Gone Fishing

Dear Anyone,

After some careful thought and consideration, and encouragement from my life coach, I decided to take a big step out of my comfort zone and join a dating website.......... and I've just come from a 'date' with a guy I met on there.

I joined the site a week and a half ago, and my friend Shar is very happy I have - she's been on there for about a year and she keeps coming back with stories of her various escapades, so I thought I'd give it a try. The guy I met, we'll call him Fisher, is quite cute, he's 20 days older than me, studying for his Masters degree, drives, doesn't live too far and he seems nice enough, but he's not from here (something I'm not used to) and he's pretty quiet like me, so there were gaps in conversation. Just as well the Nandos was delish. Also, he's laying the compliments on a little too strongly at an early stage. He'd already started calling me 'my angel' when we'd been chatting on instant messenger for about a day, and when we sat in his car to talk more after the meal, he actually adjusted his seat so that he could stare at me. I think he was under the impression that something romantic would happen, because he then tried to stroke strands of my hair. Tres uncomfortable. I know some will say that there's no pleasing some women, but it kinda makes me feel like telling him to "calm down son!"

My problem is that I like to get to know new guys gradually. Actually I shouldn't say 'problem', it's just how I am. As much as I would like to be in a relationship, I don't like feeling forced or like it's not flowing naturally. For me, this was more a chance for us to meet more than it was a date. Of course I'm not going to write him off, I'm just going to make sure that if anything is to develop here, it will be at my pace. He wants to see me again, but I told him that I don't know when I'll be free, and that is the truth. I'm off to Birmingham this weekend (hopefully there'll be plenty of stories derived from that trip) and it's Christmas next week, so I really don't know. Though I think I'd rather we chatted on the phone a bit more first. Hmm... we'll see...