beastly bug and it would still be alive, after feeding on the kitten of death), so I stomped on it. Second time in 48 hours that I had to bleach everywhere she may have been, in case of dead mouse or wavy bug germs.

So when I got home yesterday, my father informed me that the kitten had fleas. I then had to Hoover my room, change my bed and Hoover the mattress, and flea spray the whole place (please note, flea spray is basically dust in a can, or so my lungs think). I had to do the carpet, the curtains, the fabric lamp shade, the throws and anything else I could find that a flea might be lurking in.

I strongly feel that she refers to me among her catty friends as the ‘host victim’. Does anyone want grumpy old lady who has been trapped in the body of a cute little kibby? I’ve got one going!!

You’re The One That I Want…. ooohohohohoooh Honey!

Megan wrote a brilliant post recently about her ideal man (read here) and it got me thinking about the prince charming complex and how every girl dreams of her prince.