Final post (probably)

I've been aware for a while that my previous blog post started with the following paragraph:

 

 

"Wow - three months since my last post? Time just goes faster and faster! I never wanted to be someone who stopped blogging completely without signing off somehow. With that in mind, I guess I'm saying that this isn't my last post either."

 

 

Well, now it's been another five months, and I've been wondering for a while whether to write an official "last post" but haven't managed to do it. In fact, I've been wondering "why did I write that paragraph? That means I have to write another post but I don't feel like it!" I am still reading some blogs, and very occasionally I even manage to write a comment, but I haven't felt any kind of urge to actually write any more blog material myself. I don't know whether that might happen at some point in the future, but let's call this my last post unless and until the urge returns.

 

 

I'd like to say a big thank you again to everyone who has read and commented on my blog. Looking back on it, I don't think I've had even one single negative experience with it (I even once tried to lock horns with an abusive commenter on a different blog and invited him to mine, to no avail.) I'm really glad that I stumbled into this corner of blogworld - not only did it introduce me to LB (it makes a great how-did-you-two-meet story in the real world!) but also I've read many very engaging and entertaining blogs for over a year now, and for the moment I plan to continue to check in. So it's not goodbye to blogworld as a whole - just to the post-writing part.

 

 

Wishing much peace, love and happiness to everyone!

Blogger Date: Untold Stories

It's been nearly three months now since my first date with Life Begins at 30ty (maybe it's time I started calling her LB for short!) and a lot of the time now it's easy to forget that before that point we were blogger friends who had never met. It's also interesting to look back at my posts about our first date and to see what I wrote but also what I didn't write. Here are a few things which I was self-conscious about sharing at the time:

1) I really did also have a date arranged with a speed dater - according to my stats page, my most popular post ever is Confession Time, which started with my pretending to have cut short my first date with LB to go on another date on the same evening. She had actually suggested the idea for starting the post in that way, but her suggestion initially gave me a shock because, unbeknownst to her, some of it was true! I hadn't double-booked the evening, but I really had been in contact with someone from my speed dating night and was due to go on a first date with her as well. That date was to be a few days after my blogger date with LB, but no exact time or place had been agreed and the speed-dater's emails had become more and more vague and infrequent. After having a great first date with LB and setting up a second one, I realised that I didn't feel like meeting the speed-dater any more, so I cancelled our provisional date and decided not to look for any other dates while seeing where things might go with LB.

2) I was nervous - I was feeling pretty bold when I wrote the comment on her blog asking her on a date, but somehow a couple of days later I started feeling really nervous about the idea. I was trying to rationalise myself through it, but I still had a knot in my stomach at times. This intensified when we agreed on the date of our date, partly as at that point it was only two days away. I then relaxed somewhat on the day before the date until something brought the nerves back:

3) My thoughts on seeing her photos - by coincidence, I'd already seen a photo of her before she invited volunteers for a blogger date - she kind of challenged me to find her online dating profile and I'd managed to do so. Her photo wasn't incredibly clear - it was more of an action shot and was in black-and-white - but she looked cute and friendly and approachable. Then in the run-up to our date she mentioned that she'd changed her profile and photo. At first I didn't look because I thought I'd probably internet-stalked her enough already by finding her profile in the first place! But on the day before our date I decided to look, in order to be more certain of recognising her. Her new photo was much clearer and my reaction - possibly out loud - was "Oh holy hell - she's smoking hot!" Not that I was complaining - but this did bring the nerves back!

Thankfully, while getting ready and making my way to our date, my mind managed to talk my stomach into co-operation. My internal monologue went something like this: "OK, so you're about to go on your first proper first-date in nearly seven years... she seems very cool and she happens to be very hot... funny how life works out sometimes, but let's just go with it and see how it turns out!" And so far how it's turned out is: I'm a lucky guy.

Ten Reasons Why Dating Lifebeginsat30ty Is Awesome

Over these past few weeks I've been mulling over what to write about on this blog at this point. You see, much of the blog so far has been dedicated to past dating stories which often ranged from awkward to disastrous. I never really had a plan for what I might do when I ran out of these stories.

In fact, I'd kind of assumed that I might be about to generate more of them. I was planning to rejoin the world of online dating, hoping to click with someone but accepting that the law of averages would probably result in some more mismatches and mishaps as part of that journey. I wasn't about to seek out unsuccessful dates for blogging purposes but I figured that they would be coming my way anyway.

Well, I've been on plenty of dates recently, but far from being disastrous they've all been really great. I attribute this to the fact that they've all been with Life Begins at 30ty and dating her is awesome, for these ten reasons and more:

1. She's smart and interesting to talk to;

2. She's funny and fun to be with;

3. Two other bloggers have already commented that she's beautiful - they're right;

4. ...and when I tell her this she gets embarrassed, and when she's embarrassed she looks sooo cute;

5. After I mentioned that one of my hobbies is eating, I think our first eight dates all involved going to a restaurant at some stage - and she's never complained about sitting and watching me eat for ages after she's finished!

