Am I just too slow for modern day dating?

I had lunch yesterday with a former work colleague, someone I’ve always got along well with that has left under a bit of a cloud.

It was early 2015 that he left his wife (that also works for us) for a girl that works on his team and was dating another of his team, she was promoted in this time and is quite frankly as useful as a chocolate teapot on a bonfire. If I wasn’t already suspicious about them once I heard she had been promoted I definitely was! However it was apparent before the split that they were always in the same place, despite the fact that they didn’t really need to be.

He and I never discussed it as he knew that I wouldn’t approve of the cheating and I wouldn’t approve of sleeping with one of your staff, it’s such a bad plan and to be fair it was, I’m pretty sure it contributed to his fall from grace, however both she and the boyfriend she left (who will be her husband next year!) both still work for the company, the only innocent party I see here is the wife, I felt for the boyfriend too until the muppet took her back and asked her to marry him, I see a rocky future ahead of those two.

So since early January he has left his (second) wife and been seeing the girl he promoted, they split and within weeks he was seeing someone else, within weeks he’d met her child and she his, they moved in together fast and they broke up in the late summer, since then he’s been dating which we discussed yesterday, since this time he’s had a short relationship with someone else and several dates.

He went on a date last Thursday, had dinner, then Saturday he stayed over and did the same on Sunday, in the space of the week they’ve been talking, he’s had several dinner, two overnight stays and met her parents.

Then you have me, for one I’d struggle to fit that many dates into four days, I wouldn’t be having someone stay over within the first week because I’d want to get to know them before they were getting into my bed, so my question is, am I too slow with all of this? Should I be upping my game and just moving them in by date three instead of cracking on with my life and being such a snail?

I seem to be kind of a slow dater, initially seeing someone once or twice a week is just fine for me, my weekends are usually booked up way in advance and I’m not making changes to plans I’ve already made.

At first I thought this gung ho chuck yourself into it was a man thing but there are women involved here too and what sort of woman introduces her kids to someone she doesn’t even know yet?

Lets go back to baggage boy, who I had 3/4 dates with before we decided that friends was the better option for us. One of our last conversation’s was when I told him that his son didn’t need to meet everything his cock touched.

In the short time we were friends there were more women than I could shake a stick at walking in and out of those doors, now at first I thought he was a good Dad, he had his son every weekend, which I was terribly impressed at, it was only later that it dawned on me that his little boy (who was four) just had to fit in with whatever he was doing, if he was going out on a date he’d get a babysitter and if he had a woman over it was no big deal, the little one many times went to sleep with a babysitter and woke up to a woman he’d never met, if she’d gone by the time he woke up I would have had more empathy with this but that wasn’t the case.

The little boy had a lot of issues, although Baggage Boy would never admit to them, there were a lot of issues with BB and the little boys Mum, I only heard one side of the story which of course made her out to be evil and him to be the hero, this I don’t believe but I can assure you that if Boy was my child he wouldn’t be meeting different women all the time as I wouldn’t have allowed that. He definitely had attachment issues, from the minute we met he was very cuddly, wanted to hold my hand all of the time, if we watched a movie he wanted to be sitting on my lap, now children to tend to like me but I think that’s because I’m a little nervous around them and I’m not one of these people that always wants to grab them for cuddles etc but normally I find children of that age are a little shy at first, he desperately wanted to be loved which made me a bit sad.

He also had some anger issues and wasn’t reigned in by his Dad, now most things I can tolerate, however one day when I was there I spotted him being cruel to the hamster, I don’t care who you are animals aren’t meant to be dropped from a metre in the air, so I told him that he couldn’t do that and got his Dad in, ‘he loves the hamster’ is what I was told and I could believe that totally, until he thought no one was watching, I imagine that quite a lot happens when he is unsupervised and his Dad is too busy entertaining to keep an eye on him.

He had a girlfriend in Germany for a while, a girl he’d met while he was with his wife and she was with her husband, but nothing had happened…… she was the love of his life, he wanted her to move over which was what they were planning, he’d also propositioned both me and a waitress when we were on a day out with his son at this point.

Then suddenly within days of all this on Facebook his relationship status changes to ‘in a relationship with………..’ a girl that didn’t have the same name as the girl in Germany…….. despite our conversation she had posted photos of her with Boy and him with her children and all of his posts were how much he loves his ideal woman and he’d never felt like this before…….. I know I’m a sceptic but……

We had a conversation about it and I told him that I felt he was rushing in, that while I was happy for him in the last year he’d told me he was in love many times and I had concerns and also concerns for Boy, he brushed them off, put it down to me not being happy for him, which categorically wasn’t the case.

The next conversation we had was a couple of months later, Facebook and Instagram were covered in how happy they were but our conversations were filled of how insecure she was, how she wasn’t as adventurous as him in bed and how he didn’t like one of her children.

The next minute they were on holiday and an engagement ring appeared, surrounded by messages of how much in love they were and how perfect for each other they were, he rang me after and I congratulated him, mentioning that it was only a week ago that they weren’t terribly happy and the holiday was make or break, that was the last I heard of him and I was deleted from Facebook.

They have got married, Instagram is covered in photos of how perfect they are, I did note that the child he doesn’t like doesn’t appear in a lot of the photos though, take that as you will.

A little side note about Baggage Boy, on a night in 2016 (before the now wife but when he was with the German GF) we had planned a night out, we were going to a car show, then for a night out and I was staying at his.

