The Dating Game – May

By popular demand (from Ally), and because I think some people will find it quite the amusing, I’ll do a monthly post about my dating exploits and the strangeness of that world.  And boy oh boy is it strange!

As most people know I have been single for a very very long time.  A very long time.  I guess April four (or is it five?  No, it just feels like five, but should be four when I think about it) years ago I broke up with the NYC bf because I couldn’t find a job there, he refused to find a job in Australia, and the long distance thing is rubbish.  I shouldn’t have expected otherwise from an Italian New Yorker I guess.  Then I went to Perth, spent a year in Perth focussing on me and work, then went to site and refused to get into the site bicycle situation, so I have been single for years.

When I got to Denver I decided to sort my shit out and put myself back out on the market.  Working a little less (hopefully) and in a new city – I can totally do this.  Step one, find some friends to hang out with.  Became friends with Anna, whom everyone loves, and then met some new friendly people and went new places with them.  Sure – not really getting into the dating, also need more  friends.  Surfing facebook (or similar) and I stumble across an article about an app called Bumble.  The article was about the BFF feature it has – you can choose to look for a BFF rather than a date.  So I gave that a go.  I met up with a couple of girls, turns out that despite being on the BFF (rather than dating) section, they actually wanted to date.  So that was short lived.

So I thought hell, why not try this thing as a dating app, get some practice in, and if something right comes along win.  I sure do need practice at this dating game!  I’ve not used Tinder but I understand Bumble is similar with a couple of twists: a) the girl has to make the first contact; and b) you have 24 hours to make that contact and they have 24 hours to respond or its all off.  Otherwise it is a handful of photos and a brief description of who you are – swipe left for nay and right for yay.  So I started Bumbling.

While this is going on I met a chap at the coffee shop, AV.  Nice chap, when the coffee shop closed there was an exchange of phone numbers.  We hung out a few times then it developed into a bit more.  There was a discussion early on that we’re neither of us after anything forever like, which suits me perfectly, so I put him on the fb list. Problem is that for a younger man has sex drive is significantly less than mine. Once a week is not enough! I don’t believe he’s got anyone else, I believe he likes to smoke pot and play games. To be determined whether this goes further.

On to the Bumbling. I guess I’ve met quite a few guys now. I start chatting then an some, quite early, stage I get bored of typing to them and I ask to meet. Best to see whether their carefully chosen photos at all match their real life.

I met with Jordan a while back. He’s a nurse, a travelling nurse I guess. He does a few months work in a place then moves on to the next. He looks just like he does in his photo, except that you cannot gauge height…he’s a good few inches shorter then me. He’s a traveller, reader, and outdoors guy. We had a nice coffee and a long chat at the Market downtown. Not sure why nothing continued, I didn’t feel a spark for sure.

I met Jasen and Lloyd in the park one afternoon. Another quote short guy. Honestly, the conversation click wasn’t there. I’m not sure whether it is because we didn’t have to try to make medium talk because Lloyd provided the perfect small talk. Regardless I didn’t feel the will to catch up with him again. Though that is a recent photo of Lloyd, almost worth it just for the dog! He wasn’t a well behaved dog, I still have some tooth marks on my arm, and I suspect I didn’t make a good impression when I growled at Lloyd then snapped him on the nose a couple of times. He learnt not to chew me but I don’t think Jasen was particularly impressed….

I think you’ll find a theme here eventually.

I have also met with Jon. Another guy a good inch shorter than me (and I mentally adjusted for my heels that day). Jon works for the Denver Water people testing water quality in the South Platt river, through Denver. He’s done a bit of travel and was generally interesting. It went a little pear shaped when I said that I really want to build a Dam while I’m in the USA. Jon being a greenie did not like that idea one little bit. No follow up contact from him, best of luck to him and his green agenda.

Billy is a nice lad. He looks very ridiculously young but is about my age. He is a site electrical type person, installing big electrical widgets, transformers and the like. When we met up we had a stilted conversation and that combined with the lack of spark…it’s not worth the effort to me. He is out travelling for work all the time and weekends for me are quite busy. So I politely gave him a thanks but no thanks. This is him and his sister. He has a similar dynamic to me, he’s bought a house and when he’s occasionally there he shares with his sister.

Ah Levi. Talk about misleading! He has a whole host of these amazingly flattering photos. we had some chats and I figured that we’d see how a meeting goes. If there is a connection win. To be fair to the poor lad I was somewhat tired the day we met. He’d decided to catch up over a hike so we aimed to do Green Mountain. We managed to miss the turn off to Green Mountain and headed towards the Royal Arch instead. It was a really nice walk, somewhat marred by an unfit guy who couldn’t keep up. Not just couldn’t keep up but was amazingly unfit and behind, its super lucky that we didn’t do Green Mountain because that was a lot longer and harder walk. Sure I was always going to be a bit less patient with him because I was tired and somewhat hurting from the three days before of runs, lifting, and hiking. when we parted ways I told him that it was unlikely I’d contact him again, I just didn’t feeling. Thankfully he didn’t look like I’d kicked him too hard.

I’ll introduce you to James and Ryan in June, I met them late may but with everything going on they didn’t really get a chance until June.
Ah dating, so damned exhausting!