My evening, or rather, my forty-five minutes with Barely Worthy of the Name Bae had done nothing to elevate my opinion of Cumbrian men. I was beginning to remove the hope of any romantic connection from my Baewatch. It was less depressing if I thought of the Cumbrian dating pool purely as a source of entertaining anecdotes and blog inspiration. Thus resigned to my fate as a crazy cat lady, but dedicated to my faithful readers, I returned once more to Tinder.
I am now running out of original ways to document the swiping and messaging part of the process. Inevitably, I underwent that whole rigmarole once again and eventually managed to score another date. Learning from my mistakes, I did not allow myself to get too excited about Josh whose profile revealed he is trained as a ski instructor, enjoys travelling, and looks pretty damn fly in a pair of swimming trunks. I even refused to be impressed when he offered to drive over forty-five minutes from Hexham to meet me (when pickings are slim a wide Tinder radius is essential). Although still scarred from my last encounter, the enticement of Opihr proved too strong so I suggested we meet at ‘Eaten by Monsters’, praying that history wouldn’t repeat itself.
From the offset, Elusive Bae was leagues ahead of my previous Monstrous encounter, both in appearance and greeting technique. His dark features and designer stubble were not dissimilar to Dominic Cooper and his obvious nerves were rather endearing as he admitted that this was his first Tinder date. Yeah, erm, mine too….Things then began to fall into place. Josh’s mum had recently moved up here so having just graduated from uni, he had moved in with her until he found a job. I thought he had seemed way too normal to be a real Northerner!
The successful start to the date led into territory that had thus far been unchartered on my adventure. Firstly, I suggested we had dinner. I felt that if he had driven all the way from Northumberland he deserved more than a drink. Secondly, unaccustomed to actually fancying my date, I realised I had no idea how to behave or, more importantly, how to flirt. I became the gibbering crackpot who came out with the sort of comments I have spent the last two months poking fun at unsuspecting victims for making. I quickly learnt that aged twenty-four, I should no longer refer to catching up with friends as ‘play dates’ and that describing your hangover coping scheme as ‘rotting’ does not evoke sexy mental images. Excitedly explaining ‘Hermit’, a game that involves a group of you sitting in a room together in the pitch black, drinking in silence for half an hour, did little to further promote a suave and sophisticated persona (trust me on the game though, funner than it sounds).
My real winner came at the end of the evening when, having openly called me a weirdo, Josh said how much he had enjoyed his first Tinder date. Somewhat caught off guard, I replied, ‘Yeah, I really enjoyed it too. Have you got any more lined up?’. Handy hint: if you fancy someone it probably isn’t a good idea to ask him or her when they are planning on dating someone else. Given my multiple slip-ups I was pleasantly surprised when Elusive Bae messaged me later that evening. We chatted for the next couple of days but when he stopped replying I assumed that these messages had been purely courteous and that I was now getting a taste of my own medicine as Josh let me down gently.
Skip forward four days and I suddenly received a Facebook add. This came with an accompanying message: ‘Hey! Sorry I didn’t reply to your last message, my phone broke. I remember you saying that your birthday is today though, hope you’re having a great day! x’. Wow, major brownie points to Elusive Bae - even with Facebook reminders I rarely remember people’s birthdays. Having made sure all blog references were hidden from him, I accepted Josh and replied.
This is when things started to head South. I waited a week and heard nothing back. Why go to the effort of 1) adding someone on Facebook and 2) remembering their birthday if you aren’t going to speak to them? The new blog-writing-serial-dating me decided Elusive Bae needed a little bit of sass. I messaged him again: ‘I think you need to take your new phone back to the shop, the Facebook doesn’t seem to be working’. It worked better than I expected and I got a reply apologising and asking if I would like to go out sometime that week. Sass - 1, playing it cool - 0.
I let him know what nights I was free and then, just like that, Elusive Bae disappeared back into the cybersphere. He’s read the message but I haven’t heard from him since - and men say women are confusing! A quick summary: he stopped replying to messages, then added me on Facebook, then stopped replying again, then asked me on a date, then stopped replying again! Maybe this was karma’s way of coming back to bite me for my scathing review of Barely Worthy of the Name Bae. Part of me hopes that my technological efforts have failed and that Josh can still see this on my Facebook. If this is the case: Hello, welcome to No Sex, No City. For future Tinder experiences, do better!