Carl James

Modern Dating Should Come With a Health Warning I've always considered myself a reasonably resilient individual. Modern dating has certainly tested that resilience. I've had the unanswered messages, the vanishing acts, the odd wobble when I've questioned my own judgment, even my own self-worth. But I generally get back on my feet. And that's why something has started to trouble me: not what dating does to me, but what I'm watching it do to other people. We call it a dating

Earlier this year, my family experienced a bereavement that wasn't entirely expected. Not a sudden, out-of-the-blue, without-warning departure, but a death we hadn't realised was quite so close. He was 78 years old, plagued by relatively poor health, but with heart stents, daily medications and the remarkable ability of modern medicine to keep us going, none of us expected him to pass quite so soon. This is not a piece about loss, nor of how fragile our lives are – which,

Why we spend so much of our lives fearing what might never happen. I have a daughter who deals with high anxiety. As I began to write that last sentence, I was tempted to say she struggles with anxiety, and then I thought, is it a struggle? What actually makes it hard? I question this as someone who has spent most of my adult life trying to unravel the sources of worry and build a defence against them, leading me to coin my own phrase: “Worrying is the most redundant of all h

One of the things I’ve always taken considerable pride in, other than my children, is that my divorce didn’t change me. Despite the pain, anger and heartbreak, I emerged fundamentally the same person. I hadn’t become bitter, cynical or resentful. I never fully understood why my marriage ended, but eventually accepted that I probably never would. And somehow, that was enough. What I hadn’t anticipated was that being single at 49 might succeed where divorce had failed, and that

“When the characters change but the story always ends the same, perhaps it’s time to question the story, not the characters.” An uncomfortable thought. Particularly when you’re the one who keeps appearing in every chapter. I’ve been thinking about my recent dating experiences. Probably more than is healthy. Although modern dating seems to demand the instincts of a detective, the patience of a saint and the emotional resilience of a crash-test dummy. Even then, there’s n

I have a smart home. I’m not talking about a couple of light bulbs that I can turn pink from my phone, although I can do that too. I mean a properly smart home, the sort of home that has developed into such a complicated collection of sensors, switches, computers and automations that occasionally I find myself having to fix a problem that simply wouldn’t have existed had I not tried to make my home intelligent in the first place. There are sensors that know when I enter a

For as long as I can remember, I had a reasonably clear idea of where my life was heading. I wanted a career, a marriage, children, a beautiful home and all those other things we’re encouraged to believe constitute a successful life. And, for the most part, I achieved them. I wasn’t following some meticulously constructed plan. I didn’t know precisely what the future would look like, but I had a good understanding of the direction I was travelling. I had a career I was p

For those who've been keeping up with my story, you'll know that my marriage ended, rather unexpectedly for me, around 18 months ago. After the dust had settled, as is often the temptation, I found myself dipping my reluctant and still war-torn toe into the pool of modern dating. About a year after the separation, I picked up a digital device, exchanged a few coins per month and embarked on the awful, commodity-fuelled world of online dating. We're bombarded with apps, ea

We've embraced online shopping because it allows us to browse, compare, select and return without the awkwardness of human interaction. No uncomfortable conversations, no explanations, no disapproving glances from a shop assistant when we decide something isn't quite what we wanted. And somewhere along the way, we began approaching online dating in much the same manner. We browse people as though they were products, compare them against alternatives and quietly discard tho

Online dating in a real high street bar Imagine, for a moment, that the peculiar world of online dating was transformed into an actual bar. A physical establishment where everything that happens behind the comforting anonymity of a smartphone suddenly takes place in full public view. It would be quite a spectacle. You'd see men approaching women, politely introducing themselves, only to be met with complete silence. Not rejection, you understand. That would require acknow

Do you remember when the human race wasn’t constantly staring at a six-inch illuminated piece of glass? A time when the vibrating, tapping sound of a small device attempting to dance itself across a tabletop wasn't even a thing? If you cannot remember those days, then I must confess that the sentiment I’m about to unpack here probably won't resonate with you. Not because you can't appreciate the past, but because that constant noise of beeping and buzzing is simply what you'

I recently discovered a hole in my life, nothing of major concern, but I was on the hunt to fill the void left following completing some...

How often do you get asked, “What’s your favourite song ever?” When I get asked this, I shudder and think, what a pointless question. Music can’t be held to a singular champion, one song to rule them all. Of course, like most, I have my favourites. Some are contemporary and of this era, and others are your traditional classics that most of your peers would also hold up as great songs. Then there’s that thought-provoking side question of what even makes a great song. Many year

In the UK (and possibly other countries too), the lion share of suicides are in men and this isn’t by a small margin as is often the case...

Ok, my turn to share my views on the EU referendum result. Firstly, I blame Simon Cowell - that might sound like a joke statement and it...