Date 11 – Ricky

Welcome to date 11 of 26

Guy Profile

Name: Ricky
Age: 27
Height: 5.11
Occupation: Something to do with helping young people into employment
Location of date: Surrey Quays, London

How I met Ricky

I met Ricky on Plenty of Fish.com (pof). I was looking for a last minute date for this week’s date because I didn’t have enough time to arrange one after returning from the States. I didn’t want to have to go on pof because I don’t really like the site but the 2 people I had in mind for this week’s date weren’t available and my friend’s attempt to get one of his friends to take me out didn’t look like it was going to materialise either.

On Thursday evening I reactivated my pof account and received quite a lot of messages from hopefuls and I started a few conversations with some but after an hour of being on the site it didn’t look like I was getting anywhere so I logged out. Minutes later I received a couple of messages and I logged back on to read them. Two of the guys that sent me messages seemed quite decent so I spent some time communicating with both of them and another guy who was telling me off for what I wrote on my profile. He said I was contradicting myself because my Intent says: I want to date but nothing serious and About me says:

I understand that most people on this site are not looking for anything serious so if you are only looking to get intimate please move on to the next profile.

I totally understand why he thinks my intent and About me is contradicting but I also mean exactly what I wrote. I am only interested in dating and nothing serious and I want those who are looking for something intimate to move on to the next profile. I am not going to give myself away because I’m not looking for something serious. It’s clear that not looking for something serious means different things to different people. As this date is not about him I’m not going to go into details about the unfriendly things that he wrote to me. Readers please leave me a comment below if you are interested in the things he said because I think they’ll make an interesting debate.

Back to Ricky, because I needed a date for Friday or Saturday I really didn’t waste any time, so when Ricky wrote: ‘whats a pretty fish like you doing in a sea like this?’ in the second message that he sent me. I replied with: ‘I'm looking for a date for the weekend’ and his reply was: ‘Oh ok well im free tomo nite do you have a blackberry?’.  I gave him my blackberry pin and we communicated a little on that before he called me and we had a very nice conversation. He had a lovely deep voice and a nice sense of humour. I was very proud of myself for being able to get a date so quick. I’m liking the new attitude.

The Date

We had planned to meet at London Bridge at 8pm but we didn’t plan what we were going to do. I guess it was only right to continue the excitement by not planning to do anything in particular. Before our date I spoke to Ricky and he asked if we can meet at 9pm instead because he left work late. I didn’t give the best response but I tried to work with him. Long story short I ended up meeting Ricky after 10pm at my local overhead train station and we took a bus to Surrey Quays.

When we go to Surrey Quays I was really in the mood for Pizza but unfortunately they were closing, so we went to the next best thing, Frankie and Benny’s. Before we got to Surrey Quays I knew Ricky wasn’t my type and I felt my energy drop when he came off the train because he wasn’t my type. As he had made an effort and showed faith in me by coming to meet me after just meeting me the day before online I didn’t want to disappoint him and waste the night being less than happy, so I consciously brought my energy back up.

As he knew of my regular dating but not about my blog I didn’t feel the pressure of having to communicate with him after the date as I’ve felt with most of my past date. It made me feel more at ease and it felt real because I didn’t have to avoid saying anything and I could really relax and enjoy the moment. He made me show him my ID just so he could make sure I am the age I said I am. I tried not to get offended by it and found it funny at the same time. He told me he had a dog and showed me some pictures. When I told him I dislike dogs, he mentioned he shouldn’t have revealed that to me yet. He spent most of the date trying to convince me that I’ll like his dog and I spent just as much time telling him that I wouldn’t and I wouldn’t even want to bump into him and his dog, not to talk about purposely going to see him and his dog.  

I think Ricky knew I wasn’t into him romantically and after I expressed my feelings about dogs I think any plans he had of us progressing in his mind went out of the window too. I hope we can be friends because I think we got on but there’s definitely no spark and I hope he finds a nice girl that’s into dogs.

That’s all for this week readers. Please leave your comments or questions below and I’ll post a reply as soon as I can.

Thanks for reading My dating year – date 11.