We’d gone to the car show and come back covered in dust, so I went to get showered and ready, as I headed into the bathroom he said ‘I’ll be in, in a minute’ which I laughed off thinking he was joking, he wasn’t. Now there was no lock on the door but it was shut, he then walks naked into the bathroom and climbs into the shower with me, very brazen, I’m not sure what he expected but I finished my shower, got out and went and put my dress on, I was pretty shocked if I’m honest but I’m not the sort of girl to wobble with something like that and I fronted it out, we had a brilliant night out but if I’d already worked out before this that he couldn’t be trusted but this really did clinch it, if I’d given him the slightest hint that I was up for it he would have been straight in there, despite the girlfriend, he spent the evening giving the come on to anything that had a pulse, even exchanged numbers with some and I was totally fine with that but he did then try it on when we got back to his, even drunk I’m pretty firm in my resolve, it did come up over the coming months how I’d batted off his advances but it was long before that we’d decided that we were just going to be friends and in the months that followed all of the reasons that was a brilliant idea became apparent.

So, should I throw caution to the wind when it comes to dating?

If I had I could have well ended up with Baggage Boy and many others that I’ve been saved from but does my caution hold me back because by the time I’ve worked out I do actually like them they’ve found someone else?

We all know that most people multidate these days, do I want to be with someone that isn’t prepared to wait? I honestly don't think I do but I wonder if I've wasted chances by being cautious, like the Shoe Guy, the friend of a friend from two Christmases ago that got in touch recently and today in fact. 

The Cat Breeder, the Vet and finding out I work with his Mum………….

In December last year I matched with a guy on Bumble, quite nice looking with some nice photos and it was pretty obvious from the baby lambs in them that he worked with animals.

Now if I could pick an occupation for my perfect man a vet would be way up that list, being an animal lover someone that likes animals is important and with cat breeding having a vet to hold my hand through birthing would be amazing! (The list would also have most uniformed professions. I quite like the idea of the forces as I could get rid of them for months at a time and most men look better in uniform – although I have seen times when this rule doesn’t work)

We chatted for a bit, did the whole what do you do etc and he was indeed a vet, working about an hour away from me, at the time I had a quite pregnant, very precious, pedigree cat and was fairly concerned so that was mentioned, he was working for a small and large animal practice at the time but large animals are essentially what he is passionate about.

We soon discovered that we were looking for different things, he was not long out of a relationship and just looking for ‘fun’ and I have no interest in that at all, he said that he’d like to keep in touch and should I ever change my mind to let him know, I assured him that I didn’t see that happening.

Over the next few days, he was very sweet, I was watching my girl all the time and was getting very little sleep, if anyone can empathise with that feeling it’s a vet, we had a discussion about how things were with her and he agreed that we could well be looking at a C-Section which was already where I was with my thinking, he’d given me his number by this point but I’d not used it.

A couple of days later the kittens were born, by C-Section, things were still a little fraught with a Mum that didn’t have a clue what to do with these little shouty things that had appeared next to her when she woke up and I was shattered, I also knew that I was going to have to feed these little one’s two hourly until her milk came in. I sent him a message saying thanks for listening with a photo of the newborns and he messaged back asking how they were doing and saying he hoped I was feeling less stressed (I wasn’t!)

I have to say it was nice to have someone level headed to talk to when everything is looking so shit, it was a really tough time kitten wise, Mum wasn’t settling with them at all, she’d only stay with them if I was with her, even then she’d rather be cuddled up with me, I was feeding every two hours day and night and I was exhausted and upset, to the point that I was looking to see if anyone had a surrogate when I had an idea and called my vet, asking him for a specific injection for her, he wasn’t convinced but I was at the end of my rope and was literally willing to try anything. That day I was in such a state that my vet hugged me as I walked in, I literally was the great unwashed, I couldn’t tell you how long is was since I washed my hair as I’d not had time between feed’s (you’ll be pleased to know I’d managed a couple of showers though!)

It worked, within six hours of having the jab she was settling with her little ones, feeding them with just a bit of help from me and became the Mum I knew she could be, which took the pressure off of me a bit, in the week that had elapsed I’d had an awful morning where I had to revive two of them and I was a completely frazzled zombie, I had friends telling me that even human babies don’t need that much looking after! Once my girl was feeling better the babies followed and started putting on weight, apart from the little boy that was a struggle, he was putting on but not as much as the others, so I continued to feed him as well as him feeding from his Mum.

You bond much more with babies that you are hand rearing, it’s hard not to, just thinking of him now makes me well up. He was full of fight, hated feeding from his Mum but fed really well from the sponge that I fed him from, eventually in the early hours of boxing day I lost him, after a vet visit and an X-Ray and some drugs, it’s hard to treat a baby that is so tiny, it was awful and it’s those times when being on your own really sucks, there are very few friends you can call sobbing at 3am when they are miles away and there is nothing you or they can do about it.

I struggled with it, you always think that you’ve not done enough when you lose one and I was terrified I’d lose more, I became totally OCD and weighed them much more than ever possibly needed, probably worrying myself more, I knew that weighing once a day was the sensible solution and slowly as they continued to grow and thrive I managed to get a grip of reality again.

It was literally a month before I left the flat for anything that wasn’t a vet visit, I’d seen no one, I think I’d have felt incredibly lonely if only I had, had time to think about anything.

