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Not settling for mediocre

Another post around dating. I thought, why not as I have a few things on my mind.

I go through periods where I’m like “right, let’s do this!” and get really enthusiastic about going on dates and meeting new people. I re-install Plenty of Fish (*sighs*) on my phone and get about chatting to guys who’ve messaged me that don’t seem like a psycho/weirdo/offering a threesome.

I’ve been on some really lovely dates recently with a nice guy but sadly it just didn’t pan out. I’m not one for going into the nitty gritties as it’s hardly fair but I’ll just say he just wasn’t for me. This is much to my mother’s frustration because she couldn’t seem to understand why he wasn’t for me. Or why other dates weren’t for me. Or why men who she suggests aren’t for me.

In her eyes I’ve become too picky. I’m giving up on guys too quickly. I’m not trying hard enough. In fact this was something my friends mentioned to me the other day when I tried to explain why someone else I knew wasn’t for me despite being a) single b) around my age and c) a perfectly normal guy seemingly with his schizz together.

Before I delve too deeply into “becoming too picky” I will firstly mention that age (within reason) is actually not a barrier for me. I’m no spring chicken myself anymore and so can’t really afford to segment a good portion of the male species because they’re too old (or too young, but let’s be real here, I don’t think I’m going to attract many young’uns!).

Am I too picky though? Are my requirements for a partner too specific, too narrow and unrealistic? Maybe they are. But do you know what, why the hell shouldn’t they be? Why settle for a mediocre life? Why settle for “he’s nice” or “we seem to get on well”? Why can’t I have fireworks, explosions, rainbows and magic? Why can’t I have someone who I want to throw all my plans out the window for? Drive a million miles for? Ignore the alarm and miss the gym for?

Am I so far past it, so far gone, that I should just settle for who’s available who kind of ticks the right boxes because I won’t find better. Because I don’t deserve better.

Absolutely not. I REFUSE to settle.

Let’s be clear here. I’m not unhappy. My life is not empty. I may be alone but I am not lonely. I have a life full of excitement, full of plans, goals and ambitions. I have a fantastic network of friends and family. I actually love my life.

I am a whole person and don’t need someone else to complete me. I am not a puzzle with a missing piece. I am bloody good puzzle with all the pieces already stuck together and it looks pretty damn awesome. There may be that someone special and amazing out there for me but I’m not hunting them down and I’m not sat in a tower waiting for them to rescue me. I’m living my life exactly how I want to and if I happen to bump into “Mr Right” then fantastic. But until then, I won’t be settling.

Dating, what’s been your experience?

Am I being unrealistic?

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parkrun, a date and THOSE pancakes

Why is it weekends fly by so quickly? I was quite busy so this is probably why I guess!

Saturday morning saw me back at parkrun at Netley Abbey after a couple of weeks off of running. I hadn’t seen Mike, or any of the Netley parkrun crew, in ages so it was nice to catch up with everyone. I basically chatted the entire way round parkrun! I wasn’t interested in a fast time and just wanted to have a nice enjoyable run. I also got to showcase my Chester Marathon long-sleeved technical tee and my parkrun cow cowl.img_5974This photo made me laugh so much as I literally had no idea that Jim, the photo bomber, was behind me doing that. It was only when I looked at the photo I saw. Hehe.

I bought my cow cowl after I had successful done 20 different parkrun courses and am now on the Most Events table. It’s not a freebie thing like the milestone t-shirts or directly associated with parkrun, you do have to buy it yourself (but it’s like £7 so very cheap), but it’s a great way of identifying with other Most Event parkrunners.cow-cowlThe cowl (or buff) was actually really nice to wear as it was quite nippy at parkrun. Winter is definitely on it’s way 🙁 I’m really not looking forward to the cold morning’s of parkrun set-up and then running in the nasty weather. Hey ho.

