This single life - internet dating

I have a number of friends who have been successful using internet dating to meet their partner - in fact there are claims that one in five new relationships start on line. We spend more time on line these days than ever before and do more and more things on line, so why not dating too? After all, it's got to be easier than going into a pub or club on your own, hasn't it? You have the safety of distance - cyber distance.

There's a lovely infographic here about how people spend their time on line, and top of the list is email. It doesn't, however mention internet dating or the percentage of people on line who look at or search for 'stuff' that they certainly wouldn't mention in a survey. In fact the internet has produced such a wealth of free material, that it's challenged the industry to reinvent itself. If you don't know what I'm on about - look at this article here. Safe, I promise! It's a link to Reuters.

So what has prompted me to write a blog about this much publicised medium for finding a partner? Well, there's nothing like experience, is there. And experience shared may do absolutely nothing for you, but it helps me.

Now, let's look at the logic of this - what is a dating site? It's a shop window. And like anything else, if you want to sell, you have to market it. I write a nice profile (engaging copy as we'd say in the trade), and I put up some photographs of myself (won't buy without seeing the product), and I looked up some other profiles of 'your recommended matches'.

The result is that I find I am a) too old b) too fat or c) too far away. And, I guess, d) unappealing. I have to add d), because of the lack of response and rather depressing outlook that internet dating has given me. Let's face it - people do react to first impressions, and though you could probably write up a storm on a personal profile, your mugshot is going to be what 99% of people make a decision on. (OK, my statistic isn't verified, but the overall precept is - check out Psychology Today).

So, for me to make a good first impression, relying on a dating website is not the right place. I have no chance to further influence anyone who chances across my profile. They will make a snap decision based on the top two sentences, and no matter how good they are, if the face doesn't fit, then they will go no further.

The one thing I believe you should be on any kind of website where you are representing yourself is honest. So though I have some nice photos (even photoshopped!) I don't put them up as my main profile picture. That isn't me. And the thing is that me being honest isn't much use anyway, because not everyone else is. I have had conversations (brief) with individuals who are married (no thank you!) or who live miles away (internet sex? no thank you either). And the photographs - the age and the photo don't match, but sometimes they are honest enough to say 'Here's a photo taken ten years ago'... hah hah!

All right, so I'm sounding sad and cynical, but in truth it's just about the medium. It's not right for me - but it may be right for you.

Photocredit: http://mysavvysisters.com/internet-dating-safety-tips-for-women/

The best morning's birding

Sleepy barn owls

This morning I woke in good time to head off to our local RSPB reserve, Fowlmere, before 10am. It's a popular place on a Sunday, and though I love to see whole families enjoying this lovely reserve, a herd of people does tend to fright the wildlife a bit more than a few individuals.



Chiffchaff
 

I was lucky enough this morning to meet the reserve Warden, who was out and about doing some general maintenance and also on the lookout for anything interesting. The first thing he pointed out to me was some bullfinches - I could hear them but not see them. A quick fly-past and that was it, but at least I saw them. I haven't seen them since I was 16. Then, some redpoll, hopping around a bush above our heads.



Water rail

I was given a delightful display by a family of long-tailed tits, heard my first chiffchaffs (they are two weeks late coming to the UK this year, and who can blame them with our weather this year) and - most exciting for me - the water rail. We (the warden, myself and some others) were in the reedbed hide and a pair of snipe, really close, were pointed out to me. I looked across to see the moorhen strutting about in the sunshine, but it wasn't a moorhen at all - it was the water rail! I've been to Fowlmere many, many times, and this was the first time I have even seen one and in brilliant sunshine, in the open.  I also saw a tree creeper, chaffinch and a party of jays.

My walk round was punctuated by the rattle of a woodpecker, the laughter of a green woodpecker in the fields, and the 'yak yak yak' of a bird I have yet to identify. The woods and the reeds were alive

Snipe

with birdsong - spring is truly here. The robins, dunnocks and blackbirds were singing full belt, the greylag geese arguing in the fields and on the lake, and the gadwall, Canada geese, mallard and swan serenely enjoying the sun on the water. A small muntjack deeer watched me cautiously, a grey squirrel shot across the path, and the sound of fallow deer moving through the reeds provided animal variety.

This, for me, was the perfect way to be alone, because how can you be alone when surrounded by so much amazing wildlife, and the odd enthusiastic birder as well.

Krakow part three - This Single Life part five

The liberation of loneliness

 I needed some time away from the stress of work (following a very intense couple of months) and to get away from everything I took a long weekend away - in Krakow. I have no idea why I chose that destination, but I seriously needed some 'me' time.

