Well, Bugger Me! Got Myself a Doggone Diagnosis…

Image by Luke Robinson via Flickr

It’s official: I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E. I’m in shock and it’s mostly because of actually getting a diagnosis. It’s only taken 11 months. And seven years. Yeah, that was always depression as well… And I’ve already had a run-in with someone who thinks ME is just ‘Lazy Cow Syndrome’. Can’t wait for word to get around and the bitchy finger-pointing to start… God, I love my life! 🙂

Anyway, I have to see my GP on 4th July to discuss possible drug treatments and I’ve just been referred to an Occupational Therapist for – well, who knows, whatever it is that OT’s do.

On a brighter note, I’ve been doing some research for the book and I thought I’d share: niche dating sites. If golfing is a huge part of your life, for example, it stands to reason that you’d want to date a golfer. Why, then, trawl through hundreds of general profiles when  you could just join a golfing dating site?

And believe me, there’s a niche dating site out there dedicated to fulfilling all your needs, requirements or plain old kinky desires.

Ten Incredibly Specific Niche Sites:

1. Adopt a Guy ~ every girl loves shopping, right? Guys fill out their profiles and sit on the ‘shelves’ until a gorgeous girl comes along and pops him into her ‘shopping trolley’, and only then, is he allowed to spark up a conversation. Is this girl power or just girl power gone bonkers? Great for shy guys or female control freaks.

2. Date My Pet ~ in case you’re worried about the whole bestiality issue, this site just concentrates on matching mutual pet-lovers. I think. But then, couldn’t that cause potential problems? Suppose I met The One I Just Couldn’t Live Without and my dog and his cat hated each other. Or suppose my pussy just
gobbled up his pet mouse. What then? Would True Love conquer all? Or would we all end up in step-pet’s therapy?

3. Ugly Bug Ball ~ because beauty is all in the eye of the beholder (or the severely intoxicated), this is for the more aesthetically challenged amongst us… A site dedicated to purely ugly people. How liberating! You’d never need to shave your pits, ladies, or keep your acne under control. And if he ever complained, you could snarl, ‘I’m beautiful on the inside, remember?’

4. Trek Passions ~ for anyone with an interest in science-fiction – no, an obsession; you’d have to be besotted to want to spend your days discussing lien abduction and doing that strange Vulcan sign thing with your fingers. But, as they say on the site: Love Long and Prosper.

5. Pounced ~ this is the place for anyone who enjoys dressing up as an animal, and ouncing on an equally hairy mate – or ‘furry’ as they like to be called. Yeah, I know, but it takes all sorts. And can’t you just imagine the ads: Lonesome Rabbit in Need of New Hole. Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing Seeks Lamb for Breakfast.   Hairy Brown Bear Wants to Dip his Paws in your Honey. Randy Dog Needs  Somewhere Safe to Bury His Bone…

6. Positively Singles ~ are you hampered by Herpes? Scuppered by Syphilis? Clammed-up through Chlamydia? Or gummed up with Gonorrhoea? Do you worry you’ll  never find The One because you slept with way too many of The Others? Well,  help is here! You need never again fret about passing on your sexually transmitted disease to users on this site because they already have them! How cool is that?
A match made in Heaven…

7. Cougar Date ~ yep,  this one’s all about  young men dating older women. I can kind of see the attraction – a Toy-Boy’s going to be cuter and more virile than say, a fifty-year-old, bald and beer-bellied bloke, but c’mon,  some of these guys are eighteen. What on earth would you talk about? Lady Gaga? And where would you go on a date? Homework Club?

8. Instant Quickies ~ feeling horny? Do you fancy an instant, uncomplicated  shag? Well, look no further than the McDonald’s of dating sites – Instant  Quickies, the place where you can find and hook-up with a consenting mate for the night. (Or early afternoon if you have to be home to do the school-run.) And if you see someone you like and he suddenly disappears, don’t worry, he’ll be popping up again next week on Positively Singles.

