About a year after my ex-Husband left, I decided to join a dating website. This was after some considerable encouragement from some dear girlfriends and the loss of quite a bit of weight. I was feeling pretty good about myself and had a couple of decent photographs taken at a friend’s wedding so I thought it was time to take the plunge.
Obviously, an initial concern was that at what point does it become acceptable to tell a new man about being a high functioning nutter but I thought I had to get to that stage first so decided to dip my toe into the pond. More on that later.
I joined a site, uploaded the best photos of me I could find and filled out my profile. I was out there in the mad world of internet dating inevitably going to be judged and ready to put all my insecurities on the line to have them tapped into to within an inch of my life! Quite frankly, I thought it was pretty ballsy of me just to complete the profile and give it a go.
Initially I was inundated with profile views and “winks”. Straight away, my self-confidence was boosted and then I thought to myself well, I’m bound to get a reaction to start off with because I’m technically fresh meat out there. I checked out some of the profiles of people who had checked me out and winked at me. I filtered a lot of them out straight away. They were honest on their profiles in saying they were just looking for fun and friendship whereas I want the whole package. It doesn’t have to end in marriage (been there, done that) but I do want a committed relationship. There were a few left (even though some I’d filtered out were seriously cute) so I grabbed the bull by the horns and messaged them. That is where the real fun began.
I had read their profiles and it appeared that we had similar interests, even down to the favourite films being Star Wars and action films. We appeared to share a love of sports. Obviously, being a Luton Town Supporter, some were filtered out straight away if they were either Millwall or Watford fans! I’d never live that down in my family. So, the first tentative messages were sent out. It was all very basic stuff to start off with, “how are you finding this crazy world of internet dating?” “what do you do for a living?” “how do you like spending your free time?” All very normal. After a little while of messaging each other via the website, I dipped my toe in a little further and gave a couple of them my mobile number so that we could chat on WhatsApp.
There was one named Dean. We had done the messaging via the site and moved onto WhatsApp. Literally, within five minutes of giving him my mobile number to message on WhatsApp, Dean sent me a picture of genitals! He is now forever known as “Dick Pic Dean”. Getting that picture shocked the living daylights out of me. I was not expecting that at all. I was completely caught off guard. It can really put a girl off her toast and Marmite in the morning.
He then proceeded to send further pictures telling me that was the result of him thinking about me. Really? Go away. I don’t need to see this. After nearly choking on my toast and Marmite, I sent him a message saying that I didn’t think that it was appropriate to send such pictures when we didn’t really know each other and we hadn’t even met. He then proceeded to get the hump with me because I wouldn’t send him intimate pictures of me! Jog on mate. I was married and Dave didn’t have an intimate picture of me so why would I send one to someone I don’t know! What a complete moron. I was absolutely mortified at first but now I find it very funny.
I find it funny because although Dick Pic Dean was the first, he certainly hasn’t been the last to send private pictures. This was an obstacle in the dating world that I was not expecting at all. There was me worrying about how to approach the subject of mental health issues with a potential new partner and I get presented with Dick Pic Dean! It certainly woke me up to 21st Century internet dating and the fact that I was certainly worrying too much about the mental health issues side. More importantly, I had to add an extra category into my filtering process that being sending and/or requesting intimate photographs. This dating lark was going to be and is a minefield!
There will be further stories on first date disasters and when is it appropriate to tell someone that you’re nuts!
Living The BPD Life 