The worst has happened people, I narrowly avoided a first date scenario last night, I mean, he's a really nice guy it would seem, a metrosexual bearded plumber, you don't get many of those but the thought of actually going on a real live date made me feel sick in the pit of my stomach, yes it might have been butterflies but it might have actually been sheer terror!  I'm lucky that I had valid excuses as to why I couldn't go out last night, I was seeing girlfriends, I had too much work, teenage Looby arrived home unexpectedly and demanded that I come home immediately ("I don't like arriving home to an invisible mother" she said).  I think the problem is that I'm absolutely winning at online dating, especially for my age but it all kind of falls apart after that, whilst you can do a little to help you hack the online dating world, when it comes down to it and you have to go on real dates, the fear of rejection is now so high that I think I just want to stay single for the rest of my life until I die and then become kitty food.

Dating, it's supposed to be fun, every column that I read tells me I should just enjoy it, meeting new people, it's interesting, you might make new friends, well yes this might be the case but lets not pretend that initially when you date you are basically marketing yourself and you know what I'm pretty bloody good at marketing and coming up with new and interesting ways to sell things but myself?  I don't think I'm that great at selling myself to the opposite sex (ok, get your minds out of the gutter, you know what I mean) in fact, I think I have failed so many times that I just find it's almost easier to live vicariously through my friends and their dating adventures.

To be honest, when I've looked at the week ahead that I've got I'm not even sure I've got space to fit in a man, I'm a very busy lady and I love my jobs of which I seemingly currently have around 65 of them, what a shame that they haven't yet made me a millionaire, I bet they have trouble finding true love too, I mean, you'd have to get your head around the fact that mostly they're just seeking your money, there's a reason the rich old guys have young glamorous girlfriends!

You know what would be lovely I think and what would maybe work better for me, if I just sort of happened upon someone in the real world and they liked me and they courted me and so I felt I didn't have to go and market myself and all of the ways that I could enhance that other person's life!  Maybe I should start hanging around the Lit and Phil or I wonder if lingering around the doors of my local gentleman's barbers, after all, Heaton is the centre of the bohemian north.

It's probable that I might just go on a date with the beardy man I've been talking to, he does seem awfully keen although I'm always wary of people who say things like "Hey beautiful"  for one, I don't think I particularly view myself as that and for two, you haven't actually met me yet, you've seen my best photos and I'm good at that, I photographed myself in very flattering light, you might be utterly horrified when I arrive in real life.

One of my real life lovely friends who's joined my great online dating experiment has, I'm happy to report got himself a date early this week, did they meet on Tinder, well, erm, no actually, they already knew each other from our local pub, oh and our pub is full of bearded men and often they come up to pat Holly, and then they proceed to either completely ignore me or they tell me how they're so amazing with animals because their wife/girlfriend has a dog/animals.  Yes I know, I'm getting on for 2.5 years of being single and you know what, I think I'm already a little jaded.  Incidentally, one of the stories I read by a mathematician who hacked online dating, it took him until date number 89 before he found his soulmate, lets just take a moment to think about that, date number 89, I could be dead before I make it to date number 10 with my level of dating terror!!

They said it would be easy, like getting back on a horse, well I can tell you this, I do like horses but you couldn't pay me enough to get on one the first time, never mind get back on again!!

This week on Tinder...

In case you aren't one of those ardent calendar page flippers like me, It's March people, the spring is going to be with us in 19 days, well unless you are a weatherman in which case you're already dancing amongst the daffodils because it's the start of meteorological spring today, whichever one you prefer to celebrate, one thing we can all be grateful for are the longer days, increased light levels and the sight of flowers growing on grassy banks. 

This week there have been the first signs of the rise of my business (thank God, the heavens and the universe) we really are all waking up again after the long winter slumber and that makes me happy, for spring, as I have probably already mentioned is quite my favourite season, I get bouncy and happy as the sunshine hits my face and I have an increased zest for life.  I return I suppose to my normal self instead of the woman with SAD who lives like an angry bear who's been woken up from hibernation too early!

