All you need is... happy hour?

Amie


During a short hiatus from online dating websites, I decided to attempt to meet a man in a more conventional and respected way; by crashing post-work drinks during happy hour in Central London.

The evening began with the primeval search for a seat. Once a seat had been wangled between four oldish men, ranging between thirty to fifty, an hour (and a bottle of wine later), I had enough confidence to wander around the bar searching for an eligible bachelor. After several further bottles of wine and several shots of Jaegermeister later, it is suffice to say that my memories of the night are rather hazy.

Despite good intentions earlier in the night, my inability to understand that when I am inebriated I am NOT God's gift to the dance floor lead to me dancing like a crazy person. From what I can remember, I also ran like a loon between several men, clearly seducing them with my dance moves and blood shot eyes. After a wise decision to miss my last train home, a move celebrated with four vodka shots, I decided that the boy that I was currently draped over was actually horrid and ran off to find someone more suitable. The night proceeded in this way for several hours, until I met Nick, who I exchanged phone numbers with (a process which when severely drunk took at least 9837423 hours) and finally, sensibly, decided to call it a night. I arrived home with a receipt for an £80 taxi fare, but most importantly with a date arranged for the following week. Success.

Date night. 


After a preparatory nap, bath and pre-date glass of wine, I met Nick in London. Despite minor set backs where I realised I had unintentionally left the price tag in my new clothes, a dead giveaway that they were bought specifically for that evening, and several blunders into conversation topics which in hindsight should not be addressed on a first date, 'so how many people have you slept with?', the night passed in a blur of loveliness. To cut a long story short, we drank, we ate and we discussed important issues such as current events in reality TV. It was only as we caught the last train home that Nick was treated to one of my personality flaws which I consider a major player for my lack of a boyfriend - my severe awkwardness (kind people call it shyness) surfaced as I said thanks and goodbye in the manner of a startled goose (consequently, a moment which I continued to live over and over in embarrassment in my mind for a good few days).

The experience was enlightening, and I cannot decide whether online dating is preferable to meeting someone in a bar. With online dating, you can simply ignore someone if you don't like their appearance or their portrayed personality, and save yourself  aggravation further down the line. You are also unrestricted as to when you approach someone on an online dating website: it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, can you really judge a person by three photos and several paragraphs of text- think about previous ex-boyfriends/girlfriends or crushes- would you fancy them if you just saw a photo online and knew all of their favourite pastimes? Meeting someone in a bar does provide a 3D image, and is a more fun and romantic way to get to know someone. However, you have a lower chance of meeting someone who is more on your wavelength, as both of you may be viewing each other through slight beer or wine goggles, and you may discover unchangeable personality clashes several weeks down the line, which may have been spotted immediately with online dating. This would suggest that meeting and dating a stranger you find in a bar may be more hassle than it is worth.

Nevertheless, it was a wonderful experience, and now the game of 'who contacts who first' begins!

All you need is... an online dating profile?

Joining the online dating scene was the next logical step in our mission (even as I am typing this an advert for online dating has come on the radio – it’s a lucrative business). Being penniless graduates we joined OkCupid, a free online dating site which looked slightly less dodgy than the similar Plenty of Fish.com. After getting over the initial ‘Oh my god, what if someone I know sees my profile, how embarrassing!’ worries, we filled out our online profiles. This involved the standard self-summary, favourite books/movies/music, and an ‘I’m looking for...’ section.

The final box was titled ‘You Should Message Me If...’  Minnie, never one to do things by halves, stated these requirements exactly:

You have an Irish accent

You have long (ish) hair

You know the difference between your and you’re (this was a deal breaker as far as she was concerned).

  

Amie less specifically requested a 'nice, non-creepy man', which allowed possible future flames to express in their opening messages that they are in fact non-creepy (well done boys), or occasionally, 'dead creepy' (even better), suggesting a hint of wit which consequently meant that of course Amie would make an 'exception' for them as asked.

We were then instructed to answer questions posed by the website so that we could come closer to finding our perfect match. And these weren’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill match questions. Just a few examples are: ‘Would you rather see abused animals or starving children?’ and ‘Is homosexuality a sin?’ So at least that weeds out the homophobes and sadists (hopefully).

Within minutes of setting up our profiles we were overwhelmed by an onslaught of messages which, incidentally, is an excellent confidence boost – regardless of the fact that the majority of the messages you receive on these sites are variations on a theme which goes something like this: 'Hey beautiful/gorgeous/cutie, you have a gorgeous smile/face/hair. I'd really like to meet you/ get to know you/ take you out'. We quickly realised that with the amount of messages you receive on these websites, it is best to come up with an efficient screening system. 

More specifically, this is what Minnie came up with:

1. Do they fit any of my specific requirements (see above), and if not can I see past this?

2. Are they attractive?

3. Do they seem interesting?

4. Have they shown that they have taken time to read my profile rather than just look at my pictures? 

By following these sorting criteria it was actually possible to eliminate about 90% of the people who had messaged her. However, we did find that, unsurprisingly, dodgy and downright moronic messages are inevitable when joining a dating site. For the most part they are simply harmless and hilarious. Here are just a few samples:

From Amer to Minnie:

‘Hi I see you work in media? What part of media? In thinking of doing that at uni and was wondering of you could possibly give me some advice since you work in the field or even possibly some unpaid work experiance of possible...’

Sorry Amer, this is a dating website not LinkedIn. Good luck with finding some ‘work experiance’ elsewhere.

From Harry to Minnie:

‘Hey x you okay. Was looking through your pics and your gorgeous and look like you need a good seeing to and reading through your profile you seem like a very nice girl to chat to and not gonna lie fuck. Xx’

Who said romance was dead? And please - 'your gorgeous' - someone clearly hasn't read the requirements now have they Harry? 

From Henry to Minnie:

‘You're cute, probably due to your amazing eye’

Just the one eye that you like then Henry?

From Sean to Minnie:

‘Generic overexcited greeting! Obvious reference to profile information, with or without drawing a comparison between what we put on our profiles. Rhetorical question? Unnecessary semi-forced semi-witty remark. Laughing onomatopoeia. Humble request for further information?’

In fairness to this guy he has summed up most of these online messages pretty well...

From Tigerboy to Amie:

'hey, I would remove that pic from your profile'

Why Mr Tigerboy? Is Amie too indecent for the online dating world? Or are there stronger warnings behind this message, which speak from previous experience? Not wanting to give the satisfaction of a reply, we shall never know. Overall, Amie received generally duller messages which did not make the cut to appear in this entry, possibly as a result of the harsh filtering criteria. 

Thus, the jury is still out on whether online dating will lead us to a wonderful romance, but as promised, we will share all the highs and lows on here.

Until next time,

Amie & Minnie