A Year of Losing the Dating Game (Samantha Bye)
A Year of Losing the Dating Game is a self-published book by Samantha Bye who decided to document all the dates she went on over the course of a year. These dates ranged from many tiny men who lied about their heights, to a ‘man’ who turned out to be only 19, and one who left Sam in a seedy bar mid-date to go and do a drug deal. Since publishing on 22nd July Sam has had a lot of positive feedback both from women relating to it and men enjoying the humour. In its first week, it reached number 7 in Amazon’s Love, Sex & Marriage category in the UK, and a few weeks ago she contacted Simply Oloni asking if we would be able to review it for the site.
As Sam explains in the opening chapter, this book was her way of meeting a series of men in the hopes that by the end of the year she would be more aware of what she was looking for in her perfect man and would hopefully be able to settle down with Mr Right. So we are taken with Sam over the course of a year as she meets up with 20 men, some through dating apps and some through natural encounters. As well as these 20 there are a lot more that don’t reach the meeting point, as they are clearly just interested in sending several dick pics, which unsurprisingly doesn’t impress Sam. Of the 20 she does meet up with there are varying degrees of success but overall these men lead to some strange and disappointing encounters for Sam – fortunately for us they bring many laughs!
Sam doesn’t hold back in her detailing of these dates, you will feel like you are sat with her as her date proceeds to talk all about himself or rather inappropriately massages her shoulders whilst kissing her head every time he returned from the bar. You will cringe alongside her as her dates go from bad to worse and laugh at the poor excuses some of these men come up with to avoid actual face-to-face contact. Sam also doesn’t hold back when describing her sexual encounters with some of these men. Nothing too filthy but enough to show the realistic side to sex and to be able to feel her frustration when another man fails to have any skills in that department at all!
A Year of Losing the Dating Game is a refreshing and realistic look into the world of dating and how hard it is for a twenty-something to find love even with all of these dating apps available. So if like a lot us out there you are beginning to think you’ll never find someone and are fed up of the constant disappointment that online dating brings, then have a read of this book and you’ll soon see that you’re not the only one going through this – though hopefully you won’t have encountered quite as many hopeless men as poor Sam!
