The Ex Factor … and why “au revoir” should be “adieu”

People who know me reasonably well will tell you I’m a forgiving sort of girl … eventually. I do a fairly sound job of mentally analysing life events and coming to rational, fair conclusions when disappointment rides into town.

I also know that it’s exceedingly unlikely that my actions, neuroses and hang-ups alone were responsible for the various failures that have strewn my path when it comes to relationships; that said I don’t mind taking it on the chin when I mess up.

So my approach to relationship spillages, crashes and breakdowns is simple … learn from them and move on. Increasingly I find however that men will say they are “friends” with their ex’s, maybe like it’s a testament and honour to the memory? I really don’t know the answer here because the concept is most definitely alien to me. And here’s why.

It’s not that I’m a cold-blooded and heartless bitch; I may like occasionally to portray that image but the reality is I’m nothing like that. My feeling on this topic is that it’s impossible to have a purely platonic and caring friendship with someone you once had feelings for. Let me give you an example.

It must be at least six months since I finished with Mr Distant Cynic .. or maybe that should be “petered out” with. We had gone in the space of ten months from being keen to indifferent for a whole variety of reasons, needless to say for my part the indifference grew to the extent that one day it dawned on me that I hadn’t spoken to him for two weeks. The spark had well and truly gone out. Thank goodness. What was once a flame was now spent ashes in the grate of another seemingly pointless episode.

At the end of our little sojourn I finally made it to the place on the page that everyone around me had been at for some time; Mr Distant Cynic had capitalised on my loneliness when I relocated last year. He spends much time abroad on business so the set-up we had of me being available for him when he was home was efficient to say the least. Once that penny dropped I found it remarkably easy to make all the necessary emotional realignments at lightning-speed.

Now, given that we had spent ten months or so seeing each other on and off (more “off” than “on” towards the end needless to say..) there was a tendency to think we could be “friends”. I believe “staying friends” is taking the finality out of it, a little like a safety cushion to shield you from the blow that it’s all over.

Mr Distant Cynic had boasted on several occasions that he was friends with a number of his ex’s; indeed he once commented that a few of them were now married and that he knew for a fact that the new husbands hated the “arrangement”. I imagine a thoughtful and considerate ex would bow out but no, he found that quite amusing. Can you see where I’m going here?

And so yesterday when after several months of zero communication his message popped up on Skype, I sensed he was on an information gathering exercise. And I was right.

After opening gambit chit-chat he asked “so how are you? How’s business? Family? Is there a new man?”

I deftly answered the first three questions and body-swerved the fourth, knowing that he would come back to it again. And he did.

So this time I answered that yes, I had been seeing someone. I also added that it was early days but that he was probably the most genuine and honest person I’d met in long time. Because that was the right and true answer to his pointless probe.

Out of politeness I then asked “and how about you?”

“Yes am seeing someone …” he answered, “unbelievably she’s even busier than I am…. which suits me fine …. she is a very lovely person …”

So all in all, you might say that’s a great result for both of us, which of course it is but I feel that was a conversation we’d have been better off not having for one simple reason … pride.

We all like to think we left an imprint on the minds and hearts of our ex’s, don’t we? Not to the extent that they can’t move on and find happiness elsewhere, but in the moments when their minds drift off for a moment wouldn’t we like them to think “oh … she really was something else” (in the dreamy and wistful sense …)

You see, when I said I was seeing seeing an honest and genuine man, what I really wanted to tag on the end was “he’s the complete opposite of you”. And I’m sure he’d have wanted to come back with “oh bully for you”

And when he told me his new squeeze was a “very lovely person” I desperately wanted to retort “and I wasn’t, I suppose???”

These thoughts and desires are not conducive with leaving wistful imprints .. just a nasty aftertaste.

In truth I think maybe people have all sorts of other reasons for keeping in touch and for “staying friends”. Maybe they are harbouring a deep-rooted hope that it isn’t really over. Perhaps at some point they think “benefits” could be added to the equation. For me it’s quite straightforward; I’ll nod in acknowledgment if I bump into an ex in Tesco but that’s as far as I need to go.

Once you’ve said your goodbyes it’s better to nurture the memories rather than stir up the residual resentment.

After all … they’re called “ex” for a reason.

Great expectations …. and the art of letting them go

There is one thing you can be sure binds us together when it comes to relationships …and to be clear I’m talking about all relationships here, not just the intimate ones. And that is this ..we’ve all been disappointed at some point.

That’s not to say that every relationship will let you down, but in the main there will have been a falling short of the mark that caused us to retreat, sob, lick our wounds and sob some more in the worst cases, and to shrug our shoulders in resigned acceptance in less severe instances.

