Thursday, February 10, 2011

Internet Dating.

It’s a rainy Wednesday afternoon, and Blonde Colleague is engaged in one of her favourite pastimes.

Me: Alright. Do you just want to delete it now?

Blonde Colleague: But you’re getting loads of matches! I mean, I’ve not put your picture on there which probably helps but ….

Me: I don’t even know why this amuses you.

B.C: Well, it’s just…oh. Look at her – she’s alright.

Me: No.

B.C: It’s just funny. You know. The thought of you actually ‘with’ someone. I can’t really see it. God knows how you managed to have two children.

Me: Great. Thanks. Will you delete it now?

It’s not the first time and I doubt the last that she has created an online dating profile for me because she’s bored.

I shan’t forget the harrowing afternoon when she found a site that effectively promised to match a very in-depth psychometric profile of your good self with anyone similar in the world. After forty minutes filling-in the alarmingly lengthy questions she refused to take any more of my honest answers on the grounds that they made me sound like a 'fucking psycho' and clicked ‘search’ with the result that I am apparently incompatible with anyone in the Western Hemisphere with internet access.

B.C: Ooh. Look at this one. ‘Mildly disabled’ it says. What do you reckon?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ‘hating on' internet dating. But I’ve been ‘actual’ dating and by God it’s horrific.

Effectively a job interview to be someone’s boyfriend, where you sit across a table with someone you hardly know in some bar or restaurant somewhere with a fake rictus grin plastered on your fizzog whilst you pretend to be interested in a virtual stranger and try to present yourself as a reasonable example of humanity and not as the vindictive, ill-tempered monomaniac you actually are.

That’s bad enough. But at least you’ll have had some sort of normal human contact to get you there in the first place.

I nearly tried the internet version once. I had a flatmate a couple of years ago who seemed to do quite well out of it. I actually set-up a profile on her preferred site and everything. To be honest, it was because she was (astonishingly) quite keen on me herself and I was trying to subtly let her know that it wasn’t happening. She liked my profile, but felt that the photo “didn’t do me any favours”. In that it contained my face, I can only assume.

It was deleted after a day. She’d got the message.

And I'd got a dispiritingly filthy message from an overweight woman who works in my local Co-Op. I do my shopping out-of-town now.

Anyway.

B.C: You should do this for real.

Me: No. If I write an attractive profile people will be only let-down by the abysmal reality and if I write an honest one people will run a mile.

B.C: What’s the honest one?

Me: I dunno. Something like “Emotionally distant borderline-sociopath WLTM fragile woman with crippling self-esteem issues to repeatedly batter with his Sarcasm Mallet until her sense of self-worth is so low she can’t leave the house. Reply to Box Number etc”

Blonde Colleague squints at me for a moment.

B.C: That would work.

Me: WHAT?

B.C:
Women are mental. [She considers herself an honourary ‘woman’] They lap that shit up. They love a bloke who’s crackers. Either that or they think “hmm, I could sort him right out.” You know, fix you up and that? They love that.

Me: Let’s just not bother.

Besides. I like the way my house is at the minute. Y’know?

31 Comments:

Anonymous looby said...

I quite enjoy internet dating. I've made a couple of good friends, one of which I spent last New Years Eve with going out dancing in Kendal with, with lots of cava. Met some fruitloops (without which the world is a poorer place), heard some ridiculous anecdotes, and actually had a bit of friskiness (without which I had languished for years).

In fact, assuming you have a good sex ratio in the commentators here: http://www.okcupid.com/profile/falesia/

10:48 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That whole dating business scares me violently without shit. I'd rather eat my own head but alas, if I don't make some hideous concession towards some kind of meeting of the opposite gender, it's just me and my fat cadaver til kingdom come.
And I swear that despite those odds, I'm stll in two minds.

11:24 pm  
Blogger punxxi said...

You need a good sarcastic whench!
Personaly I am glad I have been out of the dating thing forever.

4:51 am  
Blogger Miss Underscore said...

Oddest man I was ever wooed by via internet dating was:

a. a Songs of Praise session musician
b. A Relate marriage guidance counsellor (just imagine the knitwear, **shudder**)
c. Only had one leg.

I avoided him like the plague. It's the bad spelling that always gets me down on internet dating. All those men looking for 'sole' mates. Oh - and one man described himself as 'large billed'. Christ.

(Really like the blog.)

6:41 am  
Anonymous pete_at_raspberry said...