6. She puts energy into being warm and friendly towards so many people, no matter whether they're a quirky waiter or the owner of a gigantic dog;

7. She's easygoing and unfazed by potential stumbling blocks like turning up to different bars for our first date or ending up on a certain midnight stroll;

8. (To the tune/beat of Milkshake by Kelis):
Her blog posts bring all the readers online
'Cause her blog... is better than mine
Damn right... it's better than mine
She could teach me... I can't make this rhyme...

9. The time just flies by when I'm with her and the end of each rendezvous feels like it has arrived too quickly;

10. When we had our first full-on kiss a thought flashed through my head: If I could be anywhere in the world doing anything at this moment, I'd want to be right here, right now. Happily that feeling has since revisited me often.

Stylish Blogger Award

Just Saying has very kindly nominated me for the Stylish Blogger Award - thank you very much!























Now about this award; being a recipient of the Stylish Blogger Award is a great exercise in fun and mutual back-scratching. Of course, as with any of these blog awards, there are rules. The “rules” that come along with this award designation are (1) I must divulge seven things about myself, and then (2) pay the Stylish Blogger Award forward to about seven other blogs.


7 random things about me:

1. I can count on one hand the number of cups of tea and coffee I've consumed in my life.

2. For its first couple of hours of existence, my blog was called "Matt79's Blog" - then I realised that I had to be able to come up with a name less lame than that.

3. At different times in the past I've been MVP on a chess team, a pool team and a bowling team - although I'm not too great at bowling any more!

4. I have a great memory for dates and numbers (I used to memorise credit card numbers as a party trick) but really struggle with recalling visual details like colours - I'm not sure what colour my own front door is!

5. I have a paranoid feeling that when I start regularly buying a specific food product it often gets discontinued soon afterwards. I must have unusual tastes - that would also explain why my favourite restaurant shut down after a string of terrible reviews.

6. Once when I was a kid and going on an international flight I packed a metal cap gun in my checked luggage. This turned out to be unwise.

7. In 2008 I got a bit carried away with going to the cinema: I saw 123 movies that year, including 33 in one month - and 8 in one day.


I'm going to pass this award on to seven blogs which I've never previously nominated or been nominated by:

today is my birthday!

This One Time on Match.com

Tales from the Tower

Lost Looking For Fish

Inside The Nice Guy

From the head of The Danaconda

After I Quit My Day Job

Blog Award

Massive thanks to Pretty Young Thing for passing the following blog award on to me - I'm flattered! Check out her fabulous blog Daterview if you haven't already - great stories including making the most of being ill in hospital by chatting up a good-looking member of staff and subsequently Facebooking him! Plus she has one of the coolest blogger profile pictures I've seen - that's what I call eye-catching lipstick. Thank you for the award!
















This award doesn't come for free though - it comes with a ten-question survey as follows:


1. If you blog anonymously, are you happy about doing this? If you aren't anonymous, do you wish that you had started out anonymously, so you could be anonymous now?

I guess my blog is somewhat anonymous, but my name really is Matt and I really was born in 1979, so I'm not trying to disguise myself. If I were starting a blog now I might actually be less anonymous but I was in a different frame of mind last summer and I've just stuck with the habit since then.


2. Describe an incident that shows your stubborn side.

I have this thing about not wanting to let food go to waste and at times I've taken it too far. I remember one particular incident a few years back - I'd ordered way too much at a restaurant but carried on eating after hitting the point of being uncomfortably full for about half an hour. My insides took a while to forgive me for that one.


3.What do you see when you really look into the mirror?

Depends on the time of day - in the mornings I'm particularly likely to see someone with crazy hair, although this can happen at any time and lead me to wonder "Wow - when did I last look in the mirror before this?"


4. What is your favorite cold summer drink?

Water. I actually get told that I drink too much water. When I was in hospital last year I had this conversation with a doctor:

Me: How much water should I be drinking at the moment?
Doctor: As much as you want - it'll all help.
Me: OK, but I thought there might be like a maximum amount?
Doctor: No, go ahead and drink as much as you like.
Me: 'Cause like a few years ago I used to drink about six litres (13 US pints) per day and I just wondered-
Doctor: SIX LITRES? No, that's too much, you shouldn't do that.
Me (thinking): But you just said...


5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do?

In recent months one answer has to be: read blogs! I think we're talking many hundreds of hours by now. Also go to the gym, see friends, watch films, eat (see Q2), drink water (see Q4)...


6. Is there something you still want to accomplish in your life?

Generally I'm not someone who focuses a lot on future goals - I tend to think more about how I'd like to spend the present time.


7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the overachiever, the shy person, or always ditching?

I was an academic overachiever but wasn't very involved in other school activities. Towards the end I started ditching more but to be honest I think they let me get away with it as long as my test scores stayed high.


8. If you closed your eyes and wanted to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what would you see?

Some years ago I was in a car crash which for a moment I thought might be Game Over - I was incredibly lucky to walk away and in some ways I've looked at things differently ever since.


9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people and events?

I'm quite aware that I've only shared certain areas of my life on here - I started the blog to give back some dating stories after reading so many and I've mainly thought of the blog as being about dating rather than about me as a whole.


