Online Dating

I've just drunk two Red-bulls, so if this makes absolutely no sense, forgive me. It's raining, The Beast is out – The Beast has become B's new name on Twitter – I have the music on, and I'm eager to get some posts written and scheduled for next week as I have quite a busy week including a super duper cool sleep-over with my mum (insert emoji with the sunglasses).

You might already know – or not – that I met B online. Probably the most awkward, weird and the best online relationship known to human kind. Okay that's an exaggeration, but it's how I feel about it.

But before meeting B, I had my fair share of weirdos and awkward encounters online. It's pretty much a given that you'll get these type of people on there, and that you'll have the pleasure of meeting them. Oh the stories I could tell!

When I first started toying with the idea of online dating, I hadn't been in the UK that long. I'd lived in Spain for the majority of my life, where customs and how people treated others is entirely different to how they do it here. The only site I'd heard of was Tinder.

I hated it. It was basically just a load of guys trying to get laid as many times as they could a week. After maybe 20 minutes of going through it I decided that it was just too... I don't know. I was too innocent to have my eyes see so many men – and what I would call boys – without their shirt on. Yes, you may laugh.

Online Dating- Distance is to love like wind is to fire, it extinguishes the small and kindles the great!

I'm not saying all people on Tinder are looking for that kind of relationship, and I'm not saying it's bad if they are. If that's what float's your boat, I say go for it! Both men and women are completely entitled to one-night-stands, hook-ups, whatever you'd call a "short relationship" or whatever. You get what I mean.

What I should have mentioned before is I grew up with the notion that I would only ever be with one person. That the person I lost my virginity to would be the person I married. Well, that didn't work out haha! But I wanted the "next best thing" which would be to have a minimal number of partners. Again, I'm not saying having lots of sex with different people is bad – you do you. That's a topic for a different post though.

So, off I set on my quest to find a site that was for people looking for a real relationship.

Okcupid & POF

The first site I found was Okcupid – they also have an app – and it seemed pretty promising. There wasn't very many people in my immediate area, so I set it to a further distance.

I also found POF – Plenty Of Fish. I thought I'd try it out and have a look around, as there weren't very many people on Okcupid. Straight off the bat, I hated the lay-out. It was crowded and I had no idea what half of it did.

Now, I had very different experiences on both apps. POF seemed to have more people looking for hook-ups – even though you could set your profile to "looking for a relationship" – and I quickly abandoned it after having multiple men and women over twice my age send me messages I didn't find appropriate as a "hello".

Okcupid on the other hand... wow. Let me get the "bad" stuff out of the way first.

I had an 18-year-old confess he loved me. Completely out of the blue, his first message to me was "I think I'm in love with you. If you love me back we can have a relationship if you like?". That freaked me out a little, as he showed up as living in the same town as me at the time. I explained to him gently that I don't think that love comes from just looking at a picture. This is pretty much how our conversation went:

* After I explained the love thing *

Him: okay so... how are you?

Me: I'm good thanks, how are you?

Him: I'm good. Do you love me now?

I'd love to say I'm exaggerating or kidding, but I'm not. I didn't feel comfortable talking to him at all after that, and blocked his profile.

Then there was the guy who wanted babies. From what his profile said, he was around 16 or 17 – you're meant to be 18 to sign up, but whatever. His first message was pretty creepy too:

Him: I'm looking for someone to have kids with so I can move out of my mums house because my mum and sister hate me so i want to be on benefit and have my own house but i dont want to live alone.

No kidding. I'm not even squeezing multiple messages into one. I had no idea how to answer this. He then sent me another message, that said something along the lines of not needing to be in a relationship, he just wanted me to have his baby and then I could move on with my life and he'd take care of the baby.

I sincerely hope this guy was joking. I really hope he was because that – in my opinion – is some pretty fucked-up shit.

And then of course there were a few guys with pretty warped ideas on how to chat-up girls. Asking me if I'm into BDSM shouldn't be your opening line, nor should " Do you want a dick pic?" or telling me what you'd like to do to me. Especially if you're old enough to not only be my father, but my grandfather.

BUT

and that is a very big but (haha, get it? No? Okay.) I also found quite a few nice people on there too. If nothing else, it was great having the chance to have such lovely conversations with them.

As you all now know I also found one person in particular – B. I'm not going to say much on that, because I'll end up writing another one thousand soppy and cheesy words on why I love him so much. I'm sure you don't want to hear that!

I also know quite a few different people who have met their boy/ girlfriends online, some are even husband and wife now. One particular friend has been with her boyfriend for over 13 years now.

Online dating isn't something that's for everyone, but if you're "looking" for a partner in crime I suggest you try it out. Especially if you're like me and find it hard to make friends or chat with guys on a night out because you're shy. It takes the awkward "does he, doesn't he?" out of it all. 4

Don't be shy to try it out. You don't have to meet people if you don't want to, just stay safe and remember not to give out too much personal information before getting to know that person quite well. You don't have to tell anyone you know in person that you're on there either – and if they find you on there, well why are they on there too? Don't worry about what others think, if I had listened to people telling that everyone on there are weirdos or * insert horrible word of your choice here * I wouldn't have met B.

Have you tried online dating sites? Do you want to or do you think you ever will? Comment down below!

Thanks for reading,

B xx