Due to popular demand - the blog is back!

Single Stories are good stories - it seems.

Due to popular request among friends, my witterings and rantings about dating have returned with full force - to amuse and mystify you all! Previously known as 'The Spinster Diaries', I've relabelled it to make it inclusive of other people's tales. So, please contribute any 'interesting' dating dramas that you wish to purge from your soul. Yes, it can get that bad.

My blog also, rather selfishly, serves as an outlet for my frustration and disbelief that internet dating has actually worked for some people, yet it’s not even come close to successfully matching me or many of my friends. (And before you ask why - we’re all bloody gorgeous. We haven’t got two heads or anything. It’s just that dating can suck – BIG time.)

Somehow, ranting with friends on WhatsApp or over a glass of Pinot just doesn't scratch that itch. I need to get it out there, into the ether.

Unfortunately for me, I continue to gather more than enough material to fuel my blog. Sometimes, I wonder whether the Universe wants me to stay single so I can entertain other people with tales of disaster: men looking for affairs, men asking if my 'ass is big', men sending photos of their aroused nether regions. Yes, you read that one correctly.

I continue to try to be a good Brownie and be all ‘zen’ about single life. But at 41, it gets more exasperating to find that proverbial needle hidden among bales and bales (and bales) of hay. In fact, I wonder if it keeps moving - that crafty needle-swine.

As I grow older and, I like to think, wiser, it seems that men on dating sites seem to get younger and younger, with no sign of ever grasping the basic principles of dating etiquette. Otherwise known as ‘treating a woman with respect’. You’d think that was pretty straightforward. I sense many single women nodding their heads madly as they read this, thinking,'God yes. Been there.' Disclaimer: I know there are many single women on dating sites who are are just as idiotic. This isn't a man-slating opportunity - it's just based on personal experience.

Dating is difficult.

Before you begin to read my latest experiences, let’s make one thing clear. I’m bitter. Yes, people, that’s right. I’m embittered and sometimes saddened that for no apparent reason I’m one of the women still looking for a guy, who: 1) I find attractive, 2) Doesn’t fancy himself as a player, 3) Isn’t a total loony, 4) Has more the say than, 'Hello, is your ass big?' (probably because I'm Caribbean/ British dual heritage and white men think it's a very important thing to ask).

Imagine my annoyance that despite trying my whole life to be a respectful, thoughtful person (I’ve had the occasional slip-up but really don’t think I’ve ever been so selfish that I’ve hurt someone deeply), yet it's rarely returned in the dates I experience. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense. 

So, that’s partly where I’m coming from.

Dating is D.U.L.L.

My friends who’ve been in relationships for more than five years seem to think that it’s exciting. Firstly, we’re not in our 20s or early 30s any longer. It was fun then. But that was because we consumed much cheap vodka and indulged in weekend after weekend of house parties and pub crawls. And we were all naïve enough to think that romance lasted - that optimism fuelled our fun.

In the early 40s, dating is an endless round of bland events that see us singles drag ourselves from our homes to sit for an hour or so with a person we have nothing in common with. Then you get back in your car and drive home. That’s it. That’s the reality. Butterflies in the tummy? Nope. Anticipation of what might be? Er, no. The potential that I’ll be swept off my feet? Hahahahahahahaha. Sorry, let me just pick myself up from the floor after laughing myself off the chair.

Hope springs eternal.

Despite the failed dates, offensive emails and requests for affairs that I’ve received on dating sites, somehow my faith remains that there's a greater plan that is steering this rough course. And that one day it will lead me to the right man. And although I sometimes yearn for a partner in crime, I’d rather be single than with the wrong person – and I’ve seen plenty of those situations over the years.

So, grab that flare, sick bag and quick-inflating dinghy. You're coming with me as I navigate the dating game. Stormy weather is, unfortunately, inevitable.