When we invite people into our emotional space we attach hopes to them in terms of their behaviour and consequential outcomes, we hope, will weigh heavily in our favour. The more we like a person, the more hopes we attach. It’s like planting a garden. If it’s of critical importance to you that it blooms to perfection then you’ll tend it regularly, ply it with fertiliser, stand and wait for green shoots to appear. If on the other hand you don’t care one way or the other, you might chuck a few seeds about in homage to whatever BBC2 gardening bonanza caught your eye as you channel-hopped one evening.

Hopes, dreams, aspirations … if you hang on to them for dear life and fail to implement a qualification process that tells you whether they are realistic or not, they become one thing. Expectations.

Some where deep down we might start to conjure pictures of a happy ever-after with someone we just met or else we possibly imagine our child opening his practice in Harley Street thirty years hence as he walks into his new classroom on his first day at school. If you’re really adept at this process you will imagine these things happening before there is a “someone we just met” or before you’ve even taken a positive pregnancy test.

We like to dream, we should all live in hope (despite there sometimes being no apparent reason why that’s a good idea) and aspirations gave birth to the profession that is marketing. Expectations, however, seem to be the root of disappointments and let-downs, dashed and disregarded like insignificant pieces of flotsam and jetsam floating on the cruelly hostile sea of hope.

Now I can’t hold my hands up as a visionary on this subject for I too was practically olympic-standard at imagining the “whole roses around the cottage door” scenario when it came to fledgling relationships. And then after what seemed to be an indeterminable number of gargantuan bitter pills my friend Ullie spelt out my solution in brilliantly simple terms…

“You should never enter any relationship with expectations. They are the seeds of misery. Rid yourself of expectations and you will enjoy the relationship for what it is in real terms, not what you’re willing it to become”

Ullie was unequivocally correct.

Only yesterday I had a vivid reminder of how ignoring this advice can play out when I was targeted with a nasty little message left “anonymously” on Facebook.

Some time ago I became aware that a chap had taken a liking to me, he wasn’t my type in any way shape or form but he could be mildly amusing so we occasionally swapped banter. Every time I reaffirmed the distance between us, he seemed to ramp up his attempts to preen and parade himself in front of me like some prize-winning bull, often in front of his easily amused friends.

It became harder to feign a smile in front of Mr Jack T. Ladd, especially when he proclaimed pearls of wisdom like “You and I are so alike. We both have an air of mystery about us.” Explaining to him that it wasn’t mystery in my case, it was indifference felt like it possibly would have popped his balloon with a force he wasn’t ready for. So I chose to dodge him at every given opportunity, often very unsubtly.

My opinion on events like this is quite straightforward. If you like somebody and you throw out bait several times which they chose to ignore, then they don’t like you. Simple. And when if you’re a man throwing said bait, be in even less doubt. Continuing to puff your chest up that bit more and plunge in once again is only going to ensure that when the realisation sets in that the interest is not mutual, the catastrophe will feel so grave it should make the six o’clock news headlines.

And so Mr J T Ladd went on and on and on. And I backed off and off and off.

And then yesterday evening to my Facebook Honesty Box question “Tell me something you probably wouldn’t say to my face” I got this (anonymous) response ..

“I think you are a coward which i find disappointing. I would never have a problem saying that to your face mind you, just never got the opportunity.”

Now anyone who can’t be bothered to capitalise “I” isn’t worth a huge amount of bother anyway, but that just happens to be a bête noir of mine that I battle with constantly amidst the many grammar and spelling affectations that haunt me.

And, in case you are wondering, I knew this to be Mr Ladd … for one simple reason. He and people like him can’t just let their expectations go because they think everyone is waiting for their next promised installment, so when they sense the game is starting to run away from them they seize on that critical match-winner … the last word, preferably a nasty toxic one.

Building expectations is never advisable, particularly when you have no knowledge of the person you’re constructing them around. Which is why Ullie was spot on with her advice.

But if you really can’t help yourself donning a hard hat and erecting some scaffolding in preparation…. then learn to let them go gracefully.

Or even better … live in the moment and let the rest go hang.

It has to mean something … otherwise it will be blogged, drawn and quartered.

I really have no idea where time goes … it seems only two days ago I was discussing with a friend how I felt I needed to leave this blog alone for a while due to the fact that I believed it was getting a tad repetitive and that I thought I was starting to sound like I had as much luck with men as the village spinster (although arguably my memoirs might make for better reading). In fact it has been over a month since I last posted.

