u/Girl_Bill

Apparently the universe read my last post about Dick and decided I needed an entirely different category of dating problem.

Enter Very Nice Man, 50s. Smart, academic, sciency, liberal, country life, dogs, chickens. On paper, alarmingly suitable. So much so that I thought the dating app was issuing compensation for its past transgressions.

Our first drinks date was great. Conversation flowed.

There was only one inconvenient detail: I did not fancy him. Still, attraction can grow. Apparently.

Date two involved being taken to his country club, where I felt mildly as though I had wandered into a lifestyle commercial for a brand that sells gilets. After lunch, on the balcony, he suddenly launched an enthusiastic kiss involving so much tongue I became concerned he had lost a contact lens. On my tonsil. I am not keen on public displays of affection, so while he was presumably experiencing romance, I was mostly wondering whether I could take up golf as an exit strategy.

Still a Very Nice Man. Still no urge to remove his trousers.

Meanwhile, we were clearly on different timelines. I was wondering whether I may eventually fancy him. He was discussing plans for the rest of the summer and potentially going away together over the bank holiday. After two dates.

I told him I liked him but wasn't sure about the spark. He was disappointed but gracious, and we had lunch again. Lunch was nice. He was nice. My libido remained unmoved.

Afterwards I explained that he was going far too fast. He burst into tears. This was not in my contingency plan.

So I hugged him and, in one of the least strategically useful sentences of my dating career, said: “Let's just take it slowly and see where we go.”

What I meant was: please slow down.
What he apparently heard was: activate full subscription service.

The following day I received thirty-six messages. Train. Work. Haircut. Gym membership. Car battery. Roadworks. eBay. Microsoft Teams. Weather. Trafalgar Square. Fridge shelf. Dogs. Cat.

Amid Homer, Dante and the Odyssey came: “Had chicken.”

Thank God. I had been wondering.

By late evening I had also received pet toileting updates and an imaginary monologue written from the cat's perspective. I muted the chat. In my family, repeated late-night phone buzzing means somebody is dead, dying or has been arrested. I cannot wake in panic because somebody's dog has done another poo.

I realised we had very different definitions of intimacy.

His: I like you, therefore you need the live feed.
Mine: I'm delighted your haircut went well, but I did not require confirmation.

So I told him the romantic connection wasn't there and the volume of communication was overwhelming. After several days of receiving the director's cut of one man's existence, I braced myself for the response.

Four words and an emoji. Polite. Gracious. Finished.

He had been capable of brevity the entire time.

So apparently I am now the Goldilocks of middle-aged dating. One thought salmon en croûte entitled him to immediate sex. The next was planning weekends away while issuing push notifications from his fridge.

Somewhere out there is one who is just right.

Probably.

This happened to me some time ago. Names have been omitted to protect the innocent.

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I woke up somewhere around midday, stark bollock naked apart from a diamanté necklace and an eyelash set stuck to the back of my left knee.

The necklace was doing its absolute best, bravely twinkling away like it had single-handedly held the night together. The eyelash set, meanwhile, looked less like “glamour” and more like a small woodland creature had died trying to escape.

What was missing from this picture was:

1. Anyone else (good).
2. Any sight of my clothes in the vicinity (not so good).
3. My phone.
4. Any idea of when and how I had managed to get home.
5. The trophy we had won the night before at the Royal Ocean Racing Club gala and I had collected on behalf of my team and our lovely skipper, who was currently in the Caribbean.
6. My dignity (well, more than likely).

I lay there questioning my life choices for a very, very long time, which is easy when you are in the foetal position and your mouth tastes like a pub carpet. The room had that post-drama hush to it, the kind that suggests the walls know everything and are keeping it to themselves out of spite.

Then the gin induced thirst arrived, wearing a hi-vis vest and carrying a clipboard, all “right, love, hydration compliance check.” I tried to ignore it, but my organs were staging a coup.

I sat up, very carefully, like a Victorian woman who had simply thought too hard.

The necklace clinked cheerily. The eyelashes remained stuck to my knee, as if to say, “we’re in this together now.” I slid out of bed and did the most shameful thing a person can do: I looked on the floor for my clothes.

Nothing. Not a sock. Not a bra strap. Not even a forlorn shoe. Just the cold, empty space where clothing should be. Like a minimalist art installation called “Consequences.”

I pulled on whatever I could find in reach, because even in a crisis I draw the line somewhere, and shuffled out into the flat on a highly focused mission for water and answers.

As I reached the living room, I saw it.

A pile of my clothes.

Not scattered. Not flung about in drunken chaos. A pile. Folded, even. Like some kind of respectful crime scene.

And on top, reclining with the casual confidence of something that had survived the night, was the trophy.