Going to a completely foreign country where I didn't have a clue about the language is not everyone's idea of 'stress free', but I really enjoyed myself.


I arrived at Krakow airport and came out into the airport lounge to a dull grey day and not a clue about the language. I could say one thing 'thank you' (dziekuje - which would come in useful) and decided to get to my hotel by bus. I found a bus stop eventually and bought a ticket from the Bilety machine. I realised that I could read some Polish - though the sounds were unfamiliar to me. 

By taking the bus into the city I saved money and I got to saw much more of the city - taking the bus route through the wealthy suburbs, and the less wealthy areas too. From huge houses behind iron gates to the massive newly built apartment blocks. Flying in over Krakow the apartment blocks looked like huge dominoes all stacked round the city.

I found my hotel and booked my trips (the salt mine and the Jewish Quarter), and with the whole day ahead of me still, thanks to an early flight, went exploring. I felt perfectly safe in the city. It was a typical European city, though more Eastern European than I had even visited. The weather was grey, the snow was piled in un-melted heaps by the side of the roads and my exploring took me all over the city - mostly in circles. I found the castle and cathedral and after an enlightening afternoon headed back to the hotel.

The clapper is the 'heart'

I was not with a group, and the only conversations I had the whole time were transactional - enough to get what I needed. I walked in circles quite frequently, I got lost in some strange parts of town, I went the wrong way on the tram and walked a five mile route to the Schindler Museum instead of a half mile.

There was no one to chide me for a wrong decision, no one to pressure me about time, or activity, or about what to do. I could climb high in the cathedral tower to visit the heart of the bell, descend into the depths of the salt mine, wander the streets aimlessly and was totally at liberty to please myself. I went back to the hotel when I wanted, I ate at small Polish cafes (where my lack of Polish was matched by the owners' lack of English) and I survived, eating wonderful traditional local cooking.

So the liberation was that I had nothing and no one else to worry about. No foibles or preferences of anyone but myself to consider. And yet I had no one to share the story with at the time. But you know - that's fine - because I have more tales to tell since my return.

I think my next trip may well be in a group, because I want to go whale watching in Iceland, but if it isn't, I really don't mind. I like pleasing myself. And I'm sure the whales won't mind at all.

This single life - part four

It’s not always easy. Going to a party, for instance. Now I’m not a wallflower and will talk to anyone, but at a party where there is non-stop live music (which was great but quite loud), how do you sit and chat with someone you don’t know? Not possible. Though I went to the party with very nice people, I didn’t want to hang around them like a spare part. They had their socialising to do, people they knew at the party and most certainly I didn’t want them to feel they had to babysit me.

But it made me sad. I didn’t know anyone, and didn’t feel able to chat and make any connections like I usually do. Funny really, at a party where most people were musicians.

I went for a walk in the grounds – watched the horses munching lush rain-sodden grass, watched  the bronze sky darken as the sun set over the Buckinghamshire countryside. 

At times like that I feel terribly lonely, and yet absolutely fine at the same time. What the hell am I doing? Why on earth am I where I am and doing what I'm doing? 

Well, number one reason for being at the party was to play music, which we did and I thoroughly enjoyed. It is strange, though, how my social skills seem to have taken a battering over these last few years. It's not as though I never went anywhere or did anything on my own in the past - I most certainly did and never seemed to have a problem.

There's probably an answer in there somewhere, but for now I will just look back on the day and remember the fun rehearsal, the lovely lunch, and the great musicians I played with. 

This single life part three - a bit of psychology

I remember many years ago thinking how difficult it would be to split from your partner. How could you walk around knowing that someone else knew so much about you? All the intimate details you shared, the thoughts, hopes, desires and experiences. All those things, how could you cope, not being connected to that person, knowing they could tell those things to others and have no reason to keep faith with you, once you were split? It was just unthinkable to me at the time.

Little did I imagine then that I would be in that position one day. But interestingly, I now know what you do. Firstly, you don't (in my experience) want to share all those personal things and pollute those memories and experiences. They were your history, and yours to keep and treasure (or forget as appropriate).

And there is a way to protect yourself - at least this is how it's worked for me. You build new memories, experiences and thoughts, hopes, desires - that are not shared with that person. People (and especially the ex) only know what you care to share. It's like a shield, something you have that they do not have access to, cannot expose or share wantonly. I'm not saying that they would want to (though some of the splits I've heard about have been very bitter and cruel in some ways), but it's that re-building of self, of a self that is not totally shared with one person, that happens. And that's how you move on.

