Monday, 5 March 2012

What's in a profile?

I seriously think it's time to start my own business - one that specialising in creating an on-line dating profile for men, I swear – the online life must be a utopia I am missing – there’s a tardis out there and everytime someone creates a  profile on a  dating  site it takes them to a new world, a utopia in which every man there is laid (or layed) back, down to earth, has a good sense of humour, loves sports, carss, motorbikes and is looking for someone relaxed and with no baggage.
Clearly a huge amount of men I make contact with are so laid  back they can’t even  be bothered to turn up to an arranged date – it’s become  the de facto assurance once one has called a woman  assure her, don’t worry, I won’t stand you up!!!!
So obviously this is an accepted part of the on-line dating dance. The cancellation, or indeed the abandonment of foresworn  plans. I’m rather circumspect about this phenomenon. Laid back even “Lol” (which I’m beginning to suspect  stands not for Laughs out Loud, but for lamenting our lipservice.
The profile issue  is a conundrum – are Australian men that lazy that they cannot create something brief, amusing and to the point? This is why we are reduced to shopping on line for a man  by just looking at the pretty pictures – I’m actually all for a proforma, a couple of pics and away one goes! The worst are those that seek to identify all  of the traits he is NOT seeking – one such profile caused me a mild wrist cramp as I scrolled, and  scrolled and scrolled the list of  things this man did  want – if it had been on paper it would have gone on for pages… and the kicker being the concluding sentence. “Anyway I don’t believe this site is real, as no one has ever contacted me.” Well hellllooooo. What woman would – the litany of faults and  imperfections was so vast and voluminous I for one didn’t believe that there is any woman alive who could  gather up the temerity to contact this person – and after reading it, the “no thanks” button is little more than  an automatic twitch.
And what’s with the appalling profile pictures??? Blurry, indistinguishable, shot in bad light, with flashes reflecting off mirrors, taken from baaaaad angles, in dim light and uploaded  side-ways. If you’re lucky. My personal favourites are on one particular site where  there is a drop down menu to describe one’s looks, the photo is generally non-existant, or  only contains body parts, and the gentlemen in question have selected “See my photo” as their option!!!! Argj. And what’s with the body parts? Why does every second guy I chat to want to text me pictures of  their junk? And have me return the favour? Darling men, if you’ve seen one penis, you;ve seen them all – more or less, ifyou know what I mean. If I want to look at penises I’ll go online and download some free porn – god knows there’s a  surfeit of it – and don’t be thinking it will entice me to  date you just because I’ve seen it – seeing is not believing, and it’s incredible how much a crappy mobile phone photograph  can distort dimension and perspective. Enough said.
What I also don’t understand is the man who takes the time to write a reasonably intelligent profile piece, and talks about having fun but not being averse to a relationship with the right woman, who then goes against this be insistently demanding sex and only sex before even getting to the “My name is…” part of the introduction. I get a lot of this – my housemate doesn’t. Go figure. I had one guy tell me as his opening line that I looked like a sex maniac!  Where did that come from?
There’s an interesting thing about demographic too. I can categorise the age and type of men who attempt to contact me – the majority are between 26 and 34.  Well below my seeking criteria, as they say. There’s also an occupational thing – I receive messages and requests from an awfully high number of truck drivers, and personal trainers. WHY?????  The truck drivers I kind of get – in an obsure way – maybe they can’t read that I’m looking for educated, articulate intelligent men. But the personal trainers and former athletes? Am I to be a project? A rescue  mission?  I remember a former footballer I had a bit of a fling with – met him not on-line, but in the David Jones Food Hall on a weekday when I’d taken the day off for a doctor’s appointment and then gone browsing because I was extraordinarily early. What does a former athlete see in an incredibly unfit woman my age? Unfathomable… Anyway, the fling ended when he told me it was time for him to behave as his girlfriend was pregnant – might I add he’d not mentioned the girlfriend until that particular moment, and at that moment in time I hadn’t thought to ask – just assumed he was single.I must have been delusional, A former footballer in his early 30s with a penchant for encounters in shopping mall disabled toilets, what was I thinking???  Well I wasn’t… but now I do.  
And I’m very very sceptical – but that said, for every guy who doesn’t  turn up, or cancels at short notice, there’s one who will honour the commitment. Not all I have to do is find one who doesn’t drive me nuts, or go nuts himself.

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