At the risk of taking sides here, perhaps a few relationships would make you less bitter....? Or at least give you some more material to write about.
Love the honest, vindictive quality of your blog, BTW.
Cheers

9:03 am  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

looby: *SIGH* Please do not pimp yourself on my blog. It isn't 'that' sort of place.

Fweng: I really don't recommend it. Up to you.

punx: Perhaps. I've never understood people looking for a 'nice girl'. Who the fuck likes 'nice' people?

Miss U: Hello. That sounds utterly horrendous. And thank you.

Pete: Believe me, I'm perfectly capable of being bitter whatever my personal circumstance. And what sort of buffoon wants to read a 'relationship blog'? I can think of nothing worse.

Oh and thanks. Welcome back by the way.

2:20 pm  
Blogger Alison Cross said...

I guffawed my way through this! Personally, I can't wait to read what you do with the scatter cushions and little knick-nacks that suddenly appear in your bachelor pad when a woman appears lol!

Ali x

5:24 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

Ali: Christ I'd forgotten about the cushions. Not to mention the little 'pretty' boxes too small to actually store anything in or the 'interesting' floor vases filled with dead twigs. Or the dreaded Buddha statuette. Christ.

6:04 pm  
Blogger Ellie said...

You mean this here isn't 'internet dating'. I thought we had something.

11:32 am  
Anonymous Johnners said...

So does all this deep personal probing mean that BC is also grooming you?

Buddha statues are really creepy, especially when you buy them in places like Asda. That's just wrong.

Don't go changing now. J x

8:59 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

Ellie: I just didn't know how to break it to you.

J: Oh I REALLY doubt that.

1:37 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was going to comment and protest that I thought you were quite dreamy, until I realized it's probably just that I have the crippling self esteem issues necessary to find you attractive.

6:10 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

Anon. Ha! Very good. Do I know you? *squints*

8:19 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's like looking in a mirror. I like the way my gaff is 'n all.

Ann Anon

8:35 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

Ann: I hear you.

9:23 pm  
Anonymous Em said...

Oh, that's perfect. You must do it for our amusement, if nothing else.

10:07 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

Em: What? Not while I have strength in my body.

10:37 pm  
Blogger Carnalis said...

B.C. is right; women lap that up.

oh, but it would be funny (for us). And it might work ..

9:23 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

C: Thought as much.

I'm starting to give this some serious thought actually. Y'know, for a laugh and that...

9:56 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think you are halarious, loved reading that

7:01 pm  
Anonymous Johnners said...

Haha, slippery slope! "Just one date, I can give it up any time I like..."

7:43 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

Anon: Whoever you are, thanks.

J: Oh, perhaps you're right. Would it not be funny though?

9:37 pm  
Blogger NON-WORKINGMONKEY said...

As you well know, TD, I used to write a blog about internet dating (which is of course excellent), gave it up, then met my HUSBAND through the blog I started afterwards. He was a commentaterer. I'm just saying. Be careful. Idle chitchat in comments boxes can result in selling all your stuff in the yoo-kay and moving to Montreal, nose pressed against the window night after night as temperatures fall to -32 and cats freeze to the pavement.

1:34 am  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

Oh hello. I do know, and I urge people to read, as not only was it extremely amusing but it also contained what I imagine to be sound advice. And an excellent guest post as I recall.

Of course, I find your You've Got Mail-style happy ending deeply sickening (have you written a screenplay yet? Replace all references to 'blog' with 'Twitter' and you're golden)and am ever vigilant of avoiding such a fate myself.

6:45 pm  
Blogger Carnalis said...

It might sting at first, but the pain fades to a comfortable endorphin-flushed um, dare i say it, contentment. Trust me, i'm a survivor.

7:34 pm  
Blogger NON-WORKINGMONKEY said...

The only expression I can get out is "you've got jizz", and you KNOW why

7:45 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

I could apologise till the end of time and it would never be enough. I DID warn you. Think of me - I'm a BLOKE, I don't need to see that sort of thing.

12:04 am  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

C: I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to in all honesty. Difficult to tell with you sometimes.

12:11 am  
Blogger Carnalis said...

er, internet dating .. it worked for me.

3:53 pm  
Blogger Tired Dad said...

Right. Understood.

11:08 am  
Blogger LifeonMars said...

heheeh your blog is my homepage from now on

11:08 pm  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home

Go to newer posts

.............