Tangle & Time Delay (Part 2)!

Time Delay was handsome, successful and interested...ok, he wasn't that interesting, but isn't every relationship a compromise?

Whilst he didn't mess with my electrics, in the manner of certain boyfriends past, he was worth a second date...even though on the first one I bumped into Craig - the aforementioned handsome neighbour and his lovely wife - who didn't look convinced...

I think it was something to do with the delay between questions and response....just like those phone calls we used to have with friends in far flung places before digital technology.

Anyway, having convinced myself it was what I thought that matters, not what my friends thought, I agreed to a third date. Trouble was, I didn't think that much...a nice guy but he/we didn't have that je ne sais quoi. In fact he/we didn't have a great deal in common or connection at all, aside from being the proud owners of dogs - mine recently acquired; his a more established relationship.

So it was that we decided a dog walking third date would be a great idea (with Tangle on lead, obviously). Privately, I hoped the meeting of testy terrier and well-behaved water spaniel might provide a useful talking point to make conversation easier. And might have the added benefit of teaching Tangle a few manners...

Alas, it wasn't to be. After a stressful walk with Tangle barking loudly for the duration, we got back to my place and Time Delay suggested I took off  his lead (Tangle's, not Time Delay's!)and let the dogs 'sort it out themselves'. Sadly, they did just that... Tangle leapt on his new canine acquaintance and bit his ear ... his victim scuttled under his master's chair whining pitifully with blood puring from his wound.Time Delay, quite reasonably, made his excuses and left.

Can't say I blamed him and it didn't exactly break my heart...but, being a realist, I had to acknowledge that maybe Tangle wasn't to be the aid to my lovelife I had initially hoped...that was until Paris Match saw a photo of him on my dating profile....

Comedy of Terriers - Introducing Tangle (Part 1)!

I haven't told you yet about Tangle - a much loved, but behaviourally challenged rescue dog that I gave a home, after the sad demise of my relationship with Mr. Dyson. At the time, I was feeling decidedly unloved and, having toyed with the idea of getting a hound for sometime, decided this was the right time. And, as an added bonus, I'd just read that Davina McCall met her husband dog walking - win win, or so I thought....

Tangle was 18 months old when I offered him my spare dog basket and came with a reasonable reference! What I hadn't factored in was the schizophrenic tendencies of a young terrier with 3 homes since birth and no training. I also hadn't factored in falling in love with the chocolate eyed shaggy bundle of frenetic energy, soon to be dubbed by my friends  the Terrorist Terrier, who turned my life upside down.

His arrival in my life was not dissimilar to the arrival of a bad date and I should not have ignored the signs when, on our first walk, he leaped on a startled passing Newfoundland in a flurry of growls before being flipped onto his back and pinned down by a giant black paw. As I soon discovered, the bigger the canine opponent, the more Tangle loved the challenge. Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed it somewhat less.

Not that I'm suggesting any of my dates have jumped on a Newfoundland and started growling (not even I've been that unlucky...yet), but their behaviour has often been on a par as you will have noted from earlier posts...

After our third walk, I decided that to preserve my sanity and the lives of other dogs quietly minding their own business, it would be prudent to keep him attached to me when out walking. Instead of a canine missile, I then had to contend with a barking banshee whirling on his lead, meaning that every other person walking within biting distance, gave me an extremely wide berth....so much for meeting a man out dog walking!

Of course, even though I realised very soon into my tenure as the responsible owner of a canine of mass destruction, that he wasn't going to make my life easy, I was not unused to taking on needy males...in fact, in those days I positively gravitated towards them so it was, that I convinced myself I could fix him and set about the task. The first casualty of the battle for supremacy between myself and Tangle was Time Delay..... I'll tell you why in my next post...

Room with a View!

Lying on my bed in a huge suite in a Brighton seafront hotel a few days ago I was thrilled that, for once, the promised 'sea view' did not involve standing on one leg with my head poked out of the bathroom window at a precarious angle...

This particular bay windowed, channel-facing vista offered full frontal delights of Brighton at its best - a man with a paper bag over his head (with holes cut out for his eyes), two boys with trousers hanging so dangerously low that if they hadn't had their pants on we would indeed have been confronted with full frontals, a man with oversized white plastic headphones and braces pulling his trousers so high he could have passed for Simon Cowell, were it not for his massive paunch, full face of make up and the slightly odd jig he was doing back and forth along the sea front.

He reminded me of a concept that a young friend had been telling me about recently - silent discos. Apparently, these involve each participant being given a set of headphones on entry playing different music - so whilst Bill is dancing to Staying Alive, Ben might  be strutting his stuff to the Vienna Waltz. Hilarious to watch ... apparently! Of course, after a few glasses of wine, I think I'm Olivia Newton John regardless of the musical accompaniment, so always ready and willing to provide the entertainment!

I love Brighton although acknowledge it may not be the best place for me to search for a soulmate because, as our cabbie pointed out, after reassuring us that he operated a no crash policy, if you see a good looking bloke here, there's a 95% chance he's gay (and, in my view, probably a lot more fun than recent dates)!

NOTE: I have been quiet for the last few days because, aside from a houseful and a trip to the seaside,  I have apparently managed to 'corrupt' my laptop screen with a wayward glass of spilt wine. I have corrupted myself and various boyfriends with copious glasses of wine over many years; I just hadn't realised the same was possible with a computer!

