How Not to Learn about Men on Internet Dating Sites

I’m still testing internet dating sites. It’s a big job.

This is what happened:

For a number of days, weeks, or possible millennia, I have been exhibiting my profile on a plethora of sites. In the interest of science you understand. Nothing to do with being sad, lonely, celibate and having discovered that Rolos are very hard to find these days. I am not an addict. And in the interest of fairness, equality and non-prejudicialness I have been reading other peoples’ profiles. Mens.

And this is what I’ve learnt:
All men are sincere, fun-loving and honest.
Many men ride motorbikes and believe this to be sexy, attractive and cute.
All men have a good sense of humour.
Most men have travelled a lot, thus forgetting to have a proper relationship.
Those who have travelled a lot are prone to list all the countries, beaches and small tributaries they have visited.
A large number of men are too shy/ugly/famous to put their pictures up.
A significant proportion of men don’t believe in spelling, punctuation or words.
Men are as bad as women re putting up photos of them that were taken 20 years ago.
There are others who lie about their age but forget to put photos up taken 20 years ago.
And yet others who put photos up but don’t let people see them, which is very mysterious and distrubing.
People use acronyms that I don’t understand. GSOH.
Some men have taken pretension onto a greater plane than one might have thought possible or even probable.
Some men are very cute.
The cute ones are out of my league.


And since there has been a lot of interest in ‘How to tell if a man fancies you’ and since the internet dating way of being is de rigueur amongst singletons these days I have also investigated how to tell if a man fancies you on an internet dating site.

Here’s how it works:

They wink at you.

Childish I know.

;-)

Soulmates – Fact of Fiction?

There has been a great deal of discussion (well I talked about it briefly) as to whether such a thing as a soulmate exists.

As the leading proponent of how to use science to solve all relationship conundrums I will attempt to answer this difficult question that has been puzzling philosophers, physicists, agony aunts and readers of the Guardian for the last however many millennia using only an apple, the power of thought and some abstruse logic.

First let us define our terms:
Soulmate = ‘the one and only other half of one's soul, for which all souls are driven to find and join.’ Or, to broaden the definition slightly, ‘a soul with whom another soul gets along with ok.’

Exist = ‘has its being’ or, looking more deeply into the definition, ‘I think/worry/feel hugely insecure because I can’t find my soulmate therefore I am’.

So, the concept is, that out there, in the ether (some debate as to whether the ether exists but we will come to that another day) there is a person who, essentially, is your other half, who completes you, who you might survive the next twenty years with without doing each other severe damage.

The ether is a big place. Very much larger than Wales.

But don’t despair, or despair any more than you already are. Because soulmates do exist. This has been proved by a very clever man called Bohr. We are not holding either of those three facts against him.

This is what he discovered:

Even though objects may be spatially separated they are quantumly linked. When one spins one way the other spins the other and visa versa.
This is called Quantum Entanglement.
Quantums are actually quanta.
Because there’s more than one of them.
Because they are entangled.
Quanta are very small.
Everything is made of quanta.
It is not the same as quorn.
Therefore you, I, we, the Queen, Mary Poppins and one are all made of quanta.
Therefore we are entangled.
Soulmates exist.

Like it or not.

How Not to Find the Man of Your Dreams

Things must be getting desperate here. I’ve just joined some bizarre dating site called facespin or spinface or something. It’s like one of those games where you identify inkblots only more revealing. By the time I’d finished my whole personality, inner most longings and hair-do preferences were revealed in a starkly startling revelation.

This is what happened:

Somehow I found myself clicking ‘try it out’. I think maybe I was trying to click ‘close’ but my finger juddered (probably from the shakes I’ve been suffering due to lack of sex and chocolate). There, on the screen (after a small amount of dizzy-making spinning effect which was for no good reason aside from making me feel slightly nauseous) a man’s picture appeared. Underneath were three buttons entitled ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ and ‘mayB.’ I did take exception to the fact that they couldn’t spell but nevertheless given such a simple selection of choices and a picture of a man that was so obviously a ‘yes’ I was drawn in as a fly is drawn to its death on the internet or as a recently confused woman is drawn away from what she is supposed to be doing.

After a few more yes, no or mayB sort of things they said I had to register. What else could I do? I filled out the form. I thought of a ridiculous on-screen name. I puzzled over the five things I was supposed to say about myself. I am another victim of the web. A dating site addict. A judger of men.

Moments later (or maybe hours later)(I’m still having problems with time distortion) I was the proud and embarrassed owner of a spinny ‘black book’ complete with all the men I had said yes or maybe to. Sorry, mayB to.

It turned out that I said yes to four. For no other good reason than that they didn’t put ‘watching football’ as one of their favourite things to do. And one of them was a Coastguard which I thought was quite sexy.

It also turned out that I said mayB to 18. For no other good reason than that they didn’t put ‘watching football’ as one of their favourite things to do.

I said no to about a thousand because they all put ‘watching football’ as one of their favourite things to do. And, frankly some of them looked a bit scary. Especially in their football shorts.

However, on closer examination I discovered a disturbing theme. Every man that had posted a picture of themselves with a small child I chose. Without a moment’s hesitation I clicked ‘yes, mayB, yes, yes’ totally forgetting the spelling issue.

This leads me to the revealing conclusion that I don’t want a man at all. I want a small child. I am broody. Rorschach eat your heart out.