I'm learning to rebuild myself and to find a new identity. But I am not actually that different, it's just finding out how I can be me in a new context, a context that is not bound by a relationship. Maybe a tattoo (above) seems a daft self-assertion, but it's just one little thing that I chose to share now, and the decision was mine and the pleasure I take in it is very much mine.

The photo I have shown here is one taken at a make-over day I had with my gorgeous daughter. I enjoyed the day and in my mind I look very different to how the camera tells it (OMG, I'm soooo old!) but with a bit of tweaking (not telling exactly what) this photo came out OK.

Vulnerable still? I guess always. But better able to cope with it now.

This single life - part two

When I was working at Essex, I knew I had a fixed term post (maternity cover) and that after that... well, a whole undecided future lay ahead of me. I had, in theory, no home, no job and no idea where I was going or what I was going to do. The house sale was going through, the split was going ahead, and I was planning to live in temporary accommodation on my own until things were sorted.

One thing that kept nagging me was the desire to travel. I wouldn't be rolling in it from the house sale (alas finances mean that I can probably never be a house-owner again), but I would have sufficient cash to let me travel. I half had in my mind that at the end of my time in Essex I would up and travel.

The very rare Northern White Rhino

I have always wanted to visit the Amazon, I became fascinated by Africa whilst at the conservation charity, and I could, perhaps, at last visit some of the places that I'd been talking about as a conservationist.

So that was, broadly, my plan. Kids would live with dad, I would have no job and no fixed abode and just go off on an adventure.

Never works out how you think, does it?

By chance, I saw a job near Cambridge that more or less matched all of my experience and skills. And so - instead of trekking off into the broad wild world, I settled in a new job, found a new place to live, and resumed an orderly life. And I like it. I am, after all, someone who likes stability and knowing where I am going to be and what I am going to do.

I do still desire to travel though - and so I visit my friend in Arizona as often as I can. You can fit the UK into Arizona alone about six times, so there's plenty to see there (ok, no rhinos but I have seen amazing birdlife and even a wild coyote - which is like seeing a fox here, I guess).  But the lure of Africa still tickles my imagination (though looking at prices of tours, I won't be going in a hurry).

I am single - I can go on holidays I choose (as long as I can afford them) and don't have to worry about what anyone else wants to do. I can please myself. I like doing things that others may think mad, or just boring (what's wrong with sitting in a hut by a reed bed for three hours, in the small hope that you may see a bearded tit?).

Rhino photo credit: Fauna & Flora International

The single life

I don't think I've ever been single before. Does that sound mad? Well, let me explain ... I married my first boyfriend.  From 16, I only ever had one man in my life. So from leaving home, I went straight to living with him (well, his parents actually); I've never lived on my own.

And until now, I'd never been single.

A heron at Fowlmere

So, what has being single brought me? Well, the usual things I guess. A lot more bed space for one, and the freedom to choose my meals, go birdwatching for a whole afternoon, and decide when I go out and when I stay in. I am still not living alone though, I have my beautiful daughter with me, and my son too when he's home from University. But neither of them need me around to feed and sort themselves out, so it's still the single life, even when they are around.

OK, the above are the advantages. What are the disadvantages? Well, no one to discuss important matters with for one. I mean - should I have painted that fourth wall cream instead of green? And no shoulder to cry on that you can then fall into bed with afterwards. Plenty of shoulders, plenty of hugs available, but I'm a little picky about who I flop into bed with.

Is that a disadvantage? Well, I've not been single that long, so right now, no. At the moment I am learning what it's like to have quite a lot of my own company. I did 'enjoy' that status for a while when I wasn't separated, but even so, this is different.

The main difference for me is I am out of the horrendous debt we were in. That was not nice. I don't own a house any more, but I do not lie awake at night worrying and fretting and getting depressed about financial issues. Oh no, plenty of other things to do that about now.

But, it doesn't matter. I actually feel more like myself than I have in a long time. And one thing I have started doing is so small, yet very important to me. I am now a Kiva donor. No, I'm not leaving some minuscule portion of my anatomy to medical research, I am supporting worthy causes throughout the world by making micro-loans. I've loaned a whole $75 so far!

Try it. It doesn't cost a lot, but it makes a huge difference. And if you want, you get your money back too.

Some nights I come home and I think 'oh, what shall I do now?' and I, like AA Milne's old sailor, have so many things that I want to do, I don't know where to begin. Other nights I set to with a determination of purpose - like painting the walls (three green, one cream), or ironing. Yeah, can't get away from ironing.

There's more to this single life, but I'll save some of my anecdotes for another post. Sloe gin and public houses, folk music and moving house. It's amazing how you can socialise...