My pacing at parkrun was all over the place as I was too busy chatting… parkrun-paceNot particularly consistent really and fairly slow in comparison to previous runs (25:39). But my legs felt alright post marathon (well, they would do I guess after almost two weeks off!) andI’m still trying to take things nice and slow. I want to be really motivated when I get back into proper training so I don’t want to ramp things up too quickly now. I probably won’t run a huge amount in the next few weeks if I’m honest as I also have my eye laser surgery coming up this month. (I will blog about that experience.)

Later on I had a date… we’d “met” through internet dating (Plenty of Fish – just that one tiny step above Tinder I think as I’m not ready to pay actual money yet) and after he cancelled on me the other week we finally rearranged another date. He lives 45 minutes away which, if I’m honest, annoyed me more than it should. After lots of nice reassurance from the Twittersphere that that wasn’t that bad I decided to go more positive than I was initially.

img_5975From my Instagram Story

We met at a pub for lunch. It went OK, he seemed nice and we chatted a lot but then it all fell apart when he said he was too full for pudding. Game over.

No, I’m joking (well, there was no pudding which was somewhat devastating after seeing the table next to me get chocolate fudge cake and millionaire shortbread cheesecake). In truth, as nice as he was I didn’t feel a huge connection and there were things that were fundamental no-no’s (who doesn’t like Harry Potter?? <– OK that is sort of a joke but it was one of a few things I found that didn’t work for me).

*Sighs* so much effort wasted. I don’t think I’m going to continue with the Internet dating at the moment as, in my opinion, the effort involved finding, messaging, working out if they’re not a psycho, meeting up, etc. is just not worth it. I’d rather pootle along as I am right now.

That evening I met up with friends for a house warming party and we had a lovely chilled evening of chilling and chatting. The host provided an amazing spread of Slimming World approved snacks (as she’s trying to lose a bit of weight). There were sweet chilli chicken bites, bacon wrapped asparagus, fruit, crudites and dips. It was fantastic!

I’m definitely starting to warm more to Slimming World – not that I’m going to start obviously but what I mean is that it’s not quite the product-pushing fad diet system I thought it was. It’s working so well for my parents (they’ve both lost over a stone each!!) and it seems to have some sound and sensible guidelines and support system.

Then the next day I headed to London to meet with my uni friends for lunch and catch-up. (Side note: I watched Money Monster on the train and it was really good – very tense. I thoroughly enjoyed it! The train journey flew by).

My friend, Charlotte, took us to an AMAZING spot for lunch called My Old Dutch and WOW. Basically the menu was just pancakes – both sweet and savoury. As I had to catch the train fairly early that morning (damn Sunday trains) I’d forgone a proper breakfast as I wanted a bit longer to sleep in the morning and I knew we were going to this pancake place so wanted to be adequately hungry. I had a banana and a couple of apples but by the time we got there I was starving.

Originally I thought I was going to go for sweet pancakes as I’d already checked them out on Instagram and the pancakes looked i.n.c.r.e.d.i.b.l.e. But because I was just so hungry I thought it would make me feel a bit ill. Bit of a mistake I think but I REALLY enjoyed the savoury pancake I had.img_5983It was full of halloumi, feta, olives and aubergine.img_5978Perfection. I did get enormous food envy though as one of my friends ordered the Willy Wonka Kinda special.img_5982I mean WOW. It looked amazing. She found it got very sickly (as you can imagine) so I was able to help her out at the end 😉 But yes, it was ridiculously sweet. She was in a sugar coma afterwards which was quite amusing (seen as how it’s usually me who ends up that way!).

Apart from a downpour we got caught in, the meet-up was lovely. Though it sucked it was a Sunday and not a Saturday like we normally do as it meant getting home at 6pm and still having chores and food prep to do… worth it though!

What would you choose: savoury pancakes or sweet?

What would be deal-breakers for you for relationships?

Do you judge people on what they order at restaurants? 😉

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Last long run and dating frustrations

This was my last weekend before the Chester Marathon. I had one last long run to do and decided on 12 miles, an arbitrary number based on the fact that I had a good route for 12 miles.