If you aren’t an animal lover you’ll think I’m mad and I’m ok with that, if you are you’ll have an idea of how I felt! By the time they had reached a month old I had been in the office for one half day meeting, thankfully my boss is an animal lover and I bend over backwards to be flexible, often working when I’m on holiday so he was really understanding of my answering emails at 4am for a few weeks and working from home for that period. That was the only time I’d left flat for anything that wasn’t a vet visit, I’d seen no one, I think I’d have felt incredibly lonely if only I had, had time to think about anything.

During this time the Vet had checked in regularly with ‘This is your regular vet check-up, how are the kittens?’ which I have to say I thought was massively sweet and just what I needed, he always asked how the kittens were and how I was. He said a couple of times that it was a shame that we wanted different things as he thought we’d really get on and have a lot of fun together, to be honest I didn’t disagree but we did want different things.

Facebook did its thing and at some point in January threw the Vet up as a friend suggestion, I obviously didn’t add him but I couldn’t help but notice his surname which was not only fairly unusual but the same as someone I work with.

The lady I work with is probably in her fifties, she worked for us as a Business Development Director and at some point of her time here she’s worked directly for my boss, although mainly she’s worked for our team, however she used my office fairly regularly. She’s lovely and we’ve always got on well, she breeds Race Horses, lives on a Sheep Farm with her husband and is very lady of the manor.

Hmmmm, thought I…. it’s can’t be………..can it?

Now, it wouldn’t be obvious that they were related, based in different area’s and it wouldn’t be obvious that she and I worked for the same company, her home base is two hours from my office and he’s an hour away but the name is a bit like mine, you’d have to wonder.

I mentioned it to him and he kind of shrugged it off but in a manner that almost seemed a bit shifty, however it didn’t stop him doing his regular check in’s on me and the kittens and a bit of flirting.

A couple of weeks later she was in the office and we were chatting, I HAD to know, she was saying that she had a Grandchild on the way from one of her son’s, so we talked about that, I asked her what her other children did, she had two sons and a daughter.

‘……….. is a vet, currently working in……………………. in a mixed practice but he’s just got a new job working with large animals which is what he wants to do’

BOOM! The Vet is her son, or she happens to have a son with the same name, same job and that has told me exactly that same thing in the last couple of weeks…… unlikely hey?!

Soooooo I mentioned  him about it when he next got in touch, he asked who I worked for and then said that he hadn’t wanted me to feel awkward when she was in and that she disapproves of dating sites (which I could imagine if I’m honest) he asked me not to mention it, which of course I would never do.

Fast forward 11 months and the Vet still gets in touch, probably around once a month, he’s always quite sweet, usually asks if I’ve changed my mind (I haven’t) I thought about him last week as his Mum was put on garden leave before she exits the business and I missed saying goodbye as I was in meetings but it was a passing thought.

He missed his October check in (I didn’t know this until I checked the messages for this post) and saw that we’ve not spoken since September and then yesterday a ‘Good evening how are you’ popped up on my phone, it was him again, what timing eh?

It’s funny how these people pop up isn’t it? I’m pretty sure my mind won’t change, as good idea as a Friend With Benefits sounds (because to be fair it’s been a LONG time) I’d be worried that we’d have no chemistry and I couldn’t sleep with someone I had nothing there with, on top of that I’d worry that feelings would become involved for one of us.

I dated someone about two years ago, he said a few dates in that he didn’t want anything serious which I was ok with, however once that was said any feelings I may have developed were switched off, a few more dates down the line he changed his mind and wanted more but I wasn’t there because he said he wanted nothing serious I’d made sure my feelings hadn’t developed, I then had to call it a day because we were in different places so I’ve seen it go wrong, in fact years before that with Blue Eyes, I told him straight off I wasn’t ready for anything serious, he got his feelings all involved and then I had to call it a day as we were in different places again, so casual doesn’t really work for me as it never ends like that.

I think he probably hopes that at some point my mind will change which is probably why he keeps popping up, I don’t think mine will but he does seem genuinely quite nice and one thing I do like about him is that he’s been as upfront as I have about what he wants and I’ve got a lot more respect for someone that is upfront than someone that lies to get what they want, I’m not sure they’ll ever be any more to this story unless one of us changes our minds………..meeting the parents could be a bit awkward eh?!

How much can you support a stranger without being a fool?

There is both lots and nothing to report this week!

No dates last week, however I matched with two total hotties, one ghosted not long after swapping numbers, called him out on it, he blamed being busy, I’m done.

Second one sounded perfect, hot, 5’11 (a little under what I’m after for perfection but you can’t have it all!) Ex Marine, now Electrician, lives in the town I work in (amazing, I never match with anyone decent that is close) he messaged me on Tinder saying that he was going to delete his account as it wasn’t for him and sent me his number, so we messaged off app for a few days and poof……he disappears too, what the fuck is wrong with them?!

The guy I went on one date with is still in touch however his messages are massively depressing largely, he pretty much blames everything on his ex wife, I don’t believe that when a relationship breaks down that it is ever solely the fault of one person, even with W@nk Bag there were things that I could have changed too, he was however a massive cunt but I can’t honestly say that I had nothing to do with our relationship failing, if nothing else I should have opened my eyes to the fact that he didn’t love me instead of wasting five years of my life on it (and probably the best years for meeting someone and starting a family at that!)

