Online Dating

Things That Make You Go… No.

Posted on by seriouslysingleinsyd

I was perusing Plenty of Fish (POF) again the other night. I know I’ve said it before, but it is hands down the worst online dating site. Why do I continue to look there? It is also often the most amusing.

I receive a message from a new guy so I check out his profile and notice that he only has one pic up. I’m usually immediately deterred by that, but I was intrigued by his beard and hairy chest as I have a weakness for the manly man. In hindsight his moustache is a little creepy though….

We get chatting and it’s mostly about food, particularly a shared passion for burgers. Well, well, well, I think we are going to get along just fine…

It’s getting late but he asks if he can call me as he is feeling ‘too lazy to type’. Uh huh. I don’t really want to give him my number just yet, so I say goodnight and leave it at that.

He messages first thing in the morning and is keen to chat again, but I’m keen to actually see a pic of him before going any further. I ask him to upload another pic to his profile. It’s amazing how a sexy shirtless, bearded, hairy chest man can suddenly turn into this…

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I’m out. Stupid hat.

I sent the first pic to my friend Mr B and he replies “No face? No Nipple?” I then send the second pic and his response is “Oh that’s so depressing”.

YES!!! He knew he was leading me on with Mr Sexy before revealing Mr Goofy.

New dating rule. Always ask to see face AND to see nipple within 10 messages or less!

Ok, maybe not. But it would feel right at home amongst my list of other random criteria that leads to a yes or no decision when I’m online dating. Other highlights include:

Dumb Face – Just like some women suffer from ‘bitchy resting face’, many men seem to possess ‘duh yep’ face.

Creepy Face – I once worked with someone that was a bit of a weird character and when I told another colleague that they had left, that person said “fuck I’m glad he is gone. He looked like the type that you would go around to his house and there would be ears in his freezer”. Many, many men on Tinder look like ear collectors….

Bad Teeth – I know many a supermodel has made a career with gappy teeth, but I just can’t do it. Nor missing teeth, rabbit teeth, tiny teeth, no teeth…

Short Head – I think I have perfected predicting a man’s height by the size of his head to about a 96.48% accuracy rate. Yes, most probably think head size is not proportional to height. I disagree.

Reflective Clothing – Yes I know, I know….so judgey.

Smokers – I love when smokers include a pic of them flamboyantly sucking on a ciggie or blowing smoke which they obviously think makes them look très cool. No, it doesn’t. Glad we sorted that out early. Swipe left. This also includes the occasional/social, trying to quit smokers. Who do you think you’re kidding?

Lazy Typers – There is absolutely no excuse for typing ‘u’ for ‘you’ anymore. None. Nada. Ok, maybe if you are still using a Nokia 5110 and have to press the 7 key 18 times to get the u. Actually then I wouldn’t date him either as he clearly is a tight ass with tech…

Kids – Firstly I don’t want to date someone with kids, but even so I find it a bit wrong to be including pics of kids in dating profiles for the world to see. Good parenting there…

Outside 15km – As if my soulmate would live that far away. Seriously. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Ok I lie, I usually only search 10km….

Gamers – No. You’re an adult. Stop it. Now.

Motorbikes – Hate them. I once had a very, very embarrassing experience with one whilst on holiday. Never doubling on one again. Plus guys that ride bikes are a different breed I find.

Car Unenthusiasts – Yep, I’m making that a word. If a guy refers to cars as ‘just something to get from A to B’, I’m out. Irreconcilable differences.

Unusual Spelling of a Traditional Name – Ok it’s not their fault i know, but I can’t marry a redneck…

Vegetarians – One word. Bacon.

Non Drinkers – I fear they would be appalled by how much time I spend in the bath drinking wine. And how much wine…

Camping – It’s just dumb.

My Game of 1-100

Posted on by seriouslysingleinsyd

I have a theory that the men that display bad dating behaviour, you know, things like planning a second or third date with you but ghosting before it happens, do so because they have so much choice. They can easily and quickly meet women near them via Tinder and you can be supposedly ‘upgraded’ and cast aside before you know it.

It’s definitely due to the man drought. Yes, there is a statistically proven man drought in Sydney where women in their 30’s outnumber men, but that’s just accounting for quantity. Compounding the drought impact is that the men that we do have access to are largely of the quality that you wouldn’t even take an Uber ride with, let alone go on a date with.