I would have done it on Sunday morning but I was going to be marshalling fairly early at a local race so I decided to do it Saturday…But this also meant a very early morning and sadly not being able to do parkrun as my dad and me were heading to the O2 at 9am. We had gotten tickets to Empire Live, which is an event done by the Empire film review magazine. I’m a huge fan of their podcast and we had tickets to watch the it being recorded live. We also had tickets (it came as a package) to see some old and new films at the cinema there but the timings didn’t work out (we’d have had to have left super early or stayed there later than we fancied) and really we were only interested in the podcast, having a nice meal and a wander around.

Anyway, so Saturday morning saw me up again at 5.45am to be running by 6.30am. I felt very tired in general and like I should be in bed during the first mile but then I woke up a bit and got going (basically woman’ed-up). I saw a gorgeous sunrise over a farmer’s field that was growing pumpkins and it really was a beautiful sight. I wished I’d have taken a photo but I couldn’t be bothered with the faff. A bit later on though I did decide to snap a photo as I was a bit more compos mentos…img_5306The run seemed to fly by quite quickly. The temperature was lovely and cool and only started slightly warming towards the end. I did have a near miss moment with a squirrel that I almost ran over. I don’t know who was more shocked, the squirrel or me! He (she?) lept out of the bushes and in a comedy-esque moment stopped dead-still wide-eyes when he (she?) saw me. Then ran away.

capture

And my last long run was done! Woohoo! It’s funny because this twelve mile run was exactly the same as one of the first long runs I did when I started this marathon training. I did that run in an average pace of 8.20min/mile and for this run I did it in 8min/miles. Good progress I think!img_5329Then I got showered super fast and we were on the road to London. I decided to just have two apples for breakfast en route as I wasn’t that hungry to have anything bigger straight away and we were having a big early lunch as soon as we got there that I didn’t want to spoil.o2I’ve never been to the O2 before so it was quite cool seeing it – it’s huge! We’d booked a table at a Brazilian restaurant called Rodizio Rico which was fantastic.rodico-o2It was the usual Brazilian-style cuisine with a huge salad bar and the waiters offering different meats on skewers. I was in heaven. I was so proud of my dad who was very restrained and careful about his choices (he’s trying to lose weight). In fact, I think we were both quite good. I ate a lot but not so much that I felt uncomfortable (like I do so often!). It was very tasty but it did start to get really busy as a Marvel event finished and about 20 families with little children came in. Our cue to exit fast 😉img_5341The live podcast was fantastic and really showed how good the guys who run it are as they’re exactly the same on and off mic. They’re so charismatic and knowledgeable about films. There were two guests interviewed as well, Tom Bennett (from Love & Friendship and the Ricky Gervais film) and Mike Colter (he’s in the new Luke Cage series – I didn’t really know who he was but he was a really nice guy and built like a house). It was a really fun thing to watch. We then had a mosey about and a (free!) drink in the Empire Hub (which was like the main congregating area) and then we headed home.

The next morning I was up at 7am to help marshal the Perform 5 race, which is very local to me and is helped run by my club. I took Alfie with me and we walked to the cricket stadium, the Ageas Bowl, which is just up the road and we collected our bibs, signs and instructions.img_5348My instructions were so confusing about which side of the road needed to be closed and for how long. It was really quite stressful. I would have to stop traffic but it wasn’t clear from which way! I was so worried about telling cars to stop but not knowing if I actually should be telling them to stop. In the end another marshal came and joined me on my spot to help out as no one could work out what the instructions meant.img_5354

We worked it out thankfully after coordinating with the marshals up and down the road and could relax a bit until the race actually began. We were around 4ish miles so it would be a while until the first runners got to us. We were right next to Burger King so we used their facilities and bought some coffee 😉

img_5359The lovely Louise and me

I think our position is now a coveted one due to how convenient it’s location is 😉 As the runners started passing through I really got into cheering them on. I started yelling silly things like “Pain is temporary! Glory is forever!” and “the incline is a figment of your imagination!” and got a few laughs and wry smiles. I really enjoyed myself. Alfie even got a few quick strokes.

