In this weekly feature, Her.ie goes behind enemy lines to see what it’s really like to be single in Ireland.
From speed dating to making speedy escapes, our no-holds-barred blog will follow our attempts to venture into the dating jungle, play the field and share any wisdom that we finds along the way.
We want to hear your stories! Send your dating tales to hello@her.ie or Tweet us @herdotie with the #shiftyfirstdates.
Week Twenty-One: Love Is Blind... Or Is It?
Last week, we talked about the importance of a good first date.
That first hurdle is the trickiest to get over and can see what had looked like an interesting prospect turn into an unmitigated dating disaster.
A little while ago, I filled you in on a very good first date that I had. The guy, whom I had met on Tinder, brought me to Phoenix Park where we played with his gorgeous dog, got burritos and sang along to Journey on the way home. Sounds pretty epic, right?
Well it was and before long, we arrived at the crucial Date Three, aka the sleepover.
At this point, I should admit that I had my reservations as the man in question definitely fell into the category of what my friends scathing refer to as 'my type': namely, a 'bad boy' with a very loose job description, no concrete plans for the future and a slightly 'rustic' dress sense.
But when he arrived with wine and chocolate, all my doubts were put to the back of my mind and we sat through a few episodes of
True Detective while we had a chat about what we had been up to.
I left the room and returned to find my date for the night casually smoking a joint without so much as a "will I open a window?" first. Being a fairly open-minded lady, I decided to forgive his rudeness and the night continued without incident.
The following morning, I had to head to work and he chivalrously offered to drive me, an offer which I gladly accepted.
However, no sooner had the key turned in the ignition than my chaffeur had lit up another of his favourite smokes, which he continued to puff away on as he drove through the city.
Yep. 10am. On a Monday morning.
Convinced I was about to get the sack for turning up at the office smelling like I had been hanging with Snoop Dogg, I hopped out at the traffic lights, made my excuses and deleted his number from my phone.
Maybe I've outgrown my rebel phase after all.
Since we started this blog, we've received a huge amount of stories from our readers on the advantages and pitfalls of online dating and one of the main criticisms of apps like Tinder is that they is "too superficial", especially when compared to other dating sites that ask users to complete a profile rather than simply posting a photo.
While we may like to think we are above judging someone solely on their looks, generally using that old chestnut 'he just wasn't my type' rather than 'he just wasn't much of a looker', a new study by dating site OkCupid claims to have proved that we're all a lot more shallow than we think.
The company recently conducted an experiment whereby it removed all photos from their main site for seven hours. It then compared the statistics to a normal day and discovered people responded to messages 44 per cent more often, conversations went deeper and phone numbers or emails were exchanged quicker.
When the photos were restored at 4PM, 2,200 people were in the middle of conversations that had started “blind” and according to Ok Cupid, "those conversations melted away".
"The goodness was gone, in fact worse than gone. It was like we’d turned on the bright lights at the bar at midnight," said a spokesperson.
So turns out that love isn't quite blind after all and we're all a big bunch of superficial eejits.
Ok Cupid also launched a 'blind dating' app a while back so they decided to have a look through the feedback of those who had used it.
Surprisingly, they found that once women got to the date, they had a good time regardless of how good-looking their partner was.
In fact, they found that "having a better-looking blind date made women slightly less happy. My operating theory is that hotter guys were assholes more often".
Curious as to how much difference users' long and carefully written profile made, they conducted another experiment and messed around with people's heads a bit further by deleting the text on a small number of profiles. Ready for the bad news? It makes very, very little difference.
Turns out, the photo is the only thing that counts.
Now, if you'll excuse us, we have a super sexy selfie to take...