I never hear anyone say “oh I have this single guy friend who is so smart and nice looking, so funny, has his shit together, wants to meet a nice girl, but just can’t find one”. NEVER. But you hear it all the time about great women looking for a nice guy and I know a number of them!

I’ve met a lot them whilst doing things like speed dating, via this blog and even through Tinder. Yes, the strategist in me decided one day to check out the women on Tinder to see what my competition was like and I ended up befriending a girl. Sure there are a lot of train wreck duds on there, but there seems to be A LOT of quality women too. Dang it…

It appeared that men have an abundance of good options at their disposal if they just take a little time swiping through the occasional lady dud. I assume guys would have a high swipe right strike rate, perhaps they are even at risk of RSI, but I estimated that I swipe right less than 2% of the time.

So when I restarted my Tinder account to find Mike, I decided to put it to the test and play the 1-100 game from Sex and City. In the ep Carrie and Charlotte are sitting at a table outside a cafe and for every man they see walk past, they note down whether they would want to sleep with him based on first impressions.

As I swiped though the Tinder profiles, I screen shotted each of the men and decided based on their first pic only if I would swipe right or not to them. It took less than 15 minutes to get through 100 profiles (those in the pic, blurred for some privacy…) and I was quite surprised by the result.

Out of those 100 men, if I only got to see that one pic I would have swiped right to 14. Maybe Tinder was serving up the most popular profiles because it thought I was a newbie and needed to be wowed, but I was really surprised by liking 14% of the guys.

Of course, although first impressions are a strong factor in dating, it is not everything. I’m not shallow enough / I’m far too picky to make life decisions on just one pic. In fact, if a guy only has one pic I swipe left as I assume that they randomly nailed that one hot pic and they look nothing like that photo. Maybe I have trust issues….

Of those 14 guys, after further investigation into the rest of their profile only 6 continued to hold my interest. I matched with 5 of those 6, but 2 never bothered chatting, 1 was too short, 1 had kids, the last was boring as shit.

From 14 to 0 in record time. The drought continues….

Zero to D*** Pic in 15 minutes

Posted on by seriouslysingleinsyd

I caught up with Ms S for lunch last week and after updating her on my recent dates, she told me about her friend who is also busy perusing the delightful men on Tinder and how their profiles can be quite ummm….surprising.

Yes surprising. You can just be going about your business thinking he has a big head, swipe left. He has a little head, must be short, swipe left. OMG that is not his head. Well not the one on his shoulders…

But I must say that I have not encountered a dick pic (DP) whilst swiping on Tinder for quite some time. I’m not really complaining, but I do wonder why they have disappeared?

When I first started on Tinder they were quite prolific. Some were more discreet than others. The first pic might be a nice pic of the guy’s face so you stop and look at his other pics. Oh he is wearing a suit in pic 2, very nice. Oh he has a puppy in pic 3, sweet. Then bam, pic 4 is his dick. I wonder if he is DTF? Perhaps I should ask…

Anyhoo, Ms S reminded me of when at her birthday drinks last year I was sharing tales of being a single lady with the coupled up ladies. I showed them a pic a ‘gentleman’ happened to send me that week. In hindsight, it was a very ummm….substantial example of a DP and I never investigated it further, so it may have been a fake…

The group were shocked at how shameless the guy was and when I mentioned how frequently DPs appeared either on profiles or in conversation with a guy, they set me a challenge of getting a new one that night. I said I could do it within 15 mins.

Start the clock!!

I swiped right to some new guys quite indiscrimnately and contacted a few of the matches with suggestive greetings. One took the bait quickly and was out and about in the area and obviously looking for a friend that evening. After a couple of playful messages I flat out asked for a DP. He said he would be happy to oblige and would send it to my phone.

Mission accomplished. Within FIVE minutes.

Of course my phone got passed around so everyone could have a good look. We did feel a little bad for him, so to make him feel better about himself (and because we were tiddly…) we took a photo to return the favour.

Of the group of us ladies each giving him the V sign with tongue…..

I wonder why guys have become shy lately?!

Return of the Mike

Posted on by seriouslysingleinsyd

Remember Mike? The missing potentially eligible bachelor? A couple of weeks ago as I was rapidly flicking through Tinder, I saw a familiar face flash across my screen. As often happens when you have swiped left 86 times in a row, it is very hard to stop the momentum.

