My Twelve Dates E-Book

Corinna Busch

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Online Dating in times of Coronavirus. In her book 'My Twelve Dates', the former late-night talkshow producer and winner of the Adolf Grimme Award chats light-heartedly about her online dating experiences as a 40-something single woman, but she also talks about her professional life. In the first part of the book, one chapter is dedicated to each of the 12 dates, and Corinna Busch takes the opportunity to slip in some entertaining anecdotes about celebrities she has worked with over the past 20 years. There‘s plenty to laugh about. In the more reflective second part of the book, Corinna consults psychologists about issues that have preoccupied her for many years: Why are dating sites so successful today? Is online dating a playground for narcissists? Can‘t we find love offline anymore? What can be said about the emotional well-being of society in general? Is the generation of ‚war grandchildren‘ unable to commit to relationships? In interviews with psychologists Dr Marie-France Hirigoyen and Professor Franz Ruppert, among others, she makes some enlightening and interesting discoveries. A book that takes a closer look at the phenomenon of online dating.

Leseprobe

The author – Corinna Busch

In her book My Twelve Dates, former late-night talkshow producer and winner of the Adolf Grimme Award chats light-heartedly about her online dating experiences as a 40-something single woman, but she also talks about her professional life.

In the first part of the book, one chapter is dedicated to each of the 12 dates, and Corinna Busch takes the opportunity to slip in some entertaining anecdotes about celebrities she has worked with over the past 20 years. There's plenty to laugh about.

In the more reflective second part of the book, Corinna consults psychologists about issues that have preoccupied her for many years: Why are dating sites so successful today? Is online dating a playground for narcissists? Can't we find love offline anymore? What can be said about the emotional well-being of society in general? Is the generation of ‘war grandchildren’ unable to commit to relationships?

In interviews with psychologists Dr Marie-France Hirigoyen and Professor Franz Ruppert, among others, she makes some enlightening and interesting discoveries.

A book that takes a closer look at the phenomenon of online dating.

There will be men who think they recognise themselves or someone they

know in this book. All details, names and descriptions have been changed

so that identification is not possible. Similarities with actual persons,

living or dead, are purely coincidental: this was not my aim or intention!

For Bernd and Johanna – somewhere over the rainbow

Table of Contents

Foreword

Online Dating, Or: Are Handbags the Better Men?

Date: Wild Rider

Date: BritPop

Date: Fabrice

Date: GourmetSnob

Date: Don Quixote

Date: Merman007

Date: freshandgentle

Date: Luxurysecondhand 007

Date: Specialmodel66

Date: BuddyLove

Date: doublevision

Date: Maxime1C

“This is my true story, with lies going backward and forward, because life is often like that”Olivier Bourdeaut “Waiting for Bojangles”

Foreword

There they were again, my three problems:

40 something, single and not a man in sight!

But how and where do you find the brightest star in the relationship cosmos?

“Try online dating”, my friend Susanne suggested one evening. I was so stunned I dropped my Champagne glass. “Are you mad?”, I replied. “Only creeps and weirdos use online dating sites. You should know from your own experience.”

“Yes”, admitted Susi, rolling her eyes, “but it probably works better for blondes. Be strategic about it.”

I really didn’t understand what Susi meant, and was unsure whether it had to do with the Champagne or the intellectual capacity of a blonde, but after a while, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I signed up to several dating sites, and set myself the goal of dating 12 men. One of them, surely, would pass muster.

My plan was to sound out candidates first of all on the basis of their nicknames and profile photos. Could “Brown Sock 67” be the man I’d want to spend the rest of my life with? Or “Desire for more”? Or “Uncle without a roof”? Or maybe “Your tooth fairy”? Then I asked an astrologer to take a look at the candidates and give me his opinion.

Why an astrologer? Well, when you work with as many celebrities as I have in the last 20 years, you experience some interesting, sometimes bizarre situations.

There are some people who even time their showers according to the alignment of the stars. I kid you not! Initially, I was very sceptical about all this star talk. Astrology is something I’ve never had any great interest in and even today, I’m well aware that natural scientists and astrologers have no common ground. And yet today, many experiences later, I’m convinced that there is sometimes more to astrology than I originally thought.

Eventually, I met the final 12 candidates for real. In this book, you can find out about all the things that happened to me and whether prince charming was among my dates.

Humour helps to heal! This is a view I have shared for many years, and this is why I decided to write humorously about the online dating experiences I had over a period of three years. Although a cheerful person by nature, I didn’t always find this easy, because some of the things I experienced with the gentlemen weren’t in the least bit funny. However, for me, humour has always been the best way to deal with the many blows of fate that befall us in our lives.

The more extensive my dating experiences became, the more frequently I was confronted with the subject of narcissism and, above all, male narcissism. I began to take a closer look at the subjects of internet dating, narcissism and mental health. I read specialist literature with great interest and consulted different psychologists about these subjects and about mental health in general.

The reflective second part of the book features excerpts from my interviews with these experts. Nobody has the ultimate answer or wants to claim the moral high ground. This section is merely meant to provide food for thought and encourage self-reflection.

I have been interested in psychology for many years, not least of all because of my own background and my professional preoccupation with life coaching. I also spent three years working as a press manager for a group of German clinics specialising in psychological and psychosomatic illnesses.

We face some very great challenges in society today, large parts of which are traumatised. Mental health problems are increasing on an unprecedented scale. This is why I have spent the last few years developing a new project that is so close to my heart. I am delighted that what started out as a vague idea has now become reality. On my website www.my-mentalhealth.com, with the help of experts and celebrities, I will campaign for the de-stigmatisation of mental illness in our traumatised society. I would be delighted if you could find an opportunity to check it out.

I hope you enjoy reading my book. Perhaps you will even gain the occasional insight true to my motto: humour helps to heal!

Corinna Busch

Online Dating, Or: Are Handbags the Better Men?

We women have a very special relationship with handbags. As we do with shoes. Perhaps no emotional bond in a woman’s life – with the exception of our bond to children – is as enduring as our handbag bond. A bold theory, I admit, but I know a number of women who would immediately endorse it.

As catwalk coach Bruce Darnell once said:

“Your handbag must be aliiive!”

Whether there’s actually life inside a woman’s handbag is not something I want to go into here. But it’s true, I do live with my handbag. And maybe my handbag even lives with me, who knows?

I carry around everything but the kitchen sink in my bag – after all, a woman likes to be prepared for all eventualities: cosmetics, a fresh set of underwear (tip from a former professional football ref), spare shoes, books, painkillers, cat food, fabric swatches (for those dresses that are waiting to be designed), a thousand business cards (from people you can’t even remember), old plane tickets, scraps of paper with restaurant or hotel names written on them (read about on a flight), perfume samples (that usually stink like hell), boiled sweets from the pharmacy (for emergencies or as food substitutes), and so on …

Whenever I clear out my handbag (once a year), just one day later it ends up looking exactly the same as it did before. How does she do it?

In a woman’s life, handbags have a tendency to multiply in a rather uncanny way. They approach you. Quietly. Purring.

You stand there in front of a store display, admiring these magnificent specimens. They have names like ‘Bella Donna’ or ‘Principessa’ and they whisper to you imploringly: “Go on, you want me too. Take me! I’m a bargain! I’m the answer to your sleepless nights.”

My experiences with internet dating followed a similar pattern. I’d sit in front of my computer and the men on offer, or men who were offering themselves, had names. So-called profile names. Typically, the gentlemen claimed to be down-to-earth. They called themselves “Ready for love” (high time too at 56), “No roof over my head” (probably kicked out by the wife), “Hot chocolate man” (visits Mum every Sunday for her home-baked cakes), or “Verbal gymnast” (talks non-stop during sex and loves long, convoluted sentences).

I’d been single for some time, and to be honest, didn’t believe in online dating. But my offline endeavours hadn’t produced much in the way of suitable candidates either.

What did men use to do when they admired or loved a woman? Lots of crazy, wonderful things. They threw roses out of helicopters or renounced a kingdom. They bought diamonds the size of a football or had pre-warmed cushions placed on their beloved’s chair in restaurants.

What do men do today? They write WhatsApp messages!

Do you know members of the WhatsApp generation? These are people who live by virtue of and with electronic media. They have relationships on WhatsApp, Tinder or other online platforms. It’s convenient, avoids real intimacy and – oops, apparently it does happen – they can date multiple people simultaneously.

A while ago I met a man. It all started off with us sending each other WhatsApp messages, as is customary these days. Our first real meeting took place weeks later. It then turned out that the man was not – as he’d assured me in writing beforehand – single, but that he still lived with his wife. Emotionally, though, he claimed they had separated aaaages ago. He was just waiting for the right moment to pack his cases.

In other words, a lot of wives and partners have no idea that in reality they’re single – and have been for years!

Unfortunately, I’d fallen for the man and suddenly found myself in the WhatsApp trap again. The man was incredibly busy – and surprise, surprise, had little or no time to meet up, but he continued to text me. It was so nice and convenient.

When I was ill and confined to bed, there were no visits, no flowers, no chocolates. Nothing. Any concern was expressed via WhatsApp message. Then the man promptly disappeared out of my life just as he had entered it: by WhatsApp! He had no time to talk to me personally.

The sad truth of the matter is I know a lot of very similar stories.

How damaged must the male brain be for a man to behave like this?? Courting, making an effort to get to know a woman ‘offline’, in real life, sadly seems to have gone entirely out of fashion. Whatever happened to chivalry?

I rounded up some of my friends, both male and female, and during a long, amusing inaugural meeting, we decided to set up a new group:

The DROP DEAD WhatsApp –WeWantMenWhoTake-UsInTheirArmsAndShowerUsWithRoses group.

We decided that BEFORE a first date, the male candidate should be asked to provide the following:

a divorce certificate, original copy, or

a notarised separation agreement or declaration of intent

a certificate attesting to successful participation in an etiquette course on manners, courtesy, and general good behaviour

the names of three guarantors who can be interviewed about the candidate by phone beforehand in order to ascertain which shortcomings to expect and under what circumstances

a bag full of gifts – as a gesture of goodwill.

And so, with my romantic situation not looking especially rosy in the ‘offline’ world, I thought, why not? Why not try my luck online? Maybe I was wrong to have so many prejudices and reservations about cyber-dating.

Based on the principle that ‘a little is good, more is better’, I signed up to three different dating sites. I uploaded two or three photos of myself and wrote some halfway entertaining profile texts. My personal motto was the same on all platforms: “Never eat yellow snow!”

Then it was a question of waiting. A couple of days later, when I checked my inboxes, I nearly fell off my chair with surprise. I had received over 300 responses! How on earth was I ever going to read them all? Even worse, how could I meet them all? How could I narrow down my choice?

I’d initially planned to date 13 men, but was then unsure about the number. I turned to my astrologer Merlin for advice.

“Thirteen men? Mmmm … what about 12? You could write about them too!”

He chuckled. I glanced at him sideways and had to laugh.

“Are the stars favourable for a book?”

Merlin nodded.

“Why not write a bit about your life? You’ve had so many bizarre experiences with so many celebrities!”

Even though I really am interested in astrology, I don’t plan my everyday life around it. My astrological passion doesn’t go that far, but I am convinced, for instance, that certain star signs are a good match, while others aren’t. For example, as a Sagittarius, I usually get on well with Aries and Leo. Pisces and Capricorn, too. I was born with the moon in Libra, so Libras are also a pretty good match for me. Taurus and Scorpios are more of a problem. Virgos can sometimes be a challenge too.

“Okay, I’ll get started. Again, how many should I meet?” Merlin stroked the non-existent hair on his head and said:

“Twelve’s a good number. It reflects the diversity of creation. The number 12 has so many meanings. It’s one of the most magical numbers – it symbolises perfection, there are 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 months in a year, the moon orbits the Earth 12 times.”

Indeed, why not date 12 men? A dozen dates. That was it! Merlin offered to give me an astrological assessment of the men based on their profile pictures, nicknames and dates of birth before each of my 12 dates.

I’d already decided on three different types of meeting: breakfast/coffee date (for the weak candidates), lunch dates (for the halfway interesting men) and dinner dates (for the hot guys).

In the first round, I focused only on profile pictures and headlines, placing 100 candidates I considered to be attractive in a file. One of them made it into my pre-selection list on the basis of the professional networking site link he added to his subject line. Then I started reading.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of incredibly dull messages among the e-mails. Most of them didn’t get much further than a “Hello, blonde lady, nice picture. How are you?”. Sobering to say the least.

Dear Gentlemen, have you never heard of that famous ‘first sentence’? Doesn’t it ring any bells? In books, for example, opening lines can be crucial in terms of whether or not someone purchases a book. If they don’t immediately grab attention, potential buyers are far more likely to put the book back on the shelf again. Reject. Adios.

I spent months deliberating on what the first sentence in this book would be. Then one day, there it was! I think it’s important how a conversation starts. But what is a good first sentence? The answer is shockingly simple: the first sentence should arouse interest in the second, and then the third.

In online dating, the first sentence should arouse my interest in a person. It should open up a door to someone I don’t yet know and ask me to come inside. A first sentence, for example, should NOT invite me to share bodily fluids.

Here are the three worst first sentences I read:

0176 / 12 34 56 xxx

Hi Cora, do you like 3?

(meaning, I assume, a threesome)

Regina, do you have WhatsApp?

If the profile picture was not an absolute cracker and the first sentence uninspiring, I immediately pressed delete. Progress had to be made somehow. Then I wrote to the 12 finalists and suggested we met in person. With some of the candidates, my proposal prompted an enthusiasm I found hard to fathom. They seemed especially needy. Then the messaging back and forth began.

But which of the 12 gentlemen should I date first? I wrote down each of the nicknames on a piece of paper, screwed them up and then tossed them all in the air. (I’m sure this could be the subject of deeper psychological analysis, but I’ll skip that bit). Then I picked the first piece of paper out of the pile.