Closure

I hate it when I’m right. My intuition was correct as I’ve had a message from my Match.com friend informing me that she’s been on a date with someone and it all looks promising. There was the usual set of pleasantries and then she was gone, back into cyberspace from where she came.

In a weird way, I’m now a lot happier. Sure, my list of Match.com disappointments continues to grow at a shocking rate but, rather than being left in the lurch, she at least made the effort to contact me and be honest.

If anything, it was the perfect closure (if you can call it such) because I felt that her sudden disappearance was not something her personality was likely to do. It was so out of character that I was kind of worried something terrible had happened so, even though I didn't have to read the message to know what it contained, I was never the less relieved to receive it.

So yet another valuable Internet dating lesson has been learnt. Never leave anyone on your favourite list too long before contacting them, otherwise someone else will, and you’ll find yourself back onto the Match.com scrap heap.

Does the Camera Ever Lie?

I’ve recently started doing some IT contract work on a customers site and because I hadn’t been for a while I had to endure the site induction video and renew my contractors pass.

Because I knew my induction would involve that terrible task of having a new photograph taken, I made the effort to look a bit smarter than normal - wearing my very expensive silk tie and a freshly pressed crisp white shirt. I even went as far as trying to fool the camera lens by washing my hair in the morning and giving it a good comb beforehand. Heck, I even smiled for the camera.

So tell me, why does my picture always make me look like a fugitive off America’s Most Wanted, having more bags than Tesco under my eyes, suffering from a bad hair day along with having the contorted face of a man who looks like he really needs to break wind? And to top it all off, you then have to place your pass on the visitor board so everyone can have a jolly good laugh.

Trouble is, is this the true image that the mass ranks of women on Match.com see when they look at my profile? Even after all of my pre-photograph preening efforts I’m pretty sure I can’t look like this all the time. Never the less, the camera never lies. Right?

The Lady Vanishes

I’d not heard from my friend on Match.com for a couple of days so today I decided to login and see if anyone had recently looked at my profile and then drop my friend a line. Needless to say, I quickly solved this lack of contact conundrum because her profile has completely disappeared. Nice.

I guess she has found someone and is “going to give it a go”. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it’s the fact that she simply disappeared without even so much as a “goodbye” that has really hit me hard. I think I actually felt my heart sink.

As far as I’m concerned, this is another nail in my Match.com coffin exploits. I hate to say it, but my heart is not in it at the moment and I’ve picked myself up and dusted myself off enough times already. I guess it does sound a little defeatist, but since I don’t want to loose any more from my glass I think the time is right to take that bit of a breather.

Don’t think that I’m waving a white flag and giving up to go sulk in a corner, it’s simply half time and I’m taking in fluids before resuming the battle. Still, I just wonder what the second half has in store. Will it be hugs all round or a dejected walk back to the dressing room? I guess only time will tell.

No More Mr. Nice Guy

I can’t help it. It was the way I was brought up. What’s wrong with saying please and thank you, holding doors open for people (both male and female), helping pregnant ladies with their shopping, young mothers with prams and letting drivers out of side roads? And no, this is not a list I’ve just made up, because I find myself doing these on a fairly regular basis.

So given that the ladies find being a nice guy repulsive, after all they do say nice guys always finish last*, I’ve decided to drop the nice guy image, get myself one of these suspiciously looking hoodies and start sneering at old ladies.

As part of my new bad boy image I had considered having kill the kittens tattooed on my knuckles, but then I realised that I didn’t have enough knuckles. So instead I’ve decided that I’m going to leave the top off the toothpaste, leave the toilet seat up and, what the hell, I may even forget to wash my hands after going to the toilet. Oh, yes, I’m a bad boy now…

* Although they could be talking about bedroom activities

Patience is a Virtue

So there I was, about to throw the towel in with Match.com – well when I mean throw in the towel I actually mean fold the towel and carefully place to one side for a while – when I finally got a reply from the person I was chatting to. It was all quite apologetic, but she had been busy decorating her house then having a short holiday with friends.

Although I always try to look on the bright side of things (I was going to take a break from Match.com for a number of other reasons), I guess that since my good nature has been taken advantage of over the years, I’m still a little suspicious of women. Perhaps I spend too much time worrying and looking for that ulterior motive. Still, a single message was enough to make me pay for another months membership.