So his profile was gone. Again. Forever….

Ok maybe not. I wasn’t talking to anyone interesting in my matches chat window and curiosity about Mike got the better of me. I restarted my Tinder profile and got back to swiping, but a little more cautiously than before.

It took a good few days of on and off swiping through likely a thousand or more guys, but I eventually saw his profile again.

When I was first talking to Mike he had one profile pic up. We were exchanging phone numbers to line up a meet, but I would have needed to see more than one pic before I decided to do that of course. I’m still scarred from all those bad teeth incidents…..

Anyhoo, his profile now had three pics. And the two new ones were bad. Very bad. In one he was wearing sunglasses. Yes, this is very common with online dating as most people look hot in sunglasses. Most, but not all…

But these were little John Lennon type glasses. So bad. So very bad. Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I’m out.

Before I swiped left I noticed something else didn’t look quite right. I thought he was in his late 30’s when we were last talking, but his profile now says he is 42. I check back to my original blog post about him and his profile last time said he was 38. My post was 6 months ago, not 4 years!

Someone commented on the blog post at the time that they thought he sounded dodgy by the way he was randomly on and off tinder. They suggested he was probably married and couldn’t linger on there for fear of getting caught. Perhaps they were right?!?

Or was I about to be catfished by ‘Mike’? Hmmmm that would have made for a more interesting blog post I guess…

Bon Voyage

Posted on by seriouslysingleinsyd

I was left feeling quite disappointed after date 2 with the Very Cheeky Englishman. Finally a man that I liked (so far, it was very early days…) and who seemed really into me, but he was soon to disappear. What kind of luck is that?! Yet another case of my bad timing with men.

It did raise a lot of questions for me though. Why did his online profile seem to indicate that he was looking for a relationship, but he is about to head overseas for a while? Why did he not tell me that his departure was imminent before we met in person? Or even on our first date? Or to my face on our second date rather than txt bombing me?

Was this why he was so rushed to see me again? Was he really looking to date, or just to seal the deal before he went away? If so, why did he agree to a very non-sex type of date being a weekday lunch? Is his gentleman-like charm genuine, or just an act for a short lived romance before he leaves? Is he leaving at all, or is it just a ruse to expedite some action?

Oh, I don’t know. If I have learned anything from dating it is that men are generally skittish like birds. They are so unpredictable that there is no point agonising over things they do and say until you really know them and you can establish some consistency to their behaviour.

I considered not seeing him again before he left and waiting until he returned (if he did). I actually told him I felt unsure of how genuine he was seeing he didn’t tell me he was leaving until now. His response was that he told me because he liked and respected me and wanted to tell me before things became more involved, but he is definitely coming back so still thought it was worthwhile us starting to date. He also said that if he didn’t care about me at all, he could have omitted the fact he was leaving from our next date and just disappear. Fair point I guess…

But in the end, I knew that I enjoyed his company, that I was crazy attracted to him and that we definitely had chemistry together which so rarely happens, so I decided to just go with it.

The only time our schedules lined up for the weekend was Sunday lunch. He came to pick me up and we went to the nearby rowers club for lunch by the water. He was dressed casually (unfortunately no suit…) but he still looked great.

We eat and have a lovely time, but I certainly feel like I’m acting with some restraint knowing that whatever happens between us is about to be put on pause for a few months. But having said that, under normal circumstances I would have the same restraint anyway. By date 3 I’m not welcoming deep and meaningful conversations about our future together. I’m not thinking about our labrador’s name and side-by-side burial plots. I’m more focused on deciding if I’m having a good time with him, then eventually (approximately date 27….) it will become clear if there is enough between us to really be with him.

Unless I happen to be dating the Bondi Vet. In that instance I’d be snaffling him up off the market toots sweet…

Anyhoo, it’s not a great day weather wise and its getting cold at the club, so we head back to my place for some more wine and to watch a movie. When we get home, he takes his shoes off and I can’t help but notice that they seem like small shoes. Yep, he is definitely only 5’9″ I think at the time, but I refrain from measuring him…

Eventually it is time for him to leave and we don’t really talk about the fact we won’t see each other for a while. Best to leave it on a high note.

