A simple way to make online dating fun...

...do it with a friend.

Specifically, a friend who will giggle with you about it and send you amusing/interesting profiles to read, while also on the same journey as you.

Colleague has become a highly entertaining feature of my latest foray into Christian Connection. In fact, I have more CC mailbox messages from her than anyone else - last night I got super excited that I had new mail, then I discovered it was from her. Plus, it's also good to have a banter partner ready to bounce ideas off. I've just engaged her in a brief email discussion regarding the pros and cons of first email jokes. Very useful.

It's also very good at helping you not take the whole thing too seriously. Online dating has to be held onto lightly, else you risk being offended every time a guy doesn't respond to a wave or message, or looks at your profile and does nothing more. They reassure you that you come across well in your profile; that you've chosen the right photo(s); that the glasses on that guy are cute; and join with you in swooning when a cute-ish guy includes a baby in their profile photo.

So, if you're doing this alone, come out into the open and find yourself a wingman or wingwoman - you won't regret it!

Continuing lessons

It's amazing the difference a year or two makes in this whole area. This time round, I am taking things both less and more seriously. Less in that I don't mind if people ignore me; more in that I have a strategy and I'm making myself do things that I might not have usually done.

The strategy works like this:

• I 'wave' at any one who looks interesting and who I'd be happy to have coffee with.
• If they wave back, I automatically send them a message.
• If they're not a full member, I send them a message including an alternate email address I've set up expressly for this purpose (see, taking it seriously!).
• If they don't wave back and I'm really interested, I message them anyway. 

So far it's having mixed results, but that's ok. Mr Coward hasn't replied to the message I sent him last week - one of his suggested I contact him via Facebook, but I'm not willing to expose that much about myself so early on. Someone I'm very keen on hadn't replied to my wave, but had looked at my profile a couple of times, so I sent them a message last night - we'll see what happens next. Someone else immediately responded to my wave with a message that was rather lovely, and someone else has emailed me at my alternate address. I think that's good going for 7 days...

About the alternate address...

This is a fabulous idea. I'm not too keen (given my slightly unusual surname) to get my full name out there immediately, or to give people something that easily leads them to my Facebook account or Google profile. So instead, I've created a Gmail address that includes my account username which autoforwards all mail to my regular account. From there, I can choose whether I send mail as me, or the alternate. Simples. 

In the mean time, I've learnt several things:

• Including a photo of yourself with a Bishop is a surprisingly good tactic. (Colleague did this first - I laughed, she informed me that she'd had an email thanks to it.) I've now had one email appreciating mine. Wow. 
• Man + baby + profile photo = swoon. 
• I'm pretty sure I'm not up for dating a guy who'd respect my purity to the extent of not kissing me till our wedding day.
• I'm also not up for a man whose response to the TV section of the profile is 'TV: full of sin'. 
• A surprising number of men feel it's appropriate to include photos of their dogs (just their dogs) on their profile. One man - the sinful TV guy - included a photo of his church building.
• There are a lot of strange guys out there, but there are some gems too. 

Jumping back in

It's January, and like many a lonesome singleton, I have jumped back into the pool of online dating.

Actually, it's not quite as pathetic as it sounds. I've been encouraged to move my Christian membership up to full, partly thanks to a message from a potential possibility (let's call him Mr Coward) and partly because a colleague has joined and it's nice to share these amusing adventures. In fact, it was logging on to see if someone that had messaged her had ever messaged me that revealed that a message I'd not bothered reading actually had some potential...

Spending an afternoon chuckling at the ridiculousness of my colleague communicating with a man who thought that port, JS Bach and the rise of the Provisional Government in 1917 were suitable topics for early-stage email flirtation was enough to inspire me. So this evening I've shelled out some cash, 'waved' at a few vaguely interesting men with abandon and replied to the aforementioned Mr Coward. I'll give it a month to see what - if anything - emerges.

And what of the last 6 months (or more)? Well, I didn't go on holiday with Mr Long Replyer (he dropped out at the last minute - so last minute that I got off the plane half expecting him to be at the airport), but he's probably going to be around on our next jolly over Easter. We saw each other twice in the space of a week at a couple of dinner parties, the highlight of which was a small gathering where the only men were him and GMF - wonderful. Oh, and I was forwarded an email from him containing very odd references to the 'karmic coincidence' of me organising the next group holiday. Fun stuff. I'll say it again - be careful how you end online dalliances!

Oh, and I reprised my performance as Kate Winslet playing Iris in The Holiday. I had gumption an told a man who had been an idiot that he had been an idiot. I then spent several weeks weeping; a little bit longer being angry; and a bit longer than that wondering where all the non-idiotic men were. 2012 dawned with a new sense of freedom and hope - which can only be a good thing.

Stay tuned for further dating adventures and ponderings...

The danger of complaining

Over the summer, the Christian dating site re-launched itself and as a result all members got full access for a trial period. Unfortunately, this coincided with my holiday away with several thousand Christians, so I missed out.