So in effect I have done just that. I kicked off my heels, cracked open the gin and took a blogging holiday. And that has to all intents and purposes been fine, except for the fact that I’ve felt the urge to blog about a couple of incidents but couldn’t for two rather pertinent facts. The first is that I must now have one of the most public personal lives that doesn’t belong to a celebrity (of my own making, granted) and the second being that a friend informed me recently that my candid approach to recording my take on the opposite sex could have a detrimental effect on my search for a meaningful relationship.

And that, ladies and gentleman, has been the sum total of my month away from these blogging shores. I now know what I’m looking for.

A meaningful relationship. A relationship that means something. Not marriage. Not co-habitation even. It just needs to “mean” something.

People oft think I’m a bit of a flibbertigibbet on the one hand and a ruthless user of men on the other. I never worked out how those two married up  but apparently it is possible; after three or four Babychams laughing at ridiculous jokes I can turn into the female Don Corleone of the dating world. I take no prisoners you see. All wrongdoers are exposed with a mere tap-tap-tap on my rather slinky Mac keyboard.

And so they should be! I’m not entirely sure that I’ve been specific about the criteria by which I judge my dating experiences in terms of suitability for “outing” them Debsy-style, but it’s really quite simple. Men that act like arses will have their arses exposed, and to clarify, “act like arses” means at some point they have treated me (and probably many like me) pretty shoddily.

I never use real names, but if they were to read the post, they would know to whom I’m referring. Job done.

My friend (of the candid approach comment) informed me that a man would need to have “balls of steel” to get into a relationship with me, knowing about this blog and my tendency to whip out an exposé quicker than you could say “second date”. For my part I found that a bit harsh ….. but then we always do see onlooker’s views through sterile binoculars don’t we? In essence I found his “balls of steel” comment quite funny … or was I merely pleased with the fact that I was starting to appear formidable in the dating arena? In retrospect I’m not sure either interpretation is desirable.

The unfortunate fact is that recording my experiences in this blog have become my way of laying them to rest. Every time someone has told me how funny they thought a particular entry about a disastrous date was, I’ve jumped up and down on the grave of the memory of said incident, knocked back an imaginary martini, thrown the glass at the wall and screamed “next!”

We all need to review, investigate, understand and conclude. My conclusions just happen to involve sharing my findings with about seven thousand others on Twitter and Facebook. What the heck’s formidable about that?

So. Meaningful. That’s the sum of it. And by meaningful, I mean just that.

Welcome back friend.

I was joking about the Babychams by the way.

How to write your dating proposal …. it’s all in the pitch.

A friend asked me briefly yesterday for my thoughts on a particular dating site; he stated that he thought it was less of a “cattle market” than the others he had seen. I agreed that it was but went on to add in my usual negative fashion that I reserve for this topic that said site had been a dead loss for me.

I make no bones about it; internet dating and I are not a match made in heaven. I suspect it’s in no small part due to the fact that I like quick results, so after half a dozen dismal attempts at finding the man who will emotionally complete me via my broadband connection I’ve “logged off” the whole idea. But my conversation with my friend did cause me to realise that my impatience is possibly due to my previous career in sales on the battlefield that is the city of London …

This was a job where strategies were not given an infinite amount of “time to work”. If there was no sign that you were making significant progress after deploying all your heavy artillery then you either a) completely re-thought your strategy or b) scrawled it off your prospect list and started hunting elsewhere.

I really was that girl. I was the one in the Armani suit stood on Waterloo concourse huffing and puffing because the train was ten minutes late. I was the girl sat in the American Bar at the Savoy sipping champagne with my girlfriends on a Wednesday evening just because we could.

I was also the girl that brought in £3.5 million worth of new business for my employer eighteen months before they decided to dispense with my services when I tried to return from maternity leave. So you see, it’s not always glitz and glamour … at least not once you’ve had a child.

The taste for all things designer and bubbly soon left me. Having a baby tends to do that to a woman. Priorities not only move, they get completely re-written. But the one thing I’ve never lost is the understanding that to get someones interest, be it in your product, your ideas or even you, you have to whet their appetite first.

To this end I would suggest anyone writing a profile for a dating website look at it in the same way as writing a sales proposal.

What you’re selling is you of course, but what you want to do is stir enough interest in your audience to motivate them to contact you. Don’t worry that you might be contacted by people you’re not interested in, of course you will, but you need options when it comes to internet dating and plenty of them.