9. Uniform Dating ~ ooh! If you fantasise about being rescued from a natural or a thug-made disaster by a hunky guy in uniform – and let’s be real: what woman with a pulse doesn’t? – then this is the site for you. Pages and pages of  testosterone-fuelled Alpha males. Oh, be still my twitching knickers.

10. Daily Diapers ~ okay. So here’s the thing – some people like wearing nappies. Yep. And rubber pants. And even babygros. They even like to soil themselves. And be bathed, dressed and fed liquified mush by their partners. It’s fun. Relaxing, apparently. If this appeals to you and you’re not quite sure where you’d find a like-minded playmate, log onto Daily Diapers and, er… go, poop!

Doesn’t it make you just wanna go and sign up?

Ho ho bloody ho!

Image by ashley rose, via Flickr

I received three new e-mails today. People are obviously starting to panic about spending the festive season alone, and are frantically clicking through Plenty of Fish photos in the desperate hope of finding Ms December. After all, anyone’s preferable to being alone at Christmas, right?

Wrong!

There was 19-year-old Robin (na-na-na-nineteen!) who says, ‘I’m ugly, and it feels great to be able to say it aloud! I like strange music and strange films, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s subtle innuendo and attacking snowmen in the dark… Oh, and I haven’t had a girlfriend since I was five…’

I politely declined. Apart from the fact he’s a freak, I’d quite like to date someone significantly older than my eldest son, someone who might remember Donny Osmond. The first time around.

Then there was Rodney aged 63 (sixty-friggin’-three!) who wants to be in my stockings this Christmas. Firstly, there’s no room for two of us and secondly, the sight of my muffin-topped thighs would most likely give the poor old bloke a heart attack. Probably best if he asks Santa for a cigar and a nice woolly jumper, instead.

(And yes, I know I wanted older, but not that old. I specifically asked for someone with memories of Donny Osmond, not the Crimean bloody War.)

The final e-mail came from a bloke called Bev. I’m sorry, but Bev is such a girl’s name. Anyway the message read, ‘You’re hot!’

Now, how are you supposed to reply to that? ‘Gee, thanks *simper, simper*‘? Or, ‘We could make beautiful babies – if only you weren’t so fugly’? Or simply, ‘Piss off, knobhead!’

But being the polite, mature woman I am, I settled for, ‘Thank-you for your message.’ And believe me, no reply is as cutting as this one; it says, ‘I have been brought up with manners, so I am forced to reply because it is polite, but quite honestly, love, I wouldn’t touch you with someone else’s wobbly bits.’

I know. I’ve been on the receiving end of that particular retort, and it stings.

But did Bev get the message? Oh no, of course not. Bev is obviously blessed with a rhino-arse, a hide so thick and protective, that nothing unpleasant can ever penetrate.

‘Is that all you have to say? Lol! If you asked me over, I could spend the night shagging your brains out.’

This is the point where I snapped. Big time. I was breathing fire and screaming obscenities at the computer screen as my fingers flew across the keyboard and hit the ‘send’ button:

Grow up! I’m not a teenager performing fellatio behind the bike-shed. I’m a mature woman looking for a meaningful relationship with a grown-up. You are obviously not that person! How dare you approach me in that offensive manner? If you are merely seeking sordid sex, try a brothel. Or your dog. Do not contact me again!’

Grrr! Bah humbug! Ho ho bleedin’ ho!

Why is there never a snow plough around when you need one?

Image by Powerhouse Museum Collection via Flickr

Just shoot me, now. Really. Save me from a slow and painful, grisly end – Death by Dating.

Now I live on the south coast. Stuart lives on the north. Only about 25 miles away. Half an hour’s travelling anywhere else in the country, but in Cornwall, it takes at least an hour. You see, we have no decent roads down here, just wide footpaths. And they’re usually clogged up with tractors. Or cows. Or coaches full of squealing, clotted-cream-snatching tourists.

But I digress. 

