It’s been a while since I last did this. In fact, it’s been six months. Wait, six months?! Where has that time gone? What have I been doing? And more importantly, what progress have I made? Well, actually, simultaneously none and plenty.

I am still very much single, let’s get that straight. For the moment, I’m still even on OkCupid, which is likely to change fairly soon. I gave it a go, I learned A LOT about the process, I reaffirmed some previous life lessons on guys, and I’ve come to draw up a pretty finite list of exactly what it is that I’m after in a partner.

Let’s sum up the dating experience of the guys I encountered on OKC. And by that, I mean just the ones that managed to make it to establishing contact offline. The plethora of “hi” and “what you up to?” messages do not count. At all!

As you will probably tell from the time scale, there was a fair bit of overlap in the communication with all six guys. Apparently, this is fully acceptable in online dating, so I ran with it! I’m a lady (or so I profess), so I shall not name any names. Bear with me through this, it all happened some time ago.

December 2015

OKC1: He messaged me. I replied. He replied. I replied. This continued. Nice guy. But all I could say was nice guy. Friendly enough but I didn’t feel like I was learning enough about him. Then he messaged me one day, asking that we “meet for a drink within a week”. Pushy much? I would say I am semi-stubborn. Not entirely so but if people start giving me unnecessary deadlines, especially if I don’t know them yet, then I get a bit grumpy. We progressed from site to WhatsApp but despite being in regular contact, I still didn’t feel like I was learning anything.

• The good – he was polite in his communications and regular too.
• The bad – his communications were pretty empty and possibly became too regular. He’d message me ‘good morning’ everyday, called me hun and sweetie but beyond that, didn’t ask me much. And when I asked him questions, his responses didn’t give me much to lead on from.
• The outcome – we were due to meet for a drink but since I found myself filled with more dread than delight in the lead up, I cancelled. Politely, of course and with a good amount of notice. He respectfully accepted and we wished each other the best.

OKC2: He contacted me with a nice message that showed he had read my profile, which I liked. Had the makings of a good match from the start. The sceptic in me thought it was too good to be true that this might work out so soon after me joini
ng the site but I was open to a miracle happening. We met for coffee.

• The good – regular and lengthy contact! We swapped numerous messages before meeting up. Ultimately, I’m looking for a life partner, so it’s important that we can both take a genuine interest in each other. It was great that we could converse an
  interact with such a good flow.
• The bad – this did not transcend into real life. While he was lovely and fairly talkative, there was something not 100% comforting about him. In hindsight, he had unwittingly hinted at some of his quirks in his profile. While I had initially taken these to mean he doesn’t take himself so seriously, actually, he was just a little odd.
• The outcome – this was my first date via a matchmaking site and I was very nervous. So, he may well have thought similarly of me to be fair. We ended the night with a friendly hug and by the time I’d gotten home, he’d messaged to say “nice to have met you”. I replied but didn’t feel compelled to converse further. And neither did he.

January 2016

OKC3: We had begun exchanging messages in December and I could tell he was a cheeky chappy. I liked it though, it’s nice to have a bit of banter with someone. So from December, we’d agreed to meet for drinks in the New Year.

• The good – he’s such a nice guy, really funny, a thousand stories to tell.
• The bad – of the thousand stories, 800 of them we
  re about fighting. Nothing too serious but not really great to be hearing about all the punch ups he’s had or narrowly missed.
• The outcome – we actually went on two dates (both for drink). After the first, I didn’t fancy him. But I also didn’t feel like he was someone I never wanted to see again, so we had another drinks date. Afterwards, I was sure I didn’t fancy him and although we’d exchanged a few messages post-date, we both went silent. I then felt bad having not been in touch for two weeks and so messaged to say I’d be happy to go a ‘friendly drink’ some time. Immediately after hitting send, I realised the lack of communication was both ways and so I actually had no need to have gotten in touch. I was glad I did though and after he jokingly remarked that I’d ‘friend-zoned’ him, we actually still message from time to time. Not sure we’ll be lifelong friends but certainly there are worse people to go for a drink with.

OKC4: Another gent I had begun conversations with in December. Again, he’d demonstrated that he’d read my profile and we spent a good while exploring further, based on the teasers we’d offered online. The communication frequency varied from twice a day to every 3 and I wondered if he’d lost interest. Eventually we agreed to meet for a first date (coffee), which went well enough to lead to a second (cinema).