The first thing anyone needs to decide is what type of match are you looking for. In the interests of keeping this post sensibly concise let’s suppose it’s someone like me; someone looking for a relationship but not to be engaged by Christmas and married in the spring. Here are a few pointers you might like to consider …

Photograph– Make sure you include one; not posting one looks suspicious (I’ve already talked about that). And make sure you’re smiling on it; in the main it’s only professionally-taken shots that don’t make unsmiling people look like convicts. Another vital point is make sure you’re properly dressed … a man naked from the waist up spells out P-L-A-Y-E-R only. You may be proud of your gym attendance record but keep it in your back pocket for now.

Written profile– Keep it relatively brief, two paragraphs only. Remember this exercise is only about getting people interested in you, they don’t need to know every last detail at this point. Mention any avid and passionate interests you have (that aren’t related to sex) and never, ever, ever mention your ex. Ever. Make sure your spelling and punctuation are correct … trust me, a thinking woman’s crumpet does not start off “well where i start im new to this my mates say i look great for my age i luv a good laff and im looking for that special laydee ….” You get the picture I’m sure.

Follow-up– When people contact you either initiate conversation with them or politely tell them “no thanks”. Don’t ever ignore them. The world is too small these days to risk gaining a reputation for being ignorant for the sake of not typing a quick message.

So, I’m sure there are those of you out there who are thinking “so if she’s so red hot at this, how come she’s single?”

The answer is this … you don’t always have to believe in the product to be able to sell it. You just have to get the buyer salivating at the thought of it.

Job done.

Physical attraction …. does it have a lot to answer for?

In this heady and dynamic world of social networking, online dating and cyber chat, this question looms large in front of me  …….why and how do we determine the connections we make?

How we make potentially romantic contacts is of course different to those we make for business or other social reasons ….. or is it?

Most online dating sites offer you the choice of either posting a profile photograph or not, but when I tested both options for myself I got around eighty per cent less interest without a snap as opposed to with. It was actually a man who advised me to try removing my photo but the sad truth soon emerged that when a woman is post-forty, men expect the worst. I’m sorry guys, but you do …. So the moral here is …. middle-aged daters need to validate their applications with some sort of evidence that they won’t frighten small children and horses, especially if they are female.

I’ve already talked about how when browsing men’s profiles that don’t have pictures, I’ve been automatically suspicious. No matter how “nice” someone is online, if on meeting them they turn out to look like something that could be towing the British army’s tank division single handedly, I will lose interest pretty quickly. Call me shallow, but there it is…

I’m Debsylee, and I’m an attracto-holic.

When we get a way down the dating line the cracks often begin to appear, of that there is no doubt. Take Mr Bunched Up as my most recent example of this; perfectly presentable (thanks to his relentless gym regime as he was keen to point out … ) but the personality of a giraffe on acid soon negated any good work he had done in the body shop. So whilst attractiveness might get you a second interview, it’s not necessarily going to secure the position of significant other …

In socio-business situations it’s slightly less obvious, but the basic model is the same. As a single girl I’d have to admit to having two types of contacts, those (male and female) who are married/attached and therefore kept well away from any flirtatious activities, and those attractive males who aren’t married or attached …. they go into a mental file labelled “Let’s not rule it out”. That’s not to say I would necessarily start plotting a takeover manoeuvre, but on a good day with a fair wind … Who knows?

Physical attraction, therefore, seems to be the number one motivating factor that determines whether communication is pursued with significant interest initially … or not. If the interest grows with the onset of emotional, spiritual and mental attraction too, then you’re on very fertile ground and you’d better prepare for all possible outcomes. Just in case.

I’ve pursued contact with a couple of men that really should have been parked when an alarm sounded but because I was visually hooked and the mental pairing was progressing well too, I chose to ignore the siren and battle on regardless.

Cat in the Hat is a perfect example. He was a substantial number of years older than me, but very learned, great with words and had a fabulous American accent. I was without doubt in the latter stages of “liking too much”. So when he chose to impart the information that he was going to have a “surgical procedure” that would involve some pumpage in – ahem – intimate moments, I chose to brush it off as unimportant.

Now, sane, rational and clear-thinking Debsy would scream “you what???” at that prospect but no, not the case for the newly mesmerised and smitten Debsy. My one remaining slightly concerned and clear-thinking brain cell chose to discuss it with Mr Distant Cynic, who after composing himself mentioned that a fit and healthy woman in her forties would soon tire of mechanics in the bedroom … I maintained that true love would see us through. How deluded was I? More on Cat in the Hat on another day. Needless to say the relationship was soon a deflated  version of it’s former self (not as the result of any test-drives, I should add …)

One lady commented to me some time ago that being very beautiful can be a curse; it can attract the wrong sort of attention. I can see why that would be … beauty can act like a magnet, attracting people from every direction. If the attractor has a well-honed selection process to eliminate all the ne’er-do-wells and retain the gems, then all well and good. But you can only imagine the number of times you might have to fall flat on your face to get that system operating well, without sentiment or emotion.

