by Kate Monro (Fri Jan 22, 2010)
I had fallen at the first
hurdle of my online dating career, or, more precisely, Finance Man had dropped
me from a large height.
Finance Man, to all
intents and purposes, was a ‘grown up'. He worked in the City, he had been married
and he wore a suit. I was also nuts about him. Partly, it must be said because
I had never been out with a man that wore a suit before, but mostly just
because he was as cute as a button.
And then he blew me out.
That hadn't been in the plan. I had been so wrapped up in the ‘me going out
with a suit is so improbable that it probably is going to work' scenario
that I hadn't factored this into the equation. Alarmingly, as I looked back, I realized
that the signs had all been there. That's the thing about modern day dating.
It's not like you pen letters to each other, seal them with hot wax and send
them off with the foot man. Oh no, an entire set of digital footprints is
created between two people these days and when it all goes tits up, they are there,
all ready and waiting to be pored over.
Texts, e-mails, the
dating website that you met on; these can all be re-visited and used for
evidence of your sweetheart's bizarre behaviour. Has he re-written his dating
profile lately? And what did he mean when he said ‘see you soon', in his last e-mail?
See you soon? Or see you on the 12th of Never? Questions like these
were racing through my mind as I tried to justify what possible reason Finance
Man might have for taking a rather dramatic step backwards from our fledgling
relationship. Particularly when he had encouraged me to step forward with him.
At least he had the
decency to leave clues. And that's the good thing about digital footprints. They
create questions, but the answers are there if you look carefully. I thought
back to our first e-mails. They were brilliant and witty but he was, by his own
admission, nervous about going on an ‘actual date'. He had even gone so far as
to describe his sweaty palms. Don't worry, I had soothed, there's a first time
for everything.
A text message he had
sent, en route to our first date also came back to haunt me. ‘Please excuse my
tired and scruffy appearance,' it said, ‘I promise you I don't normally look
like this.' Why are you telling me this? I had thought. I've never met you so
how could I possibly know how you ‘normally' look. But I was too thrilled, too
excited at the prospect of meeting my potential new love to notice his colossal
lack of self-confidence.
But I saw it now and it
was a turning point. For the first time in my life, I saw somebody else's
‘issues' as clear as day. Shockingly, I realized that I had spent a lifetime
doing the exact opposite. I had been too busy assuming the worst about myself
to ever see someone else's clay feet or fragile ego. But I saw them now and I realized
that I had an epiphany on my hands.
Acknowledging Finance
Man's insecurities had set me on the path toward banishing my own. Perhaps
it was age but for the first time in my life, I knew exactly what I was. More
to the point, I was 100% certain that I liked it. I knew that Finance Man liked
it too.
I decided to start
clearing up this mess. For every single time that I had taken things to heart
in the past, I decided to take a risk and do things differently. Instead of
keeping my mouth shut and assuming the worst, I decided to open it and see what
happened. I had been writing for the last couple of years. All of sudden, words
seemed to come to my rescue.
‘What happened Finance
Man?' I wrote. ‘You are kind and sexy and it's not like we lack chemistry. If
you're not into it, cool, but something tells me that you are. Let's not pass
up an opportunity for something special to happen. Why don't you get in touch?'
And then I pressed ‘send.'
Silence.
And then came the reply.
‘Hello Foxy, I don't know
what's wrong with me. Seriously, I need my head examined. I like you so much. I
often think about your cheeky grin and blimey, I fancy the pants off you but
something gets in my way. I get nervous.'
I was right. Finance Man
was the first of a fair few boys that I was to encounter on my journey. But at
least I knew one thing for sure. I had begun to grow up in the process.
The big question now was...what to do with Finance Man?
