A taste of Tidy Up on Your Way Out" "... About six months later I dropped Lyndsey a line on the dating site. I had a meeting near to where she lived and asked if she wanted to meet up for a reconciliatory drink. Her reply was that she would love to meet for a beer so she could throw it all over me. "A firm refusal but, on reflection, fair." Finding myself single at the age of forty was not in my life plan. I had never been very confident or particularly good at dating when I had youth and looks on my side. How the hell was I supposed to get back into meeting women now I was older, heavier, wrinklier and weighed down with emotional baggage? This is the hilarious, odd, romantic and heartbreaking story of the crazy six years that followed. In search of a lasting relationship and perhaps the elusive next Mrs G I dated everyone from my closest friend's sister to a woman living in Moscow. I have online dated, speed dated and randomly chatted up hundreds of women, spent thousands of pounds and travelled thousands of miles just racking up a series of dating disasters. After four years of dating women I began to think that there were no sane or balanced single ones left on the planet. As the years went by, however, the truth became inescapable. There was only one common factor linking all of these relationships and events together: ME! This painful lesson changed my life forever. Join me as I reveal all ...
About the Author: Born to a working class family in Essex, Dave endured a boringly happy childhood. His educational potential was largely squandered by his desire to spend his days pissing about. As a result his clerical career started at sixteen with the civil service and then the NHS. He sustained a lifestyle that saw him just about earning enough to keep himself in beer and fags until his 'career' hit a seam of good luck and he applied for, and got, a job two grades higher. This was the beginning of a hugely successful (but hopelessly dull) corporate career. Never confident with women, he failed to ask out pretty much every woman he fancied and ended up with an impressive catalogue of female friends. Finally summoning enough courage to alter this state of affairs, his life became one of happy mediocrity with a well paid job and an attractive but underappreciated fiancé. The relationship was to last five years but they never married. Excitement was provided by a brief flirtation with motorbikes. At 28 he confronted mortality when his mother died. Whilst on the surface he coped well with the grieving process, his life turned 360 degrees. He took a job with lots of international travel and to engaged in every adrenalin sport known to man. This wild ride lasted three years before he met, fell in love with and married his wife. Dave took to marriage like a snake takes to roller skates. His attempts to surrender to domestic routine were largely unsuccessful and led to an expanding waistline, a penchant for Austin Reed clothes and finally, eight years in, the end of the marriage. Adapting to single life pretty well, he embarked on a journey of indulging his mid life crisis. Snowboarding, sailing, flash cars and clothes, dating any woman that showed even the remotest spark of interest and partying hard. His career was the one area where success continued to seem assured, so inevitably three years after his divorce he went to work dismantling that. He engineered redundancy from a six figure salary + bonus + benefits and headed into the world with no idea what to do next. After six months of having fun, he trained, and established himself as a self employed Business Coach, a role he has stayed with to date. Through coaching he began to access new ideas and ways of looking at the world and finally finds himself content. Throughout his life only three things have been constant...the support of his family and closest friends, his love of nature and Gary Numan.