When all is said and done we remain a species that acts first on the visual; we might like to think we’ve evolved but the truth is that the progress has been negligible.

We may be phasing out beauty contests, but that just puts the judges back out on the streets ….

Don’t tell me to grow up … this is as far as I go

A little while ago I saw a discussion on TV about people’s mental age and after giving it the once over to ensure it wasn’t simply more garbage plumping out daytime TV, the thought crossed my mind that I could well have an explanation here for ongoing sillyness that those around me have to endure.

When I mentioned this to my father he too indicated in familial fashion that he thought it was rubbish, until I pointed out to him that my brother (who is three years my junior) in practice acts fifteen years older than me. At least.

My dear old dad had to concur that it was true; I am still a little girl (my words and not his, but I’m sure the thought ran through his head as he sighed in accepted resignation)

Only yesterday I visited my “older” brother and we took our offspring to the park. During the visit said bro shot me a glance that said he was mildly embarrassed when I got my swing to at least eight feet off the ground at it’s peak. The only thing my biological age has done is instilled a fear in me that now stops me trying to do the 360º.

And then this very morning my five year old boy caught me with my hand in the Maltesers bag at breakfast time. I smiled nervously at him explaining that it was OK for Mummies to have chocolate instead of weetabix, at which point he muttered … “Oh Mummy …. sort yourself out”

I have to say I found his middle-aged approach to my perceived weakness a tad worrying, until I realised that it could actually work well for the both of us. I’ve long since known that I need the voice of reason whispering in my ear on occasion, I just didn’t think it would be coming from a person quite so tiny.

Our teatime dancing sessions that more often than not involve gyrating to Girls Aloud have become legendary. I rarely can wait for the ice cream to have been devoured before I’m up shimmying to Can’t Speak French; we can now perform the cheeky wiggle with such panache that you’d think we’d choreographed it personally for Cheryl and co.

This is all standard parental practice you might think, until I admit to the fact that these dance frenzies take place all the time … even when I’m alone. I’m guessing I’m possibly around the nine year old mark, so perhaps I still have some jurisdiction over a five year old.

I think little Debsy only came out to play about two years after said son was born. I really was a proper grown up until then; you need to be in order to select the drugs you want in the labour ward.

So what drawbacks does this have in practice?

It can make me an incorrigible tease; I’ll push and push until I’m staring over the precipice mouthing “oooops ….”

And coming from a family of “adults” (save for my auntie who is around the same “age” as me), I frequently get cast as the “lost cause”. I do tend to find that dipping my head and flashing my eyes gets me out of most bothersome situations though, along with extra helpings of cake.

Of course, the grown up version of acceptable cheekiness is flirting. Oh, don’t we love that? Once you have the grown-up attributes to drive as fast as you want down the suggestive highway, it’s the most fun you can have that’s legal, calorie-free and non-taxable. And when you add a childish predisposition for high jinks it can add a propulsion that leaves standard interaction stalling on the start line.

Whatever the true reason is for my apparent refusal to grow up, you can be sure of one thing…

Tea will be late tonight due to last minute dress-rehearsals of “Love Machine” taking place in a dining room near you NOW …

Who’s wearing the trousers now?

My last post concerning men and their ensuing aging process seems to have stirred up a veritable hornet’s nest of opinion … the like of which has left me scratching my head somewhat.

I still fail to see why advancing years are such an issue for anyone these days, irrespective of gender. Of course if my dear Mum was reading this over my shoulder right now she’d be pointing out that in her forties she felt great too, but that reaching seventy isn’t quite the same story.

The boys seem to be missing one vital fact here …. the girls like nothing more than men who have matured into learned, confident chaps, relaxed about their lot in life. Shall I tell you why that is? Because it means we don’t have to worry about propping them up and reassuring them at every twist and turn.

I had a very recent date with one man who on the face of it seemed to ooze confidence and gravitas; we’d had several conversations about life, children, values …. all deep searching stuff. He and I were very similar in many regards; we held a very similar political view (if you saw me raging over the Sunday papers, my glasses slipping down my nose and unkempt hair akimbo, you’d appreciate what a big deal that is… you wouldn’t want to cross that woman) and he had a knack of engaging me within a minute or two of a phone conversation. All was good.