So, I find it massively hard to believe that his wife is a totally bad person in all of this, I think he’s been trying to get me to believe that he is the better person and has used the term ‘but I’m too nice’ far to many times, no mate you aren’t too nice for letting your wife sleep in the main bedroom while you go to the spare room, once we split with someone if we can’t move out straight away we have to make compromises like that, it’s not being too nice, it’s a compromise to get you through until you sort things out. I did it with my ex before W@nk Bag, we lived together for around 9 months while we were selling our house, we both made compromises to make it work and try to make life as easy for each other as possible.

He told me he was having his son over the weekend ‘while she’s away’ and mentioned that he found it daunting having him overnight, it’s his son for gods sake, he shouldn’t feel daunted by having his own child overnight, it’s his job! I hate this notion of ‘Daddy babysitting’ Daddy doesn’t babysit, Daddy has joint responsibility for the child that he jointly made, he’s not a bloody babysitter!

To be fair on the date I thought that his photos were a bit out of date as he’s definitely got less hair now and that there wasn’t any chemistry but I would have been willing to meet him again as he seemed quite a nice guy but all of these little messages have been making me wonder, probably the more messages I’ve had the more I’ve wondered about seeing him again.

He messaged this weekend asking if I’d like to go to a local race meeting, I couldn’t as I already had plans so said no, which is where I think the message I received this morning came from and I don’t know how I feel about it, if I’m honest.

My question is; Is this the message from a person that is having a rough time and a cry for help or a manipulator who is expecting that to make me feel bad?

Part of me feel’s sorry for him, he’s obviously having a rough time of it and I totally understand that, I’ve been there, we’ve all been there and partly because I’ve been there I feel I should be supportive but he’s actually a stranger and I signed up for dating not being someone’s support structure, I’ve been there before let’s be honest.

Last year when I met Cunt Face he’d not long lost his Dad, I spent months checking he was ok, it was me that sent him off to the Dr to discuss the depression that I could see, it was me that he talked to about his counselling sessions (Don’t forget that I didn’t know about the GF) it was my shoulder he cried on, it was me messaging on his first trip that he’d always done with his Dad, it was me crying when I realised there was a girlfriend of 7 years…….it’s not me he’s now dating (more about that later this week)

With Cake Destroyer I supported him through RAF basic training, I told him he could do it when he didn’t think he could, I baked cake to make him smile, I sent him supportive messages, told him he’d be awesome on graduation day…….the week after he’d graduated he called it a day………….

I’m also support for ALL of my friends, I’m really fucking good at it too,  I don’t need and don’t have time for friends that message every day but in a crisis I’m there, up or down the country, if I can’t be there I support in other ways, I check they have got out of bed, that they can cope with life (or pretend they can to get to work or whatever) and I do that because I’ve been there, I’ve been in the position where I couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t leave the flat, couldn’t stand up without passing out because I was THAT stressed and depressed, did all of my friends rally round for me? Largely not to be fair but I’m brilliant at hiding things, I’m a ‘I’m fine thanks, how are you?’ kind of girl, even when I’m totally broken, I’m the kind of person that sends ‘I saw this and thought of you’ presents a lot because I really enjoy making people smile.

Do I want to do it for someone else? No, I can’t say I do, I take care of enough people (I’m a PA for fuck sake, it’s my job too!) What I want is to spend time with someone that makes me smile, not that tells me his ex is evil and he’s such a good person.

I spent five years of my life with an emotional bully and manipulator, W@nk Bag convinced me it was all my fault and I believed him, if we were out together and I talked to his mates I was flirting with them and he’d get shitty with me, if I didn’t talk to them he’d say I was a miserable bitch to the point that I just didn’t go out, it just wasn’t worth the shit that I used to get for it.

He told me I was rushing him into us moving in together (after four years) he made me feel bad for moaning when yet again he couldn’t be my plus one because he had work but he didn’t need to work on pool night or when his mates were out, if I feel someone is being manipulative now I avoid them like the plague because I’ve been there and he was so good at it I didn’t even know it.

When we started our relationship he told me his ex was a psycho, I have no doubt he now says the very same about me and to be fair I think I probably did act like a psycho girlfriend at times but I assure that while I spent some time in psycho he certainly drove me there and pushed me through the door.

I am the sort of person that if anything I’m too kind, I help anyone and everyone I can, I give too many chances to too many people, even after they’ve hurt me so I hope you’ll understand why I can’t take this one on, I don’t think I can do it again, I don’t think he’s over his ex and I can’t help him do that, I think he needs to sort himself out before he brings anyone else into his life – I responded, hoping I’ve been kind but I also didn’t want to open it up so that I was a person he could vent to, in all honesty he already has, too much for someone you are thinking of dating.

Monday Update.............

So, last week consisted of the car costing me an absolute fortune, a date, not enough time in the gym, the dreaded month end at work and the British Superbikes Showdown.

My car has just had its MOT and service, it’s ended up costing me £2,000 to get it sorted, a sane person would tell me that I should have got rid of the car, my head was telling me I should have got rid of the car, my head was also telling me that I wouldn’t get a car as I like as much as that one for that price and my heart was telling me that I love that car and it marks a turning point in my life, so the car has had most of the work and will be completed this week with a new cambelt, hopefully then he’ll last me a couple more years until I’m in a better position to replace him with something I actually want and when I have some more time to consider my options.

He had to stay in overnight on Monday which meant I couldn’t go to the gym as I had no car, someone from work that lives in my village kindly gave me a lift but that meant starting early, I only managed the gym twice last week which is rubbish as I’ve been going 4 times, however with month end and the car it made it really difficult, am planning on improving that this week, although I already sacked Monday off in favour of chips and halloumi, so shoot me!