When Stuart invited me for a meal in his local, I knew the travelling was going to be a hassle, but what the heck! Who could resist visiting a pub on the beach. In December. In sub-zero temperatures. With icy  sleet er… sleeting against the windows.

And he might’ve been my knight in stonewashed denim. Unlikely, I know, but still within the realm of possibility.

Yeah, right.

Stuart is actually a schoolboy trapped inside the body of a man. And boy! was I cross that he didn’t mention that in his profile. We made it through the door okay, and then he just stopped, and stood there, head down, shoulders hunched, pigeon-toed and mumbled, ‘Umm…What should we do, then?’
‘Well,’ I replied, ‘It’s a pub. How about we buy a drink?’

I kid you not – I had to lead him to the bar. I had to catch the barmaid’s attention. I had to order the drinks, and then pay for the bloody things. I had to ask where we ordered food. I had to lead him to a flaming table so we could sit down to eat! And this was his local, remember, not mine. I was a pub-on-the-beach virgin.

Stuart just stood there, like he’d died , eyes downcast, shuffling his feet a bit and blushing. What a man!

Once he’d downed a pint, he started to chat. Oh lucky, lucky me! Why do I always attract men who believe conversation is a monologue? On and on he droned. We’d been there less than an hour and I was already suicidal. I ran to the loo and hid, secretly formulating a getaway plan – a family emergency? Could the dog have swallowed another sock? Could I fake food poisoning? Difficult as the meal hadn’t even been delivered, let alone digested.

‘Umm…are you okay?’
Startled, I looked up. A woman was smiling, hesitantly. I suppose I must’ve looked strange, crouched in the corner of the ladies, deep in contemplation.
‘God, yes! Thanks…I’m fine. Really… I just need an escape plan. I’m on the Date from Hell.’
‘Don’t try the bathroom window; it’s smaller than it looks. I got stuck there last year. Really embarrassing….’

Our food arrived as I returned to the table. Excellent, I thought. Eat, make my excuses and disappear. And he could hardly keep chatting through mouthfuls of home-cooked pizza now, could he?

Oh yes, he could! The toilet woman and I exchanged looks. I mimed cutting my throat with a knife. She spluttered beer across her table.

I tried, really I did, but I was bored. Stuart was boring.

I stuck it out through coffee and then, tried to leave.

God obviously hates me. Or karma paid me back for thinking unkind thoughts. The sleet had morphed into a snow blizzard. I couldn’t leave. Seriously, an inch of the white stuff in Cornwall and the whole county shuts down. I was stuck. With the most boring man in England.

I couldn’t get home ’til the following afternoon. And boy! did I suffer. Turned out Stuart had written a book. He spent the night telling me all about it – ‘She says blah…and then, he says, blah…and the room was furnished in such a blah way…and then a man says blah, and he was dressed in blah…’

All night. A total of eighteen-fucking-hours of blah.

Seriously, I don’t think I can do this any more…

Dating Bambi…

Image by Don Hankins via Flickr

Okay, am going back to early autumn for this particular dating delight. Meet Tom – we’d been chatting online one night, and he offered, at 2am, to shower and hop in his car for the hour’s drive to my home, to have sex. What a gentleman, eh? 😉

I refused his kind offer, but agreed to meet him for dinner the next night. You’re probably wondering why. Well, Tom was different to anyone else I’d ‘met’ online; he seemed confident and assertive, manly even.

And he didn’t send me pictures of his willy.

Oh damn you, online-dating-fake-persona! Within a few minutes of us meeting, I just knew Tom lacked testicles.  Call me a cow, but I cannot stand that ever-adoring, puppy-dog, you’re-so-lovely-and-I’m-so-grateful-I’ll-do-anything-to-please-you face on a man. It makes me want to slap him, and yell, ‘Grow a pair, you wuss!’

His idea of conversation was to agree with every Tiny thing I said. I began contradicting myself and making the most ridiculous of statements just to get a reaction. No chance! Tom just simpered and bobbed his head like one of those nodding dogs you see in the back of a car.