Date 10 – Dominic

Welcome to date 10 of 26

Guy Profile
Name: Dominic
Age: 26
Height: 5.11
Occupation: Customer Service
Location of date: Alexandra, Virginia, USA

How I met Dominic
I was first made aware of Dominic by my friend who I went to Virginia to visit. I told her I needed to go on dates whilst in the US and she told me of Dominic and gave me his Facebook name to check him out. I had a look and thought he looked ok. I noticed he had a lot of tattoos, which I’m not a big fan of but I still wanted to meet him.

On the very first day that I got to Virginia my friend made plans for one of her female friends, Dominic, herself and I to go to a bar/restaurant. We got there really early and had to wait for her friend and Dominic. Even though I wanted to meet Dominic I was so tired from being up for so many hours that all I cared about at that point was going home to sleep. Unluckily for me that wasn’t an option. My friend’s mentality is that you are not meant to sleep when on vacation. You are meant to have fun fun fun.

When Dominic arrived he looked how I thought he would and he seemed to be quite happy with how I look. He tried his best to make conversation with me even though I was so sleepy and gave me several compliments. As he was the last to get to the bar we waited for him to finish eating and drinking before we asked for the bill. My friend tried to get him to pay for everyone but he refused and they compromised on him paying the majority of the bill. He still weren’t happy and only agreed to do so if he could see me again. I told him we could go on a date and he paid. I could tell he didn’t mind paying for me but I don’t think he wanted to cover more than that.

The Date
Two days after I met Dominic my friend dropped me at a local cinema to see: Think like a man with Dominic because he had agreed to see it with me for the second time after telling me that I was basically a real life version of one of the characters. When I was at his house the previous day, he asked me why I was still single and I told him: ‘it’s because I’m really picky. I have a long list of likes and dislikes about guys’. After running through the list, he realised that he didn’t tick all of the boxes and told me I need to go to ToysRUs to find my guy because what I want is not real.

As we approached the cinema I opened the first door to walk in and was stopped in my tracks: ‘why can’t you let me be the man and open the doors’. I walked back and closed the door and allowed Dominic to reopen it. Nobody has ever told me off for doing so before. I usually don’t wait for guys to open doors for me. When they do I usually think it’s nice of them but when they don’t I don’t think any less of them. Once we got through the doors to approach the ticket queue he started moaning about having to pay my friend $30 for dropping me off and to pick me up after the movie. He was especially irritated because he knew she’ll charge him for every time that she drops me anywhere to see him. He was more than happy to cover her gas fee (as they call it in US) but he didn’t want to pay near as much as he would if I took a taxi and as they are friends he was expecting her to be more understanding and not make him feel worse for not being able to pick me up because of his ban that prevents him from driving his very nice car until October.

In the movie theatre I felt at ease with Dominic. He was such a gentleman about everything and he really tried his hardest to make me feel comfortable. When it was time to go home I experienced something that I hadn’t experienced before. I had difficulty going downstairs on the escalator. It looked narrow and very long. I felt like I would miss a step because of my heels and fall over and was too scared to get on it for that reason. I made several attempts after Dominic’s encouragement but I just couldn’t get myself to go down. In an attempt to get me to take the escalator Dominic took it down to show me it was safe and I’d be ok and ran up the escalator going up to meet me so he could go down with me but I still couldn’t do it and we had to take the elevator. It was so sweet of him to run up the escalator knowing how stupid he looked in the process.

When we got to his apartment I went up with him before going back to my friend’s because he had asked me to. I gave him a hug and the side of my face for a kiss. He asked to kiss me on the lips, I said no and smiled walking away saying goodbye. If he and my friend didn’t have work the next day I would have asked her to come up so we could stay at his for a while before heading home.

Since we met on the first day we’ve kept in touch everyday and seen each other quite a lot and have plans to see each other some more before I return home. Meeting Dominic has been one of the best things about my holiday. I feel like I’m having a holiday romance and I wouldn’t change anything about it so far. Not even his ban that prevents him from driving because I’m impressed by the effort that he has made to see me because of it and he’s also impressed that I want to spend time with him when I could spend time with other guys who are not as restricted as him.

That’s all for date 10 readers. Please leave your comments and questions below and I will respond as soon as possible even though I’m still on holiday.

Thanks for reading My dating Year – date 10.