I’m not a religious person, but I often wonder whether the big guy up stairs will ever pull my file and turn to St. Valentine and say "Right, we’ve screwed around with this guy for long enough, perhaps it’s time we gave him a break. Anyone for a game of tennis with Beethoven?".

Never the less, I’m still not dumb enough to believe that she’s only chatting to me and when there are these long delays in between messages I always fear the worse. However, since my last message to her I’ve not heard anything back for four days. See I’m at it again...

A Tribute to the King of Nerds

You may well laugh at his appalling dress sense, whilst his ears must be perpetually burning from the millions of people who curse him every time they experience the infamous BSOD (blue screen of death), but if it wasn’t for the nerdy Bill Gates you’d probably not be reading this.

Not only did I draft this blog entry using Microsoft Word, but I dare say you’re most likely reading this via his company’s Internet Explorer. In fact, I’ve just checked my e-mails using Microsoft Outlook, scanned my computer for spyware using Windows Defender whilst running it all on Microsoft Windows XP.

I even have to thank Bill Gates for my gainful employment as I use his Visual Basic, Visual C, Visual Studio, and FrontPage products on a daily basis. Love him or loathe him, be in no doubt, Bill Gates is the father of the modern computer.

So when Bill Gates informed the world of his retirement from his day-to-day running of Microsoft – and announcing his intention to become the greatest philanthropist in history – you had to wonder whether he’d finally had one BSOD too many.

As a ruthless business man, he made himself arguably the richest man in the world (during the dot.com boom his total wealth reached an amazing $100 billion dollars) whilst Microsoft became a hugely successful company with more wealth and power than half a dozen countries.

But his huge wealth has not been frittered away on ridiculous palaces or gold plated yachts and planes, because he has already spent nearly a third of his total income – that’s a mind boggling $13 billion dollars – helping the less fortunate in the world.

Formed in 2000, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided billions of dollars for research into AIDS and malaria plus funds for various libraries and education for ethnic minorities in America. The foundation is also currently providing 17 percent of world budget (that’s $46 million dollars to you and me) in a valiant attempt to eradicate the scourge of polio.

So the next time you stop and curse Bill Gates and his evil empire, just remember that he is single handily doing more to help the world than the combined efforts of half the global community.

Not bad for a nerd eh?

Trading Standards

What is it with advertisers? I mean, how many people have been taken in by those glossy magazines and television adverts for various perfumes and aftershaves? We’ve all seen them, with women fawning over half naked blokes wearing the latest expensive scent whilst the men are suppose to chase after women with bunches of flowers. But the less said about my restraining order, the better.

But not content with aftershave, we’re now enduring the sight of women rubbing a blokes chin and fawning over his super new close shave – and all thanks to his quattro or triple blade set. I mean, it’s not as if we get any adverts for Veet or Ladyshave where there’s a bloke admiring a freshly treated leg – for some odd reason it’s always a group of laughing women.

So, with a collection of aftershave that rivals the ground floor of Debenhams, and more razors than your average Italian barber, I say to advertisers “No more!”. But wait a minute... What’s this - a razor with five blades that offers the closest shave yet? Well, if that’s not a hit with the ladies, nothing will be...

Friends for life?

The great iconic rock band Queen once proclaimed in a jolly ditty of a song that “Friends will be friends - right till the end”. They obviously hadn’t banked on today’s get up and go society and another handy survey, this time the BT commissioned Auto Update Friendship Survey - whatever that is.

This new survey revealed that the under-30s were mostly likely to have friendships that only last for around five years or less. The main reason for this was cited as moving house, changing jobs and new romances. However, the older the survey respondent was, the less likely it was that a friendship would fade. Also, 20% of the respondents said that family members made up the largest proportion of their friends and, although people wanted to keep friendships alive, they felt guilty about getting back in contact after a few months.

Does this sound all too familiar? Well it certainly does to me. Even in the super fast electronic age of the e-mail and the SMS, with friends scattered all over the world or settling down into relations, it’s all too easy to loose contact as everyone carries on with their busy lives - or they've decided to ignore you because you forget to send them a Christmas card.

Still, you may wonder what on earth this has to do with Match.com. Well, in the on-line world of dating, once you’ve been classed as simply being “friendship material” you’re very lucky if your newly acquired friendship last five days - let alone five years.