We exchange some txts before he leaves and since he has been gone (a bit over a month now) we have been emailing each other every few days. The emails are mostly light and flirty, but he doesn’t have a definite return date as yet. I’m of course not waiting around for him and am continuing to date whilst he is gone, but I would be keen to see him again when (if) he returns – if he is actually even away!

Damn He Looks Good in a Suit…

Posted on by seriouslysingleinsyd

The morning after my first date with the Very Cheeky Englishman he is keen to line up date #2. It’s Wednesday and I have a few things on the following nights, so I suggest a date on the weekend.

He says he’ll take it, but it’s too far away and he’d like to see me before then. He asks if I’m free for lunch on the Thursday. I’m not working at the moment, so a weekday lunch date sounded good.

He asks me to meet him in his suburb outside of a hotel, for ease of meeting only but he of course makes the obligatory joke about having booked us a room.

I arrive before him and have the usual ‘will I actually remember what he looks like’ paranoia. But then he appears wearing a blue suit and aviators and he was rocking them both.

Rocking them hard. It was kind of a ‘take my breath away’ moment when I saw him. WTF. How drunk was I on our first date for me to have not noticed how hot he is?!?

He wasn’t in a suit on date 1 though. Mental note, I must think of ways to always get him to wear a suit when I see him. Always. 

He kisses me hello and suggests that we find somewhere to eat on the strip overlooking the beach and takes my hand as we walk off.

As we are walking I again notice the height difference, but I had intentionally worn flats today to suss the situation out. I think he may be 5’9″, but I’m too distracted by the suit hotness to worry about it right now…

We find a restaurant that looks nice and take a seat outside. He is being all sweet and lovely and telling me he loves my eyes and trying to hold my hand across the table. I am feeling strangely awkward for a second date, maybe because he seems so much hotter today and I find myself sitting uncomfortably, often with my arms crossed. He playfully accuses me of throwing bad body language at him, thus being ‘unromantic’ and that I date ‘like a man’, but assures me that he has enough of a romantic side to play the part for both of us.

Which sounds really naff doesn’t it?!? But he is quite a masculine man so I’m actually not put off by it.

At the end of the meal he again refuses to let me pay and we have about 30 mins before he has to head off to a meeting, so we take a walk along the path alongside the beach.

As we walk I find myself slouching a little so I don’t feel so much like a giraffe next to him. The height thing will likely become a problem soon, but for now I’m feeling quite attracted to him, so I’ll let it slide…

We eventually end up where I’ve parked my car. We have discussed the car at length (because it’s the love of my life and his current competition) and he asks to take a look at it. I know he isn’t terribly into cars and he has also told me that he thinks only drug dealers drive white sports cars, so this was obviously was just a ploy to get in the car and pash like teenagers.

But I wasn’t complaining. Once inside he takes off the aviators and I notice that his eyes are a gorgeous colour. Green outside the iris, but they seem to blend into blue on the outer rim.

When time is up and he must head off to his meeting, he tells me that he can’t wait to see me on the weekend and jumps out of the car. I watch him walk away in the rear view mirror, damn I like him in a suit…

Before I drive off he has already sent me a txt. It starts off telling me how much he likes me, but then follows on that we’ve met at the worst time as he has to go home to the UK in a few days to attend to his business there for a couple of months.

Fuck.

The Very Cheeky Englishman

Posted on by seriouslysingleinsyd

Of all the dating sites that I have tried, POF is certainly the worst. I’ve looked at it a few times and have always found that most of the guys can barely string a sentence together. But my friend Ms A was using it and convinced me to give it another look in.

Scrolling through the masses of degenerates someone catches my eye and we get chatting. Mr T has nice pics, he is tall (well 6 foot), has his own business, lives in a nice area, is 40, no kids, a non-smoker, has a coherent profile. Tick, tick, tick.

We chat a little online and exchange numbers. When I call the next day, I get his voicemail and I am surprised to hear an English accent. Oh no, I wasn’t aware of this fact. I didn’t leave a message, rather I jumped straight online to check his profile again. His teeth, I need to see the teeth!! In my experience I’ve met a lot of people from the UK with bad teeth, so I usually avoid them online unless I can clearly see the teeth situation from the pics. Don’t hate me UK readers…

Fortunately he is smiling in his pics, his teeth on full display, they are all there and they are perfect. Phew….

