On Line, Off Message

I am single. This is a particulary delicious state to be in when one is in one's early twenties, with the glorious freedom to do what you want, when you want and yet still have the very real possibility that you will meet your soul mate tomorrow. And when you do, you will live together in a fabulous house, have tons of money and the biggest problem you will ever face will be whether or not to invite the Hendersons to dinner again, after that unfortunate episode with the loo roll and the chocolate mousse. It's not the same a couple of decades later though. Ho. You are officially on the shelf, and not getting dusted either.

When I was newly single a few years ago, I rather expected things would carry on as before, only with one less person, yet I found myself shunned by the married community. Friends - good friends - who would previously include me in their dinner parties, trips to the theatre, holidays even, completely and utterly dropped me. If I extended an invitation, they were mysteriously busy. The only conclusion I could draw from this mean-spirited behaviour was that they thought I would, without question, go after their troglodyte husbands. This was confirmed when I got myself a boyfriend (a ridiculous term when one is 40, but what else to call him?) and I was back on the invitation list. Two years later when we split up, I was dropped again.

Anyway, this whingeing is for the purposes of scene-setting only, as my married friends are not my friends any longer (and half of them have got divorced themselves now, HA) and I move in different circles.

No, I'm telling you this because a while ago, when I was moaning about my single state, a fellow single friend suggested internet dating. I didn't like the sound of this. All the match.com ads have an air of of both superiority and desperation about them ("What? Not found your soul mate after six months? Tsk. Go on then. Have the next six months' membership free, you LOSER.")

Unless you're a member, you're only allowed a sneak preview of the goods on offer. If I wanted the full low-down, I would have to join one. But which one? There's tons of them. Some, judging by the photographs, seemed to specialise in people who had recently been released into the community. Others suggested you submit yourself to a personality test in order to ensure compatibility. (A brief side note here: surely the point of dating is to hide all your ghastly faults until you’ve successfully ensnared your prey?) Some were right out there on the fringes of ‘dating’, dedicated to nothing more refined than a couple of hours of, ahem, activity.

These sites, although populated with photographs of upstanding members, they weren’t the kind of members I had in mind. In the end, I chose to join the dating website of one of the UK’s most reputable broadsheets. This dating website would, I was confident, present me with a gorgeous man who had no hang-ups, issues, baggage, bizarre fetishes or crushing debt. How wrong can a girl be?


I looked through the photographs first (yes, I'm shallow, I know). Each photograph had a jaunty alias attached, usually along the lines of “Funkindaguy” or “Happy2shag”. “Made4luvinU” leered at me unpleasantly from his photograph, the shoulder of his girlfriend still clearly in shot. One very good-looking chap had given himself the rather startling moniker of “Tinseltits”, although with hindsight I suspect he hadn’t paid close enough attention to which box he had ticked in the Sexual Preferences section.

Some less confident candidates clearly felt their looks didn’t quite cut it, and so included a photo of themselves with their car, a Ford Focus presumably counting as the clincher should any fair maiden be dithering about. A large number of men posted photographs of themselves in Thailand, usually pictured with an elephant, or, more worryingly, a small boy. At the less glamorous end of the destination market was a hopeless-looking chap photographed in his garden, his face best described as plain but his begonias, magnificent.

And who is to say any of these chaps would want me? Nope, I don't want to do it. I just don't like the whole arranged marriage atmosphere of dating websites and anway pretty much everyone says the same things about themselves. If these people are to be believed, it is one of the great mysteries of our time as to why the centre of every town, city, hell - VILLAGE, in Britain isn't absolutely deserted at the weekend, as all declare themselves to be lovers of fresh air, long country walks, fireside chats, red wine and watching old movies.

It might work for some - indeed, it must work for some - but it's not for me. I shall carry on as before. And tell you about it.