Month end was even more of a ballache than usual and coincided with a date, something I will probably never do again if I’m honest,  he was bigger than I’d expected, he is over 6 foot tall but he and he has the look of someone I know which doesn’t help, his photos are from a good angle obviously and I wasn’t attracted to him, he was however a nice guy but took things a bit far with some of the conversation.

We had talked earlier in the week about my car and I was fairly stressed about it, he took the piss a little too much and went on with that part of the conversation too long, to the point that I had to say I wasn’t talking about it anymore, even then he came back to it.

We didn’t have a great deal in common but he mentioned a second date on the date and a kiss as we got back to the car, I told him I didn’t kiss on first dates (rarely do I) I felt a bit mean that he had a three hour round trip home, I thought he lived closer but in fact he’s moving closer, however he picked the venue and I had said I was happy to meet half way. He asked me to let him know I’d got home, which I did, a couple of texts and then heard nothing for three days, I’m not going to go on a second date, there just isn’t enough there.

The one from two weeks ago that is getting divorced is still messaging daily, I guess the more he messages the more reservations I have about seeing him again.

Tinder, POF and Bumble still keep throwing me up a load of shit, when I get a good match they talk for a day and then disappear, is this normal? However Monday brought two corkers with it, one from each site, we’ll see if they stay around or do the disappearing thing.

One has messaged this morning saying that he’s tried Tinder for a few days but it isn’t very him, sent me his number and said he’d still like to chat, added him on Whatsapp and he shows his timestamp which has become my new indicator of whether or not they are a ‘fuckboy’ I find ones that don’t show their timestamps always seem to turn out that way!

Sunday was spent at the BSB Showdown, the weather was good, it’s normally wall to wall mud and rain, was an early morning as I wanted to make the most of it and a long day, I didn’t get back until bedtime.

My friend’s sister was going which is very rare, we reckoned it was 3 years ago that she last came racing, we get on well, I had however noticed that in his little used twitter account there was some flirty banter between them a few years ago (he uses it that little that it’s easy to see and no, he doesn’t follow me and nor me him) so I wondered if the dynamic would change.

I was there early and although K was supposed to be down the day before and staying she had changed her mind so I was there a couple of hours before her, he greeted me in the usual manner, hug, kiss, ‘hello beautiful’ normal touch on the shoulder, arm, back each time he passed me.

A few hours later K arrived, all they exchanged was a ‘hi’ and pretty much nothing more for the rest of the day, which if anything I thought was a little strange (so maybe something did happen is what I thought!) he who doesn’t eat cake wanted some to take home and repeatedly told me how I was a legend for making awesome cake for them, a bit more innuendo ensued.

He definitely cuddles me a bit longer and closer than is strictly necessary and that was more apparent yesterday with four of us females all there at the end, the others got a quick goodbye hug (including K) he’s offered to come and meet me when I’m in London next, I think we’ll continue to be friends, he’s a really nice guy but there are too many what if’s and buts.

I nearly committed a massive fail this weekend, something possessed me to message Cake Destroyer, I looked in my Whatsapp archive and he was online, I gave myself a good talking to and went to sleep instead, it would have achieved nothing, it was left as him sending the last message and that’s how I want it to stay, will I hold out forever? Who knows.

I think I’m feeling a bit lonely currently which is stupid really as I have loads on and lots to do, I think he’s made me even more dating jaded than I already was which is bad!

This weekend also brought on thoughts of Cunt Face, every time I drive past Billing it makes me think of him because Billing was the lie that gave him away, I also drove past the service station where we had date one and I felt that bolt of electricity when he touched my hand across the table, something I’ve not felt for years before or have again (yet she say’s hopefully!)

The thought of that night and the second date still gives me goosebumps, I’ve not heard from him for a couple of weeks now, however I have no doubt he’ll be back at some point and at some point when it’s convenient for me I’ll respond, it’s different now I can control myself with him but with him I don’t feel bad using him to boost my ego, like the weekend when CD sent the Dear John message. 

Even though I know he’s a cunt and I know that I wouldn’t get involved with him again the chemistry feels good. 

How soon do people update their relationship status?

There isn’t a lot to update really, Monday’s date didn’t happen, he’d put me off a bit by telling me he was chunky, now I know that when a woman thinks she’s ‘chunky’ the likelihood is that she isn’t really but I find a man that say’s he’s ‘chunky’ normally turns out to be chunky and some. So I had a little root through his FB photos (that I could see without adding him) and I could tell that his Tinder photo’s were old and then he threw his toys out in a message on Monday so it was perfect timing really, so I went to the gym instead and enjoyed it probably more than I would have a disappointing date.

The guy from Saturday’s date has been in touch a fair bit, he’s now added me on whatsapp, he even tried flirting over the weekend (I think he’d had a couple of drinks) he didn’t do a great job of it to be honest. So this weekend he’s been away in Bruges with his Mum for her 70^th.

Now, once you add someone to your contacts Facebook picks it up and it did the same with him, so I clicked on it, his status is on the first page and say’s ‘married’ now for me that rings an alarm bell.

He’s told me that he is married (getting divorced kinda married at that) that they have been split up since January but are currently living in the same house until the divorce comes through and they settle things but surely you’d have removed it from your status?

