At the age of 41, and with very little relationship experience, I find myself thinking its my fault as I have not tried hard enough. What motivates me is partly fear of missing out, and the thinking when I get to 70, 60 or even 50 I'll be thinking "why didn't I do something about this when I was younger"
Therefore, so my own benefit mainly, I felt I should document my dating efforts I made over the past 15 years. This is post is my no mean exhaustive. I could not go into every single dating site I've joined, every single message sent, or every single girl I asked out, or every single singles night, speed dating event or social I went to in the hope of finding a girlfriend.
Before 2008
Prior to 2008, I had never asked a girl out because I simply didn't know anyone well enough to do so. My social life consisted of me sharing my parents friends, other middle aged couples, as this had been what was safe, easy and comfortable for me. The only people I knew were those at work, church (I used to go with my parents) and in a small political organisation which was very elderly.
I did join a few dating sites, and placed the odd add in the Personals section of the local newspaper, but to be honest, I was incredibly shy, and was often too by various worries which were leading to a type of OCD.
I did have my eye on a daughter of one of the couples at church, she was at university at this time but would come down occasionally. Whenever she was there, I would try to find a 'window of opportunity' to talk to her over coffee after the service, ask her how her course was going etc, in the hope I could build some sort of connection with her and maybe ask her out.
2008
I had added this girl as a Facebook friend and discovered in early 2008 she was moving back to my town. By this time her parents had moved to another church, so I suspected she might go there too. So one Sunday I decided to go along on my own to that church. I managed to catch her during coffee after the service, ask her how work was going etc, and then suggested meeting her coffee the following week as I was off work (I wanted to do this in person and not just via facebook). She (reluctantly I feel) agreed and that was my first date. Nothing romantic at all. I tried to make other suggestions afterwards, but she was always busy, and I eventually managed to get a third party friend to ascertain her interest in me at her brothers wedding later that year.
2009
By this time I had moved to a different church which had a 20s group which had become my primary social homebase. There was one particular girl I grew to like there, and one particular evening I felt she might be into me. So I asked her if she'd meet for coffee and she agreed. Again, nothing romantic here. I tried asking her to meet again, she initially agreed, but cancelled. Then a couple of months later, I wrote a little letter was a return envelope asking if she would consider being in a relationship with me. She replied and said no and I was devastated, as I did not know anyone else.
(At this time, I was looking for a Christian wife, as this was what the family expected for me and church was a big part of my life at this time. I did and still do have a faith however religion has always been a very loaded and sensitive subject for me, so I will not go into further details).
I then decided to sign onto a Christian dating website and went to a few Christian singles events in London. Again I couldn't make any connections. I did start chatting to a girl in the West Country for a month or so and we were almost able to meet up, but circumstances got in the way and then she met someone else. Again I was devastated.
2010
By the end of 2009 my social prospects looked bleak. I would continue sending girls messages online, if she replied it was always dry up very quickly. The 20s group at church was depleting due to a mix of people leaving the church or getting into relationships and had become very male dominated. I HAD to make changes. I looked outside the churches and did a google search for social events and found a group which was a pre-curser to meetup.com.
I managed to get one random date with a girl from the Christian dating site in April 2010, again, nothing romantic. However for the most part my efforts were redirected to trying to gain a better and more fun social life in general. I went to numerous 'organised socials' (much of this is covered in my early blog posts) in 2010, 2011, and in the years that followed.
2011
In early 2011, an American friend of one of my best friends (whom I knew from the my old church and had reached out to me since I we started going there in 2000) set me up with one of his work colleagues. We had a decent date, Pizza Express then a gig (run by people we knew) but again nothing romantic and no connection from either side.
In May 2011 I saw a Facebook ad for a workshop for men wanting to get help with attracting women. I went along and became one of this coach. Once a month or so I would meet with the coach and one or two other guys and we would go out into town to see if we can approach women, and on other Saturdays night I would simply meet with the others guys. Again no real success here, got the odd number, but nothing followed through.
Around the same time, I decided to move to a different church again, as the 20s group in my current church had greatly depleted and there were no opportunities for dating or social progress. There were already a few people I knew in the church I started attending, and I ended up being invited to another young adults group there. While this was helpful in terms of having a better social life in general, no real dating opportunities arose from this.
2012-2013
The main benefit of the social attraction coaching I underwent in 2011-2012 was to give me some understanding of what attracts women, opportunities to approach, and knowing how I can improve my lifestyle in such a way to attract women. This became more my focus at this time. I had the belief that if i changed by lifestyle and the way I communicate, a girl would just come along. As I play guitar, my coach said I should get into a band. He also recommended I try and find ways to be seen out with more women.
My friend (the one I knew from church since 2000 and who also ran music nights) gave me a few opportunities to play guitar at his events, and then in 2013 I was fortunate enough to meet a female singer looking for a guitarist to gig with, and we started gigging together, 2013 was a year a major social progress for me as it was also the year I passed my driving test!
2014-2016
In the summer of 2014 I did perhaps the bravest thing I have done in regards to meeting a woman. A took part in local charity version of the TV show 'Take Me Out'. I saw an advert looking for another man and I jumped at the opportunity. I got one light on, but I think she only left her's on to avoid a blackout. I dressed in a nice fitted smart jacket, my video I am sure referred to my gigs and my interest in making money online at the time, so not quite sure what the girls didn't see in me.
However, a little later in 2014, after years of effort, I FINALLY found a girlfriend, indeed I met two women that were really into me that year. The relationship lasted until around March 2015. I cannot say any more than on this..
I continued with the gigs with my female singer and really felt like I was 'the man' at times. Following the break up of the relationship (which to be fair never went very deep, either physically or emotionally, we'd just meet up on Saturdays over food and snuggle up on the sofa and watch TV, mainly, which was nice) I had the odd date coming from online, in amongst sending MANY messages where there was no reply. But again, they didn't feel any connection or chemistry so nothing happened.
2017-2019
In 2017, I met another girl who I managed to meet up with five times. We had one date, she said afterwards she didn't feel any connection (as usual) however we did meet up on four other occasions. We only met as I had mentioned "Countdown" on my profile (the TV show) and she was due to appear on Countdown that year.
The following year (to the best of my memory) I applied for the Channel 4 TV show 'First Dates' and to my surprise was invited to the studio to do an interview in London which would have been included if I had either been given a match or deemed suitable for the show. Soon afterwards, I had a skype call with a psychologist or psychotherapist to determine my suitability for the show, but in the end nothing came about it.
My energies at this stage were still more directed and building a better social life in general as opposed to dating. Things were drying up at this point on the gigs front, but I took up salsa dancing. Whilst salsa dancing is great for getting you out into a social environment, it is a much harder avenue than it would seem for meeting a partner, as the environment is not very conducive to great conversations.
In around 2018-2019, I felt 'burnt out' from all the years of accumulated social and dating efforts.
2020 and beyond
After the feelings of deflation and burn out in 2018-2019 and the shock of the events in 2020, including the loss of my job, as of 2022, I am now back and raring to go onto the dating scene.
I had managed to secure three first dates in 2022 and one in 2023. One was a girl I knew as a friend (I knocked on her door one morning to ask her our), one was a girl I met in a facebook group, one was a girl I was set up with, and the other I met on Bumble (which for the most part is a complete dead-end of no response swipes!)
There's one girl I almost went on a date and I find it very regrettable about the timing and situations where we've met, see my previous post.
I would hope to think that readers will consider myself to have made valiant efforts. I often feel like a total failure in this area of life, but I feel that if I continue this way, and not met anyone or had the relationship I want by the age of70, no one could say "you should have tried harder when you were young".