In fact, the only interesting comment he made all evening was this:

‘God, I walked past this old wreck of a car in the car park. It was falling to pieces. And it didn’t have a proper back lens cap, just a piece of Christmas pudding wrapper taped over the brake light.’

‘Was it a faded green Fiesta?’

‘Yes! Did you see it, too?’

‘Kind of,’ I replied. ‘ It’s my car.’

But the best bit of our date, the pinnacle of our jovial time together, the absolute epitome of our shared experience was walking through town and stumbling across a Gay Pride gathering. The streets were awash with loud lesbians and happy homosexuals, high on celebratory, unfettered sexuality. And beer.

How did my confident, assertive, manly date react? He darted from his roadside position to the inside pavement position, so that I was shielding him from ‘danger’, his eyes, wide, like Bambi caught in oncoming headlights. He thrust one arm across my shoulders, and wrapped the other around my waist. The bloke was terrified! If he’d possessed balls, they would’ve shrivelled to the size of acorns.

And the moral of this story, children? Never, ever believe an online dating profile. Even if he comes across as a testosterone-fuelled ‘real man’, underneath there’s just a scared, pathetic, homophobic Big-Girl’s-Blouse!

 

A decidedly dirty date…

The worst thing about internet dating is the actual dates.  

He couldn't fix it...

Meet Adrian, aged 49, builder, and a bit of a knob. I knew this because I’d met him years ago when he’d built a shed for my neighbour. Last week he contacted me through my oh-so-fabulous dating site, and suggested dinner.

I wasn’t keen. He wore down my resistance, and we compromised with takeaway pizza at his house. Do I know how to have fun, or what?

I knew Adrian had a dog because he’d posted a photo of it on his site. A ratty looking, terrier thing with an evil glint in its eye, so I took my dog along. Mainly because I thought they’d scrap and I’d have an excellent excuse to make a fast getaway. Wrong! They immediately became the best of Pedigree Chums, the traitors!

Well, Adrian built his house and I was honoured to have the guided tour. I couldn’t comment on the actual building because I couldn’t see any of it underneath the piles of junk, hanging cobwebs and filthy, dirty dishes. It was foul! Even the dogs declined to jump on the furniture for fear of the resident wildlife…

Yikes! There's two of them!

I perched precariously on the edge of a chair, nursing tea from a stained, chipped mug and wondering how the hell I was gonna dispose of it, when the ratty dog thing leapt on my lap, bouncing me backwards. Adrian was warbling on about his new teeth, screwed in that day and giving him jaw-ache. Well, that made two of us. The terrier thing lunged at me, pinning my hair down to the back of the sofa, and started snogging my face. I couldn’t move! Hot tea was slopping down my leg. I tried swatting him away with my free hand but the mutt was on a mission. My dog, thinking Woof! That’s a fun game! jumped up and squatted on my free arm. (He’s a big, butch labrador, but he has no brain.)

It was a canine snog-fest with me caught in the middle, making this muffled, strangulated noise out of the corner of my mouth; I was too scared to open it – a dog’s tongue would’ve been in there tickling my tonsils. ‘Gerrofff….’elp….meeee…’toff… fcks…seck….arghh…’eeellllpppp…’

Adrian was completely oblivious. He was too engrossed in his new diatribe against self-obsessed women to notice that his dippy, demented dog was eating my face.

Us girls only want a bloke for his wages. Nobody’s interested in a lowly builder. Poor Adrian can’t find a woman because he isn’t bringing in the dosh.

If I could’ve opened my mouth, I would’ve put him straight: poor Adrian can’t find a woman because he’s a bit of a knob.

Two pints of milk, a jar of crunchy peanut butter and one delicious male…

As I’m already tiring of this internet dating malarkey, I’m making a list of other, less obvious ways to meet men and find lurve. In best Blue Peter fashion, here’s one I made earlier…

Curtis the sock monkey...

No, a list, stupid. Not a monkey made from old socks. Honestly.

