Post Five: Conquering the Devil

If you’re a regular reader of this here blog, you’ll know that it’s anonymous and that previously it said my name is A. C. Fire – that was just the initials of the blog title, I put that as my name because I had to have something. Well, I’ve decided to put in a proper name. Not my actual name right enough, but a normal name so as to make this a bit more relatable and personal.

I was tempted to call myself Conquistador El Diablo (which means ‘Conquering the devil') but instead I settled on the just-as-evocative Rob.

Anyway, in my last post I promised that this was where the adventure begins, and I’m sure you’ve been checking this page like a rabid dog the past few days to see if it’s been updated.

So let’s venture into The All Consuming Fire…

After two failed speed dating attempts, I started to consider online dating.

 

I had even more reservations about this than I did with speed dating. There were too many variables; too many things that could go horribly, horribly wrong. I had to think long and hard. Was this really the way to go? Should I keep trying speed dating instead? What would I tell my friends and my family? Or should I hide it from everyone, live some sort of double life?

 

I don’t know, maybe I was being judgemental. Or just mental.

 

I logged onto the site that I had created a profile for when Tim and I were looking for speed dating nights. I looked around and the vast majority of girls seemed nice, pretty and normal, but the only thing to judge anyone on was their photo. Sure, there were profiles as well, but how honest were they? It’s a well-known truth that people tend to embellish CV’s when applying for a job, so why not here? What was to stop someone from finding a picture on the internet and uploading it onto their profile?

What if I e-mailed a girl who was one of the knife-wielding brides from earlier?!

 

I was terrified.

 

But I remembered the whole point of wanting to go speed dating: to take myself out of my comfort zone, to take risks.

 

How else do you broaden your horizons?

 

So I looked around some more, and it occurred to me that I would have no idea what to say.

 

‘Hey there, my name’s Rob and you look nice. You don’t at all look as though you’d drown kittens or club seals – which means we already have tons in common! Let’s meet up!’

But hey – at the very least I was growing as a person. A couple of months back I wouldn’t have bothered even considering looking for someone.

Plus it was kind of exciting. Online dating would surely be a portal into a wider world and I was now desperate determined enough to see what it had to offer!

I was proud of myself so I had a biscuit.

And then, as if the biscuit somehow made me braver, I paid for a subscription. I was now officially dating online.

I uploaded an outdoor photo of myself that, rather inexplicably, didn’t show my left hand. I mentioned on my profile that it was just camera shy, in case that turned out to be an issue for anyone.

I had a rummage about and there were a lot of girls registered. Loads, actually, from all over the place…

 

There were a lot of lonely people out there.

I looked at a few profiles, in particular ones the website recommended for me. And right there, in a tiny little square photo on my screen, was a girl who I shall call Emily. She was a veterinary nurse and didn’t smoke.

And she was cute, gorgeous, lovely, and all those other adjectives that mean ‘attractive’.

Plus she had a Shaun of the Dead poster pinned up in one of her photos.

I typed out a quick introduction:

Hey there! I’m new to all this internet dating stuff, hope you don’t mind me saying hello!

What’s it like being a vet nurse? I suppose it must be heartbreaking and rewarding in equal measure.

Well, anyway, I’ll leave it there otherwise I won’t shut up.

Rob

PS: Your Shaun of the Dead poster is well cool.

I stared at my screen. The cursor hovered over the Send button.

Do it.

Do it, you big chicken. The worst that could happen would be not getting a reply. Or if she did reply but said ‘fuck off’.

I clicked Send then turned my computer off and ran away.

And, by some miracle, she replied the next day:

Hey, I checked your profile and you seem really cool. I love the fact you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

My job is exactly as you described it – it can be rewarding and really hard sometimes.

What movies do you like? I grew up with stuff like Terminator, Predator, and Back to the Future, so they’re classics to me!

Any girl who regards those films as classics is automatically in the running to be my wife.

So we emailed each other over a week or so and we had a fair bit in common (she likes Aliens, Die Hard and Ghostbusters too).

Then I did it. I asked her out:

Would you be up for meeting at some point? It’s totally cool if you’re not!

She said meeting would be cool.’

I officially had a date.

I may have said Yes out loud.