This week on Tinder, well I've matched with more men than I've had conversations with, I did have a message from someone who was 150 miles away last night which said "Mmm, yeah, yummy" well, Mr Longdistance, what in the hell do you expect me to do with that information?  Actually, don't answer that, I think we all know the answer of how I was supposed to reply, I didn't though, I'd rather keep my dignity thanks!  The there was the young (33) engineer who's only a few km away from me but I just found myself lacking the enthusiasm to get excited about him, he was kind of hot, good job, not far away but I don't know, just no real gumption maybe?

Our final fine example of the male sex I'm still actually chatting too, he's a beagle daddy and that got him 10 bonus points and he's 37 and currently on his way home from Macchu Pichu, I did ask him why he was on Tinder whilst holidaying in Peru but we all know the answer, it's because men are strange and I'm guessing he's planning his next move, sort of holiday done, time to start dating maybe?  Anyway, I'll have to see what happens but for once I haven't resigned him to the man bin just yet, his beagle is really super cute and I'm sure Holly Bobbins would love some male beagle company.

Oh, something I forgot to mention, this month I'm going to be writing for Huff Post once a week, the truth is that I can write as often as I like but I have issues in that when you are writing for Huff Post you want it to be the very very best that you can do, sort of less rambling than my own blog so I tend to only write when inspiration strikes but I've decided that I'll never increase my readership on there until I write more often so that's the plan.  You know what's weird, though?  Writing for a huge publication where anyone can comment introduces you to the general public and their interesting points of view, let's just say I've had my eyes opened!

This weekend I have a review on Friday, I'm going to review G4 in concert, G4, yes, remember them, runners up on the first XFactor, I loved then and I'm sure I'm going to love them now!  Other than that and apart from a photo shoot with a lovely family on Sunday I'm just writing, writing and writing some more, this is the year when success is going to be mine, I have the excited feelings in my tummy that great things are coming, both professionally and personally, one thing I know, I'm starting to feel stronger and better than I was last month when I had a breakdown and today as I flipped the day on my bedside calendar was a poignant quote from John Milton himself...

"What doesn't not destroy me, makes me strong"

Sex and the City

People often tell me how my blog reminds them of Sex and the City and I have to admit to them that I've actually never seen the tv show, in 1998 when the first season was released I was too busy dancing in nightclubs throwing my arms up in the air and during the weekdays I had a 2-year-old so for some reason it just kind of passed me by.  I've seen the movie so I know who the characters are but this weekend I've just started to binge watch all 6 seasons.  Almost immediately I identified, especially as I've spent the weekend surrounded by my best girlfriends and boy do we share about our lives.  

I have in my life the most amazing ladies, all in their mid 30's and for some reason me in my 40's, when we get together there's nothing we can't talk about and we laugh so much, my friend Laura's current conspiracy theory that Richard Branson is hiding all of the dead celebrities on Necker Island is quite frankly hilarious, as we sat around discussing whether the dead celebrities were really dead or just hiding out somewhere in the Pacific, I asked if this was some kind of internet conspiracy but no, it's just a Laura one!  Meanwhile, someone asked "How do you get on the dark web?" and just as I was saying, "well what you don't do is google, how do you get on the dark web" Li was already asking google "How do you get on the dark web?"  I have no idea why we would want to access the dark web, I did interject that the Silk Road wasn't somewhere you bought second-hand luxury shoes and handbags...

Late last night my best girls and I went out dancing, well Laura dropped us off in her Uber on her way home, she was the lightweight of Saturday but then again, she has someone to go home to!  I myself not being in that category, especially at weekends threw myself into many dance shapes, I even jumped up and down and threw my arms in the air to a classic house tune at one point, that's why I love Madame Koo, it plays classic house, pop, and even party tunes all mixed together and all I drank whilst out was a glass of diet coke so £2 for a night of dancing is pretty cheap if you ask me.  I didn't kiss any boys this week, I left that to Harriet who was clearly giving off better hormones than me this week. 