• The good – for the first time in ages, I felt an instant attraction to him when we met. Tall, built, handsome (if you like that kind of thing). I did, a lot. And the personality matched too, intelligent with a decent sense of humour, demonstrable wit with a hint of sarcasm but still politely presented. Our second date at the cinema ended with a public and respectable kiss.
• The bad – I couldn’t figure out what he wanted. We were nowhere near a time to discuss that but at the same time, some of the snippets he’d offered indicated, he was only looking for occasional ‘companionship’, which is in no way the type of committed ‘relationship’ that I’m ultimately looking for. And this, for me, explained the varied frequency of messages.
• The outcome – see OKC6.

OKC5: A little tangent here. I’m lucky to have a fair few ladies who I regard as good friends. For whatever reason, I seem to be the only one who is currently without a partner. So, some have enjoyed living the OKC experience through me. Not so much the looking at other men, because for the most part, they’re happy with the relationships they’re in. It’s more of a fascination with the process, which I believe is also thinly veiled with the satisfaction that they themselves do not have to endure it either. One particular friend, would often sit with me, browsing the catalogue of men and suggest who I should be getting in touch with. Most of the time, I did not agree but since my usual analysis has been somewhat wrong at times, I went with her guidance and visited OKC5’s profile. I knew he wasn’t my type but going back to Einstein…. And of course, having seen that I’d checked him out, he decided to get in touch. We ended up meeting for coffee.

• The good – honestly? He wasn’t bad looking, his profile was alright, he didn’t come across as a tool…..not sure if these points qualify as good though.
• The bad – he just wasn’t my type really. I am full of curves, he was full runner bean lean. His sense of humour was a little unaligned from my own and his knowledge of reality TV personalities, contestants and winners was a little unsettling for me.
• The outcome – on the date, he didn’t take his coat off. We were sat inside a Leon restaurant, yes on a bit of a chilly evening but it made me scared to go to the toilet in case he was going to leave. Could he not at least tried to look like he was going to make it through a cup of tea? It began to feel like a bit of a box ticking exercise, perhaps on both parts, in hindsight. We ended the night with a friendly hug and by the time I’d gotten home, he’d messaged to say “nice to have met you”. I replied but didn’t feel compelled to converse further. And neither did he. (blatantly copied from OKC1)

January/February 2016

OKC6: This felt like it was almost it. Almost. We had quite regular exchanges on the site and the frequency ramped up when we moved to WhatsApp. I was able to build a fairly good picture about him in a short amount of time. Equally important, I believe that he was able to do the same about me, it was nice that a guy seemed to be taking a keen interest in me. We had two dates (cinema first, a meal and drinks for the second) and met for a third time

• The good – we could talk (well, message) all day and if it weren’t for the fact that I’m fairly level-headed and committed to my job, we probably would have done. He seemed to want to settle down. He talked about activities we might want to do together in the future, such as a 5k run and holidays – always nice to know the guy is looking ahead.
• The bad – his first date antics were not, shall we say, kosher. Let’s just say, he was a little hands-on prematurely. With anyone else, this would’ve marked the end with immediate effect but he had done it so cheekily that I’d marginally let him off on account of how much of a rapport we had built beforehand. However, in hindsight, it really was the warning sign I should have heeded.
• The outcome – as it happens, I had become so comfortable with OKC6, that when he asked what I was doing one evening, I confidently told him I was meeting up with OKC5. This shocked him but since in my own mind, I already knew OKC5 wasn’t going to make the cut, plus my impulsive nature to tell the truth, I didn’t see any harm in being honest about what I was getting up to. OKC6 was fine and made of light of it, also told me to be safe and to call him if I needed to (awww).
  OKC4 comes into the equation here because there was a point where both he and OKC6 had wanted to see me on the same Saturday (yes, still overlapping), which would’ve been a third date for both. At this point, I felt it was time to make a choice. Still unconvinced by OKC4 and his intentions, I told him I was planning to take the next step with someone (OKC6), and that I wasn’t going to continue conversing with anyone else. We parted ways politely, a small part of me was still curious how things may have progressed but still at this point, I was unclear about what it was exactly that he wanted, saying goodbye seemed like the right thing to do.
  Unfortunately, despite me telling him off, OKC6’s persistent ‘touchy touchy’ behaviour of date one only subsided a little bit for the second. Date three was much more than I was willing to tolerate. What he tried to brush off as being keen, I took to be disrespectful. Two days later I told him I didn’t want to see him again.

This turned out to be a much longer post than I had anticipated and I’ve really tried to be sparing with the details. But I do feel like I’ve come to the end of my time on OkCupid and rather than drag out the experience further across a number of posts, it’s all summarised in one long chapter. Reading it back I feel happier about the decision to deactivate my profile. I wouldn’t say the experience was bad, it certainly was a good starting point for getting into online dating but I do believe that for how ‘particular’ (I’m not fussy) I am about my potential partner, I think another site may be better at presenting my future mate. Now it’s time to think about which one I’ll join next.