Upfront therapy on BBC Merseyside

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Back on the airwaves of BBC Radio Merseyside discussing topics of the heart.

From how much to share with your partner to a critical deconstruction of my love life, its all on BBC Merseyside (1hour 10mins in). Some how we turned from me telling/blaming the ladies of upfront about how I paid when I should have gone dutch into a live therapy session! Interesting being called a serial dater again and again. Of course thats a debate in its self… Who knows maybe we’ll go into that topic one day?

As usual its funny and good Sunday night entertainment which you can catch up on for 7 more days.

There’s a archive copy here too once the 7 days pass.

When to take a break from online dating

Online Dating. Oh Yeah.

Northen Lass 32 spilled the beans and part of her heart out in her latest article.

A few months down the line, it hasn’t worked out with Mr Facestalk and I. Sadly it seems our paths are not aligned and our future selves wanted different stuff. Rather than crying onto my laptop, which I’ve done in the past – straight onto the trackpad, sending the mouse on an independent clicking frenzy powered by nothing but my salty misery. No, I can’t afford to replace that again. So I’ll simply turn to the wise words uttered by the oracles that are Orbital in their 1990s dance classic Satan: “It’s better to regret something you have done, than something you haven’t” How deep is that for a 90s rave tune?!

Deep enough I would say. The problem Northen Lass has besides the wicked tunes (don’t ever knock rave) is this…

Dating becomes less about getting to know one person properly, and more about dating the shit out of a 40-mile radius of your postcode, resulting in serial daters, on sites for years in a continuous state of “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE NEXT ONE?!”. It may not have been why they initially signed up, but the overwhelming urge to act like a kid in a sweetshop prevails and the paradox of choice sets in.

And just how do you choose who to date? How do you filter out those not suitable, ending up with your dream human? You know the one, the one that farts butterflies and rides a unicorn to work? With help from the website’s compatibility robot, it could be easy to discount someone you could really get on with based on some fairly superficial filtering options – and start to develop expectations of the perfect match a little outside the bounds of reality and good old chemistry.

We all go through it, start dating someone who really care for and invest heavily in. Maybe even introduce them to friends and family, you meet there friends and family. Its all looking good. Then… it all goes to pot, something happens and before you know whats hit you, its that awkward conversation about breaking up, and as I once said breaking up is hard to do.

Some think you got to jump back on the horse… I think not, grief comes in 5 stages. Each can blind you from what your trying to do. Aka find a partner who you will love and they will love you.

The moment you see the whole thing as a sweetshop, your not thinking correctly about this. Heck even if you do pick someone, you may end up picking that person for the wrong reasons. There’s been a lot said about rebounding and a lot of it is true.

Like I said the first time I saw her post

Chill and take your time, stop rushing and just let things wash over you as interesting experiences

Another reason for non-subscription online dating, but more to the point. When your ready, go for it.

I do wonder if online dating does contribute to that paradox of choice and illusion of the greener field beyond the gate. Wait didn’t I write a blog post about this? Oh yes…

On the side, I’ll be on BBC Merseyside again with Northern Lass talking about the issue of how much you share with someone your dating at what stage. This may become part of a single black male piece soon.