As it turned out, Mr Bunched Up (stay with me, all will be made clear) had more issues swimming around in his head than the local therapy group. We were going out to eat …. he couldn’t eat garlic because he had an intolerance ….. We were going to a bar …. he doesn’t ever, ever drink as this doesn’t sit comfortably with his ultra-healthy lifestyle (daily visits to the gym) We discussed relationships and he declared it isn’t possible to have a relationship if you have children and are divorced ….. I wondered exactly what he thought he was going to get out of his dating site subscription.

So there we sat, him with his lime and soda and ham sandwich, me with my wine and deep fried something or other (OK, it was childish) and I realised I’d managed to net another forty something derelict shell of a post-divorce man (borne out of his barbed comment “I HAVE AN EX WIFE, YOU KNOW … HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK THEY COST?” when I had enquired if he had a sat-nav system)

Now Mr Bunched Up had let it slip very deliberately that I “wouldn’t be disappointed” if we progressed things to a more intimate level, given his frequent gym visits.

“When you remove my shirt you’ll see there isn’t an ounce of fat on me …”

OK. Fair enough. I can’t say I was totally disinterested in that comment, but let me tell you, after the whinging, whining “can’t do this”, “can’t do that” performance in the bar that night, I would thankfully have signed a celibacy pledge there and then if that was the best offering the opposite sex had to offer.

I have to admit I did find myself falling into that familiar role … “so tell me, why do you think can’t have a relationship with kids …??” …. “what exactly does garlic do to you …?” ….. “oh I agree, I think I should definitely give up alcohol..”

Why? I didn’t mean any of it. I was pandering to Mr Bunched Up’s little neuroses. The next morning I woke having squared the fact Debsyliciously that Mr Bunched Up and I were not going to sail off into any sunset anytime soon. I pandered now and I would never have stopped pandering. And of course, the lingering fact was there in the background that was the most damning of evidence …. he never showed any interest in wanting to know anything about me at any point in the evening.

Now, being a girl of the gender that coined the classic line “does my bum look big in this?” steeped in it’s nervous uncertainty, it made me wonder why all of a sudden I seemed to be surrounded by men who are unsure of themselves, restricted in their habits and obsessed with their self-image. Of course I applaud anyone who has a natural respect for their bodies, but for me “natural” does not involve fastening yourself into a straight-jacket lifestyle.

I’ve got to the point in life where I want to pat myself on the back for getting this far relatively unscathed. I’m not out of the woods of challenge yet by any stretch of the imagination, but I welcome each day, each glass of wine and I think it’s quite appalling that I find my total and utter lack of exercise regime so hilarious.

Seriously … I’m sniggering as I type. Laughing at my of lack of self-discipline and control ….That’s not good, is it?

Maybe I do enough worrying in other quarters. Gosh, I think I may have finally grown up …

When it comes to men …. does age matter?

There’s a line uttered by Carrie Bradshaw in the now-immortal Sex and the City (immortal, that is, to most women between thirty and fifty) that goes …

“Men in their forties are like the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle: tricky, complicated, and you’re never really sure you got the right answer.”

People who haven’t been “re-singled” in mid-life possibly won’t relate to this, but it has come to my attention on several occasions that forty is the age at which men dive into the deep, dark cavern of despair when their relationships go belly-up. That’s not to say that they don’t venture out again and sample “what the world has to offer” (if you get my drift …) but, ultimately, they remain long-term patients in emotional intensive care.

Take my initial foray into the dating arena after I found myself single again, for example.

Mr Shifter, 49, was the owner of an international logistics company whose marriage had broken down when his wife of seventeen years told him she had reignited a relationship with her first love whom she had found again through Friends Reunited. It became apparent after a handful of dates that although his ex was not physically present, her memory was not only there … it was ordering seconds. When he started to eye me up and down at our last meeting to support his verbal commentary on how alike she and I were physically, I realised our time together was not going to ultimately be translated into a Hollywood block-buster of a love story.

Friends Reunited. What a hot bed of illicit wrong-doing that turned out to be. I noticed yesterday that the site may be sold by it’s owners ITV for £15 million, this after they bought it for £175 million some three and a half years ago. It did make me wonder if ITV were offloading after having paid out damages (without prejudice) to all the victims of the relationships it had allegedly wrecked unintentionally …. There is something about a first love akin to the metaphorical sleeping dog. It’s best left uninterrupted. There’s a lot to be said for the adage “it didn’t work out for a reason …” but we do still feel the need to go back and poke it, don’t we? And Facebook, there’s another one …

So Mr Shifter and I parted company amicably; he said he needed to see if there was anything he could salvage from his marriage. The last time I spoke to him he told me they had sold the ex-marital home, divided it all up and he was now living in a “sh*t-tip of a shoebox semi-detached”. No bitterness there then.

