Recently on 30 Dates, we've been looking at some home truths of dating in different decades. First, I made some rather honest observations on the pitfalls of dating, as a woman in her thirties. Then a blog reader sent in a guest post about her own discoveries of dating in her forties. And now, I've asked author Rebecca Perkins, to explain dating life in your fifties. Miss Twenty-Nine xxx It can be daunting if you're venturing into dating after the ending of a long marriage or relationship. So much will have changed since the last time you were dating. You Read More

Today would have been my Mum's 65th birthday. I say ‘would have been', because she died 11 years ago. In a few weeks time, we also ‘celebrate' (for want of any other word) the anniversary of her death. On Christmas Day 2003, she fell into a coma, and two days later, she died. I had just turned 20 at the time. My sister was 16. Our Dad had died ten months earlier. Ten months to the day, in fact. A strange coincidence, which means I can never look on the 27th day of any Read More

New dating website The Inner Circle scooped not one, but two Awards at this year's UK Dating Awards. The company won Best Newcomer Dating Site and Best London Dating Event. Inner Circle is an invite-only dating site for city professionals. The website will soon be active in ten different European cities, New York and Sydney. I interviewed Michael Krayehnhoff, one of the website's Founders. How does it feel to win the Awards? It is a fantastic recognition that the leading industry experts chose The Inner Circle as “Best Newcomer Website”. We already have a lot of happy members who have Read More

Following on from yesterday's post, I round up five other lessons which I've learned in recent years. 6) That dating is as much about you as it is about the other person Two years ago, when I first started online dating, I didn't get it. I saw it as a form of online shopping. You enter your set requirements, and computer says yes, or more likely, no! And yet the more I dated online, the more I began to understand about myself. Yes, there are certain physical characteristics which I find attractive in a guy – his height, his hair Read More

Hindsight is a funny thing. You look back at your life, know the lessons you should have applied at the time, but only truly understand those lessons once you've seen the repercussions first hand. People can try to warn you, but most of the time you only truly appreciate a life lesson, once you've lived through it yourself. So which lessons do I wish I'd learned earlier on in life? 1) That Honesty Is the Best Policy You only have to watch a couple of episodes of a soap opera to appreciate the value of this lesson! Most of the knots we Read More