Ladies. An Advanced Apology

On the behalf of the hairier half of the Homo sapien species who have girlfriends, may I offer my sincere apologies for our lack of co-operation over the forthcoming weeks as we take-over your television set and disappear to our local drinking establishments more frequently than normal.

Now unless you’ve been living on another planet, or America*, over the past few months you’ll probably be aware that World Cup fever is very nearly upon us. So before you start complaining that the wallpapering is not finished or those shelves still haven’t been put up, you’ve had more than enough warning of our forthcoming DIY lethargy.

I mean, all the advanced warning signs were there. There’s that large increase of beer and unhealthy snacks in the house. The national flag is draped everywhere** from our houses to cars and a mysterious thing called a metatarsal is the hot topic of conversation in just about every office, newspaper and news report.

So when we don’t return your phone calls, read our e-mails, continue our search for a soulmate on Match.com or (heaven forbid) update our exciting blog, you’ll most likely find us screaming "Pass it!" or "Ref! Ref!" at a nearby television as we jump up and down and point at things quite a lot.

Don’t worry though, it won’t last for long and we’ll soon be back to normal and moaning about your ridiculous obsession with watching the tennis at Wimbledon.

* Does the average American know that the world cup is about to start?
** Which is very unusual in the UK as some political correctness zealot decided that we’re not allowed to fly our own national flag in case it offends a minority group.

When Yes Means No

Thanks to the wonders of Match.com and my monthly supply of crisp pound notes, I’ve recently started chatting to a rather pleasant and attractive woman. She doesn’t live too far away from me and, in a rather surprising move, she actually started things off by sending me a wink.

But what makes this all the more interesting is that I’d already noticed her profile, marked her as a favourite and planned to contact her over the following days. So I was rather shocked when she beat me to it and actually initiated things with a wink. Sure, a message would have been nice but let’s face it, what other form of encouragement does a bloke need?

Anyway, I think I’ve finally started to become more tuned in to this message chit-chat mechanism and I can usually pick up the good and bad signs from what is essentially an emotionally sterile e-mail. So, when the lady in question finishes off her last e-mail of seven days ago with “Will be in touch soon”, am I to translate this as “You won’t be hearing from me again” or is her lack of contact due to something genuine?

So, the question arises, do I give her up and put it down to yet more experience, or do I look a bit desperate and send her another message? And there’s me thinking I’d finally worked out the mind of a woman.

Time for a List

I just know how everyone just loves lists in one form or another, so here’s one of the many lists from my recent reading material of A Commonsense Guide to Successful Internet Dating by Evan Marc Katz.

Tips for Men and Women on First Dates - A List of Don'ts

1. Complain about dating
2. Answer your cell phone whilst dining
3. Talk about your dysfunctional family
4. Talk about your ex
5. Go on a date if you are sick. Reschedule
6. Pass out under any condition (unless you’re a narcoleptic)
7. Act insecure
8. Ogle other people at the bar
9. Say that you feel you have known your date forever
10. Talk with your mouth full
11. Bounce your leg nervously whilst dining
12. Make fun of fat, short or impaired people
13. Make racist or sexist comments
14. Ask your date how many people he/she has slept with
15. Wear too much perfume/cologne
16. Be rude to the waiter

Nope, you can save all of those for the second date instead...

And the Same Question to Contestant Number Two

Not content with telling me that I’ve started going grey, my mother has now decided to take it upon herself to set me up on a blind date with the daughter of a friend at work. Now, I would normally be dead against this, especially after my best friend once sent me on a blind date with a girl who had more facial hair than me, but a recent gathering may have changed my mind.

When the family gathered to celebrate my nephew’s birthday my brother arrived with his wife and his two sons, who also brought along their respective girlfriends. So with another couple in the form of my own parents I was the only single person there. Even though it was all family, it really left me feeling like a right spare part and I was left hoping that the ground would open up and swallow me up.

It’s never really bothered me before, and I’m use to being a spare part when it comes to gatherings, but after spending yet another afternoon seeing my nephews laughing with their girlfriends, it really made me start to feel that my time for such frolics was starting to slip away.

I guess any form of Internet dating is simply a blind date in disguise, and since Match.com only seems to have been delivering punches to my midriff, I really should welcome any additional opportunity with open arms. So, embarrassing as it sounds, I may well stoop to near desperate sounding levels and allow my very own mother to set me on a blind date. Still, as the SAS motto claims - He who dares, wins.