10. If you had a choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?

At the moment I don't spend much time doing either, but I guess I spend more time on the phone so I'll go with that.



The next instruction is to pass this award on to bloggers you think are fantastic. I've only just realised that it doesn't specifically say how many bloggers to nominate, but previous recipients seem to be going with three so I'll follow suit:


Lifebeginsat30ty at Life Begins at 30ty - she was also top of my shout-out list the first time I received a blog award - at that time, as well as having a very engaging past-present-shifting blog, she had very kindly commented on more than two-thirds of my posts. Her blog has remained awesome and, of course, the last few weeks have given me even more inclination to list her first again...

Caleb at The Blog Experiment - Caleb and I first met as Good Cop Bad Cop commenters on the blog which started my whole blogosphere journey. He's full of wit and charisma and brains too - watch out world!

Pupa at just like your mama used to make it - she has recently started her blog but got hooked on some of the same dating blogs as I did last year and has been inspired to write exactly the kind of blog which grabbed us both - lots of well-written online dating posts. Hopefully there are lots more to come!


I could happily nominate lots more great blogs, including the other nine from my first award - most are still going and I hope that the others are coming back too!

Tongue-tied

So, as some of you rightly noted when commenting on my previous post, I've been getting a bit tongue-tied on here recently. Successive posts have been growing shorter and less detailed. Not only that: I used to reply individually to every comment I received - I've really let things slide on that front!

There are two principal reasons for this. One I've already written about in an earlier post - I've become increasingly aware that writing in detail about present-day events involving other people (such as dates) wasn't going to work for me. I'm very much into honesty and I know that if I dated someone who then asked whether I had a blog, I would be straight with them, and they'd probably end up reading it. Therefore I wouldn't want to write anything which might seem like oversharing or an invasion of privacy - theirs or mine. I knew that I'd be likely to err on the side of caution in this regard, and sure enough I certainly have been!

I've very much enjoyed reading lots of dating blogs which don't follow these restrictions, so I hope this doesn't seem hypocritical of me. I'm not trying to say that there's anything wrong with anybody else's way of doing things - just that I have my own individual way of doing things and I need to honour that.

Secondly, and more to the point: my recent dates have of course been with someone who already reads my blog! In the beginning this was the whole point - Life Begins at 30ty and I went on a blogger-date and wrote about our experiences. But since then (as you'll know if you've read her recent post) we've continued to date each other. With each date I've realised more and more that I don't want to be blog-dating her - I want to be dating her. Thus I've been feeling more than a little self-conscious when writing recent posts.

While I was mulling these things over, she wrote a post expressing somewhat similar thoughts but in a far more eloquent way than I feel I'm managing - well, she was already one of my favourite bloggers after all! She also mentioned our pub quiz date (I had an unfair advantage with the numerous British sports questions, but she still knew more about Queen Victoria than me!) and our restaurant-and-river-walk date (complete with photo featuring the free light sabres which the restaurant kindly gave us!) and that we'd made plans to go to the cinema this weekend (I can exclusively reveal that we settled on watching just one film rather than trying to surpass my day record of eight!)

Hmm... I'm getting blogger's block again while trying to write the end of a post on blogger's block! Well, I wanted to say thanks again to you all for your encouraging and enthusiastic comments despite my lack of post details and comment replies - I really do appreciate them!

Blogger Date: The Sequel

For our second date, Life Begins at 30ty and I had decided to go bowling. This had actually been one of her suggestions for our challenge-theme first date, but I'd felt it only fair to warn her that I was on a bowling team a few years ago. Not one to be daunted by this - or by anything else these days! - she stepped up to take me on this time.

...and proceeded to soundly beat me! I got my comeuppance for my big talking! She even had the kindness to make me feel knowledgeable by asking me for bowling tips, even though at that point I was clearly struggling to stay out of the gutters. She's a good winner and I got to show that I wasn't a bad loser - or I hope that's what I showed! We then had a second game in which I managed to redeem myself a little, so we called it a draw (tie?) overall.

After finishing our drinks while watching little kids almost throwing themselves down the lanes with their bowling balls, we left to find something to eat. We went to a great pancake place which I'd never been to before - in fact I've generally only eaten small sweet pancakes so it was interesting to be presented with a massive savoury one big enough to be a meal in itself! We chatted and ate and chatted.

At this point I have to make a complaint about this date. In fact, about both of our dates. The time goes by way too quickly! I couldn't believe that more than three hours had already flashed past when I first looked at the clock on my phone. I don't think either of us wanted our talking to end but we both understood that we had work weeks to start the next morning so eventually we got the bill (maybe the staff didn't want us to go either!) and the end of the date was nigh.

Hmm, I'm reading back over this post and it seems rather brief. Blog readers, I'll level with you: I'm finding blog date blogging to be trickier than I'd anticipated! Maybe this is because I'm more accustomed to writing about dates from many years ago rather than current events. Maybe it's because I don't want to hog the storytelling while my co-dater has other exciting tales to share from earlier in her weekend before getting the chance to write her version. Or maybe it's because my main thought as I write this is: I definitely want to see her again...