Online dating: the real struggle of 2020

Bumble, Tinder, Hinge - all words that made me cringe so hard that I felt like folding in on myself! Who would've thought that those three little words could provide so much entertainment and, above all, anxiety.

Trawling back through the memories of my love-life is a somewhat short journey though not without it's fair share of drama.

My primary school crush certainly set the tone for my first few romantic encounters throughout my teenage years. My childhood self was absolutely besotted with George Benson, in my eyes, we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. Safe to say he never laid an eye on me. Who can blame him? As a child I was very much, what the English might call, a boffin. Not the greasy type however, but if I didn't have my head in a book, I had my head in a book, if you see what I mean.

After the tragic heartbreak I suffered from this harrowing unrequited love, I swiftly moved forward onto the classic 'Teacher crush'. History was never my forte but my grades quickly improved in a desperate attempt to impress my teacher and make him fall in love with me. Another unsuccessful attempt.

Why had I had such bad luck to this point I was not sure - I considered myself, and still do consider myself, an absolute catch! I have relatively good genes in my favour as well as a cracking personality (if I do say so myself) and my range of interests always keeps things interesting. Perhaps it was due to my buried abandonment issues that meant I was always too scared to pursue anything serious in fear that I would end up alone, or perhaps I was, in fact, a loser, destined to be alone forever (though I am sure we can all admit that the latter is much less likely). Either way, I didn't let my lack of success in my teenage love-life hold me back in daydreaming about meeting the man of my dreams. He is still out there somewhere, probably doing charity work in a refugee camp whilst simultaneously pursuing his, oh so modest, modelling career or working as an animal rights lawyer and dabbling in acting jobs on the weekend - guys like that do exist right?!

I am now 26 years old! A four-year relationship kept me out of the dating game for a while, but I decided it was no longer healthy for me to stay in my long distance relationship and I found myself single! How does one simply jump back into dating after such a long time?! The question that I couldn't answer for the life of me. Of course, I had heard of all these apps before, but I much preferred meeting people in person, by chance, and I wasn't tempted by the failed efforts at romance and the horror stories of tinder that my friends had told me about. However, I was determined then, more than ever, to get back on the boat and find Mr. Right and I was sure he was waiting for me to stumble upon his Bumble profile on some lonely Saturday night so that we could ride off into the sunset together.

Watch this space to hear about all of my dating adventures, through the covid19 lockdown and onwards - we will travel together on my journey of meeting new men and the delights that online dating brings (please note this should be read in a sarcastic tone!). First dates, the games of whatsapp messaging and the endless swiping left and right - I promise you won't be disappointed.