The Art of Dating

 Hi

A short while ago I posted "Sorry Bettina Klussman" about my very trepid, very tepid  steps back into the dating game, after my wife's recent death and 30+ years of marriage. That was then, and this is now, a whole 3 weeks down the track.  

I haven't slept very well lately, so I thought I'd put some of these ideas down to get some of them out there, so I can process them I guess.  

The whole thing is like I am an atom, and have been locked up in a molecule for a while, and then the molecule gets busted, and I am an individual atom again. Because my chemistry is now different, I now react differently to others, have license to be in different places and situations, and so things have changed.

Firstly I don't seem to have too much trouble meeting eligible partners (mature women in my case) and starting chatting to them is a strange sort of dating game. I'm only just learning the rules, and coming to the conclusion that I'm doing ok by old fashioned methods and not relying on dating apps and other such things. It probably helps that its Christmas and there have been quite a few events on in the last few weeks. I'm optimistic.

Anyway, euphemisms abound in the dating game, and I said to one lady "I wouldn't mind hanging out with you at the bike shed and could teach you some bike mechanics" which actually meant from my point of view "I quite like you, do you want to go out sometime?"

And similarly, a lady I got talking to at a caf had said, "Oh, I might drop in here for brunch over the next few days, I might see you then". Which I think meant the same thing.

Caf's are quite a good thing. Once you start talking, you can skip all the hullabaloo about asking for a first date and pretend you are already on one!

Lastly there is the mobile phone, an essential tool for the aspiring dater. You have to accept whatever form of communication your potential partner wants to use, and sometimes that's a volley of text messages where a simple, shorter phone call (ie actually talking) might do. So recently I was out training on my bike and had to duck under a tree to reduce the light to read and send text messages. (Yes my phone competency is about as good as that of a 6 year old child, maybe worse) But messages got through and we met up and had a good time. So still on trainer wheels with this sort of thing but the training wheels have been oiled.

Best Wishes Steve Nurse