Giving in to peer pressure from my mum and various other people who’ve never tried it yet claim it’s the way everyone meets these days, I signed up to an online dating site a little while ago. I filled in a few forms, ticked some boxes – provided so much information it started to feel like some secret service background check - posted a picture, wrote a little bit about myself and what I was looking for, and went to bed. I got up the next morning to 13 winks (emoticons ‘to break the ice’) and 5 messages.
It was a horrible sight – it almost put my rats Georgia, Minnie, and me off our breakfast. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a sorry display of the male species. Not all in one place, anyway. A gallery of trolls is the only way I can think of to describe it.
Now, I know I’m no Helen of Troy (before she was ravaged by age, mutilated and hanged, obviously), but is this it? Is this what I get for all my efforts and is this really all that’s out there? Did I shave my legs for this?
In two days (two hours, actually, but I thought I’d make some pretence of a clinical trial so gave it a little longer), my theory about them has been proved: online dating sites are populated by sad, ugly bastards who’ll hit on anything in a carpet winking of new sign-ups. They actually all put “anything” in the bit where you write what you’re looking for. There’s not an iota of originality (or literacy) amongst them nor any sign that they’ve read my profile. If they have, quite which bit of the description I gave of what I’m looking for they think they fit, I don’t know.
If I wanted a florid-faced, morbidly obese, 71-year-old midget, looking like he’s on the verge of a stroke, wouldn’t I have asked for one? It’s hardly the funny, manly, taller-than-me thing I had in mind.
It seems this isn’t the point, though. The simple fact that I’ve put a picture and a few stats on the site is carte blanche for PantherXX to offer to show me a good time (maybe he could, though hefting around that gut might make the mechanics a little tricky), Darren37 to tell me he’s the only good man on the site and he’s already taken but his wife won’t mind (very charitable woman, apparently), Dick to say he’s after that ‘speshil sum1′, and men I’d cross the street to avoid looking at to send me pictures of themselves oozing out of singlets. It strikes me as a little arrogant.
Maybe I’m being harsh and maybe the men are just being friendly and maybe I should look beyond the (frightening) looks and try to get to know the men behind the walleyes, manboobs, and hair so rigid with gel it must surely be bulletproof. Trouble is, between the many many clichés and txtspk, it’s rather difficult.
Looks just are important. They could compensate, for a moment or two, for an apparent inability to read or spell, total lack of interest in anything I’ve got to say, and a most likely unwavering belief in their own gorgeousness. But you can’t get away with an Adonis complex unless you’ve got the looks to support it or a certain something. And not one of them looks remotely like Matthew McConaughey. I realise that’s setting the bar pretty high (and, in their defence, I didn’t specify it in my ‘wants’), but it’s my profile and I’ll set the bar high if I want to.
Thrilling though getting hit on by trolls is, I’ll give it two more days to disprove my theory and I’m off the site.
My little lady rats, Georgia and Minnie, have just appeared, come to see what I’m up to and when I’m going to give them half my dinner. The best company a gal could ask for calls.
