Oh God. It's dating season again.

It's that time of year again, when I launch myself on the stormy waters of the dating world. This year I have chosen a new dating site. This one organises singles 'parties' and outings. It's a good idea. I'm going to skip the whole online chat bit and go straight to the source and actually meet people. Hopefully this will get around the whole issue of thinking that I have met someone nice and normal and sane online only to discover that they are not what they pretended to be when we finally meet.

You see, I have decided that the whole internet dating thing does not work. The problem is that people lie so much. They seem perfectly nice online and then when you meet them they are, in my experience, loons. Men who live with their mothers (there have been two of them), men who ask me my marriage plans the first time they meet me, men who can't speak to a woman when they actually meet her. You get the gist of it. It has not been a good experience.

Honestly, I was thinking I wouldn't bother but the other day someone asked when I last kissed anyone and I was ashamed to realise that it was a figure that ended with the word 'years'. This seems like some horrible kind of failure on my part. I mean who, other than career nuns, goes years without kissing anyone (or any of the things that follow kissing for that matter)? I don't miss it particularly but I feel I should try to do something about it. So, here I am, trying.

The big party is on Friday night of this week. It is in a pub some twenty miles away and the idea is that there will be about forty people - even boys and girls - and we have supper and get to meet each other in relaxed circumstances.

I don't feel particularly relaxed about it. I feel like bottling the whole thing and not going. I've paid for my ticket though and I don't have enough money to just throw it away on dinners that I don't go to.

A friend has told me to wear a push up bra, a low cut top, and just go for it. Easier said than done. I want to go and hide in a corner. I can't imagine who else will be there but I won't be surprised if it isn't a lot of men whose favourite reading material is Farmers Weekly and a lot of girls whose make up and hair products will weigh more than the clothes they are wearing. I can't compete with that. I'm not going to miraculously lose a stone by Friday, and I'm not sure I will have time to buy a push up bra by then either.

My life at the moment seems to consist of being in the car for hours on end and packing and unpacking suitcases. I have not had two consecutive days at home for a while now and until next week there is little prospect of that changing. This weekend is the latest nephew's christening. This means that I have Chutney Mary and her children coming to stay with me. As an unofficial OCD sufferer she has already rung me three times to discuss arrangements for this state visit. Naturally, I have done nothing about it at all and will be rushing around in a panic on Friday trying to get ready for their arrival. This leaves even less time for the installation of the push up bra and locating my hairbrush and makeup.

Wish me luck. It's going to be a rough weekend. If I survive the date night, I still have to make it through the Christening weekend and the state visit.

The Cyberman Returns

Some of you may remember the frenzy of excitement in my life when I signed up for yet another dating website and fended off the attentions of deranged duck man, Ali G look a like and other fine specimens of manhood. The only one who I remotely liked (pilot man) had given me his phone number and I actually called it. Three times. None of which he answered or replied to.

This made me feel like a stalker and I was intrigued by the reactions of multiple girl friends who were horrified that I had called three times. They were convinced this made me look desperate and needy. I didn't think three calls was so terrible. My motives were pure:

Call 1 - the usual 'hello, here I am calling you as promised, give me a ring if you want to' type thing.
Call 2 - 'Not sure you got my message so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and here I am if you want to ring me back'
Call 3 - 'Just to let you know that I'm not going to bother doing this again you time waster who led me on to think you liked me when you can't even be bothered to return my calls'

I confess that I was slightly mortified by the entire thing. I didn't think I had done anything too appalling in ringing him, particularly as he instigated the idea, but I put the whole thing behind me and, to be honest, went off the whole internet dating thing a bit.

After all, I'm very used to being single. I have only ever been out with one person and that was for just three months. I am the girl who always ends up as the good friend. I'm not a complete dog, neither am I a blossoming supermodel. I'm just normal looking. I'm pretty self sufficient, I can cook, I have read the odd thing, I know who is Prime Minister both here and in other countries, I earn my own living and on paper that all looks like a reasonable thing. It just doesn't translate into lovers queuing up at my front door. I don't know why not - if I did I expect I would have done something to sort it out by now.

Most of the time it doesn't bother me. In fact there is a definite upside to being single. You can watch what you want on the television, eat what you want when you want. You can stay up reading a book all night wearing your ugliest but most favourite pyjamas. You can fail to shave your legs and nobody will ever know. The list of pros is pretty long. The cons are there too but I try not to think about them as it only leads to depression.

There are times though that I find the arbitrariness (hmm - not sure that's a real word) wildly frustrating. I'll walk down the street and see indifferent looking girls hand in hand with normal looking guys, I see my friends pairing up and breeding for Britain and I don't know why I sit, swinging my legs, on the proverbial shelf. Not knowing how to fix something leads you to making one of two decisions. Sobbing on everybody's shoulder or getting on with life regardless. I chose the latter. Apart from anything, when I sob a lot I don't look pretty doing it. I am a snotty, red nosed, red eyed mess. I've never mastered the art of a single tear trickling gracefully out from a waterproof mascaraed eye. Maybe that's my problem?

Anyway, back to the cyberman. It must be nearly 4 1/2 months since the stalker incident and I have never heard anything from Pilot Man again. His subscription to the website had expired and I had pretty much given up on him. Then yesterday, the website sent me an email saying that there was a message from him.

It was a nice message. He apologised for never returning my calls and said he wanted to ring me but felt he had to check in case I hated him for snubbing me. He's going to ring me today, around five pm I think. I now have butterflies in my stomach and am wondering if I should go and shave my legs before he rings.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. Maybe the tide is turning.