All change

I’m still trying to fathom how everything can change so quickly in the world of singledom (and single-mum-dom).

I have dipped my toe into the (very) shallow waters of match.com in the last week or so. I know I was feeling like my self confidence had been knocked after the complete lack of interest from the Scot so even though I was being philosophical and positive about single life I had this little niggle, kind of like an itch that could only be scratched by some positive attention from the opposite sex.

I had no intention (still don’t) of paying any money so a lot of the functionality of the site is out of bounds but I’ve discovered that I can have a full profile and full searchability and if someone has opted for this “connect” package I am able to message them for free on my part.

To be honest there’s not a huge amount of them but I’ve had a couple of chats. The first guy looked good in his pic but he was just so wooden to talk to. It was dullsville. I had a message from a 21 year old saying “age is just a number, right?”. Wow. I was tempted to get back to him saying “if you were 38 then, yes, I would most definitely be agreeing, age is just a number, but I am literally old enough to be your mother!”, however I opted not to reply as I didn’t want to enter into any kind of dialogue.

Then over the weekend I finally got talking to someone who seemed intelligent and normal who is actually relatively nearby but after an hour or so of chatting when it got to the bit where he might have suggested a date he just disappeared which I thought was a bit rude but only to be expected with internet dating.

He messaged the next day to say he’d fallen asleep but we had literally exchanged messages a minute apart. Meh!

Since the Meetup night out I went to a couple of weeks ago I’ve exchanged a couple of messages with one of the guys who books and organises the events. I only very briefly met him on the night but he got in touch with me a while back to ask if I wanted to book up for a comedy night coming up. At the time I did wonder whether he asked because he liked me or just because he was trying to bump the numbers up.

He then sent me a friend request on Facebook and started following me on Instagram. Plot thickens. We exchanged another couple of messages on FB – just general chit chat. He posted a status update over the weekend saying that he was watching the movie “12 Years a Slave” which has been on my to-watch list for a while so I commented asking if it was good and he DM’d me.

He asked about my taste in movies and whether or not I liked the Alien movies. I mentioned Alien Covenant which is just out here in the UK and he then asked me if I’d fancy going to see it and so I thought, why not?

We then proceeded to have a pretty long conversation actually finding out some stuff about each other. He’s the same age as me and he doesn’t have any kids of his own. He tentatively asked about my relationship status and I mentioned the divorce without going into too much detail. I mentioned the kids (he already knew I had kids) and a little bit about needing a combination of babysitters, parents and the ex in order to have a social life.

At that point I was wondering if he was thinking ‘heck, what am I getting myself into here?!’ but he persevered. He told me he had wanted to talk to me at the meetup night out but didn’t in the end as I was the newbie. I guess he meant he didn’t want to come across like someone who would be all over any new girl who happened to turn up!

To be honest it went completely under my radar. He’s not really what I would call my type at all but I like him, he’s easy to talk to and interesting and outgoing and I’m flattered that he likes me – it definitely is an ego-boost. It also makes a lovely change from just about every single guy I have come across through my admittedly limited experience of internet dating.

So we’ve got a date. Alien Covenant. Friday night. I don’t know what it is I want from this. Right now I think I just need someone who likes me to date with no expectations. I don’t want to introduce anyone to my children again – not the way I did with my ex – so soon and with so many expectations which were trashed for all of us after a few short months.