Internet Dating

Terry, from Michigan, says she’s waiting for my blogs on ‘the mid life woman on the dating scene’. If I AM mid-life, that’s great, cos I’ll live to be 108! On the other hand, due to the dating scene, I’ll probably look 400 and have pulled my hair out with frustration. I really think I could only write these stories as ‘Anon’ and then you wouldn’t know where to find them unless I told ya and then you’d know it was I who wrote them. Duh! Maybe it’s a subect for a book under a pseudonym? Hmm , I think I can write the archaeologist one, from last summer. The guy and I had decided to meet up for a picnic at an abbey ruin, it was chosen as a more or less mid-way point but I had no idea how big the ruins. For the two days leading up to the date he hadn’t confirmed and I was wondering whether it was indeed going to come off and I’d left a text for him asking if it was still on. Cos I’m polite and a woman and that's the sort of thing we do. I think I need to read the Mars/Venus book. He eventually phoned the night before the date, explaining that the mobile was his mother’s so he hadn’t got the message and yes, he would indeed be there and would take some food. I asked if that was for one, or two and didn’t get a direct reply. We met in a pub, politely pecked hello and I bought coffee, chatting over which I realised the date was already on the downhill slide. However, since I’d also taken along some food, Lincolnshire delicacies and it was a lovely sunny day I decided to enjoy the food and weather, at least. The ruin was in a field, down a long country lane and close to some renovated farm buildings, now holiday homes for city escapees. There wasn’t a great deal left apart from a wall here and there (Julie, that’s why it’s called a ruin) and lots of molehills. I was given tuition in artefact finding. He, let’s call him ‘Archie’, explained how, when moles dig, their little hills can bring up items from deeper down, so we went around every single mole hill with him plunging his hands into each and coming up with splinters of bones (gnawed on and spat out by the monks, presumably) and a piece or two of clay pipe, a shard of pottery which he dated (hah, dated!) and other bits and pieces. Having exhausted molehills it was time to eat. Naturally, his hands were pretty grubby and he went to get a bottle of water from his car, for his hands I thought, but he poured the water on the artefacts to clean them off which, in turn, made his hands muddy, which he wiped on his jeans. Of course, little Miss Prissy here had Wet Ones in her little picnic pack – the way us girls do (I WAS a mum!) – and after spreading the picnic rug and each producing our offerings, I proffered the hand wipes. ‘No, thanks.’ His boxes were a battered tin and plastic box containing 4 slices of bread … the end of the loaf and stale looking, an avocado, a half eaten piece of pate and a couple of pieces of fruit. Mine was some Lincolnshire ham, chine (ham stuffed with a Lincs parsley recipe) and pork pie in their wrappings, having been just bought. Well, of course I would take something along for a picnic but when one person says, "I’ll take food," it intimates that’s an offer for both persons, don’t you think? And means the whole thing .. food, drink? Mine was just back up pack up. He chose the least tired and largest piece of bread, took the stone out of the avocado and dug into it, with the one knife he’d brought along, to spread onto his bread, topped off with pate. No offer of ‘go on gal, get stuck in’ or ‘here, for you’, which I was glad of, in the circumstances, since his hands were still muddy. I managed a piece of dry bread similarly stacked to Archie’s, washed down with one of the two bottles of water I had brought along in a cool pack, the only liquid refreshment on offer. Meal finished I ‘Wet Oned’, again, and we sat on the rug, chatting. No, it wasn’t chatting at all. Monotone, he told me about his exciting adventures as a camera guy in dangerous places and supply teaching and his back operation and I woke up to hear an offer to view his scar. Since it was his lower back, he rolled onto his stomach and invited me to peer down his waistband. I peeked at a faint pink line and commiserated. Maybe that was his opening for something a little more ‘personal’? I ignored it. I really couldn’t think of thing to say in which he would be interested (and you know how rare that is for me!) since his main interest was himself. I’d long realised I wasn’t interested in his favourite subject. I think maybe it showed? So we lay on the rug, looking at the sky and he pondered on what cat food to buy on the way home. The parting: I hate this bit. It usually ends with ‘Can we meet again?’ and invariably (bar one or two) I have to say that my diary is pretty full (true, unless I unfill it) but this one was different. “I suppose we could meet again?” “Hmm.” “You’re number five though and I’m still waiting for number four to get back from holiday and see if she wants to meet again and I've still got number six to see.” “Hmm.” I had a feeling that number four was going to stay on holiday a long, long time and thought of the fun number six had in store. Lesson learned? How to look through molehills.