It took me a while with W@nk Bag, by a while I mean 2-4 weeks, as I wasn’t ready to have everyone asking, it was all too raw and I was upset but then I’d told NO ONE for two weeks anyway, not even my best friend, probably because we were having a ‘break’ to decide if it was what I really wanted and I didn’t want the world to see me break, by the time I changed my status I was stronger and I was ready for the questions, in fact at first I didn’t change it, I just removed it.

But 9 months? 9 months without changing it, removing it? That’s not normal right? So I mentioned it, he said he wants to get things sorted in the real world before anyone else and that it was lucky he’d told me the truth from the start (which he did) but I feel a bit uncomfortable about that still, should I?

He also sent me a photo of him in Bruges and he has less hair that his Tinder photos for sure (I did think that on the date but the photo has confirmed it) why do men use old photo’s on their profiles?

If you remember the first date I said that there weren’t any sparks but he seemed a nice guy and I would be willing to give a second date a whirl, now I just don’t know!

He also sent me a Meme about divorce papers and a man smiling, saying that would soon be him, now I take marriage really seriously (that's why I've never managed it) and I don't get people being happy about it, I get that it happens but I don't get celebrating failure and to me that's exactly what divorce means, you have promised to love and be faithful to someone for the rest of their lives and you've failed at that, it's not something to joke about for me. 

I got an invite to Paris for this weekend on a first date with someone from Tinder, I do actually think he was serious, he flew out Friday morning and is flying home Tuesday but had the weekend free, I had plans anyway but it was a tempting offer, however can you imagine if we’d met and didn’t like each other? How great would it have been if we had though? Anyway I said no but we’ve chatted this weekend and he’s kept telling me how much better it would have been with me there, we do have plans for a date later this week, lets see if that one happens! 

Monday, Monday………….

So, it’s been a busy few days here.

I finally bit the bullet and joined the gym after noticing that I’d been missing the signs of depression creeping in, in the past I have found that exercise really helps and also if it gets me out of bed and through the front door it can’t be a bad thing, it’s also at one of my favourite hotels, so it is a really nice one, hopefully as I’ve now signed up for a year I’ll keep going!

I was a bit of a let down last week, it was Cake Destroyer’s birthday and late that night when I couldn’t sleep I sent a Happy Birthday message, I was fairly surprised when he responded if I’m honest but I’ve been good and not sent a further message since.

Cunt Face hasn’t been in touch, he is away in Germany with his Mum, however I’ve been watching his Snap Chat story and there is blonde hair in one of the Snaps, honestly I’m sure he thinks he is clever, he doesn’t have a clue that I know what he’s up to, bloody idiot!

Saturday I had a date, with the guy that still lives with his wife and is currently working his way through divorce. They have been split up since January and have an 18 month old son together.

We met in a pub between us, I think we are about an hour and a half from each other, I think he is probably a bit younger in his photo’s and I’m sure he has a bit more hair in most of them than he does now, he was nice enough though, I didn’t feel any sparks though but we did get on, in those circumstances what do you do?

He messaged that night and said it was nice to meet me and nice to meet someone that looked like their photo’s as his last date hadn’t (I never get that) he has asked me on a second date, what do I do? Do I go with it and see if any feeling develop in time? I’m not sure they really do, the person I’ve had the most connection with in the 7 years I’ve been dating is Cunt Face and I felt it from minute one, there was a bit of electricity between us from the moment we laid eyes on each other and shortly into the date when he touched my hand across the table I felt a jolt of electricity but looking back now, although we have the big bang fireworks I know what we have isn’t sustainable.

I am going to have to make a decision though, so I should probably get on with that one, also the situation could be difficult, do I want to be around through a messy divorce?

I do hope I was able to educate him a little bit on our date, when talking about letting the other girl he’d had two dates with down he said that he had just left it with less and less contact, I told him that I thought this showed really bad manners and wasn’t the way to do things, that actually although it seems harsh to tell someone they aren’t for you that it is really the best way, hopefully he won’t become a ghoster to women in future!

I matched with someone on Bumble on Saturday, he was the closest match I’ve had in online dating that showed any promise, he seemed really keen and now I’ve not heard anything since, what is wrong with these people?

Tonight I have another date, from what he said yesterday I’m already thinking that I’m going to be disappointed, he mentioned something last night about being ‘chunky’ so I’m wondering how old his photo’s are. 

Who is to blame for cheating?

Although not proud of it I have been on both sides of cheating, I have cheated on my partner and I have been the other woman, but who’s job is it to look after their partners interests?

I’ve seen some big debates in the last week or so about whether the ‘other woman’ is to blame or plays a big part in it, or if you should only blame the person in the relationship, I have to say that I have very mixed feelings on this, if I’m with someone it is undoubtedly my job to ensure that I am faithful to my partner but do other women make cheating too easy and the other thing is, do they always know? So, here is my history with this;

On my 17^th birthday we were all out the day before I was due to go on holiday, I walked into a room in a nightclub to find the boyfriend I was going on holiday with snogging a girl I went to college with, did she know he was my boyfriend? Yes, he was out with us! We did go on holiday together, however I binned it while we were out there, he was my first boyfriend, it didn’t get me off to a great start.

When I was young (19) I met this guy on May Day Morning (A massive Oxford tradition) he was a couple of years older than me, however for one I didn’t think to look for a wedding ring (we were young and I didn’t know anyone that was married at that point) however he wasn’t wearing one, we were seeing each other for a few weeks before one of his mates dropped him in it, he had a wife and a daughter that he had failed to mention, I became the other woman without knowing it, it was years later that he admitted to taking his ring off on nights out, as people didn’t talk to him when he wore it.  

