The Search

During my late teens and early 20's I generally always had a boyfriend, they may not always have lasted very long, some longer than others of course, but meeting men was always fairly easy. I met my husband, we were together for close to 8 years and even during that time, whilst I am not at all proud of it, I met other men as well. Oh god, when I look back and think about what a wasted opportunity that was, he was a great guy, I should have treated him with much more respect and I should never have let him go - all I can say is that I was young, far far too young, I had no idea about life and I always felt like I wanted to be with him forever but yet was in some way held back and not able to experience everything I wanted to if we were together, so whilst I regret that we are not together now, I also feel that if we had have met when I was a bit older it would have been quite different.
Anyway, in my late 20's I was once again single and whilst I missed the intimacy of having a partner I certainly didn't find good men to be in short supply. Sadly I have since then wasted 5 years on a roller-coaster of a relationship ride with someone who I fell madly in love with, believed was my "soul mate" and left me feeling that I had spent my entire life "looking for love in all the wrong places"! only to find that he in fact felt nothing for me at all - what a waste of my best and most "fertile" years!
So I now find myself in the hardest category of all when it comes to being single - over (almost) 35. Well I have no statistics to back me up on it being the "hardest", but I can say from experience it is certainly tough out there! Whilst I have dated a few people over the past couple of years, some of them I have dated for longer than others, it has really only been the last 6 months when I have felt that the pressure is on to "make it happen" - the pressure being more a sense of me needing to become more active in my search I guess, and to stop thinking that "it will happen" - because the reality is that when you get to my age IT WON'T! Not without MAKING IT HAPPEN!
I think there are many reasons for this, as we get older we get more comfortable and tend to approach people less, so I do find that there are less advances made at the bar, or in the pub etc. There are also smaller social groups, where there were once 20 of my friends at the pub there is perhaps only 5 or 10 and they don't bring their single friends anymore because they don't have any! They are all married and living in suburbs I have never heard the name of! But I also think that broadly its a social trend that people are less inclined to interact with each other, we interact in person less with those we know and love, we send emails, text messages etc rather than calling in to see them or ringing them on the phone, so we carry that social trend into other parts of our lives, like when we go out, we are less inclined to even know how to interact with new people we meet.
But it is also just harder making friends when you get older, I remember making friends at school where you would just ask someone if they would be your best friend, they would agree and that was deal done. Now things seem so much more complicated and it all seems like so much hard work, and for someone like myself who never cared at all about going out and "picking up", because I would much rather have just sat there and enjoyed the company of my friends, it seems like its near on impossible to meet a romantic interest in this purist organic manner.
So, the first thing one does in my situation is to become a member of the dating websites RSVP and Adultmatchmaker - both of which have extremely different "clientele". RSVP is more for the desperate singles and Adutmatchmaker is more for the sexually deprived, both have their advantages and both are worth signing up to because between the hideous dates you have to endure courtesy of RSVP you may actually just need to have some sex, which is where Adultmatchmaker comes in.
I have been on more RSVP dates than what I have time or energy to write about in the last 12 months, but I can summarise by saying that it is very rare to find that someone is in real life as they present online - this may come as not much of a shock to those who have not tried this before, but I can tell you that sometimes the things people hide can be quite shocking and present some serious challenges to even stay seated for the first drink on the first date, let alone considering seeing them again!
As an example, I met a bloke who seemed nice, good looking etc, agreed to meet for a drink. We exchanged phone numbers after agreeing to meet and I received a constant stream of text messages and phone calls (which I did not answer) prior to the date "confirming" which made me actually want to "unconfirm" and tell him to bugger off, however against my better judgement I met him anyway, he was not good looking and he had a strange desire to keep grabbing at my legs after only having met him for a few moments I found this to be strange and something I was certainly not keen to continue with so I left.
This is the other thing I have developed - a very keen sense of when it is time to call it quits! I am a strong believer in not sitting it out more than you need to, being honest and just saying it like it is - I now no longer sit there all night wishing I could click my ruby shoes together and think of "home" I simply say 'thanks for the drink/evening/dinner I'm going to call it a night' - and I need to stress that there needs to be no hesitation at this point, they will be shocked but the key is to not allow them to say a single word, you just have to get up and leave IMMEDIATELY!
Speed Dating and other singles events are the other avenue I have been exploring recently - proud to say that I was made an "elite" member of the Speed Dating club after a recent event where I actually worked out very quickly that the only way I was going to endure the evening, and have any chance of enjoying it after seeing what was on offer was to drink an absolute truckload of booze and become a huge smart arse - now to become an "elite" member you need to have more than 70% of the male participants select that they would like to see you again - I was rude to them all, including the only one decent bloke who was in attendance that evening (who I went out with after for a few drinks and had a shocking follow up date with) - so this is basically telling of how desperate these poor sods are - I was rude and drunk and clearly not interested in any of them yet they thought I would be good for a second date!! What??!!
I also recently attended a singles cocktail function, this was for over 30's, in a bar and was significantly less expensive than the Speed Dating events so my friend and I thought we would give it a go. It was beyond bad. Not only did I recognise many men, and some woman from Speed Dating events, I also found that the women were nasty and the men were shocking. We scoured the room for anything decent and after realising it was another night where I would be going home alone, without the possibility of someone having taken my phone number and with years of regret lingering I decided once again to let loose and get drunk.
I spent the evening talking with men who need to take a serious look at themselves. Their grooming was highly questionable, their choice of attire was at best bizarre and the conversation incredibly bleak.
It is really quite amazing to me how many single men live in suburbs I have never heard of, and places I imagine only the struggling family type venture for a "better life" like Berwick - now seriously, what on earth would a single man be doing living in such a place??!! Does he really think that by buying a 6 bedroom "Simonnds Special" home with a 4 car garage on a quarter acre block mean that he will be ready when "Miss Right"comes along to fill it with their children??!! I have no desire to hear about their home, swimming pool or any other of the bogan suburban hidden luxuries in a joint like that, I certainly have no desire to commute that kind of distance for a courtship and if this is the kind of life these people are after then I will opt out, stay on my own and live with my dogs in Richmond thanks very much!
This particular event was fantastic for people watching - because it sure as hell was no good for anything else! Even if I was a bloke I would have to be honest and say that other than my friend and I , there was not much on offer! The women were trying to act sophisticated and interesting and when they were in the loo they spoke like desperate tramps. The men were nervous but were in their element because they knew they would be unlikely to be knocked back.
One bloke who decided to position himself next to me I had pointed out to my friend earlier, laughing at him and wondering if he was actually "all there" - he had a shaved head all hair gone except for a small patch at the back of his head where he had managed to grow a blonde "rats tail" which he had platted and was about 9inch long. It was so ridiculous I laughed out loud when I saw it.
But like a magnet to mad people he found me and sat himself next to me. Before he got comfortable I told him that in no universe or timezone would I ever sleep with him yet he stayed, like a skid mark on your best undies, this bloke was not going to leave. Finally I went off to find myself another drink and decided that I would go and have a smoke - what the hell I thought, I never smoke at those things as I actually don't want to meet a smoker, don't want anyone to smell it on me and actually plan to give up so I can have healthy children - but blow me down, blonde rats tail was outside smoking as well....he seemed to this this was fate intervening in some way and even after being extremely rude to this bloke he still propositioned me with 'come on, you know whats going on between us here' - I replied with 'yeah, you are making me sick and I'm going home' and I left, wishing I had made more of my opportunities in my best years - early 30's and thinking that I deserve better luck with my upcoming RSVP dates after enduring this!