When Mr T calls back we chat for about half an hour and it’s non-stop laughter. He is hilarious. My cheeks actually hurt from laughing when we hang up.

We arrange a date for the following night. He arrives early and txts me whilst I’m still on my way into the city asking what I want to drink so he can have it waiting for me. I tell him that I’ll get something when I get there. First rule of online dating, don’t let them roofie you too easily…

When I arrive I call him to find him as the bar is really busy and I like what I see when I get there. He is very pleasant looking and he seems to quite like me…as he tells me. A number of times. Oh stop it Mr T, no go on, no stop, no go on…

We get a bottle of wine and it disappears fast. I try to buy the second bottle, but he won’t let me claiming that he is a gentleman and that just won’t do. When he returns from the bar which I am sitting with my back to, he swiftly leans down from behind my shoulder and kisses me saying that “he just had to do that”. Ok the cynical ‘I’ve dated a lot of douchey men’ side of me thinks oh what a tosser, but the quite tiddly side of me thinks he is quite lovely…and a good kisser. #winning

The second bottle somehow disappears too and we both need to head to the bathroom (separately of course…) and as we are walking along I notice that I seem a bit taller than him. He was meant to be 6 foot, I’m 5’10”, but I was likely wearing 3 inch heels so I expected a little difference, but this is more than an inch. Whilst wondering that thought he stops me and pulls me in for another kiss. Oh he finds me irresistible. Stop it Mr T, no go on, oh whatevs…..#YOLO.

We get a third bottle of wine and my previous fuzzy thoughts about it probably being a wise idea to get some food have dissipated. Who knows where that bottle goes, but all of a sudden I’m drunk. Drunk, drunkity, drunk, drunk!

Remember how cautious I was about not getting drugged and being incapable of fending off a dodgy internet guy earlier in the night? No? Me either…

After plenty of shameless public pashing it is time to call it a night. He walks me to the cab rank, kisses me and tells me that he really doesn’t want to send me home, but he knows it’s the right thing to do being a gentleman and all. See, he does have morals! He puts me in the back of the cab and then leans into the front window and hands the cab driver cash to take me home. What the hell? How old school. Indeed a gentleman. I’m kinda digging it…

He then proceeds to send me quite dirty txt messages all the way home…..well actions speak louder than words right? ;p

I’ve Fallen For a Man That I Don’t Find Attractive

Posted on by seriouslysingleinsyd

Who would have thought it was possible? I certainly didn’t. Sure, I’ve heard stories of it happening, but only to people with far lower standards than me ;p

I count physical attraction as one of my top 4 elements of compatability for me to be really in to someone. No, I’m not expecting the chiselled good looks of the deliciously tall Bondi Vet or the Magic Mike body of Channing Tatum (although I wouldn’t knock them back…) but I do want someone that I actually like to look at when I talk to them.

I’ve often debated this issue with people that like to tell me that I’m single because I’m ‘too picky’. I’m told to give the guy with the bad teeth or the wonky eye a go because attraction can grow.

I agree that attraction can grow. I can prove it. I don’t usually feel that attracted to guys with dark eyes, as evident by the guy that plays Mr Grey in 50 Shades doing absolutely nothing for me! But I do remember a guy I was seeing for a few months who had brown eyes that I found reasonably physically attracted to initially, but I grew to really like how intense his brown eyes were they more I grew to like him to the point that it was my favourite feature about him even though I had hardly noticed them when we met.

So I was quite fascinated by the U.S. version of Married at First Sight when in both season 1 and season 2, one of the three women matched for marriage openly admitted that they were not attracted to the guy chosen by the ‘experts’ as her ‘perfect match’ and that the guy they picked ‘did not look like my husband’.

<<<<SPOILER ALERT>>>>

I’m only halfway through season 2, but it seems that both of these women committed to the experiment and ended up getting ‘crushes’ on their husbands and becoming attracted to them the more that they got to know them. As they learnt more about the guy they realised that they actually had a lot in common and they understood why the experts had matched them. These couples seemed to end up being the matches with the strongest long term relationship potential.

Now, maybe season 2 doesn’t work out that way (I’m currently binge watching the series, so I’m sure I’ll know shortly…) but from season 1, I am quite shocked that the couple stayed together.

