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Previously in this Blog, Mark has the hots for a cutie from a town 20 miles away, she cranks up the heat and promises him a weekend of passion but lets him down by failing to show. He has a whole weekend at his disposal. How will he spend it? Stay tuned to find out...
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The story continues...
So I'd had a pretty rotten Friday night and was determined not to let the weekend's dating opportunities slip away from me.Therefore, just after 7:00am on Saturday, I was awake, up and on the laptop. It was a blitz; every single dating site I'd ever registered on was launched and I was shown as available to chat. The search filters were set slightly wider than usual and I began to trawl. By the way, that's generally what men have to do; trawl. Women can fish. They sort through the offers they have and pick the ones they like, whereas most men (unless they are George Clooney lookalikes) have to be a bit more, well, shall we say flexible? Look at her photo... does she have just the one head? Are the eyes and ears in the right place? Check the profile notes... does the word "deceased" appear anywhere in there? No? Then she's a possibility.
It was early and I didn't really expect anyone to be up and about at that time in the morning, so I sent a few messages and winks (for an explanation of a wink, see my blogpost "A Toe in the Water") before heading for a shower and then some shopping, returning at about 11:00 am. I rushed to the laptop before even unloading the car.
But wait... that was strange... my email account showed "0" new messages. Was it broken? Offline? It must be... there weren't even any of the SPAM emails or usual messages from Russian Prostitutes (they always seem to be aged 28), 65+ year old rich widows promising me all sorts of riches if I became their lover or anyone at all from Africa. Ok... reboot required.
I made a cuppa while waiting (it's a Windows machine - say no more) and tried again.
Launch Internet Explorer.
Open email account.
Ah, that's better, 8 new messages. But, hang on, we have 3 from companies offering me loans, 1 from the football team I support telling me that tickets for the pre-season friendly are going on sale soon, 1 from a travel company offering me discounts on package holidays, 1 from a mate about a party next week and the other 2 were trying to sell me Viagra (Who told them? That's what I want to know!).
There was absolutely nothing from anybody on any dating site.
Maybe it was still early, after all, it wasn't even lunchtime! I logged on again and saw a whole lot of different people online, but despite trying to chat, none of them were having it. What was wrong with me for God's sake!
More messages and winks were sent and I went out again, trying to kill some time. I got back at about 4:00 pm and again logged on. There were 10 new messages this time, but sadly all of them were SPAM. Time was running out if I wanted a date tonight... I sent more winks, messages and chat requests but not one - I repeat, NOT ONE - got back to me. My browser was zipping back and forth between dating sites as, one by one, people went offline (Probably going out on dates. Humph.) and as it crept toward 7:00 pm I had to admit that it was highly unlikely that I would be going out with anyone that evening.
For my own sanity I gave up, vowing to try again tomorrow and ended up spending a very lonely evening in front of the TV watching rubbish... there wasn't even football on as it was the close season!
Sunday morning saw a repeat of the same routine and got the same response. Zero. The early morning and lunchtime trawl was completely fruitless and then I decided to break my own rule; I started contacting people without profile photos.
Now this isn't as shallow as it sounds; the general rule is that if someone doesn't put a photo on their profile, then they may be trying to hide something, possibly the fact that they are married, in a relationship, or not who they say they are. But by now I'd got to the desperate stage where I just wanted to go out.
Finally, FINALLY, I got a response. It was about 6:00 pm, her name was Linda, she said she was 48 and was about 15 miles away. She couldn't really give me a reason why her profile didn't have a photo, so I asked if she'd email one and she agreed. And then I saw the reason. If she was 48, I was Margaret Thatcher.
Anyway, at that stage I really didn't care as just wanted to get out of the flat. It got to about 7:00 pm and so I wondered if she wanted to go out for a Sunday night drink in a Pub somewhere?
However, that was met with a refusal; she was already going out on a date and now had to get ready. She therefore said her goodbye's and logged off.
So how bad was that? The previous week, I was in a state of near euphoria at my potential weekend of passion with Charlotte, but in the space of 2 days that feeling had been quashed and I had been ignored - not turned down, but ignored - by the entire online dating community. My self esteem was at an all time low, worse even than when I first left my marriage. I was wondering if I would actually ever have female attention again.
Unbelievably, the pain still wasn't over and yes, it was possible for it to get even worse. Read about the tragic but comical conclusion in part three, to follow...
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