On the flip-side I did enjoy quite a few dates with my then financial advisor  who was almost ten years younger than me …. I know, I know … business and pleasure should never be bed fellows.

The Mortgage Man had a boyish charm that allowed him to capitalise on my lack of financial awareness. He invested in a couple of nights away for us that sadly happened to fall on the weekend of the most momentous rainfall known to man in July 2007. We ended up staying in a hotel seven miles away from my house as that was as far as my car could swim, and on the last day, marooned by vast expanses of water, I realised that he had to constantly have the TV switched on in our room. He hopped from channel to channel and eventually settled on a thirty year old episode of Top Cat.

Before I allowed myself time to think, the words “you’re just a boy trapped in a man’s body, aren’t you?” had left my lips. There was no way to bundle them back up and swallow them whole.

He stared at me in disbelief. I went to pack my toiletries sensing that my stock price had dropped.

Now I’m plucking these two tales from a bag of similar story-lines, and as I see it there are two recurring themes … “re-single” men over forty struggle to truly move on emotionally but they do make better father figures …. and men under forty don’t allow themselves to become trapped in a relationship’s shipwreck.

I’m generalising. Of course I am. But it does make me wonder if the men I’ve dated really think they are over the wall of their emotional past and running towards freedom …

As for me, well, my jury is still out when it comes to a man’s age. Let’s not let a little number spoil the cornucopia that is life’s rich tapestry ….

Welcome to dating hell …. we’ve been expecting you.

Every so often I am compelled to revisit the scene of so many disastrous couplings of the last few years, maybe in the hope that I can exorcise the ghosts of men past by hooking the man of a daydream or two. It’s a place I’ve come to think of as the graveyard of romance … it wouldn’t be too out of place in some low budget late-night horror film where the men stand propped up at the bar with half an inch of dust on their rounded shoulders as they lasciviously eye the stitched-up women staggering past with lacquered mountains of hair smoking some disgustingly scented French cigarette.

I am of course referring to the den of inequity that is on-line dating.

Now it is only fair to say that when you get to a certain age meeting eligible men of a similar age is difficult. You can be sure that the conversation will take place on any date you make via one of these godforsaken sites …. “well really, where do you go at our age?” ….. “I don’t want to go to clubs …. hahaha! I put all that behind me in my twenties” ……. “I’m so busy with work and this suits me fine”

The truth, ladies and gentlemen, is this …. it’s a last resort, and as such, you can expect it to be inhabited by the types you might catch hanging around on the desolate pier of such. The fog is swirling around as they approach you with their beer-stained raincoats on …. “alright darlin’ …. you look pretty … fancy a chat sometime?”

Of course these sites are never painted like this by any advertisements you might see. No, on the billboards and magazine spreads you see attractive couples with fabulous teeth gazing at each other with such avid fixation that you fear for the ongoing survival of their personal identities. And as you enter the sites for the first time you will read testimonials written by couples singing the praises of clinical mate selection …..

“I couldn’t believe that after five minutes of joining I met Derek, two days later he proposed and now we’re expecting triplets … all in the space of three weeks” ….

“I’d given up hope of ever finding Miss Right until I joined and there she was, sitting in my inbox, on the very first day”…

“I haven’t met my ideal man but I’ve had loads of meaningless sex in some great cars” ….

OK, maybe not the last one, but I’m sure many have wanted to post it.

And so I found myself a couple of weeks ago with my admission fee approaching the Ticket Master yet again ….

“Oh hello little girl …. don’t I know you? Weren’t you the little one who thought she could easily ride the big dipper but ended turning a violent shade of green, running out and vowing never to return?”

“Yes Ticket Master …  that was me….”

“Confident little thing, weren’t we, when we ran out shouting ‘over my dead body will I meet a man here’ …… very particular and fussy, weren’t you?”

“Yes Ticket Master …”

“Well, I hope you’ve learnt to lower those standards a little …. no man wants a wife who insists on punctuation the way you do …. now run along inside”

And so in I wandered, with a feeling of resignation coupled with dread.. No girl should have to be put through this, but I was here so I may as well see what  freaks- sorry- talent the fair had to offer.

Within a few days I had rounded the selection down to two or three likely candidates, who seemed pleasant enough on the face of it but weren’t getting close to even seeing the blue touch paper, let alone igniting it.