The Top Ten!

Whilst I will try, I may not blog for a day or two as it's like the United Nations around here at the moment with friends visiting from both Australia and the USA so, to keep those of you amused who haven't been reading this blog since it started, and have too many demands on your time to read all previous posts, I thought you might like to know the 10 most hit upon entries so far, in case you've missed any of the most popular ones.

1. The Italian Job!
2. Mr. Dyson - Happy Never After (Part 6)!
3. Vest man!
4. Calm down, dears!
5. Wanted: Partner in romantic crime!
6. I love men!
7. Date Debrief!
8. Mr Dyson - The Advertisement (Part 1 of many)!
9. Mr. Fish!
10. The Surgeon!

Hope you enjoy them, more than I enjoyed some of these experiences!

It's a dog's life!

This has to be one of the best singles ads ever printed.

It is reported to have been listed in the Cornish Guardian and, whilst I don't for one minute believe it's real as it has urban myth written all over it, it is very funny, or at least those of you who share my sense of humour will find it so! I laughed out loud - hope you do too:

SINGLE FEMALE seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I'm a very good girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cosy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. I'll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me...Call xxxx and ask for Annie, I'll be waiting.....

THE RESULT: Over 150 men found themselves talking to the Truro RSPCA!

I guess it could explain why I don't always receive responses from emails I send to potential dates on dating sites....and also reminds, I must tell you about the canine of mass destruction very soon...

Chemistry Test!

One of the mysteries of the modern dating world is why, so often, where boy likes girl, girl doesn't have a spark with boy and vice versa.

Chemistry is more elusive than the Scarlet Pimpernel as we get older. As a hormone ridden teenager it all seemed much easier - probably, in my case, because, at that stage, life hadn't burdened me with debilitating cynicism and men didn't come with more baggage than Heathrow.

We met, we fancied each other, we became boyfriend and girlfriend and never doubted that love would conquer all. Even though, in my case, it repeatedly didn't.

These days even when we pass the chemistry test which, for me, generally consists of the 3 'Ls' - laugh (can we make each other?), life (he has a pulse) and longevity (he has no secret wife to scupper the process and is under 80 - sorry, Reginald), the sheer volume of baggage we come with rarely makes for smooth relationship sailing as its rarely safely secure in perfect Louis Vuitton; more likely it's a rag tail of torn carrier bags ready to trip us up.

Recently, I was chatting to a man who, as it turned out, was too recently separated for comfort but did seem very nice. Lets call him Left Luggage. He lived a couple of hours away and had young children whom he saw 3 weekends out of 4 which, in his words, was 'non-negotiable'. I would expect it to be, but how did he realistically think a relationship might develop when his time, quite properly, was taken up by his childcare arrangements, negotiating the trauma of his divorce and the mundanity of life? Almost certainly too soon....even if we passed the chemistry test....but I haven't completed ruled him out...as he did sound rather lovely despite my reservations....clearly need to have stern word with self later!

Maybe I should just thank my lucky stars that I've never been good at science and any pretence at being so fell away when I failed my biology 'O'level. On that basis the chances of passing a chemistry test anytime soon are remote.

I'll worry about baggage and how to pack up my cynicism as and when I and a date get full marks in a chemistry test! I'm just glad that at least I've come to terms with the fact that my ovaries are way beyond going pop!

Later...

Hedge Fun!

Whilst it pains me to do so, in the interest of balance I must confess that Internet dating is not all bad as it provides a platform to enhance a skill not normally found in the male of the species - multi-tasking!

In most areas of life, women are proficient multi-taskers...whilst men do not score as highly. However, when it comes to Internet dating men excel at multi-tasking, or at least multi-dating and, if they can get away with it, multi-bonking!

Such individuals hedge their bets with potential dates more successfully than the best hedge fund manager. I guess I'm a little old fashioned, as I have always operated on the principle that, if I meet someone where the attraction is mutually sufficient to want to meet again, I like to get to know them without other distractions.

However, I have decided that I need to embrace the Internet principle of hedging bets, favoured by some seasoned Internet daters (including some women), if I am to ensure my survival in the dating jungle. As such, I have a few other irons in the dating fire aside from His Hotness, who has cooled off over the last couple of days which generally means one of three things - he has remembered a wife he'd previously forgotten to mention from whom he is not as separated as he'd previously made out OR his interest in Internet friends does not extend beyond massaging his ego by chatting to women on line OR he's expert at the multi-dating approach, met someone else and not bothered to tell me.....so rude!

So the other potential dates are an IT manager (there's a glut of those on all sites - I wonder why?!) , an entrepreneurial type who, on the face of it, does appear to have all the credentials of a grown up....rare indeed....but is dangerously recently separated, a trainer (interesting - this one), a gardener (no, not the 29 year old) and a man who likes motorbikes....

So we shall just have to see what the next couple of weeks bring....as a friend said, a few years ago, when she was off skiing for a couple of weeks - whatever will have happened by the time I get back - 2 weeks in Daisy's life is like 2 years in most peoples. She wasn't wrong!

Anything could happen....so I'm off to have some hedge fun...