June 2011

All I seem to hear or read these days is NSF, NSA, and FB. Why is the single gay community seemingly so commitment phobic?

Let’s be clear. I am looking for string. Lots and lots of string. Rope even or maybe chain, of the ball and chain kind. But these days tell a guy you are looking for a husband and it’s like watching a Road Runner cartoon. They even make the same noise ‘MEE MEEP’, as they dive for the fastest exit route.

Despite this, so many of my friends are in seemingly happy committed relationships, so there must be gays out there looking for the same thing that I am, so I’m refusing to give up on the idea of a big old ball of string to hitch myself to.

But it’s easier said than done. I have been single now for six years. My last relationship was with a wonderful guy whom I loved dearly and it was reciprocal, but we just didn’t make each other happy. So it ended. Since then there have been a few times I felt I was ready for a relationship and there was even one guy that I thought was getting close to, but life threw me some major curve balls and it just didn’t happen.

A single female friend of mine who is 30 asked me recently. 'Do you think there comes a time when you just think of yourself as single, as opposed to single and still looking?' It really made me stop and think, ‘Have I become that person?’

I’m almost 43, living alone, getting by, great friends, a job that I love (although it’s never going to make me a million), but no significant other. And essentially I find it difficult to imagine myself in a relationship. Over the last few years I have dated sporadically, sometimes meeting guys from online dating sites or via friends. My success rate is definitely low! Most don’t go beyond the first date stage.

But I am now a great first date, yet there always seems to be something about them that either doesn’t gel for me, or they prove to be a let down. Some of them have been great guys and some of them have been funny (funny odd as well as funny ha-ha) but it never seems to go anywhere. When I recall some of the guys I have met they remind me of the cast of the Mr Men.

Mr Eurovision – has attended every competition for the last 18 years, (it’s his big holiday of the year and I guess a great way to see Europe, particularly the Baltic states these days) but he also regaled me with the points and placing of the top three contestants since it started. Almost like an idiot savant…

Mr Angry – the date that from the moment we met did nothing but argue with me about anything and everything. Politics (he, Tory – me, Labour), healthcare (he, doctor – me, patient), London (he, lives north – me, lives south), and so it went on (and no there was no He, Tarzan Me, Jane argument).

Mr Manipulator – the man with no backbone, but with a greedy need to get everything he wanted whatever way he could. This is the same guy that every time he hugged me I am sure it was so he could look over my shoulder to see if anyone more interesting had walked into the room.

Mr Meth-Head – his opening line was, 'What drugs do you take?' 'Nuff said, huh?

Mr Sleepy – I am being kind here and saying he must have been tired, but really he was as dull as a fifth floor window that hadn’t been washed in over a year. He also couldn’t string a sentence together in real life, so much so that I think he was using a bot to communicate online (a funny bot, I might add).

Mr Martini – the guy who was only fun with a drink in his hand, but only the first three drinks then he turned into an arrogant loudmouth who wasn’t happy unless EVERYONE was paying attention to him, but without a drink had about as much personality as an omelette.

I could go on with the list and I am sure anyone reading this could add some cast members. Then of course there is the actual getting around to the date. The guys that say they are going to call but don’t, the guys who say ‘call me’ but don’t return your calls. The guys who block you rather than follow through with their own suggestion. It’s a bloody minefield out there.

In the last two weeks I have had a guy cancel our second date because it was raining. I heard from him a week later saying he had been ill, (note to prospective daters, don’t add people on Facebook and lie) but kept putting updates on his page about how much he was enjoying Thorpe Park.

Then there was the guy who spent four days wooing me online, only to cancel our first date on the day, saying he wanted to have a ‘rain cheque’. It was all I could do not to ask whether he wanted me to give him a promissory note for bad weather.

The guy I was supposed to see a week ago that said as we were talking on the phone on the Friday night, ‘text me tomorrow and lets set time and place’. When I woke in the morning I switched on my phone and got a message alert on Manhunt. The message had been sent at 4am, asking what I was up to. We had last spoken at 11pm and I had said that I was off to bed. When I messaged him back via SMS an hour or so later I expected to get a response at some point over the next 2-3 hours. But all I got was an apology for only picking up my message at 1am the next day. Now call me a cynic but the fact that he seemed to have forgotten in five hours what I was doing and the fact he was looking for me at 4am, and that he didn’t respond for the time that he did makes me think he was looking to play there and then and probably found a playmate. He then went on to text me this week saying he was sorry he hadn’t been in touch but his neighbours kids had hacked his PC so he couldn’t contact me! Clearly he had until that moment forgotten that he had in fact got my telephone number.

So anyway the list is growing, and I continue to file them under, ‘Not Interested’, ‘Not Interesting’, ‘Time wasters’, ‘Freaks’ and other such flattering titles. But the search will continue, I will use all the tools on offer on Gaydar, Manhunt, Grindr, personal recommendations, and maybe actually just pluck up the courage to chat someone up in a bar. I expect there will be many more bad dates but it only takes one I guess, and every time I meet someone and it’s not a good date I now tell myself, 'It wasn’t a failure, it’s just one more man I know I am not going to spend the rest of my life with.'

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