The trophy.

The actual trophy we had won, which I had accepted on behalf of my team and our lovely skipper, who I would never wish to disappoint, even if I can tie a bowline while maintaining eye contact and judging your protein intake.

I stood there staring at it, necklace still on, eyelashes still on my knee, and I felt an overwhelming rush of relief.

Followed immediately by suspicion.

Because this was too neat. Too tidy. Too… considerate.

This was not the work of gin. This was the work of others.

And then I remembered.

My teenage nephew and two of his mates were staying with me at the time.

We had previously had words about boundaries. Specific words. Words that included, “absolutely not,” and “I do not care if it is ‘banter’,” and “if you take photos of me unawares and Snapchat them to all your friends again, I will burn your phone, salt the earth, and then I will call your mother.”

So yes. The trophy was home. My clothes were in a neat pile. Which meant my nephew had been in this room.

While I was unconscious. Wearing jewellery befitting of a divorced magician's assistant.

From the kitchen, I heard the faint click of a kettle.

There is something uniquely unsettling about a teenager making tea before 2pm.

I took a minute to fix my face and stand like someone who owns furniture, then walked in. All three of them were at the table, upright, hydrated, cereal-based, looking at me like I was a mildly heroic cautionary tale.

My nephew slid a cup of tea to me like a negotiation tactic. I ignored it and went straight to business. “Where’s my phone.” He pointed to the fruit bowl that was now full of rice. My phone sat in it like evidence. “We googled what to do with a wet phone” one of the mates said, proud as a Labrador.

I narrowed my eyes. “Did anyone take photos.” Silence. Then, quickly, “Not of you.” He paused. “Just the trophy, it’s sick.”

I opened my mouth to object, but my nephew was already nodding along like this was a normal sentence. “We didn’t send it to anyone,” he said. “We just took pics with it.” He brightened. “You said we could.”

“I did not say you could.”

You absolutely did. You said, ‘Boys, come behold my glory.’

I put my face in my hands, mostly to hold my soul in place.

Apparently I arrived singing, announced the trophy was “a serious piece of hardware.” They suggested I didn't take it to bed with me. Teenagers, I thought, are feral but occasionally useful.

Then he said “You were kind of a vibe last night.”

“Do not,” I warned.

He raised his hands. “I’m just saying. You came home with a trophy. Mission accomplished.”

I glanced towards the living room, where the trophy waited, safe and shiny. My dignity was still missing, obviously, and would probably remain missing, but at least the important things had made it back.

I took the tea. Strong. Splash of milk. Perfect. I peeled the eyelashes off the back of my knee and held them up like a dead insect. One of the mates looked genuinely haunted. Excellent. A learning moment.

Right, new rule. No more photos of Aunty, ever, under any circumstances. If I come home with another trophy, you can admire it (and me) from a respectful distance like a museum exhibit. Also, if you ever see me attempting to remove clothing when you are present, you are permitted to intervene.

And that is how I got the missing parts of my evening back. Enough to text my team that the trophy was safe, and that I had represented us with the gravitas and decorum of a woman who definitely did not wake up wearing eyelashes on her knee.

Which is exactly the sort of lie that holds our society together.

These days I (54f) feel less as though I am dating to meet someone and more as though I am putting myself out there purely to provide hilarious anecdotes for my friends.

Take the last guy. Let’s call him Dick (61m), for the purposes of anonymity and narrative accuracy.

Dick insisted on paying for our first dinner, so I paid for the second, because I like to keep things even and respectful.

For the third date, he invited me to his house for dinner and instructed me to bring a Loire Valley white because it would pair perfectly with what he was cooking. I duly arrived with a decent bottle, only to be served a salmon en croûte that could quite easily have come from the freezer section before spending considerable time being incinerated for whatever sins a salmon is capable of committing.

There's nothing at all wrong with frozen food. But once you start specifying the wine region, I assume the meal has involved more than removing a cardboard sleeve.

He then declared that he had now sufficiently “wooed” me, so the next stop was upstairs to bed. I politely declined.

When I explained that I did not think we were a romantic match, I was told I was wrong. Was 'overthinking' things. Would only get a relationship if I put more effort in... And that I should snap him up because “catches like him do not grow on trees”. I was genuinely impressed by how many clichés and mixed metaphors he managed to compress into one diatribe. I was also warned that I would regret my decision for eternity.

Eternity, it turned out, did not even survive the wait for my Uber home.

So I am adjusting my expectations. I am no longer looking for fireworks. I would settle for decent conversation, no regional wine homework and a man who does not think three dates and a pastry-based main course entitle him to an upgrade.

Ladies and gents, please tell me I am not the only person whose dating life appears to exist mainly as unpaid material for a sitcom!?