My very first blog post: An intro into my dating life

So I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a blog for a while now, I guess I’ve probably been asking myself the same question that anyone who first starts a blog thinks: why would anyone read this? Who actually cares about what’s going on in my life or my opinion on anything in particular? I’m nothing special, I’m no different to the millions of other women in London, but I’m hoping my posts will inspire thought, laughter and hopefully some form of conversation!

I don’t want to limit myself to writing about one particular topic, but at the same time I know people like themes, so I’ve decided to narrow down my topics to dating in the modern world, exploring London (I can’t sit still, especially when the sun’s out, I love exploring!), there may be the odd rant thrown in about anything that has hit a cord (don’t worry it doesn’t happen too often). Like the majority of people in London, I love eating out, specifically burgers. I want to create a burger map of all the best places in London, I’ve made my way through a fair few brioche buns already so I will be sharing my favourites (and one’s to avoid) – if anyone has any recommendations, feel free to throw them my way!

Now a little bit about me: my name is Giulia (pronounced Julia), I’ve been called all sorts over the years ranging from Gweelia, Giyulia and Geelia. Growing up I hated having a name that was so easy to have the piss taken out of me for, it went down a treat with primary school bullies! But now I’ve grown to embrace it, and found that it actually makes for a good conversation starter – especially on dates – the spelling originates from Italy (Sicily) where I am coincidentally from. Before you ask – no my father isn’t in the mafia, he’s English. But my mother is. That was a joke. Kind of. Anyway, where was I? I’ve just turned 25 and feel as though I’ve turned 55. Last night I was in a bar in Balham and made friends with a 19 year old girl. When I told her how old I was she said, ‘oh my god, you don’t look it, you look so young!’ I wanted to scream back in her face, ‘THAT’S BECAUSE IM STILL BLOODY YOUNG YOU CHILD!’ but instead I smiled sweetly and thanked her for the backward compliment.

I work in digital marketing which is a pretty sweet space to work in, and as I’m a geek at heart I love all the nerdy talk. One of my zillions of resolutions this year is to teach myself to code. I started last year when I first moved to London (I’ve only been here for a year, after leaving Italy when I was 7 I moved to the mystical place known as the Wirral, but that’s a story for another time), well I technically moved to Surrey to my parents new house. I didn’t do anything after work so I’d come home from work, watch an episode of Game of Thrones and then spend the rest of the evening teaching myself HTML and CSS. 6 weeks later I moved to London and actually got a life and the love for coding slowly disappeared but I’m determined to bring it back!

I don’t really know how long a blog post should be, I feel like I’m whittling on quite a bit, but I guess that’s the whole point of a blog really? Anyway, I wanted to start with a small intro to my dating life, which is probably best described as a landslide, with the occasional bump into a tree. Interpret that how you will. I had two long term boyfriends from the ages of 15-22 and after that my dating life has been disastrous to say the least. But I figured I could turn the disastrous times into entertaining tales for others to enjoy, admittedly at my expense, but hey, I’m nice like that. Plus it will hopefully help me see the funny side of it.

So the first story I will share with you: a date I went on last Sunday. I don’t normally do day time dates, especially for a first date. I find them awkward enough without having to sit opposite someone in bright daylight instead of a dimly lit bar, but then maybe that is where I am going wrong. Who knows. This guy was from Bumble ( which for those of you that don’t know, is a dating app) – I can’t actually remember what it’s like to date someone you’ve met in real life – I’ve decided to stick with Bumble for now, the calibre of men is distinctly higher than Tinder which seems to be arife with chavs. I start all of my dates with a couple of drinks as I get ready, I don’t know why I get so nervous, but it helps calm me and not want to run in the opposite direction of my date when I see them. For this particular date I was at my parent’s house, so I had to be nifty in how I had these predrinks. I ended up buying some gin and tonics from the train station and pouring them into a Buxton water bottle. Half an hour before my date arrived to pick me up, I sat at the kitchen table with my parents, listening to them tell me how proud they were that I was turning up sober to a date (I swear I’m not an alcoholic). Meanwhile I sat grinning like a Cheshire cat as I sipped my gin from my water bottle. I sincerely hope my parents never read this.

Let’s call this guy Thomas, he was tallish, but not taller than me in heels (I’m 5ft 8) which for some stupid reason I had decided to wear. So as soon as we sat down to eat in a cute quaint pub in Surrey, he said he felt demasculinated that I was taller than him, which obviously made me feel very masculinated and I spent the rest of the date trying my best to slouch as much as possible without looking like I was going to fall off my chair.

I don’t really have a criteria for what I look for in a guy, generally someone that makes me laugh and is easy to get along with and has some common ground with me. My only non negotiable is height. There is no way I would ever fall in love with a guy that was shorter than me, no matter how perfect he was. This guy was nice enough, he seemed quite sweet and very open ( he even shared the fact he suffers from delayed ejaculation, which thankfully due to the copious amounts of red wine I had drank wasn’t too awkward).  We didn’t really have too much in common, his job involved manual labour and he didn’t really know anything about the digital world, or Game of Thrones ( not a total deal breaker, but they have to at least show some willingness to watch the show, and this guy most definitely did not).

He said I came across as cool and as though I had dated a lot, I’m not sure if that was meant as a compliment or a sly dig, but I took it as a compliment. He was sufficiently sweet, but for me there was no real chemistry as so often happens when I meet a guy from these doomed apps and base my decision purely on whether they look outgoing and tall in their photographs and don’t have a cheesy/sleazy tagline. He paid for dinner and drove me to the train station, we had a niceish kiss and he text me as soon as I was on the train.

All sounds good and well right? It was for a few days after, we had planned a second date for later that week, but before the week was over it was yet another case of things fizzling out. I’d had a very busy week in work, in and out of workshops and not really having much access to my phone. He took my silence as me not being interested, and decided he had ‘cold feet’ because I apparently wasn’t interested.

Now I have two comments to make on this: 1) COLD FEET FROM WHAT? A second bloody date? He said he’d been single for 5 years and I could completely understand why now. 2) Since when did guys start to become as needy as girls? I can never get the mix right. I either text too often and the guy thinks I’m overly keen, or I don’t text enough and the guy thinks I’ve lost interest. What’s the happy medium? Is there a rule I should be following? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Over and out,

G x x