Love On The Line

A pal of mine, who is back on the hunt for romance, has just signed up to an internet dating site.

If I’m honest, this has surprised me as he’s just not the type to resort to mechanical devices when pulling the women. He’s never been one to use flashy cars or let them swoon over his automatic gates and up and over remotely operated garage doors, though he did once succeed in impressing one TV starlet with his fifty seven inch plasma screen. Unfortunately, while he was trying to nuzzle her neck, she was watching reruns of herself and moaning about how her spots looked like boulders on the big screen.

So having all the success of the Scotland football team, and now reaching the age where he has as many leaks as their back line, he’s on the web looking for a new smoochy partner. I always thought these internet dating sites were run along the lines of the new web based takeaways where the local restaurants have banded together to run businesses where you look at the menu, key in what you’re looking for, and whoever is closest or is running special offers based on your choices, gets to bring your food.

From what I gathered, internet dating was exactly the same and you simply put your details in, got lots of pics back, chose from the menu and then waited to see if you got the sweet or the sour delivered and whether the dumplings were big enough. A few hours later, I reasoned, you probably wanted another one.

Turns out it’s not at all like that unless your dating takes place on sites like OldFatGitNeedsDesperatelyUnfussyThaiBride.com.

My friend has found the dating site he uses to be very upstanding and is now in regular correspondence with five women all of whom look alike, which may have something to do with the fact they seem to have all used photos of Jennifer Aniston. This is fair enough as my pal used one of Brad Pitt for his, but I can’t help thinking that since the real Jennifer and Brad didn’t make a go of it then it just might be jinxed.

Anyway, he has just been on his first date and reported back that it went well and he even got a peck on the cheek, so he’s batting with a higher average than I did when I was single.

Come to think of it I have another friend, Ian, who has now been with someone he met through a personal ad in Time Out around ten years ago, and yet another gal pal has lived with her cyber space dating buddy for a couple of years now, so there must be something in this “home shopping” approach to romance. If your intended has used a movie star’s photo but turns up looking like Boris Karloff wearing a fat suit, I wonder if you can send it back saying it’s the wrong size.

A guy I know who manages an upcoming band has bought the domain name www.loveforlushes.com and wants to use it, when the band comes to an end, to launch a dating site exclusively for recovering alcoholics. Now I’m all for mutual support, but if I were addicted to something I think I’d prefer a partner who was a bit more grounded rather than us both heading off to karaoke restaurants to duet on Lean On Me very night. I can’t wait till he presents his business plan at the bank to see the reaction.

Research conducted in to personal ads shows that men and women react differently to what they read and see. The perfect ad should contain seventy per cent about yourself and thirty per cent about the person you want to meet. Any more than seventy and you look big headed, any less and you’re hiding something. As an aside, when you get your first date you should either take them to a horror movie or rollercoaster ride as they confuse their heart beating faster with fancying you.

I asked my wife Debbie what a personal ad from me would be like and she said it would be cheaper to stand at a car boot sale with a price on my forehead. As if that didn’t hurt enough, she added “and take lots of change”.

I persevered and asked her what I would put in my ad if I wasn’t deliriously happy being married to the most beautiful woman ever to have walked the earth. Her reply? “Depends on whether you want to be honest or whether you want someone to reply.”

That hurt. Eventually she came up with this. “Fanatically tidy television addict, loves chocolate, refuses vegetables, would like to meet new slave as last one got fed up.”

Charming! I might just run it on an internet dating site without telling her to see what happens. That’ll teach her. Though knowing my luck the only reply I'll get will be from my mate.