A woman has documented the 75 dates it took to get over her ex-boyfriend.After finding herself suddenly single at 47 after breaking up with her partner of eight years, Bambi Smyth decided to embark on a social experiment to find love.
Bambi travelled around the world, going on 75 dates in 22 different countries in a quest to meet her soulmate.
The children’s book writer and illustrator, 56, said: ”
My phrase is, ‘If you’re sitting in a stagnant pond, get out of it and find a bigger lake’.For me, that was Europe so I thought I’d get away and see who I could meet overseas.I was happy [with my ex-boyfriend]. I believed I’d found my soulmate. But then something changed. I began to think there was something wrong with me.I’d devoted eight years to him but it wasn’t going anywhere.”
After her three-month long adventure, she returned to her home in Melbourne, Australia, with stories about the men who had swept her off her feet – and those she would prefer to sweep under the carpet.
She had met men with A-list friends, like Paul McCartney and Madonna, dated a priest , had a threesome and even feared for her life when one man said he thought he would make a great serial killer.
She also writes about a man in Brazil, who she described trying to extract conversation from as like “squeezing blood from a stone”.
“I had to make a big effort to be cheerful,” He was quite negative.At the end of it I paid for the meal and that was fine but he’d taken me to a really dear restaurant and ordered the most expensive meal.He leaned across the table and took another note out my purse for the tip.And then said, ‘Now that’s out the way, do you want to sleep with me?'”
Sometimes I thought, ‘What am I doing here? This is not the way to meet Mr Right.But then I’d think, ‘You never know what’s around the corner,’ so I kept going.Some people got better as a date progressed and I learnt you can’t necessarily judge a book from its cover, you have to dig to get the best out of them. “But some of them got worse and worse.”
Though Bambi came home single she says she now dating someone.
She documented her trip in a newbook Men on the Menu: 75 Delicious Dates Around the World Culled from Mirror UK