Late into the evening or early in the morning we were stood outside in the little nook, a tiny outside space smack bang in the middle of Madame Koo when a drunken man who could barely string two words together decided to lick Harriet on the cheek, he then proceeded to ask if she could help him open the door, refusing his kind offer to be the door lady he simply decided to just pee in the corner and at that point we three ladies decided it was time for our taxi home.  I think you reach a certain point on Saturday nights in Newcastle and after that, it's a good idea to make a swift exit because all who remain are the kind of men you wouldn't want to talk to let alone let them kiss you.  Maybe it's because I at the most get a little tipsy so I'm always in control of my faculties but I can't tolerate intoxicated males, no matter how young and beautiful they are.  I like my men to be sober and in control of themselves.

Oh and meanwhile on Tinder, I turned down a man, I realise I'm being choosy but a royal marine holds no future excitement for me, as I told him, I'm looking for a metrosexual man who is creative, likes superheroes and knows of at least more than one musical, uniformed men really don't interest me, I realise half of the female population love that and I'm sure he's going to find someone just like that but for me, I prefer musicians to men with machine guns!  In just over 72 hours I've had 15 matches and spoken to 2 men, one of whom is lovely but quite far away and I really have learnt that it's just kind of easier if they live in your locality, it's all very well looking for your soulmate who's hundreds of miles away but who has the time?  Plato you are going to have to take one on the nose for me because I am restricting all future dating to within 50k of where I live!

Meanwhile on Tinder

When I woke up at 9.45am this morning I suddenly realised I'd once again failed at writing a blog post in preparation for today, to coin a phrase I am something of a blog numpty at the moment, it's the damn transitional times when to be quite frank, nothing is really happening, most people think I live a life of Carrie from Sex in the City but actually, the reality is that for the most part, I live a pretty quiet life, some days it's harder to blog than others because nothing happens and I can't imagine 30,000+ people turning up every month to read the tales of a lady who gets up every day, does a little work, has some toast, walks her dog, does a little more work, watches too many movies and goes to bed, even Dickens couldn't make a bestseller out of that!!

It's true, I live a life of vicarious adventures through the movies I watch and in the way that I write, even I think my life sounds more exciting when I read some of my blog posts back, it really is a shame that I didn't ride off into the sunset on the back of a white stallion with Mr France, I am thankful though because of all of the things I've ever written about, that was my favourite chapter so far, if nothing else, it helped me be a much better writer and in some ways he fixed me and showed me there was life post marriage.  Still sad though I guess as, and I'm going to say this out loud, I HATE dating, I know it's supposed to be fun but it really isn't when you are in your forties. 

I hope you'll forgive me but I strayed back onto Tinder late last night, it's not that I'm looking to meet anyone right now but a little window shopping never hurt anyone and let's be fair, Tinder is a game, it's window shopping for grown ups and it's about a million more times exciting than doing your weekly online shop at Waitrose.  

Ok, so I swipe left way more than I should for someone of my age and status but I'm nothing if not picky, I mean, given some of my past choices you might argue with that but no, I definitely have a type and although I may have changed from favouring clean shaven to loving the bearded sorts I'm mostly unwavering, tall, dark (or blonde) and a little bit geeky gets me every single time, I can't help it, I'm definitely more brains over beauty but at the same time I'm quite visual so it always helps when my face likes their face!

I've dipped in and out of Tinder a few times in the last year or so and I've had approximately 3 matches in that time, whilst my friends seem to get matches every 30 seconds, it's the curse of all of my friends being younger than me and suitably more glamorous I suspect but for now at least it's something to entertain me on the dark stormy nights, I'm not even sure I've ever had a conversation on Tinder but I hold out some hope at least that there's a high functioning man who'd like to date a quirky lady and have adventures in my time machine as we fly across galaxies exploring multiverses and eating way too much cake with china cups of Earl Grey tea.

So that was Wednesday ladies and gents, I went to an event, drank 2 cocktails, watched a movie or two and caught up on The Flash and Supergirl, oh and walked Holly Bobbins in the spring like sunshine where I took the above selfie whilst singing loudly amongst the trees, oh and Nelly said to me last night, "I love your blog, I have to read it every day because it's better than a soap opera"  Well Nelly, soap operas must have gone down hill a lot in the last few years, that's all I'm saying!!