I completely understood the bride feeling hesitant. Her groom strangely reminded me of Gargamel from the Smurfs cartoons. He also had a number of raised bubbly moles on one side of his face, he was balding and tall but hunched over. She was gorgeous and he was practically licking her lips when he saw her…

227022_103_gargamelWhen the bride saw him she shut down, still went through with marrying him but then hyperventilating cried with her family about not feeling attracted to him and claimed that she had made the worst mistake of her life. They went on their honeymoon and she was pretty much giving him death stares the entire time and smacking his hand away if he tried to touch her.

But after they moved in together and spent more time together she started to like him – and I did too!! It really surprised both of us. I didn’t see it coming AT ALL!

Especially on my behalf. I think if I turned up to a Tinder date with that guy having seen only a pic of his good side, I potentially would have faked appendicitis and called an ambulance to escape the date.

But he had a really cheeky personality, made lots of bad jokes and he was a really sweet and genuine person. He became more and more attractive to me with each episode. I felt like I was being deceived with the producers deployed some kind of photoshopping to make him more likeable. But no, it was just me falling for him…

So, I’m confused. Does this mean I should go on a date with the most repulsive man I can find on Tinder??

My Night with the Chicken Pot Pie

Posted on by seriouslysingleinsyd

Superhero Businessman French Cityscape Concept

Hellooooo! Sorry, it’s been a while I know. I have been busy and just not in the mood to write lately. But tonight I’m in the mood to rant!

I was meant to go on a date tonight with a very sexy (supposedly) French man. We met on Tinder last week and after chatting for a few days on the app, I decided to give him my number and ask him to call so I could do the voice test before moving to a face to face date.

That call actually didn’t go well. When I answered he said hello and that it was ‘Mr A’. I responded with a ‘hey how are you?’

He must have misheard that as he replied with ‘you know I’m Mr A, we were just talking on Tinder, I live in…’ like I had so many Mr A’s that I had just given my number to that there could possibly have been some confusion. Okaaaaay….

The call continued and I could hardly understand him at all. I think he said that he had been in Australia for nine years, but his accent was very heavy. It was the awkward type of conversation where after you’ve said ‘pardon’, ‘sorry’ and ‘what’ and still don’t know what he said after three attempts that you do a little giggle and move on.  We cut the call short after discussing catching up soon and I couldn’t help but think I may need subtitles on the date.

By Tuesday we’ve agreed via txt to meet up on Sunday night. By Thursday we’ve agreed the meeting place and have been chatting some more, including him sending me some pics of the view of the Vivid light festival from his apartment with him suggesting that he would invite me over, but he understands that I probably wouldn’t be keen to do that on a first date. You think?

Sunday lunchtime comes and I shoot a txt over to him to confirm that we are still on for our date that evening. He replies immediately saying yes and reconfirms the meeting details for 5:30pm. It’s all sorted.

I start to get ready about 3:30pm as I’m planning on catching the bus into the city about 4:40pm. It’s one of those days when your makeup just works and you like what you see in the mirror. I’ve started doing my hair when my phone chirps from the bedroom a little after 4pm. It’s him.

“Hi SSIS, sorry for the short notice but I have to cancel, I apologise”

WTF?!? Late notice and no elaborate excuse as to why?! I expect to see an excuse of the calibre of my grandmother died, or my dog ate a tube of superglue, or I fell down the stairs and broke my face for pulling the pin so late.

I reply “Oh…” giving him the hint that I’m expecting more than that.

He replies “I am really sorry, but I am feeling like shit and tired”.

Tired? Tired!!! Everyone is fucking tired. All the fucking time. I just reply “Ok” and leave it at that.

I finish doing my hair, but decide that a night in is in order and also that I’m in the mood to cook. I pull out my Mum’s recipe for Chicken Pot Pies and head out to the shops to grab the ingredients.

Whilst I’m out I see a crazy cool sunset with the sky all sorts of pink and orange and the pies I made were pretty damn good if I say so myself. So perhaps it wasn’t all bad that my plans changed.

Frenchie continues to try and make himself feel better by justifying his sudden ‘illness’ sending messages that he has been in bed sleeping, that he had a big night last night and is really hungover, and that he should remember that he isn’t 20 anymore.

Whatevs dude. I unmatched him on Tinder…but with a tiny pang of sadness seeing he was smokin’ hot…