After my marshalling duties I then headed out for my own run. Four miles round the block. It was windy but lovely and sunny. The run started fairly sluggishly but then I got faster as I went on. The route was a new one to me and nice because it was literally two miles away from home then swinging back for two miles home again so it felt quite satisfying.4-miles

 

 

 

I then got showered super quickly and made some lunch. I had a date planned (met through Internet dating, God help me) for a coffee in Winchester at 2pm so I needed to have an early lunch. I’d luckily had an early breakfast so this worked out nicely…Until the prospective date cancelled at the last minute saying his mum wasn’t well and her partner had asked him to look after her at the last minute as he wasn’t there. I’d practically given myself indigestion trying to eat as quickly as I could to make the time. *Sighs* I’d washed my hair, put a nice outfit on and made some actual effort…for it to be wasted. Oh well! I went shopping with my mum instead. Hey hum.

Do you do any marshalling at races?

Have you been to the O2 before?

Have you ever had a date cancel on you?

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Let’s talk about dating

Or lack thereof I should say. At the start of this year I got back “in the game” as it were. I felt ready to get out there and start meeting people and dating again. Over a few months I was going on dates and just enjoying myself.

I wasn’t actively looking or, er, “hunting”. Things just either organically or naturally happened, which was nice and easy. That has since dried up somewhat and there’s a dearth of prospective males on the horizon.

At university it was so easy. You’re in a big fish bowl of people mostly the same age as you, usually single and available. With no actual jobs (I mean proper career jobs) and no real commitments it was so easy to meet people. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t date a huge amount (see my post about being an introvert…) but it was easy to meet people. The potential was definitely there.

Now I’m in a full-time career and time is tricky. You get up, you go to work, you come home, you sleep. With an hour commute both ways and a dog to look after it’s hard to do anything in the week (and getting up at 5am to go to the gym means granny bedtimes – yes I know this is my own doing).

But it’s not like I have a a crowd of men banging down my door anyway. I’m not turning down dates because I have no time. If only that was the case! Most of the people I work with are happily married older men. And most of my friends are all coupled off and don’t seem to know other singles. It seems we’re a sad and dying breed.

So what do you do? This isn’t a rhetorical question. I don’t actually have the answer. I am genuinely asking for guidance here. I’m 28 which, let’s be honest, is no spring chicken (though also not ancient). I look in the mirror every morning and go “this is the best it’s ever going to be” because tomorrow I’m one day older. OK this is bleak. I don’t think I’m completely abhorrent to the opposite sex (at least I truly hope not) but tick tock and all that.

My friends, from their fabulous happy marital cloud, say “go on Tinder!” and then proceed to “want a go” and “let me play” like it’s a game. But you hear horrific stories about Tinder… I don’t want to just hook up with randomers. I’m not that girl. And the thought of meeting up with someone who thinks I am that girl is terrifying! Or meeting up with someone and having one of those horror story dates.

Being part of a running club you’d think would be ideal, but really no. It’s full of lovely people, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not exactly a hive of prospective singletons. I started bouldering and climbing to widen my social bubble and I suppose that might help if I was going more regularly…

It is so easy to just carry on with my life and do nothing. I’m comfortable in my own company and can get very routine-based. My mum keeps telling me “It’ll just happen! You’ll meet him in the supermarket or in the street”. What? Actually, what? No I won’t. In Tesco my attention is fully on food. And bless my dad and his practical nature, comments like “When is the time to get your eggs frozen?” really don’t help.

*Sighs*. Honestly, if you’re not single, BE GRATEFUL. I used to joke when I was married that I’d hate to be “out there in this day and age”. Not so funny now is it! I don’t mean to be all moany or sound like a desperate sap. I am OK on my own. I’m not quite Carrie Bradshaw desperation level yet. My problem though is that time will just fly on by and I will continue living in my happy bubble of my little life and routine and be everyone’s single friend Anna, the one that likes running and eating too much.

If you’re in a relationship, how did you meet your partner?

Do you have any horror story dates?

Do you have any dating advice?