Candidate number one had very complicated hair; there looked to be more product going on that head than Trevor Sorbie would know what to do with. I sensed ensuing battles to gain territory even close to the bathroom mirror.

Candidate number two seemed very pleasant but had no profile photograph. This to me is always a cause for alarm because it says “I don’t want people to know I’m on here” which in turn prompts the question “Married, are we?”. When I pointed this out to him, he duly sent a photograph, but it turned out that I found the kitchen units behind him more attractive.

Candidate number three again had a complex hair situation, but this time I sensed it was of nature’s making rather than L’Oreal’s. It transpired that Mr Three is action man … he skies on snow and water, and preferably on the same day if he can manage it. The inevitable question was asked “so, what sports do you like Debsy?” To say I struggled was a slight understatement, and the best I could come up with without lying was seeing how many peanuts I could lob skywards and catch in my mouth. Even on a good day I don’t think that counts as sport, or at least not to the outside world so I’m told.

But the death knell this time has to be the ulitmate faux pas in on-line dating etiquette …. I copied and pasted my messages to candidates one, two and three every night. Well, why not? It was the same news,wasn’t it? “Really busy day … blah blah …. wow, did you hear the rain last night …. blah blah …. ” Copy, paste, change the names and send. Job done.

With a sense that I was taking up space that was more suited to a willing candidate, I slipped out the back door and headed homeward, but not before I heard the Ticket Master bellow..

“See you next time, Debsy …….”

What is this thing called “attraction” …. and where can I buy it?

I went on a “first date” on Friday evening.

Rather surprisingly when I referred to the evening as a “first date” to my partner in crime he retorted that it wasn’t a date at all, it was a “first meeting”, because calling it a “first date” placed far too much stress in terms of expectation.

Now whilst I understood his point, it did occur to me that as we get older we take the subject of dating so much more seriously. I never remember travelling to a first date when I was sixteen years of age wondering “I wonder if we’ll hit it off?”. I met each romantic encounter with a relaxed air in the knowledge that if this one didn’t work for some reason then there would be other opportunities down the line. My unwritten dating raison d’etre wasn’t to find “the one” at the age of sixteen, so maybe that gave me an advantage in the lack of expectation stakes.

When you date in later life you frequently hear the word “attraction”, together with “chemistry”. When you were sixteen “attraction” was probably a cheap perfume you bought in preparation for all your first dates and “chemistry” was taught twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday mornings by Mr McNiven. 

Personally speaking I believe attraction to be infinitely the more important of the two when it comes to dating. Chemistry you can have between any two people, it isn’t necessary that it has a sexual element. It’s rapport, a mutual unspoken understanding if you will. It exists between close friends and colleagues, it doesn’t have to lead you down the road to longing and yearning for someone in the way that attraction inevitably does.

Now, if I’ve got this right I understand “chemistry” to be the last test to establish that attraction is present. You may have e-mailed, texted each other and spoken on the telephone and thought “mmm …..not bad” but it’s only when you meet face  to face and you get that “mmmm!!!! Definitely not bad!!!” feeling as opposed to “mmm….. not bad …… but not for me” that you really know. 

In practice I’ve always known prior to a first date if we were going to hit it off or not, but my sources tell me that men still hold out until they’ve taken in a woman’s physical presence before they make a decision on whether to move it forward or not.

My most recent ex, Mr Distant Cynic, was a forthright believer in this theory; he operates very much on the chemistry plane. I, on the other hand, favour the mutable law of attraction and the deep-rooted sense of knowing that goes with it. Our relationship was a curious combination for that reason; maybe it was a chemical reaction that hadn’t been discovered or explained yet.

I’m all for tipping chemistry into the dating bin as another term we’ve come up with to add to the mystique and complexity of the process. Goodness only knows I don’t need finding my soulmate to be more difficult than it already is, so the next time I hear anyone utter “I wonder if there will be chemistry between us …” I’ll remind them that there was nothing sexy or desirable about test tubes and bunsen burners thirty years ago so why have we suddenly decided otherweise?

No, I’ll opt for one huge helping of attraction please.

You know exactly where you are with attraction; it’s either there and you know it’s there, or it isn’t and it’s time to drink up and make your excuses. If it is, it will draw you in, take a hold of you and keep you spellbound. You can’t shake it off, it doesn’t go away and it’s well nigh impossible to ignore.

Give me attraction every time. Unexplained, mysterious and entirely preferable to something I dreaded on Tuesday and Thursday mornings all those years ago. Having said that, those were the days of enjoying all that carefree fun, the days before we handed it all over in exchange for the responsibility of being a grown-up ….. and the apprehension of the “first date”….