Over the last few months I have been a bit quiet on the dating front, due to work and family commitments, but decided that I should get back into it and try and find that Mr Right again. So I rejoined some dating sites, I'd previously deleted and embarked on the voyage again. It wasn't long before I started chatting to a guy who lived in an area I was very familiar with in Essex. He owned his own business, appeared to be quite well off, had 2 children he saw every weekend and seemed a very down to earth nice guy. We started chatting on line and hit it off immediately. Within a week I was chatting to him every night on line for hours at a time. We had a lot in common and had a real laugh. He was very gentlemanly - never pushing the boundaries, apart from the odd flirtatious comment every now and again, but all harmless fun. I really liked him. There was one problem. His work commitments were so intense, we were finding it difficult to arrange a meet up. We had already decided we definitely wanted to meet, but as his job meant he travelled all over Europe and often at very short notice, it was difficult for him to commit to a date and time when we could meet.

Now in normal circumstances, I would have been suspicious of excuses, but the site I chatted to him through had a mobile tracker and as he constantly chatted through his mobile, I knew where he was when he was chatting to me. So when he told me he was in France, he was in France. When he told me he was in Italy, he was in Italy.

We had loosely arranged a meet up one Sunday lunchtime for a coffee when he thought he would be around. By the time the weekend came around for our meet, we had been chatting every evening, all evening for 3 weeks both online and on mobile. I felt like I knew this man - we had learned so much about each other, the meeting almost seemed like a formality. I was getting quite excited about meeting this guy. I got a text message from him on the Saturday morning to say he had to rush off to Scotland that evening and wouldnt be back until mid-week. The following weekend he was due to see his kids and I was busy too. I was gutted, so was he! We re-arranged. Again, I was let down due to work. I then had a conversation with him after being let down the 2nd time and was slightly sarcastic about whether we were ever likely to meet and could I book something in his diary for next year! He didn't like my sarcasm and told me that his job was important to him and this is how his life is. It was at that point that I realised he wasn't ready to commit time to a relationship and I wasn't prepared to be his text buddy while he sat in hotel rooms. I told him I wasn't happy to come second best all the time and if he couldnt even manage a first date, how the hell were we meant to develop any sort of relationship - I'd never see him. He again told me that this is the way his life is - so I politely commented that I hoped him and his job would be very happy together and called it a day.

I was quite upset - not only had I got to know this guy and thought there could have been something good come out of it, but I now felt I'd completely wasted my time and energy on him. I didn't know whether to be sad or angry. If I'm honest, I was a bit of both. Back to the drawing board again!