• Midnight Grocery Shopping: Rumour has it that Saturday night is this season’s new black for sad singletons doing the weekly food shop. Supermarket aisles should be stacked with unattached males, so slap on some lippy, shoosh up your hair, and shove a bloke in your trolley.   😉
• Make your own magic: Don’t rely on your Fairy Godmother; she’s probably off her head on Fairy Dust. Be your own matchmaker! Print up some dating cards, stating your name, phone number and vital statistics. Carry them with you at all times, and whenever you meet a man who makes your knickers twitch, whip out a card! Make eye contact and emphasise how much you’d like to hear from him. You may end up being arrested and carted off to the local Care in the Community programme, but, hey, at least you’re being pro-active, right?
• Volunteer for volunteering: The ideal place to bag yourself a kind, altruistic, socially conscious man. Although you might end up with a meths-swigging homeless person  camped out on your sofa over Christmas… But think how empty life would be if you never, ever took a risk…
• Buy a dog: Or borrow one. Or, if you’re really desperate, hang around outside your local shop where the neighbourhood terriers are parked, and pinch one! All’s fair in love and war and all that jazz. Dog-walkers are the friendliest, most sociable people on the planet. I once met a gorgeous bloke in the woods. We met up for months and chatted our way across the local countryside while the dogs frolicked and gamboled together. Do dogs gambol? Or is that just lambs? Anyway, I was close to gambolling myself. Until the morning I met The Wife….And if you really can’t lay your paws on a pooch, just buy a lead and haunt the local dog-walking areas. When you meet a potential mate, just fluff around being female and squeak a bit about having ‘lost’ your favourite canine companion. He’ll be offering his superior searching services quicker than you can say bitch in heat.  😉

   More novel ideas tomorrow… In the meantime, share your stories – how did you meet your mate? The more ridiculous the better!

I blame Walt Disney…

Once upon a time I believed in love. You know, Someday My Prince Will Come, thundering through the forest, muscular mount between his thighs, and our eyes would meet across a crowded glade. Sparrows would chirrup, deer would skip and those furry, black-eyed creatures with stripy tails would do – well, whatever it is that furry, black-eyed, stripy tailed creatures do when they’re feeling the lurve. Sparks would fly. Breasts would heave. And we’d all live Happily Ever After, Amen.

Happy ending, my arse.

You see, time has passed. The world has changed. I’m old now – so old I’ll soon be losing my teeth, forgetting my name, bulk-buying incontinence pads. And in all that time, all that searching, all that hoping, all that bikini-line waxing, not one measly, distant, on-the-horizon, fleeting glimpse of Prince-Chuffin’-Charming!

And that pisses me right off!  True love should be mine; it’s my right as a fairytale fan, a Disney disciple. God knows, I’ve done the homework. I’ve read the stories and sighed. I’ve watched the movies and mooned (moped, not bared my bottom). I’ve lived the life, goddamnit! I’ve toiled and scrubbed; I’ve dressed in rags; I once had Shrek in the shower. I’ve dated my share of the vertically challenged (Bashful was boring, Dopey was dull and Happy turned homosexual.) I wasn’t afraid of the Big Bad Wolf ‘til I caught him in Granny’s knickers; my fingers have suffered too many small pricks; they put me to sleep every time. I’ve let down my hair; I’ve danced with the Beast; I’ve gobbled a Ginger-haired man. I held Jack’s magic beans for a while and boy! did his beanstalk blossom!

I’ve put in the hours. I’ve served my time, now where the bloody hell is he?

I’m 45 years old for God’s sake. I’m nearly dead. What’s he been doing all that time? Wandering the dusty forest paths on his trusty steed, too thick to plug-in the Sat Nav? Even Dappy, who’s too dumb to put his hat on straight, had the sense to search on Facebook.

Nah, it’s time I faced facts. My time has passed. My knight in soft, crinkled-at-the-crotch, stonewashed denim? The bastard’s obviously been hit bit by a truck.

Image sourced from here.