Flirty Thirties

I’m a 41-year-old woman – separated for 8 months now, and looking for a suitable man – operative word being ‘suitable’ as I’ve spent my entire adult life so far going for the polar opposite.

I first went on an internet date 6 years ago and recently came across my dating diary from that time.

Here’s an extract/terrifying premonition of what was to come:

Internet Dating – I’m a normal person, get me out of here, lol!

The first week it was kind of exciting – I uploaded some profile pics – recent ones, I don’t dissemble, and the men literally came running to my box – my inbox that is.

“Hi”, said ‘biteme1974’ from Manchester.

“You look nice, fancy a chat sometime?”

Dropping my standards at the first hurdle (oh dear) and ignoring his sleazy code name, I tapped back: “Yes, that would be nice.”

His photo revealed him to be tall and athletic looking – great, and most importantly, he’d picked me!

“Stunning!” enthused ‘johnnyd72’- nice-looking, tall and a nice, neutral moniker.

‘Peteb93′ ( hopefully not his birth year…) has selected you as a favourite’ my email congratulated me.

‘Sportinghero’ wants to meet you, I was informed seconds later.

Why on earth had I never tried internet dating until now?!

Oh yeah, I’d hardly ever been single – not that that was a requirement for a dating site apparently….

“Basically, I have a partner”, Dave from Sheffield confessed.”I’m not going to lie about it but  to say the relationship is on the rocks is the understatement of the year.”

Well, yeah, scouting for other women for dating/mating does tend to cause problems!

Bleepbleeeeep! Was my computer breaking? Oh, not now please, I’d just started to enjoy myself.

Oh, no, oh (smiles) ‘robdidsbury’ wants to IM you, will you accept? My finger hovered… Oh, what the hell!

RD: “You look really nice, lovely smile.”

Me: “Thanks. :-)”

Generic questions out of the way, he then returned to my photos.

RD: “Like your figure, nice skirt.”

Me: (preferring to appear monosyllabic than to encourage him to talk further about my body): “Thanks:-)”

RD: “Not that it would be on long if you were here now…”

Oh-oh!

Me(not wanting to appear prudish) : “Naughty!”

RD: Well, I’m in bed and quite aroused…”

OMG, if fingers could spasm!

Reader, I clicked off him.

And he’d seemed so nice and polite at first!

Please meet the Chancer Perv!

Back to my box. “You look lovely, fancy a chat sometime? xxxxxxxxxx, Tarzan D gushed.

The sane part of me found the ten kisses somewhat emotionally incontinent but we got chatting and even despite the daily morning texts warning – “Big HUGS for the day! xxxxxxxxxx” from a man I’d never met, my adventurous/emotionally perverse side told me to meet him.

And he was alright – sort of. Well, my heart sank when I realised why his pic on the site hadn’t been a close-up, and he did paw me a bit across the table, but he wasn’t a total freak at least!

Week two: Considerably less excited now, I still couldn’t resist checking my messages.

Trojan121 was good looking certainly – topless in his photos which I knew I should avoid but he actually sounded intelligent as well, not just a himbo.

Then I enquired about his hobbies.

In the process of educating himself for personal improvement, he informed me, he’d found he no longer fitted into ‘a society obsessed with football and shopping’.

“I can no longer watch TV”, he cried.

“I can no longer interact with most people socially without pretending to be something I am not.”

Er, had he tried sociopath.com?!

Why was he on here then? I asked him, and why was someone supposedly the opposite of shallow posing topless in ALL his photos?

I like women and this is like a toy shop”, he told me.

“Most are broken toys but nonetheless…”

Wow! He liked women? Didn’t sound like it to me – liked sleeping with them maybe but that was apparently all.

I scrolled idly through the randoms on screen.

‘Handsome Hunk’ was the next name that popped up – er, surely that was for me to judge…

“I like blind dates, cos you can stare at their tits”, joked another superb wit.

Hmm, I don’t think I could deal with a man that funny.

Oh no, that guy really shouldn’t have posted a shirtless pic, bless him, and, OMG, I thought there was no nakedness allowed on here. The photo was taken from behind but still!

‘BenDJ’ would like go meet you”, I was informed.

In the box for First date suggestion, he’d written: “If you had me alone locked up in a room for 24 hours and u cud do whateva u wanted, what wud u do wiv me?”

Er, teach you to spell?!

“Tell me in an email….cuz its a secrit…u might be surprised with the response you get.”

Hmm, one of my ex-boyfriends,  a psychologist, used to work with patients with incarceration fantasies – in a top security mental hospital!

Oh god, not him again – not only could Tonyniceguy not spell or punctuate at all – “Your really atractiv” -he’d taken the spray and pray approach of cutting and pasting his opening gambit for one and all. Weird – or ‘weird’, as he would say.

Cicciolino, 39, from Bolton,told me on the phone (I gave him my number- I know, duh!) how he’d ‘felt special’ when a woman he’d never met had sent him nude photos of herself, only to feel ‘hurt’ when he’d seen comments from other men on her profile saying how sexy she was…..

“I’ve met sum girls on here who say their hot but their not lol so if that’s u stay away lol.”

Well, Daneel might want to meet me but I’m not willing to risk permanent brain damage I’m afraid.

Maybe I was being a bit harsh though and they’d sound normal if I met them.

Then Motorbike man from Bradford rang me.

He’d sounded okay on screen but on the phone he ranted about dating websites and his ex-partner for 20 solid minutes until I finally gave up trying to get a single word in and made my excuses before hanging up. FFS!

Time to log off but oh, hang on, Paul had messaged me again.

Oh no, not him too, and he’d seemed so nice and normal.

Oh! My frown evaporated. He’d asked me if I wanted a cocktail but the site had censored it: c***tail.

Now he really did seem nice, which meant he had to be an absolute five alarm fuck-up!

“Where do you want to meet?” I typed.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton