An ex boyfriend of mine, and brilliant writer, once showed me a piece he’d written about how being deaf was something of a ‘love filter’, and although I was seduced by his way with words more than his philosophy at the time, I now realise he was right.
I’ve been in London for four years now and in that time my dating experience has been colourful! When I first arrived, bright eyed and bushy eyebrowed, hearing aids at the ready and owning some rather questionable clothes, I had this strange idea that I would somehow bump into my perfect man and we would skip off into the realm of affordable house buying in London.
But London is noisy, and not very patient for hard-of-hearing, non-signing, lip-reading deaf blondes and although, visually I improved and slipped into the smooth haired, shiny nails, nice handbag stereotype that is overwhelmingly popular in this city, aurally I got left behind.
The first three years were something of a blur – there were cute blonde snowboarders, busy hedge fund boys and rather delicious men in PR, but none of them really got off the ground – none of them really got me.
I remember one of them turned up at my house armed with a blindfold one night and suggested all manner of fantastic fantasies to me, but I couldn’t hear him as I was blindfolded – and saying pardon more times that ‘Oh God, yes!’ is a bit of a passion killer.
Looking back, ex boyfriend’s love filter idea was very true – all these men were totally unsuitable for me – and, because of my deafness, I found out a whole lot quicker than most other women. I pity the ones they’re with now.
About a year ago, my housemate took matters into her own hands and put me on Mysinglefriend.com. Lured by the pretty pictures I was soon hooked. Here was my pick of men – and none of them had phone numbers, just email. So I could dazzle them with my wit, rather than saying pardon every other sentence.
With a firm belief in my love filter, I jumped in head first and dated quite a few lovely men, with the exception of one, who was so boring I actually managed to fall asleep standing up in a crowded Soho bar.
And then, just as my guard was down and my faith in my love filter was at its height, my perfect man appeared. He whisked me off my feet with picnics, silent movies and subtitles for absolutely everything. He treated me like a princess to the extent that all my other friends were jealous and, just as I fell in love with him, he disappeared.
I’m over it now, just and so, with gusto I am throwing my love filter on to my pile of things that don’t work, along with my ears and thinking about where to go next…
I like a challenge, so I think I will try a strange alternative to speed dating I read about in a London paper – it's called dating in the dark.
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