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I recently came across this blog and I love it. An English girl living in LA and getting her head around the different “dating” culture. The main difference being that in England we don’t “date”. She’s absolutely right, we don’t (I’m assuming it’s the same in Ireland, I’ve not really bothered to find out yet).

I have been on precisely two dates in my entire life; one because I felt mean turning someone down when I was in 6th form and the second about 2 years ago as a “training date” to get myself “back into the game” after breaking up with a VERY long term boyfriend. The rest of the time I’ve just met people, hung out with them and either got it together or not. Standard.

Anyway, I’ve been single for a decent while now and naturally my thoughts occasionally turn to the idea of, well, not being single. Unsurprisingly my friends and I discuss all of this kind of stuff; comparing notes on the boys we meet, sex we have, dramas that unfold, heartbreaks, disastrous dates and all that jazz. There’s not a lot we don’t tell each other really.

Some of my friends have been single longer than me and are pretty keen to find a bloke, some are more laid back about it, but on the whole they are all  a LOT more pro-active than I am about finding a “significant other” (there’s a fair chance this post will be littered with wanky phrases like that by the way).

They’ve all given the whole, speed-dating, online-dating, blind-dating thing a whirl with more than a few cautionary tales to share as a result. Only a couple of months ago 5/6 of my closest girlfriends were all giving the online dating thing a whirl; the other one in a new relationship, so had suspended her membership. All of them were telling me to do the same and were fairly shocked at my outright rejection of the idea.

The problem I have with the notion of online dating is many-layered.

To begin with, for me there’s something inherently unattractive about a bloke who puts himself on a site like that. I’m aware that this is a huge prejudice and in no way grounded in fact – some of my very good male friends have been online dating, and with a modicum of success. Each of them is also definitely on the above average side of attractiveness too. However, I can’t help feeling it’s not a very masculine thing to do (my male friends aside obviously! ).

Plus, I think it’s cheesy, like super-naff. Pre-tinterwebz I wouldn’t have gone to a dating agency either and I don’t really see the difference. Less of the awkward interviews with agency people & cringy video making perhaps, but still, not good.

I am also incredibly cynical (though not quite as much as the hilarious Camiknickers just yet) and am not really great at judging tone when it’s written by someone I don’t know very well. I’d veer from feeling hugely creeped out to thinking I was having the piss taken out of me.

The final reason is that I’m just not that bothered. I don’t believe in “looking” for someone. I’d rather just let nature take its course. People also, largely seem to think you either have to be single or in a relationship, with no middle ground, which fucking TERRIFIES me!

This is where, perhaps, the American dating culture has it right – what’s wrong with going with the flow and just seeing where life/love/lust takes you? Surely if you meet “the one” (wanky phrase no. 2) or even “the one you like most for know” (wanky phrase no. 3) then you’ll simply forego the other people you’ve been seeing; but until that happens, you can just see who you meet & want to spend time with, and hopefully have a hell of a lot of fun along the way. That’s my plan anyway.

Now, just to figure out how to do it without the whole, awkward dating element :-/