The dating game

(Written early 2024, or perhaps late 2023)

I’m the handsome one, (without the cap). It’s hard to get pictures when the wind blows.

About me

I’ve been much impressed by many ladies with well crafted extensive summaries of their fabulous lives, and the reasonable expectations they have of their quarry. I think I’m not the only fellow that goes weak at the knees reading these accounts.

Is it a coincidence that they all, without exception, feature a picture of themselves climbing a rock face?

It reminds me of my experience at work of hearing eulogies; as I have never heard one, and not felt great misfortune not to have known the subject. They were all saints, playful rogues, salt of the earth, decent friends, scholars, artists, clowns, lovers, carers… in short, never, or very rarely, a bad word said. And yet we know there is wool being pulled over our poor weary eyes. Sorry, I am mixing metaphors, and the eyes are once again affixed to the smartyphone screen and I am pointing an accusing finger at these perfect ladies.

It is, of course unfair, they are only listing their attributes, and since I am concentrating on single women in their early 40s, they have had time to achieve and have not been hindered from doing so by rapidly dementing husbands or wretched demanding children.

It is reasonable that they exercise their wit, occasionally an acid tongue, and lay down expectations for literary confidence, these aren’t just clever girls, they are liberal or lefties, they won’t be content with riches, they are looking for “the real deal”, Prince Charming, who needs to be as bright as a button in more ways than one.

I wish them well.

But each time I read one of these marvellous essays I become more and more ashamed of my own poultry offering.

It isn’t that I don’t know my way around a book, though reading one for me is an effort. It isn’t that I don’t think myself worthy, or any less worthy than the toerags that may impress them. But I just can’t compete, and I am not convinced that these authors can ever keep on top of their fanmail, so I give up applying and will soon give up reading.

I am also suspicious that there is an error here. In seeking a partner who matches us in every sense, we are not only setting the bar too high, but we risk putting all our eggs in one basket, seeking everything in just one person.

So I retreat here, to my own quiet corner of the interweb. And here I will try to explain myself, mostly to myself.

I was the son of a Barrister and a clergy daughter Occupational Therapist, both solidly middle class. I was brought up in a mansion flat in Westminster, cuckooned from any social engagement with other children or young people.

My father did his bit, living his own good life, shopping each Saturday at the local market and an excellent Italian Delli, and taking us to fly kites in Hyde Park, or tobogganing on Parliament Hill, and jumping on and off the old open backed buses as we went, my poor little sister inevitably trailing behind, and somehow never being mown down by following traffic.

My mother was desperately seeking the Eldorado of her idyllic northern childhood with her adorable priest daddy who died before I knew him but was a strong presence nonetheless. But instead of provincial utopia she found in South Kensington the strange parish where T.S. Elliot was her predecessor as church warden, where a professional paid choir sang Palestrina, Byrd and Tallis each week to a very small audience.

This was as near as I got to being socialised, as I had, at the time, more in common with the odds and sods in the church than with the other middle class boys at my expensive public school. I was a loner commuting out of London, when all the others were commuting in.

So the obvious job for such a product was undertaker, and I fell neatly into it.

I made various attempts to escape, once to a country house hotel, where as barman I managed to sneeze into every pint I pulled from April till November, and then, scorning a job in the creamery packing cheese for Christmas, that might have seen me through the winter, I drove back to London in a Triumph Dolomite.

Another attempt was more convincing and I managed nearly two years in the L’Arche Community in Inverness, looking after learning disabled adults and netting myself, by accident, the most marvellous wife I could ever hope for.

Ute was a metalworker’s daughter from East Germany and she was brought up on capitalism as a dream. She was to go out and conquer with the pennies in her pocket. She was a true soldier of Christ who sought to set an example for others to follow, and hold back the tide of rampant consumerism with her own alternative take, but if something was good, she never bought one, but many.

I had in total around 20 happy but frustrating years with Ute including many happy holidays right up until last year. But just as she was busy having a mid life crisis and relocating herself to just about any continent, but before she was able to do so, a blockage in her guts was diagnosed as terminal, and though we were promised twelve to eighteen months, she lasted less than four.

I miss her dearly, and will never replace her.

But I must go on, and I believe I am a danger to myself and I must be supervised at least to some extent. And I have Ute’s blessing and I want to know warmth again.

So how the hell do I explain myself without spouting all this crap, and what can I expect more than a sympathy fuck?

But expect I do.

I want to meet these sophisticated girls that list clever books or taste in music, without showing off, but I want one better, because the girl I’m after knows she’s not quite right, and she knows the frog will always be a frog and that life will be at best ok, but that I can love her as she is and she doesn’t need to try too hard.

Please be this person for me, for an hour, a day, a year or ten. And let’s not worry too much about eternity.

Expertise

What I do

The template for this page was meant for a tradesman, and this is the next heading.

I do gardening, boating, walking, cycling and undertaking. In about that order of importance. I am terrible at diy but I love my little triumphs, the best of which are when I have someone to hold the tools and encourage me. [edit, I just reread this, Sept 2024, and must add “loving”, I do a heck of a lot of loving, and this is rather frustrating with no willing recipient] [another edit, Dec 2024, despite all this loving, I have managed to pull myself completely free from the web of dating apps and websites which feels really good!]

I cannot call myself a self starter so my home will certainly fall down unless someone intervenes to tell me what is, in fact, important and needs doing. But I think that you and I, (yes, you are still reading, so it must be possible), can work things out together, and don’t worry if you are another bloody “land based animal”. I’ll understand, and my boating can be a convenient way of keeping me, occasionally, out of your way.

What we do

Perhaps I should have put this nearer the top.

We might fall quickly into living together, and curling up like two rusty old sooons, but I’m aware that we’re not kids and I might not find you in a neighbouring parish. That you might have a little baggage and we might only visit one another, and that’s fine. I’m looking for the future, not the past and it will be what it will be.

And I think I can understand that I must fit into your story as much as you in mine so again it’s likely to be a long path that brings us together if we’re to stay together for very long.

I’m still looking forward to it.

ps, I thought this was out of date, but reading it on a drizzly morning in August 2025, I’ve decided its not. I have just changed my approach, instead of hunting for you among hordes on dating apps and hoping to tie you down to a life of drudgery aboard my ship, I now hope to find you in or through my small circle of friends and acquaintances, and to build some quiet relationship of mutual support.

I have found, and rediscovered some lovely friends in the last year or so, but no one wants any exclusivity on me, and I’m beginning to think that’s healthy.

I still want to take you sailing, or walking in the dales, or the West Highlands, and I still want to see whats special to you, and try new things. I’m still a little hyperactive, but I’m learning, I think, to keep a lid on it (: