One down... hopefully not the last.

After a few days of odd, brief bits of contact with The Date, I asked her out again tomorrow night. It's not ideal timing, but there are reasons why it would have to be tomorrow rather than over the weekend.

Again, she didn't pick up, but I got a reply via text a while later, turning me down for plausible reasons. However, there was no option to reschedule for next week, which I was hoping for if she was going to turn me down.

So, I'm stuck, trying to decide if this is a definite 'no' to any further dates or if she really is just unavailable tomorrow night. It's hard to say because she did turn me down for tomorrow night, but most of the other evidence I've seen is that there is/was potential there.

I'm disappointed, of course. She is an intelligent, good-looking woman and I think there was potential there for a second date at least. I'm more disappointed/angry in that getting to this point seems to have taken a lot more work than it really should... but I don't even know what this point is.

I think I'm just going to take the pessimistic attitude that this is it as far as this particular girl is concerned. I might make one last try next week and see if I can get a more definitive answer, and we'll re-evaluate then, but I guess we'll call it quits for now.

Grrr...

The one thing that I hate is waiting. I hate sending emails to friends and waiting on a reply. I hate sending messages on the dating site and waiting for a reply, not knowing if one is going to come. I really hate calling a girl with potential, not getting through and leaving a voice mail then waiting for a reply that may or may not come.

I’ve always been like this, but especially after the RB incident where I had a successful date then she disappeared off the radar. Last night, I left a voice mail with my date from the other night as she didn’t pick up. Now it’s a waiting game to see when... if... she responds.

My deadline was tonight... right about now actually. After all, 24 hours should be plenty of time for a return text or call. I’m now starting to veer from optimism to pessimism about getting a reply out of her and that’s disappointing. Obviously I don’t know her very well, but I was expecting more.

The date... an update/analysis.

Despite being half an hour late (which I'm fuming about as I'm usually very punctual), things seemed to go well even though I think she ended up a little more drunk than she had planned. The conversation flowed for the entire night, pretty much about 4 hours, without silences or running out of steam. I was a little concerned about the body language which wasn't as open as I would have liked, but nor was it entirely closed off - it did open up as the night wore on. There was a very (and I mean very) quick kiss at the end before she jumped into a taxi. After sending a text, thanking her for an enjoyable night out, there was another half an hour or so of swapped texts, all banter, that seemed to go well.

Right now, I'm not entirely sure what the score is. The banter/conversation indicates that this has legs, she's pretty, intelligent and I do like her, I think there's enough there to think about a second date. The body language is the negative factor though.

My date's time is limited for the immediate future as she's away over the Easter weekend, so I think any future date wold need to be sooner rather than later. This will require some pondering.

It's a small world...

My date and I have been chatting on MSN for about two weeks now, and conversation continues to flow. I'm taking that as a good sign that things will, at the very least, go smoothly if not well, tonight.

I was out with a mate last night, M, for a few drinks. It was him that persuaded me to give the online thing another go, so we were chatting about my prospective date and it turns out that he'd been on a date with her as well, a few months ago. He didn't say much, just that he thought she was good craic and would have liked to see her again, but she turned him down. This country is far too small at times... everyone always knows someone who knows someone.

Interestingly, I woke up this morning to a text message from my date. She was also out last night and had sent a text message in the early hours asking if I was still stalking the town. I've had drunken texts before, but never from someone I've never met!

The online dating thang.

I have a date for Saturday night. It's from the dating website and I've been in contact with this girl for a while now. She initiated contact and we've been swapping messages. We've mentioned meeting up a few times, but despite her making the first move, she did seem reluctant to initiate the move from messaging to actually meeting. Interesting.

In the end, I asked if she wanted to meet. It was risk-free, though. I kinda knew she'd say "yes". I'm still unsure about the whole dating etiquette thing... in fact I'm still finding it quite weird and difficult to understand at times. Is it rude of me to ask to meet her when I don't even know if I like her (romantically, that is... she seems fun enough in general and I can see us getting along, even if there's no spark) even though she is quite pretty if her online photos are to be believed.

This time, I'm keeping everything under my hat for a bit and see how this goes. The last time I had a promising date, it was RB and look how that all fell apart spectacularly.

In semi-related news, the two girls I really liked the look of have not replied to my contact, which I'm disappointed about. I have a sneaking suspicion they're not paid up members though and don't know who it is that contacted them.

The girl on the bus.

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed a girl who gets the same bus as me. She reminds me a lot of Posh Suicide.

She's definitely cute, so I'm wondering if I should make some contact or if that's a bit weird, especially if she's younger than I suspect.

Useless people.

Twice in the past week, I've found myself getting annoyed with a few of my friends. With Wednesday being St. Patrick's Day, I tried to get something organised. While everyone said they wanted to head out, come the morning of the 17th, I was still making arrangements via text and phone because no-one seemingly wanted to make a decision and half the people were incommunicado. Even when we were finally all out, trying to make decisions about which pubs to go to was nigh on impossible.

Last night, we were out on a somewhat impromptu night out. Having a bit of banter with a couple of girls, I managed to secure the group some seats, but the guys simply stood around looking somewhat dazed and confused. I left not long after that, in a bit of a mood really.

I just don't like indecisiveness, especially when my own hard work goes unrecognised.

More about online dating.

I've emailled a couple of girls on the online dating site... the two real outstanding women. I've no idea if they've read the emails, but I do know they've been online.

Apparently, online dating etiquette says that replying to contact is not necessary, so silence can mean so many things, not least that they've not read the emails as they're not paying subscribers.

The one issue I have with online dating, on this site at least, is that there's an awful lot of time-wasting going on. I'm being recommended people that don't match my own criteria, search results are dodgy etc. The site has just had a major redesign, so may be things are being worked out. I hope so.

Fingers crossed that I get a reply!

Moving forwards then.

A few weeks ago, armed with a recommendation from A, a new profile and some photos, I started my next/final period of membership with the online dating site. There seem to be more people on it this time around, even though it’s only been a few months, but there's no-one new that really stands out. My favourites from last time are still the best candidates this time around.

I’ve contacted a few people so far and have been swapping a few messages with one girl. She’s nice, she’s pretty and we’re having a laugh chatting, but I’m not getting any spark. I’ll still probably arrange to meet up though... meeting in person is much better than chatting online.

But still, it’s the old favourites that I’m going to concentrate on this time around and hope that some new “targets” appear within the next few weeks. However, already things are much better than they were last time and I'm feeling quite positive about this.

Out and about

Quiet weekend ahead, though I'm trying to change that. MF and another friend are off travelling for a month, so I might get to see them before they go although it's unlikely. I don't know if there'll be anything arranged last minute as there usually is, but we'll see what happens.

I've also arranged to meet QC2 next week. I've not seen her this year so far, so I'm looking forward to it.

More goal talk

There's been one setback and one move forward in my current list of goals.

The setback is that a guy I was hoping to move into a new place with has kinda changed his mind. Maybe it was the fact we'd spoken about it under the influence and he didn't really mean it, but he seemed keen enough.

I'm disappointed because he'd be a good person to live with and there are some really good, affordable places on the market right now. Ah well, back to the drawing board.

The positive side was that GFW was looking for a gym buddy to motivate him into going to the gym. That means that we'll be heading to the gym perhaps four times a week at lunchtimes. The lunchtime thing is important as that makes motivation much easier than my original plan of getting up at 7 AM to try and get a gym hour before work.