Back on the Market….
February 6, 2010 by Jason Shaw
I am, I suppose, through no fault of my own, back in the market. And when I say back on the market, I don’t mean I’m up at Brighton racecourse flogging knock off Kappa Tracksuits and fake designer Armani pants.
Nor do I mean I’m around the Level getting me hands dirty handling a few plums and other assorted fruits! No, I’m on the human kind of market, and no, I’m not a gentleman of the night, a street walker, an escort of the male kind, a man whore or boy of rent. What I really mean is that Jason Shaw is back on the market, up and ripe for relationship, open for the future, I am back in the land of the singleton and approaching this world of dating, yet again!
I’ll be honest with you, it’s been a bit of a while since I’ve strayed down this path, entered this departures hall of the mass single travelers wanting not to be heading along life’s solo highway. I’m not one of those experienced serial daters, I’m not one of those guys that jump from one bloke to the next, it’s never been my way. OK, perhaps it was when I was a younger teenager, but not for a long while, for crying out loud, I’m 40!
As any regular reader will advise, it’s not been that long come out of a relationship with that bloke Matt, yes that American boy. You know, the one that whipped in and broke my heart and disposed of me by email, yes, email! The flaming cheek, but hey, I’m not bitter – honest! However, before him, I suppose I was single, but not exactly on the dating circuit, on the market, I wasn’t looking and nor was I searching for love. I was just going about my life, tipping along happily in my own little way.
You know in pre-Matt days, I was a happy single gay guy, occasionally meeting someone in one of the numerous bars, pubs and clubs that cater for us sexual’s of the homo kind. But playing game, that dating one, I wasn’t. So, that guess is a long way to say that I was out of practice of dating. The whole dating scene seems to have moved on a peg or two since my days of being young and fruity. back then there was no rules, not it appears there are at least two rules books, so many do’s and don’t, where to go, what to do, who calls who first, all that kinda stuff, to stay over or not. It’s seems not only the rules that have changed, but the whole games moved on!
I downloaded an app for the iPhone & iPod Touch, it’s called Grindr, w it’s basically a meeting site, you see tiny wee photo’s of guys and the clever thing is they are all local, wi
thin a few miles of you! Yeah, it’s like a local directory of gay males, which kind of appealed to me, after all better to date someone 4 miles, rather than 4000 miles away! Anyway, I gave it a go, I loaded on a piccie of me and waited for the rush of men to come. And I waited, and waited and waited and even waited some more!
thin a few miles of you! Yeah, it’s like a local directory of gay males, which kind of appealed to me, after all better to date someone 4 miles, rather than 4000 miles away! Anyway, I gave it a go, I loaded on a piccie of me and waited for the rush of men to come. And I waited, and waited and waited and even waited some more!It took a while, but the first message I got was a request for a photo of my lower portions from a 69 year old Hove man into leather pants, rubber masks and train sets! Yes – Train Sets!!! None of which floats my boat, so he was politely, yet firmly declined and my undercarriage was left unphotographed. Good start, well, perhaps not. Would the second go any better? Was my luck going to change? Ermm, sadly no, the second person responding to my Grindr profile, was a guy wanting to know if I was an air steward or a policeman or a road sweeper, I sent back honestly informing that I was none of those professions, to which he asked if I had any uniforms at all, again my answer was negative, to which he replied with a message saying I was as useful as a teapot made of chocolate and to go boil my gonads in a vat of acid! Charming.
I sent messages of a friendly nature to a few of the profiles, but got very little back and things were not looking good. My emergence into the dating world was not the unfettered success I’d hoped it would be, indeed it was far from success, more in common with failure. But, hey you know me, I’m not the sort of person to give up, roll over and die, well not just yet anyway, so persevere I did.
Next one, on the list was nice looking, seemingly fun guy, a few messages, a few texts, then we arranged to me outside a local bar at 7pm. I know, the very first date, I got all dressed up, kind of all excited, date one, I also have to say there was a certain amount of trepidation on my part, I am, as I say, hopelessly out of practice at this dating lark. What if he didn’t like me, what if I didn’t like him, all kinds of variables flash through my mind as I waited outside the bar, from 6.45pm. By the time the big hand was on the 6 and little hand was on the 7, it finally dawned on me that he wasn’t coming, that I’d been standing in the cold outside a pub like lemon for over half an hour. Yes, yours truly had been stood up! How long do you wait before you finally accept that stood up, you have been? Is there a time limit? It’s probably written about in one of those dating guides, those guides that I haven’t read. Honestly, after waiting 45 earth minutes outside of a local gay bar in the midst of an English winter, I ain’t waiting no more!
Had those events put me off? They bloody well should have done, but do you think they had? Really?? I suppose it came as a bit of a relief that I had a little bit more luck with the next date I arranged with a trolly dolly from Preston Park, that I also met on Grindr. We arranged to meet near the local cineplex, have a couple of drinks before the film and then maybe one or two after. Now when I said I little bit more luck, I mean at least one that actually turned up. However, he was late, so late in fact that there was no time for drinks prior to the movie! Obviously I wasn’t the one for him, he rudely continued to text and check his grindr profile on his iPhone during the movie and as soon as it was, he was off, rapid, like a rat up a drainpipe!
So there we are, Jason is back on the market, back in the dating world, but it’s not proving easy and plain sailing, indeed this being single lark is pretty darn hard. How can it be so difficult to meet a guy that is interested in more than just sharing bodily fluids in the local cruising area? Can it be there is love out there? Or am I flogging a dead horse? Do I carry on with this dating malarkey, or should I just chuck everything in the sea, give up on men, become a monk and grow grapes for a living?
On a final note, some people are like slinkies, not a lot of use, but put a smile on your face when you push them down stairs!
Elliot’s a fan! “Jason Shaw, writes my socks off”
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