So you want to date a Busy Person….

Posted on by RoseIW

As you’ll remember from my ‘Nervy Girl’s Guide to Online Dating’, a few months ago, my mother convinced me to sign up with an online dating website. Apparently, I had been single for too long and it was time to get back on the dating scene and she simply wouldn’t drop the matter, so I reluctantly agreed to create a profile.

I added the obligatory photographs of me a) on a snowy mountain to show off my adventurous streak, b) in fancy dress to show my silly side and c) looking elegant and refined to show that I’m a classy girl. I penned some slightly awkward waffle about myself, filled in my personal details and hit ‘submit’.

Eighty likes in one hour.

Well, that would be enough to boost anyone’s confidence, and I started to feel quite positive; of that eighty, however, only two made it to a first date. Call me picky, but giving up what little free time I have in my diary is a big deal for me and I wasn’t about to waste my time giving it up for people I knew already wouldn’t make it past the first coffee.

But these two seemed promising: one was a teacher and the other worked in the media. Both sturdy jobs with good prospects, both with a good grasp of grammar (trust me, it’s important) and both seemingly charming…at least on paper. So I agreed to meet with each of them for coffee and see how it went.

Prospective Boyfriend No. 1 had hairy ears, but that wasn’t a deal-breaker. He was also fairly serious, but I put that down to nerves. Prospective Boyfriend No. 2 was a bit over-eager, and spent a little too much time talking about semi-naked women in cabaret bars, but that was forgivable – he was the one that made me laugh, after all, we all have our vices!

Never judge a man by a first date, that’s what I’ve learned.

After a few hours spent with each, I fully intended to give them both a second date, but when they both got in touch this week to try to fix something up, my diary simply didn’t have the room to accommodate them. And the news did not go down well.

A curt text from PB1 accusing me of silent treatment when less than 24 hours had passed since the last message when I had, in fact, not actually had access to my phone. Then arrived a series of similarly short messages from PB2 insisting I must have a spare ‘appointment’ somewhere in my diary to fit him in. How strange. Where was the casual ‘stay in touch and let’s see where it goes’ approach? The charming text messages and e-mails? The carefree attitude that came across when we sat chatting over coffee…

That’s the problem with a first date. You meet the dating profile rather than the person: they’re out to impress and so are you. I’m a guilty party, too. To an outsider, my life sounds exciting and I’m happy to make it sound that way: film set anecdotes, silly stories from trips abroad or publicity stunts, a colourful employment history filled with everything from being a party clown to a charity fundraiser.

Having all these stories and experiences in my arsenal makes for a great first date, but the Prospective Boyfriends only heard the ‘Director’s Cut’ of these tales. Left behind on the cutting room floor were the seventeen-hour days filming in the rain, the hours spent driving up and down motorways with a precariously balanced birthday cake on the back seat, and the mountain of administration that accompanies a fundraising event.

Don’t get me wrong, a busy person comes with a lot of great qualities: we’re reliable, we’re punctual, we’re dedicated, we’re passionate and, although it might not be as frequently as you’d like, we’ll give you one hundred percent of ourselves when we do see you.

The downsides?

Dates have to be planned like meetings, well in advance. To get a coffee date, you need to give us two weeks’ notice. If you want to catch us for dinner, we need to know three weeks in advance. A day trip? Give us a month. A weekend away?

…Good luck.

We’re not hopeless causes. Some friends of mine are like ships that pass in the night and they’ve been happily married for two years now – they never run out of things to talk about and they value their time together as so precious that every moment they can grab is filled with love, laughter and passion.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that just because we’re out there, living life to the full, it doesn’t mean we don’t want a relationship. But it does mean that our free time is precious and, unfortunately for any prospective significant others, there aren’t many spare moments to be had. You may find yourself being dragged to rehearsals, press-ganged into volunteering at events or hiking up a mountain, or having to fit an entire week’s worth of catching up into a one-hour lunch break.

But I promise you, we’re worth the patience it takes to be with us. For every ounce of frustration, there’s a laugh to be had later; for every day you can’t see us, a new adventure will be waiting around the next corner for when you do; for every low, there will be a thrilling high.

After all, you don’t board a rollercoaster expecting it to be an easy ride.

 

 

Colour My World

Posted on by RoseIW

A friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook last week of her patio. On the table was a glass of wine, a plate of food and a colouring book. Not just any colouring book, either: The One and Only Adult Colouring Book.

I was curious but I left well alone: I’m a fully-grown and (almost) fully-functioning adult, I wasn’t about to start spending my precious free time colouring in!

But three days later, beyond stressed, decaffeinated and traipsing around Southampton, I ducked into Waterstones for a breather and there it was: The One and Only Adult Colouring Book, in pride of place on a display table in the centre of the shop, surrounded by colouring pencils, crayons and felt tip pens.

imageI must have stood there for almost half an hour, agonising over whether or not I could justify buying myself a colouring book, trying to remember whether or not I still possessed any colouring pencils with which to enjoy it.

Tearing myself away with the same argument as before, I continued on my way empty-handed.

By lunchtime the following day I had a book on order and had sharpened as many colouring pencils as I could find in my catastrophe of a desk.

When the book arrived, I thumbed through it with a residual sense of guilt: I’m a busy woman, with a fairly high-pressure job, a lot of deadlines and far too many lines to learn in what spare time I can snatch, why on earth had I spent my hard-earned cash on a pursuit I abandoned in middle school?

With my limited artistic capabilities, I settled on a fairly simple picture of a flower as my first engagement with this so-called ‘relaxation technique’ and selected a bright yellow pencil to kick things off.

Two hours later and I was still going, determined to finish my picture. I think I was sort of missing the point: I was getting agitated when I went outside of the lines and spent far too much time trying to choose the right colours and make it as close to perfect as possible.

imageEven so, I wasn’t thinking about the stresses of the day, about impending events or personal dramas. I was thinking about colours and which ones would look best next to each other, which picture I should colour next, which green would best set off that blue…

As a child, I was a perfectionist. As an adult, I am, if possible, even harder on myself about success and failure – anything less than perfect isn’t good enough and I have a habit of pushing myself almost to burnout on a worryingly regular basis. Or so my friends tell me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly normal behaviour!

The beauty of colouring in, of course, is that the colours are hard to erase once they’re down on paper – there’s no sitting in front of a computer screen for hours, adjusting this proposal and that proposal until you’re happy with it. You just have to give it a go and hope you’ve made the right choice; just pick a colour, go for it and damn the uncoordinated consequences!

And thus, there is one more colouring-in convert in the world, shading away her worries in a rainbow of colour. Mission accomplished, colouring book. Mission accomplished.