Internet Dating: Part 2

Today I cancelled my membership to Guardian Soulmates, the internet dating site I’ve been trying to use. 

The classy friend was so excited after joining, which is why I followed suit. I wasn’t really looking for a relationship but needed an ego boost as I felt unattractive and undesired after my last relationship.

All in all, it has been an experience I regret. The last month has been an exhausting roller-coaster of paranoia, internet stalking, over-excitement and dejection.

When I first joined, I felt like I was on a conveyor belt traveling past a line of cocks. I can’t call them men because they were just photos and stats that happened to have the genitalia I desired.

In the first days of joining the site, I obsessively checked my account for who had viewed me, how many fans I had and the various emails that came through. Me and Kate would look at my ‘matches’ in hysterics, beer in hand, screeching: “he’s fucking grosse!” “oh yes! email him!” “what the hell?” “he looks like my dad!” “his head is the size of a peanut!” There were only a handful of men in Kent and most had two heads or looked like their parents were related.

Some guys had the stupidest names like “an ideal husband” or “wouldn’t you like to know” and they say Guardian Soulmates filters out knob heads because it charges a lot to join? Wrong! 

From the moment Tom became a fan of mine, I was hooked. I sent him the most ridiculous email and we started an internet relationship of sorts. We were bandying emails back and forth every few hours which then progressed to skype conversations, cheeky texts and this silly video I made for him. I was in internet love. The only problem was that he lived 130 miles away. Despite this, we decided that we had to meet and I drove the 130 miles to spend the day with him. 

On first seeing him I wasn’t sure if I fancied him. He wasn’t how I’d imagined he would be. His hips were as narrow as my thigh and I kept thinking I’d crush him if we ever had sex. He did say I was exactly as he’d imagined but I was constantly panicking about my body, worrying that I was too fat for him. 

The whole date was incredibly awkward. I couldn’t relax and be myself around him because there had been such a build up to our date and I was overly impressed by his lifestyle and job. I didn’t feel good enough for him. There wasn’t really any chemistry and I had desperately wanted there to be some. I ended up drinking too much to calm my nerves and spent the night - in the spare room. The next morning, on the drive home, I burst into tears.

I hadn’t wanted a boyfriend but the excitement I’d experienced in the initial stages of getting to know Tom had made me realise that I was lonely. Yes, it hadn’t been a long time since the end of my previous relationship, but for the last year with my ex, he hadn’t been open with me, kissed me or even made love to me. I felt sad for the loss of who I thought Tom could have been in my head and I’d really enjoyed a nice attractive man paying me attention. Despite the lack of spark, I still texted Tom saying, “I do fancy you” and some painstaking 6 hours later he replied saying, “I’m not sure”. Cue more tears but this time, not for Tom, for my ex and how he’d affected my self esteem.

The next date was with somebody I referred to as ‘Pig Boy’. He looked a bit like a character from the League Of Gentlemen but had written me the most eloquent emails. He was also a proper Northerner, living in Canterbury. When we met I was instantly at ease with his company, because I didn’t fancy him. The reason why? He was fat. I am an absolute bitch for thinking this but I felt annoyed that his profile pictures hadn’t reflected this. I’m not anti-fat (I’m not exactly a bean pole) and I believe you can be fat and healthy. I am however anti-fat when the cause is eating takeaway every night (which he admitted) and taking no exercise. He also had greasy skin: a clear sign of bad eating habits. Being a health convert of almost 1 year and having lost nearly 4 stone through veganism, it’s important to me that I’m with someone active and healthy. Despite this, we did say we’d meet again but that didn’t happen as I had to cancel our repeat date and he didn’t reply to my last text suggesting an alternative date.

The final date was with the Maths Professor I mentioned in my previous dating blog. He had replied by email to the poster me and the classy friend put in Canterbury Wholefoods.

We met at the Neptune and it was the most surreal experience. When I walked into the pub, three of the tables were filled with the families of students I teach. When I first saw Mr Maths, I nearly turned round and walked out of the pub. He was short, wore thick-rimmed glasses and had the filthiest fingernails. He also looked unhealthy despite a vegan lifestyle - he was too thin - and was so goofy his teeth dug into the mid section of his bottom lip, causing a nasty sore groove. I started contemplating how the hell anyone could kiss a man with a mouth like that and realised I’d been staring at the tooth-lip-groove for so long, my eyes had gone out of focus.

I’m a pretty eco-conscious person in that I always recycle, rarely buy new, live a vegan lifestyle and grow my own. Mr Maths was the absolute extreme of this. He lived in a caravan in the forest with no heating or electric and a compost loo. He clearly washed in a bucket and stank because he didn’t like buses and had biked 8 miles to meet me.

I managed a full 3 hours drinking time with Mr Maths and stumbled home pretty drunk. We did say we’d keep in touch but neither of us have.

So, the whole dating experience was shit.

I keep wondering why Tom didn’t fancy me. After spending years with a guy who it seems, never actually fancied me, this really hurts. On Tom’s profile he specifically said he wanted a curvy girl with very large breasts. That should have a been a warning sign from the start but I was hooked on the wooly hat and wavy dark hair. I keep thinking it was because I’m too fat for him. Does he want a tiny girl with tits so large she falls over? Recently, for the first time ever, my breasts have shrunk 3 cup sizes through weight loss, despite eating too many crisps, so perhaps for the first time in my life, my breasts were too small for someone. I’ve been told on good authority by a mutual friend of both mine and Tom’s that he really does like girls with humongous breasts. If this is the reason why he didn’t fancy me, then I’m pleased. 

And why didn’t Pig Boy text me back? I have a vague drunken memory of telling him I’d been calling him Pig Boy behind his back. I also said I’d internet stalk him when I got home because he said all this shit about studying at Oxford and Cambridge and meeting President Obama. I thought he was bullshitting me but it’s true! I googled him.. 

And then there’s Mr Maths. To be honest, I’m not bothered about that one. He was far too in touch with Mother Earth for me. 

What has become clear is that I don’t want to meet someone through internet dating. It’s shopping based on packaging. You don’t know what’s inside and you pass up perfectly nice guys based purely on appearance. 

And a part of me feels like I shouldn’t move on just yet because I’m not desirable physically or personally. I don’t look at myself in the mirror and think, “yes, I look good”. What I do think is, “massive arse, lumps and bumps, saggy eyelids, limp hair, fat, fat, fat….” and yes, I’m changing things and I’ve lost a lot of weight but I just don’t feel good. I can’t imagine stripping in front of a guy and letting him see me. I’m too scared they would think “grosse”. 

A good friend of mine says I need to wait until I’m happy with myself but I don’t think I ever will be. I wonder if it’s because of my ex. Spending years with a guy who wasn’t remotely interested in me physically, not even for a kiss, would surely make any women feel undesired and unattractive.