John Jones: Learning to be happily single before you start dating

by John Jones
Dating Blogger
Tuesday, 24th May 2011

If there’s one thing I’ve learned while hovering in the extremities of the dating field for the last couple of months it’s this: If you do truly want to find a partner and start a relationship, then be happily single.

It sounds paradoxical, I’m aware, but prospective partners can smell desperation a mile off. The best chance of finding a date is by entering the dating field with a genuine indifference - but this is easier said than done.

Hollywood has brought us up well: we’re all secretly waiting for the moment when that one person comes along and the ground starts shaking like you’re pogo jumping on a fault line. You’ll stare into their eyes and that’ll be it: lock meets key and it’s decided in that very moment. Soul mates. Life partners. Job done.

Translate this desire into the modern dating scene, however, and the Hollywood vision becomes a little more blurred. I used to be this kind of optimist, staring across the table seeking that moment with life-changing intensity. As it turns out, however, trying to procure such a monumental moment out of thin air just ends up alienating any prospective dates: you’re thinking ‘Love Actually’, they’re thinking ‘Where did I put my mace?’

So the way forward is to play it coy, to act cavalier. It’s insincere, I suppose, but at least this way girls can get to know a genuine person (capable of speaking actual, human, words) rather than a man who looks lovestruck enough to be an extra in a Damien Rice video.

But please don’t imagine me here as a dating guru, sitting on a Tibetan mountain dishing out my hallowed words of wisdom. I’ve had some terrible dates in my time, horrendous even. Don’t ask me how I managed it, but I started a relationship with an American girl (yep, an actual, human woman) when I was 18. The relationship lasted 3 years, and then we both decided to call it a day. It was amicable, but a feigned smile made singledom no less painful.

So I decided that I’d stay away from relationships for a while.

It was one of those moments that seemed metamorphic at the time, but when I look back at it now seems just a little bit silly. I’m not one for one-night stands either, so it was essentially a decision to tie off the primal urges. Don’t get me wrong: there might have been the odd drunken kiss and fumble here and there, but for the most part I was independent.

But now it’s time to jump back in, and I might as well risk my luck at the deep end.

I’ve started going on dates again over the past few months, but now I’m looking to find out what I’ve been missing by trying everything from the regular (speed dating, blind dating, online dating) to the more surreal (lock and key parties, drunkenly sprinting through the lurid depths of Soho, even dipping my car keys into a punch bowl perhaps?). I’ll try my best to be the mid-way point between an emotive Carrie Bradshaw (reluctantly chipping away at her failures) and an eager Louis Theroux, awkwardly standing at the back of the orgy with his wry smile.

Wish me luck.

topic tags: attraction, first date, first move, flirting, relationships

share your thoughts...

related articles

about the author

John Jones is to dating what Jedward are to the world of music - despite being painfully keen to impress the women of the London suburbs, deep down he's aware that it's all bound to end in failure. Purile and misanthropic to the core, this Charlie Brooker wannabe won't stop until he's trawled the best and worst corners of the London dating scene, hopefully meeting that special lady along the way (you know the one – the girl with the Irish accent, celestial beauty, insatiable sex drive and love of fajitas).

see also...

• Latest dating news and advice
• Find dating events near you...
• Compare the best online dating sites