A few weeks later I spotted a couple of glitches with the new set-up (it was around the time I was considering returning to it as a fully paid-up member) so e-mailed to let them know. At the same time I threw in a minor complaint that I'd missed out on the free trial, kind of hoping to be given another. 

I was, though sadly this trial clashed with Christian festival weekend, so again I couldn't use it. Once home, I considered e-mailing again and opened up the message I'd been sent. That was when I realised that it had been written by someone I know. Someone whose husband is in the same kids church team as me, who I was next to during the service a couple of weeks ago...

Yes, I was vaguely aware that she worked for this site, but I didn't really know what she did! Does she know it was actually me? Probably? Am I embarrassed? Yes.

I shouldn't be embarrassed, it's just a dating site, but still. Stupid small world. 

An update:

I haven't re-joined the Christian site properly, but I have cancelled my eHarmony subscription. Actually, I've not been thinking about online dating much because, well because an idiot boy's being an idiot. I should probably stop letting that be a distraction and jump back into the game in time for the nights drawing in. 

It's a small, small world after all...

My last post mentioned Guardian Man - he was the man that prompted me to shell out actual money to join Christian Connection - ticked a lot of my boxes - but sadly, never replied to my initial e-mail. (Was it because I mentioned my dislike of the Guardian website's re-design? Quite possibly.) My colleague's friend was using the next Christian festival as an opportunity to meet up with him.

The end of the summer Christian festival is usually good for a bit of speed dating and a lot of the Christian Connection men state that they're fans - in fact Mr Long Replyer and I had a long chat about it on our date. I've dabbled in the speed dating events, but otherwise there aren't a lot of opportunities to get chatting with potentially interesting men. To be honest, a little bit of me regretted not having had the forethought to try and set up some dates in advance.

On the drive down to the fields of green, the driver (another London based Christian singleton) and I were chatting about this story and the fact that it's quite brave to set something like that up - I mean, what if the date was a total disaster and you kept bumping into them throughout the event? [Because of course we all know that it is those we wish to avoid who we bump into at every opportunity.]

Anyway, in my telling of the story I mentioned that this was a guy I'd e-mailed owing to his Guardian connections. Her ears pricked up at this and asked if I knew his name - I did and she laughed - it turned out she knew him (went to the same church). The small, small Christian world strikes again!

This in itself was amusing enough, but on the last night she orchestrated a move that I wouldn't usually consider her capable of. At literally the final event of the entire festival, he appeared - it turned out he was involved behind the scenes. He spotted her, she waved and he came over - so she took the opportunity to introduce us.

I should at this moment mention that it was now 1am on Tuesday morning. I'd been camping since Friday - my last shower had been Friday morning. I was sun and wind burned. My hair had been in a hat for quite a while. I was wearing my 'camping ocassions fleece' (possibly my least attractive item of clothing) and had just had a little nap during a rather dull female guitar folk session.

After the introduction, Guardian Man looked at me a little oddly and asked what my surname was. He had that look that said "I recognise you, but I can't think where from" - of course, I wasn't about to say that it was from an online dating site! Then, either tiredness, embarassment or nerves kicked in (actually, probably a combination of all three) and I was afflicted with logorrhea [a new word learnt last weekend meaning a pathological inability to stop talking].

My friend mentioned that I was sleeping in her tent tonight and I piped up with a story about the late night films I'd been making with my previous tent-mate who had left that evening. He seemed a little mystified as to why I should be so excited by this and what the point of it was (indeed, many of our friends had exactly the same thoughts). I can't remember what else I managed to come out with, but needless to say, I did not do myself justice - much to my friends' amusement.

And what of Guardian Man himself? Moderately cute, beardy, interesting clothing (though one mustn't judge at festivals, unless it's a very unique form of festival chic - i.e. anything tie-dyed or batikked). and an interesting job. Just a shame that he probably came away wondering who on earth the freak was that his friend introduced him to...

Returning?

The last couple of weeks I've been strangely drawn to Christian Connections again. Last month it underwent a re-design, which has improved it a lot. There was a free trial of the new features which I missed thanks to the previously mentioned Christian gathering in tents, but all of a sudden I had random e-mails telling me that some man had 'waved' at me.

Plus, a colleague at work happened to mention a friend of hers who was doing quite well with the site, in fact, was meeting up with a couple of guys at the next Christian gathering in tents at the end of next week. As she described one of the guys I had a strange sense of deja vu - one happened to work at the Guardian, doing something with their website. Sure enough, it turned out to be the first guy I'd e-mailed on the site, in fact, the guy that pretty much persuaded me to hand over money to join so I could e-mail him. [Incidentally, he never replied - bastard. ;)] In other small world coincidences, it turns out that I have a large number of mutual friends with this girl, so I may have to bump into her some time.

So anyway, revisiting Christian Connections it seems that the questions they ask are better and there are more members - so who knows what might happen? I've also just fired off an e-mail complaint (something about questions that don't match what's on the profile - I can be a pedant at times) and maybe that'll result in some kind of freebie...

My eharmony membership runs out next month and I won't be renewing it, so it's definitely time to try something else - the only question is, do I return to the Christians or head out into the secular world?