There was the Car Salesman at 21, we were seeing each other for about a year, fairly casually when I found out he’d shagged one of my best mates, I was pretty angry at them both, probably more so her as I was more upset about losing her and had expected better of her, there is no question as to whether she knew about me!

When my five year relationship was failing badly I turned to someone else, I’m not proud of that and I don’t think that what I did was ok, if I could go back and change one thing it would be to have ended it earlier.

We hadn’t slept together for at least 9 months by the time I cheated on him (still no excuse) I should have tried to solve the problem, but I, WE didn’t, instead we grew further apart and started to live our lives separately, within a month of me cheating we ended our relationship, it was only at that point that he asked me if we could do anything to make it work, sadly it was about six months too late.

I cheated on him with W@nk Bag, they couldn’t have been more different if you’d have tried, the man I had at home was gorgeous, 6’2, gym bunny, a little shy, would have done anything for me, tactile, desperate to settle down, W@nk Bag on the other hand was 5’10 a bit chubby, a smoker, emotionally retarded, how did it happen? I don’t really know. His sister used to say that we were like magnets, we just gravitated towards each other.

When we met on a Friday night in a club, he was my (then) best (girl) friends brother, even she told me to keep away from him as he was ‘an emotionless cunt’ he had a girlfriend and I had a long term boyfriend, who I had a life and a house with. His girlfriend was flying over from South Africa that very next morning to spent a month with him, we kissed that night, we both knew each others situation, he told me then he would phone the girlfriend and tell her not to get on the plane, I said that was a very bad idea and that he should continue as normal and maybe see how we both felt after, I had a lot to lose and I wouldn’t have wanted him to always look back thinking that she might be ‘the one’ should it go any further, so that’s what we did.

We had a month when we just bumped into each other and said hi on a couple of nights out, I spent a lot of time that month thinking about what I was going to do, I didn’t think I could afford to live on my own, although I wasn’t in love with my boyfriend I did love him and didn’t want to hurt him, I have little to do with my family but his had become my family, I was extremely close to his parents but I knew that it wasn’t going to last, every six months he’d mention marriage and babies and I just wasn’t there.

As soon as the month was over W@nk Bag got in touch to say that it was over, that they had called it a day and he’d put her on the plane, he said he’d spent the month thinking of me, this coincided with the long term, lovely boyfriend asking if I was happy and I told him that I wasn’t and we started the break down of our relationship, telling our friends and family, putting our home on the market, splitting our lives, it was about 8 months that we lived together during that time, separate rooms and separate lives and it was tough, walking away from a good guy isn’t easy but you can’t make your heart feel something it won’t.

When I told W@nk Bag it was over his first words were ‘what about us’ I told him that it was too soon to think about it and I needed some time but it was soon after that we started seeing each other.

Our relationship was tough from early on, it was nearly five years down the line and after we broke up that I realised he was an emotional bully, however it was only three months in that I realised I was in love with him, I remember the very moment I knew and it surprised me, it was the first time I had been in love and so far it is the only time, I’m hopeful that I’ll feel it again at some point, with someone that is right for me.

He broke my heart, after how we met you might think I deserved that and to be fair I kinda do too, he cheated on me, with his now wife and that is I guess where we get a different perspective.

His wife did know about me when she slept with him, they went to school together years before, she had gone out with his best mate just weeks before until he’d dumped her for ‘being a psycho’ which still makes me laugh now.

Could we say that she didn’t know about me? They were Facebook friends, his status clearly said ‘W@nk Bag is in a relationship with Frog Princess’ we had been on holiday just a month before she slept with him and she had commented on our holiday photos’ (however not the ones of us together!) he lived at mine.

Way before I knew anything she was the kind of girl that had made the hair on the back of my neck stand up on mention of her name, when he mentioned her being out it made me feel uncomfortable, maybe just because she was new to the group, I don’t know? It wasn’t because she was beautiful, I can’t say that she’s the sort of girl that I’d look at as competition, she wasn’t pretty and for a man that used to tell me I was fat she was undoubtedly significantly bigger than me, in fact I remained pretty horrified that he cheated on me with ‘that’ I think I would have found a younger, prettier, skinny model much more easy to deal with, I also know a friend of her who said that she had zero personality and was desperate to find a man, however we can’t really look at it like that, I traded down too, every one told me that.

She probably doesn’t know a lot of things, like the fact that the night they slept together we had argued, he had stormed out angry at me, to be honest I probably pushed him straight into her arms, she won’t know that although he’d showered before he got into bed that morning (he always did being a smoker) that as he put his arms around me I told him he smelt different (my sense of smell is amazing) he’d shrugged it off, told me I was being silly and I probably believed him, the fact that he’d got into bed and cuddled me should have given away that something was wrong, I’m guessing it was guilt and maybe a bit of remorse.

I didn’t know any of that at that point, it was only after we’d split that the penny dropped and I pieced it all together.

We ticked by for a couple more weeks, it was Valentines weekend and on the Sunday before Valentines Day he cooked my favourite meal, a meal that takes a fair bit of effort to make, we had a nice evening, I guess I hoped it was a turning point, however the next day nothing showed any signs of changing, it felt wrong, I was sat in my office which was an hour and half away from home (on a good run) at 8 in the evening because I didn’t want to go home, I didn’t want to go home to my own home, the home I bought and was paying the mortgage on, the home he paid £200 per month to live in, who was the idiot here?

