Wow, I seem to have gone through a wormhole to a parallel universe – that of the Hitched. In my Year of Many Dates, I’d forgotten what that universe was like. No more scowling at snogging couples on the train. No dashing home to check for messages and views at the expense of cleaning the bathroom or stretching before running training. Most of my incoming text messages now are from my Sweet Young Man, and he never fails to reply to my texts within five minutes.
Due to my beloved’s residence in a distant county, there has been a sharp drop in London-based socialising. Partly because there’s less need and partly to save cash for more rural pursuits – such as adventurous joint trips. Return to East Croydon? Naah – single to Thurso, please. The only London constants are work, lunchtime greasy spoon outings with my workmates (the greasy spoon mystery customer squad) and coffee with Most Glamorous Younger Male Friend. For this, I have to remember to dress up. The Beloved met me in my dirty job as a vintage vehicle restorer. If I dress up, it blows his socks off. MGYMF, however, has not seen the dirty version, so there are standards to maintain.
Past Workmate and I share no such squeamishness. When I saw her last week, she said, “You’ve lost the red streaks in your hair!” “Yeah,” I said, “That dye’s nasty stuff – it either melts your hair or it doesn’t take, and it always makes a mess of the bathroom.” She diplomatically failed to mention the grey roots. On an earlier trip to the West Dean House Chilli Festival, we got held up behind a slow moving car full of people with white hair. There was even a tartan car rug on the parcel shelf. “That’ll be us one day,” said Past Workmate. “Naah…” I said, “There’s always hair dye. And we are decades away from car rugs.”
Back to the Online Dating world. “How did your date with the guy from ZZ Top go?” I ask Shola, a beautiful, upper class, athletically trim runner who works in financial consultancy. “Well, you know,” she said. “We had nothing in common, but it’s interesting to go out with people I’d never normally meet.” Absolutely. Though not everyone has that view of the purpose of online dating. A workmate sent me a link from premier US news site, www.theonion.com ‘Online Dating Helping Pathetic Women Get Their Hopes Crushed More Efficiently’. Well, that much capitalisation in one sentence is just so wrong.
The way I see it, online dating is like going for job interviews. At first it’s scary, but you need the practice, and eventually you understand the rules of the game, take the piss out of rubbish recruitment procedures…and enjoy it even. Then, when you least expect it, you get a job and you’re off the market! I found online dating great for going out and meeting new people. I met some new friends, including the priceless gem that is Most Glamorous Younger Male Friend.
Well, much to my delight, things are going very well with The Beloved, that sweet man who tried to chat me up back in 2005, except I failed to notice him. Now, I don’t worry too much that he was born at the same time as I was getting ready to sit my ‘O’ levels and he tells me many times a day that he feels very lucky to be with me. And bizarrely, though I was the last woman in the world to feel incomplete without a boyfriend, somehow everything now seems different….
By Ms X Libris, who we hope to hear from again, but she may be too loved up to write anything…