That is the very moment, on what is supposed to be the most romantic day of the year that I made the decision that I was going to call it a day, I got in the car and rehearsed the words for the whole hour and a half journey in the car, I walked through the front door, opened the living room door to find him, as usual on the sofa in front of the TV, the words I rehearsed came out of my mouth like a bullet from a gun, they weren’t the actual one’s I’d rehearsed, they were reduced down to ‘You need to leave’ we then had a bit of a discussion where he told me that he did want to be with me, he’d try harder, although he didn’t know what love was I was the nearest he’d ever been to it, I think that maybe hit me more than anything, I loved him, really loved him, with everything I had, he on the other hand thought I was as near as it got and I couldn’t love enough for us both.

In the end we decided that he would stay the night (it was late and it wasn’t fair on his parents to have him turn up like that) and that he’d go home the following day, at that point he went out for a fag, I heard him on the phone, as he came back in, I asked who he’d been talking to and he said his Mum, I said that if he’d already disturbed her that he may as well go straight over, so he did.

He came back the following day to collect some stuff, we had a short conversation where we said that we would have a two week break and then meet to see if it was really what we wanted, I was ok with that, at this point I didn’t know about the girl involved, I did know that I had never felt like I did about anyone else and I guess that I wasn’t sure that I ever would again (and nearly 8 years later I haven’t) I got into a pattern, I went to work every morning and sobbed all the way there, pulled myself together, threw myself into work, sobbed all the way home.

We had arranged to meet up on the Tuesday two weeks later to talk, I was sat at work at 10am on the Monday morning, an hour and a half away from home, surrounded by my team of staff when I saw my phone light up, it was him.

We’d had no contact for two weeks, however I knew from Facebook that he’d been out a lot, I’d seen messages on his wall from her, asking if he was coming to the pub, more comments appearing on photos.

I opened the message, expecting it to be about meeting up the following night to talk, I don’t know what I wanted at that point, I honestly don’t. The message was a coward’s way out, instead of talking they following night he text me, telling me that although I was the nearest he’d got to love and that he thought I was a great person he didn’t think we would work out long term and he couldn’t give me what I wanted (which wasn’t necessarily untrue) I went to the toilet and sobbed for I don’t know how long, well until the MD came to find me.

I hadn’t told anyone in the two week break what was going on not even my best friends, I was in auto pilot mode, work, home, work, home, I didn’t want to tell anyone in case we got back together, I didn’t want my friends to feel even more badly about him, he already wasn’t terribly popular as he was always busy for their dinners, parties, my family stuff, I’d already spent five years explaining he was busy at work, he was playing pool, it was his friends birthday…….

I pretty much had a break down, I couldn’t function, I was having black outs, he came to collect most of his stuff, I sobbed in the living room the whole way through, couldn’t look at him and didn’t move.

Over the next couple of weeks, Facebook threw up more and more things, them having conversations on his wall, her constant comments on everything and then a friend of mine popped in, she said that her friends drank in one of the same pubs as him and before we’d split up that she was ‘all over him’ but that she didn’t want to be the one that told me, I wish she had, the penny dropped on that night when he’d come home at 4am I sent him a message telling him I knew about them, he tried telling me it was only going on a couple of weeks, she meant nothing to him and it was just a shag, he’s now married to her…….. however finding that out was a great turning point for me, the devastation turned to anger and that started my recovery.

So, I guess the question is, should she have worried about me or should she have thought it was his problem to worry about it? It was obviously him that should have been thinking of HIS girlfriend, not the other girl but she definitely knew about me.

Then we have Cunt Face, met on Tinder, three months of texting/app messaging, two amazing dates and then I find out the lodger is actually his girlfriend, maybe I’m naïve, but I didn’t think I needed to ask someone on a dating app if he had a girlfriend (I do now) he was the first person in those 7 years since W@nk bag that I could have started to see a future with, as soon as I knew about her it was over, lies and deceit don’t make a great relationship.

However 18 months on, we’re still friends, we still see each other on occasion (twice so far this year) I snogged him just two weeks ago, however I’m pretty sure he has a (different) girlfriend but he has denied it over and over and over again, so should I worry about a person that he denies the existence of? Or is that for him to worry about? I’m in a different place with him now, we have ridiculous chemistry but I wouldn’t have a relationship with him, because of the past but if he denies a girlfriend should I worry about the girlfriend he denies?

The message I got last weekend from Shoe Guy, I know he has a girlfriend and when he mentioned meeting up I told him that wasn’t an option, I do know about his girlfriend, would he cheat on her? I don’t know but I wouldn’t do anything while I know she is around.

For me, although I cheated by the time I did I had nothing to lose, our relationship was over apart from us saying the words, I hate what I did to a good person and I wouldn’t do it again but for a lot of people I don’t think they cheat because it’s over, they cheat because they can.

So, when cheating is the case, where does the blame lie? Should we just go and get what we want regardless of who is hurt in the crossfire? If someone repeatedly tells me he’s not got a girlfriend should I steer clear in case he is lying and he has?

From my experience I would never get involved with someone that was with someone else, I’m still a firm believer of if they’ll cheat with you they cheat on you but I can’t worry about a girlfriend that I don’t know exists, or one that is constantly denied?

I think really that you can only blame the person in the relationship for cheating, not the person that they cheat with, however we shouldn't make it easy for them and should steer clear if we know that there is a partner involved.